He knocked her arm away. ‘Why don’t you summon Ares? You could wipe my wife’s pleasure off his lips.’
Hera flinched. She loathed it when he spoke so crassly. Almost as much as she loathed the copper-haired whore who’d poisoned her boys against each other.
She dropped the shawl and stalked over to the balcony, gesturing for her son to follow. Hephaestus grunted and heaved himself to his feet as a nymph darted from a far corner of the room to retrieve the shawl. He stepped through the billowing gossamer curtains and joined Hera outside.
She leant against the marble balustrade, the cloudsclustering around as though waiting to hear her secrets. As Hephaestus followed her, Hera’s umber eyes darted over his shoulder, then she whispered, ‘Has your father asked anything of you recently? Entrusted you with any special tasks?’
Hephaestus frowned. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. Why?’
The knot in Hera’s chest eased slightly. ‘I just had a feeling. You know how secretive your father can be.’
‘Is this to do with Hermes?’
‘Oh?’ Hera smoothed her face into an expression of mild curiosity.
‘He came to me to fix his boots, said Father had entrusted him with a special mission.’
Hera laughed. ‘Zeus does enjoy creating games for you children. How is he getting along?’
‘Not well. He returned to the palace last night. I heard him playing his pipes up on the north tower. He hides up there when he’s unhappy.’
‘Really?’ He must not yet have found the girl.
Hephaestus scowled. ‘Why are you so interested?’
‘I take an interest in all the divine children.’
Hephaestus raised an eyebrow. ‘You hate Hermes.’
Hera’s jaw tightened. ‘That’s not true.’
‘You hate all my siblings that aren’t your blood. Stop trying to pry for information because Father is shutting you out.’
She pressed her lips together, wounded by the accuracy of the barb.
‘It is important, in the current climate, that we stay close as a family.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She knew he loved her. She was the one who’d brought him into the world and nursed him back to health when Zeus flung him from Olympus. But his father’s blood was potent. She could see the King of the Gods in the shape ofhis eyes and the movement of his lips. Beyond the physical, Zeus held a power over his children that Hera struggled to emulate. Even after what Zeus had done to Hephaestus, the pain her son would bear for the rest of eternity, he was still in his father’s thrall. She couldn’t trust him. Not yet.
Hera smiled and kissed her son’s cheek. ‘Never you mind.’
Hera ascended the twisting narrow steps leading up to the north tower. As she neared the top, she heard music echoing off the marble walls. A sweet, sorrowful tune. A smile tugged at her lips. She must admit Hermes had talent, despite his common mortal mother.
Hera’s birth parents had been textile merchants, murdered on the road for their wares when she was an infant. With no other family to shelter her, she had been given to another woman in their village, Rhea, a fisherman’s wife with four children of her own. It had been difficult at first, to be suddenly ripped from her comfortable life and forced to reside in a squalid hut that perpetually stank of fish. Zeus alone had given her reason to rise each dawn. A blue-eyed star in the darkness.
Rhea used to say it didn’t matter that they did not share blood. ‘We are all the Mother’s children, and I love you as much as any babe from my womb.’ Hera wondered sometimes if that would still have been true, if she had been Rhea’s husband Kronos’ daughter with another woman.
Hera paused at the pinnacle of the staircase and lingered in the doorway. It was beautiful up here. It had been so long she’d forgotten. Between supporting stone pillars, the walls and ceiling were fashioned from mosaics of coloured glass. Another of Hephaestus’ marvels. Swirls of light stained orange, teal and yellow draped over Hermes where he sat cross-legged on the floor, his helm next to him. His eyeswere closed, a set of pipes at his lips, his mind borne away on the wings of his song.
Hera took a step towards him, and his eyes flew open. He dropped his pipes with a clatter, scrabbling to shove his helm back over his face. His armour clinked as he hurried to his feet.
‘My queen.’ Hermes bowed hastily.
Hera tilted her head in return. She never ceased to find it unsettling that Zeus had chosen to give his youngest divine son a golden apple at such an early age. But then, he was only a couple of years younger than the mortal boys the King of Heaven installed in his chambers.
She brushed the thought away. After centuries her anger had cooled to a glacier, each new offence just another splinter of ice.
