With my hand tight on my brother’s tunic, I willed us both to Argos and the Heraion where I knew they had taken my son.

The first thing I saw as the Argolid plain opened out before me was Niko. His face was contorted with fear and my son was clutched tightly against his chest. But before I could run to them, Hermes gripped my wrist and pulled my attention back to him. “Brother,” he hissed.

“What?” I almost shouted in his face. How dare he keep me from my son, and my spark?

Instead of replying, Hermes stared straight ahead, and I followed his gaze to see three women lying prostrate in front of an altar strewn with flowers and offerings. Standing above them, with a gaze as cold and imperious as the last time I had seen her, was Hera. Queen of Heaven.

“Mother,” I growled. She was beautiful, impossibly so, but the set of her jaw was cruel; just the way I remembered her. She had not changed as the eons had passed, and it would be safe to assume that she had learned nothing from her time in exile.

My mother’s jade green eyes turned away from her supplicants to me, and a smile flickered across her red lips. “My son,” she purred.

“What are you doing here?” I shouted, and Niko’s frightened eyes turned to me. I didn’t need to look at him to know that he would be confused.

“Papá,” I heard my son whimper. All I wanted was to gather him up in my arms and take him away from this place. But first, I had to make sure that Hera would not threaten us again. My mother’s eyes flickered to Niko and my son, and then back to me. Her smile did not move, but her gaze hardened slightly.

“I was summoned,” she replied loftily. “Argos has been my sacred hearth since before you were born.” I couldn’t keep the sneer from my lips as she gestured at the women in front of her.

“Summoned? When have you ever appeared when a mortal called?”

“I choose worthy supplicants,” she replied.

“You choose ones who can be of use to you,” I snapped. “How did you find us? How di—” my words died in my throat as I saw Thero’s crumpled body. Her pale eyes were open and sightless and her blood stained the hard dirt beneath her. “No.” I rushed to Thero and knelt in the dirt beside her. She had raised me on Samothrace because the goddess that stood haughtily above me could not be bothered.

“You should not mourn for her,” one of the women said. She rose from her position of supplication as she spoke and my eyes narrowed as I saw she carried my mother’s staff. I wanted to crush the life out of her for speaking such hard words. “Thero came to us, theoi. She betrayed you and delivered the child into our hands.”

I looked down at Thero’s face. She would never have done that. Never. But what other way was there to explain it? I passed a hand over her staring eyes to close them and felt my stomach twist with anger. I couldn’t look at my mother; I couldn’t bear the sight of her imperious face.

“Your rebellion is at an end,” Hera said sharply. “Your father, my brothers… I expected it from them.” Her voice was bitter and cold, and I felt my anger burning hotter in my veins. “But you? I did not expect you to turn on me.”

“What did you plan to do with my son?” I growled.

“He will come with me to Delos. I will raise him to respect his ancestry, his divine ancestry.”

“Raise him? You couldn’t raise your own children.” My anger threatened to consume me, but it was the voice of the woman who held my mother’s staff that pushed me to the breaking point.

“You are speaking to the Queen of Heaven,” she snapped. “You would do well to mind your tone and show her the respect she deserves.”

“Do you know who I am?” I roared. I jumped to my feet and strode towards her. I was tired of listening to this mortal speak. I focused all of my anger towards this woman and imagined her burning alive from the inside out. Her final breath would be a scream.

But nothing happened and I stared at my hands in confusion.

“You have no power here, theoi,” she said with a confident smile. I closed the distance between us with two quick strides and closed my hand around her throat.

“I don’t need any power to crush the life out of your body,” I growled in her ear.

“Mitéra,” the woman gasped, and I tightened my grip.

“She is not your mother,” I said. “And she will not lift a finger to help you. You are nothing to her.” The woman scratched at my fingers, begging me with her eyes to release her, but I had no intention of doing so.

“Papá!”

My son’s shout pulled my focus away from the mortal that writhed in my grasp and when I saw his tear-stained face, I realized that I couldn’t go through with what I had been about to do. Not in front of him.

I released my grip on the woman’s throat and she tumbled to the ground. Her acolytes surrounded her and glared up at me with angry eyes. My mother hadn’t moved from her position on the altar, and she appeared to be content to watch the scene play out before her.

Aloof as ever.

Infuriating.

“And now what, my son?” she asked as she stepped down from the altar. Where her feet touched the hot dirt, flowers bloomed; their leaves and petals uncurled gently and their fragrance floated on the wind that swept over the hilltop. “You have been abandoned by your only ally,” she said with a smile. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Hermes was gone. I clenched my hands into fists and tried to control myself.

