‘He said, if it looks like a lion –’
At the sound of footfall on the stairs, he abruptly fell silent.
Hera’s head snapped towards the doorway, and she caught the telltale shimmer of a shade lurking in the shadows. A shiver scuttled down her spine.
‘I won’t hear of it, Hermes,’ she said loudly. ‘Youwillplay me another song.’
The boy’s face had turned grey with fear, but he rallied himself and lifted his pipe to his lips.
Hera’s breast heaved as he played, barely hearing the music as she watched the doorway out of the corner of her eye. Finally, the distorted air shifted and moved back down into the gloom of the staircase.
Her lips parted, breath hissing between them. The thrillof her transgression made her feel more alive than she had done in centuries.
Hermes abruptly stopped playing. ‘I must go.’
As he rose, Hera grabbed his arm. ‘Return to the Underworld. Press your uncle to tell you more.’
Hermes backed away from her, eyes stretched wide, then practically fled down the steps.
Hera remained where she sat, watching the shattered rainbow of light from the stained glass dance across the floor. She had come so close to winning Hermes’ confidence. Yet this might be the perfect solution. If he was to defeat the girl, and keep Ares and Hephaestus from being thrown into her path, he must learn her real identity. Although Zeus had forbidden the elder gods from revealing Prometheus’ prophecy to the children, Hades did not always obey his brother. He had almost cracked once. By the sound of it, he had been on the verge of telling the boy everything. She hoped another visit from Hermes would break him open. If the Lord of the Underworld was the one to spill the truth, neither she nor her boys would incur Zeus’ wrath.
Hera closed her eyes and loosed a long, slow breath. Her husband was their captain, their guiding star; he’d forged a path for them into the heavens, and never once had she doubted him.
Until now.
16. A Titan’s Choice
Danae paused, the knife raised above her head.
‘Do it,’ Heracles croaked.
During the long year she’d spent searching for the Underworld, she’d sometimes tortured herself by imagining how the hero would react if he ever saw her again. She had expected hatred, fury, even violence. Some proportionate response to her betrayal of all they’d shared. She had killed his closest friend, stolen his lion hide and abandoned him outside the city of Colchis.
She’d never dreamed she would be met with acceptance. It was almost as though he was trying to make this easier for her.
Hades must have broken him too.
Time moved like a ponderous drip of honey, and as she gazed into Heracles’ gaunt face, the last words of Prometheus’ prophecy echoed in her mind.
Become the light that frees mankind.
If one brief walk upon the earth was all mortals had, she owed it to every living soul to fight for them. Every single one.
Hades smiled as Danae plunged the knife down.
At the last moment, she twisted, Hades’ mouth distorting as she sank the blade into his heart. The God of the Underworld staggered back, his pale face stretched in an agonizing grimace, the bone handle protruding from his chest.
She could never hope to become the light if she allied with the darkness. Hades might have promised to give heran Underworld army to defeat Zeus, but he was one of the Twelve, and under his reign mortals would never be free.
Heracles sagged onto all fours as Charon let go of him, sucking in desperate lungfuls of air, eyes stretched wide in disbelief. He stared up at Danae as though seeing her for the first time. The ferryman stood still as the rock around them, his crimson gaze locked upon his wounded master.
Danae ran to Heracles and tried to help him to his feet.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
He flinched beneath her hands. He felt so frail, like he might shatter at any moment. A world away from the last time they had touched. A memory jolted through her: strong, calloused fingers, tugging the clothes from her body, warmth spreading through her. Then a cold slab hard against her back. She shuddered.
Like the ferryman, most of the Missing looked on in paralysed disbelief as their master, their tormenter, bled onto the floor of their cell.
