“No,” Hermes cackled. “I heard Poseidon, Hades,and Erebusdiscussing that they were planning on killing Zeus.”
Nyx’s heart froze. “Erebus?”
Hermes started fiddling with the belt around his tunic as if he were bored. “That’s what I said. Apparently,” he said, looking up at Nyx, “that’s the only reason he’s still here. He was on his way back to you when he found out.”
Nyx’s heart unfroze, restarted, and damn near melted out of her chest. There were too many things to process at once. First was the idea that two of the three most powerful brothers were planning on killing the third. The third beingZeus,of all people. The second was that Erebus had been ready to come back to the Underworld when something swept him up in this plot. Nyx shook her head once to clear it, refusing to succumb to her own feelings.
“Where is Erebus now?”
Part III
31
“Ithought you’d never ask.” The smile never left Hermes’s face, but it looked even brighter as he responded. His expression sobered for a moment as he peeked over his shoulder. “I’m sure he’s with the other gods now. I’ll let him know you’re in Greece, okay? We’ll have to wait until nightfall unless we want Zeus knowing that you’ve left the Underworld.”
Nyx smiled, a smirk crossing her face with a feline twinge.
“Waiting until nightfall is my specialty.”
Hermes looked shocked for a second before breaking out into laughter, nearly doubling over as he placed a hand on his stomach to steady himself. “That was almost a joke, you know.”
Nyx winked at him, feeling emboldened and lighter by the minute. Her gaze shifted up to Mt. Olympus as she thought of the packed halls and crowds of aimless immortals gossiping one another to death over wine. In the early days, when gods were cropping up like flies, she had tried to socialize with them, and it had never gone well. Death, darkness, and nightfall were not appropriate small talk topics; Nyx had no interest in tempering herself for anyone.
“How will you talk to him without any of the other gods hearing?”
Hermes crossed his feet at the ankles, balancing on the edge of the branch with hardly any effort. “Don’t worry about it. Tricks and messages aremyspecialty.” Before she could say anything else, Hermes departed, speeding off as a fissure of light. She watched as the golden blur swept over the now vacant valley, disappearing as it swept up the mountainside.
“You better not be tricking me,” Nyx muttered under her breath, letting herself melt into black clouds, dissipating on the wind. There was nothing left to do now but wait.
???
Hermes wasa trickster with a heart of gold, but he wasn’t a fool. There was no doubt in his mind that Nyx was preparing a back-up plan in case he was double crossing her; the god found himself surprisingly keen to garner favor with Nyx. He had watched her in Hecate’s kitchen as their worlds had imploded, and seeing that kind of true heartbreak, genuine pain, didn’t sit well with him. Hermes was more than willing to condemn or jest those whose egos were on the line but never their hearts. As he rounded up towards the great hall, he kept searching for his target. Poseidon or Hades would do as well as Erebus. Yet, as he landed, he saw that the gods had formed a jostling crowd at the doorway.
The gods were at least in high spirits, cheering and responding to something happening inside. Most of them were holding chalices of wine, and he spotted Dionysus collecting money, taking bets and encouraging the partygoers.
“What’s happening?” Hermes turned to him, nodding his head in the direction of the door.
“The gods are blowing off some steam.” Dionysus laughed, his permanently red cheeks getting even ruddier. Hermes eyes got wide—that could mean a very large number of things and some of them weren’t good. Hermes turned away and pushed himself to the front, sending a sharp kick to someone’s ankle and an elbow to Apollo’s ribs to get through. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he finally shoved through.
“Oh, forfuck’ssake,” Hermes hissed, clapping a hand over his face in tragedy-worthy dramatics. The reason that so many gods were crowding the doorway was because the center of the hall had been cleared out. The rest of the immortals lined the walls, spilling out into the crowd that Hermes had jostled his way through. In the middle of the room was now a chalk outline in the shape of a circle. Ares and Hephaestus stood off to one side, with Erebus standing next to them. His arms were crossed, and shadows had wrapped around his arms like bands. In the circle were Hades and Zeus, circling each other slowly, their knees bent as if they were ready to pounce. Both gods were utterly nude.
“Wrestling? Really? Now?” Hermes cursed under his breath, squeezing his way towards the wall so he could make a beeline for Erebus. He walked past everyone, cheering at the right times and moaning when the rest of the crowd did. Before long, Hermes was standing up against the wall right behind Erebus.
“Darkness.”The messenger god used his power to drop into Erebus’s mind. To the primordial’s credit, he didn’t react outwardly when he heard Hermes.
“Yes?”It wasn’t a time to mince words.
“Nyx is waiting for you.”
The sound of the gods cheering as Hades flipped Zeus to the ground drowned out the sound of Erebus yelling.
“Where?”
???
The restof the day passed torturously slow. Nyx was unable to stray far from Mt. Olympus, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Not long after Hermes left, she got a grip on her emotions long enough to retain her mortal form; it was still in their best interest to keep Zeus guessing as they waited for him to slip up. She had no further conversation with Hermes. The only instructions were to wait until nightfall. When Nyx caught a glimpse of Helios’s chariot nearing the edge of the horizon, she couldn’t sit still for another moment.
Nyx sprung forth from the hidden edges of the valley, racing up into the sky like a comet. The hem of her tunic turned into clouds the color of the evening dusk, becoming a train of outstretched purple, blue, and black behind her. Her features began to fade away as they were edged with starlight, until she exploded like a starburst. Nightfall spewed out from her and blanketed Greece, waves of her power rolling over the land like the tide. Nyx threw her arms out wide and evaporated entirely into her primordial form, spreading her body out over the world as it sunk into the blackness. She felt herself twisting in the sky, her outline only distinguishable by gray clouds, tossing her arms out above her as she floated in repose. The moon wrestled itself from her stomach and took up its place in the sky as the final dance began.