“Thero came to me because you have neglected your son’s education,” my mother continued. “Even though he was born of a mortal, he is part of the Pantheon…” Hera’s jade-green eyes flashed as she stepped over the feet of the huddled women who had summoned her as though they didn’t even exist. “His blood is my blood,” she said. “And I would see him raised as befits his ancestry. Something you cannot provide for him… not on Samothrace.”

“My son is none of your concern,” I choked on the words and my anger knotted tighter in my stomach. My mother smiled, but her eyes were cold and calculating. I did not know her as a mother, only as a goddess, and that was how she preferred it. I would never let her take Cayden away from me. “You cannot have him.”

“What will you do to stop me?” she said. “In Argos, I hold all the power. Thero did not understand that until it was too late for her. Do not make me remind you of it.” She gestured vaguely at Thero’s crumpled form and my anger churned inside me again.

Hera turned from me and walked slowly towards Niko. He held my son tightly against him, and Cayden’s wail of fear echoed across the ruins of the Heraion. Niko’s olive-green eyes were wide, but the fierce way he shielded my son with his body made my heart ache. I couldn’t let her win. I couldn’t let her take Cayden away from me.

Suddenly, it dawned on me, the reason I couldn’t use my powers. My mother’s staff lay on the ground beside her huddled acolytes and I snatched it from the dirt and held it above my head. “Mother!” I shouted. She turned, almost languidly, but when she realized what I was holding, her red lips parted in surprise.

“And what do you plan to do with that, my son?” she asked. I could hear the hesitation in her voice.

“I plan to end your plots once and for all,” I said through gritted teeth. I brought the staff down across my knee. It splintered and Hera’s red lips parted in a scream that was equal parts human and bird-like. Her eyes blazed with fury and she turned again towards Cayden and Niko. The air around us felt smothering, like a gathering storm. Cayden’s shriek of fear was interrupted by a sizzling crack as one of the great columns split in half and fell from its plinth. Niko stumbled, fell to the ground, and shielded Cayden with his own body as he scrambled behind a fallen chunk of marble.

Hera’s acolytes shrieked and cowered and I charged towards my mother.

A shout echoed through the Heraion, stopping me in my tracks, and causing my mother to pause in her angry advance.

“Sister!”

A wave of cold mist rippled across the Heraion and my aunt, Amphitrite, materialized between my mother and my son. Her gossamer blue gown fluttered against her body and her hair, so black that it shimmered blue in the sunlight, and cascaded like waves down her back. She was the living embodiment of the oceans, here on the baking plain of the Argolid. Defying her sister. Defying her queen.

“Amphitrite,” Hera snapped. “What are you doing? You should not be here!”

“If I could have come sooner, I would have.” Amphitrite stood proudly between the Queen of Heaven and Niko, shielding them with her body and the power that radiated from her. “It was your son who broke your spell. You have gone too far, Hera. Too far!”

Hera’s eyes narrowed at her sister’s challenge.  

“What do they matter to you?” she asked. “This child is not of your blood, you have no say here!”

“But the spark is mine,” Amphitrite said quietly, and her hand came up in warning. “And I will not let you harm him.”

Embroiled in their argument, the goddesses had not noticed the change in the air. But I could smell the electricity, and hear the rumble of gathering thunder. My father was here, and there would be nowhere for Hera to hide.

“How dare you stand there and admit the part you played in all of this? In this… rebellion! You have stood by me for centuries and said nothing of your own betrayal!” Hera’s teeth were bared and her hands were clenched at her sides. Her anger seethed and rippled around her.

“I was wrong,” Amphitrite said. “I should never have allowed you to convince me that this was the only way… all I wanted was… it doesn’t matter now.” Amphitrite turned her cobalt blue eyes on me for just a moment before meeting Hera’s enraged stare. “What matters is that I have let go of my anger, and my grief. And I will not be parted from my children any longer.”

Hera’s scream of rage echoed through the temple complex and I watched in horror as the dagger, still stained with Thero’s blood, materialized in Hera’s hand.

“Amphitrite!” I shouted, trying to warn her before Hera could strike, but it didn’t matter. Before Hera could take a step and drive the knife into her sister’s breast, a bolt of lightning crackled through the sky and struck the ground between them.

Hera flew back and fell into the dirt. The dagger tumbled from her hand and she scrambled back towards the altar as, one by one, the other gods appeared in the temple complex.

The acolytes had recovered themselves, and their leader reached for it desperately. Finally able to use my own power, I focused on the three women. As it should have happened when I first arrived, they began to scream in unison, tearing at their clothes and ripping at their hair.

“Scorpions! Scorpions, do not let them touch me!” one screamed.

“I am bitten! I am bitten! Oh, Goddess, Great Mother, help us! The snakes are everywhere!” the other cried. The third, however, writhed painfully in the dirt, unable to speak or cry out as she burned from the inside. For the part she had played in Thero’s death, I deserved hers in return. I would not take it today, but she would bear the scars of my wrath on her soul, and in her dreams for the rest of her mortal life.

Hera ignored her supplicants as they shrieked and stumbled away, dragging their leader between them.

“You are alone in your hatred, sister. Alone in your quest for vengeance,” Amphitrite called. My father and my uncles closed in, and the other goddesses appeared between them. First Athena with her flashing gray eyes, then Artemis with her silver bow, until all of the goddesses who had fled Olympus were gathered in opposition of their Queen.

“We have allowed you to wallow in your shame and misery for too long,” Amphitrite said. “Surely, it is time to lay down your curse and see what love has done to heal the wound you created.”

“The wound I created?” Hera cried. “They created this wound, they did it to us. With their selfishness, their lust… their greed. They will never be satisfied, and they have learned nothing from their punishment. You can see the truth with your own eyes, Amphitrite. Their lust, their selfish lust! Sister, can you not see?”

“I can see,” she replied. “But I can also see what they have learned, even if you cannot. Even if you refuse to see the truth, these children are the immortal proof of it.”

“I will not listen to you any longer!” Hera screamed. She struggled to her feet, wrenched her golden tiara from her hair and flung it into the dirt. She pushed her hair out of her face and straightened her shoulders. But the realization that she was alone hit her with full force as she met the eyes of each immortal standing before her. The goddesses had turned against her; now, more than ever before, she was alone.

“Your curse will come to an end, Mother,” I said darkly. “You will admit the prophecy has defeated you. That we have defeated you.”

“Never,” she whispered. “Never!” Her shout echoed across the temple complex and the murmur of divine voices rose to smother it as the other gods and goddesses spoke out against her.

“You are finished, Hera!”

“No more!”

“Your anger has gone on for too long!”

Tears ran down my mother’s cheeks, and she wiped them away furiously as she stood in defiance of every other immortal of the Pantheon. “You cannot. I will not,” she muttered.

“You must,” I said.

A loud crack, and a flash of bright golden light caused me to step back and shield my eyes. When I opened them again, it was in time to see Persephone’s face, suffused with anger and resentment, as she wrapped her arms around Hera and conjured them away from the Heraion and the judgment she so richly deserved.

“No!” My father’s shout boomed almost as loudly as the rolling thunder above us. With Hera gone, I rushed towards Niko and my son. Their duty done, one by one, the other Olympians disappeared. For those who had gone into exile, I did not envy them the task of regaining my father’s trust—or forgiveness.

Amphitrite stood before Zeus and Poseidon with her head bent. Theirs would be an interesting confrontation, but one that I could not watch. Hades stepped forward and knelt to gather Thero in his arms. I nodded briefly, giving him the permission he needed to take Thero with him to the Underworld. I would pay my respects soon... and give her whatever apology I could.

“Papá!” Cayden reached for me and I ran to them with my heart in my throat. Not waiting for Niko to release my son, I gathered them both into my arms and held them tightly.

“Thank you for protecting my son,” I whispered thickly.

“Andreas…” Niko’s voice was hushed and perhaps even a little terrified. “What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s a long story,” I replied. “Family squabbles… I’ll explain everything as soon as we’re home.”

“I hope you brought a car, or something,” he said breathlessly. “We’re a long way from home.” Niko’s olive-green eyes were bright with unshed tears. I knew he was confused, and freaked out, and probably even a little angry with me, but underneath it all, I could feel the magnetic pull of my body towards his, and the feeling of fire shooting through my limbs where we touched.

Without waiting, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. That same feeling I had experienced all those years ago when I had first kissed Julio, rushed through me—the same molten fire made up of lust, desire, and the promise of an immortality that would not be empty and cold.  

Niko gasped against my mouth, and I knew instantly that he’d felt it, too. Cayden wriggled against my chest and I forced myself to break the kiss. Niko stared at me with wide eyes and brushed his fingers over his lips in surprise.

I knew what I had to do now, and the realization filled me with hope, as well as a twinge of fear. The god of war… afraid of a kiss. No, not the kiss. But what that kiss meant.

I had two sparks, and the chance to love again.

“Let’s go home,” I said. Niko looked at me with an arched eyebrow, and I resisted the urge to laugh as I willed us across the Aegean to the island of my birth.