Mt. Olympus had become a recent home for the new gods, setting up dominion where they could watch the mortal world—and each other—with ease. Only the Underworld was safe from its vantage point. The columns started above the skyline, beyond human’s view, trailing up towards the great hall that Zeus had commissioned for himself. In the future, he’d influence the Acropolis in Athens to look like his hall on Mt. Olympus.
“Do you think he’s compensating?” Erebus murmured so only Nyx could hear. She turned around and raised a brow at him, encouraging him silently to behave. The torches were lit as the pair moved silently through the entrance, passing facade after facade that had been engraved with tributes to Zeus.
Interesting that he has decided to remove Kronos from his own mythos.Nyx took in the murals and paid special attention to how Zeus viewed himself.A lot can be determined from how he tells his own story.She was pulled from her reverie by a great, booming voice from deeper inside the Acropolis.
“Nyx! Our goddess of the night. I’m so glad you heard me, all the way down in the Underworld.”
Erebus groaned, making no attempt to hide the flagrant roll of his eyes. The pair stepped into the main hall, greeted by a gathering of the new gods. Zeus had seated himself on a throne of his own creation at the head of the room, his legs spread out wide and one hand stroking his beard. The rest of the gods stared openly, not used to the sight of the dark titans. They gawked as if they were strange animals. The only one who nodded in recognition was Hades.
Nyx fought the impulse to shove them all into blackness immediately and watch them cry in confusion. Instead, she plastered on the face of a diplomat, smiling internally at the knowledge that she and Erebus onlyappearedless powerful in their mortal forms.
“Luckily, your voice is powerful, Zeus.” Nyx let the words slide out of her like honey, watching the transformation over Zeus’s face as he lapped it up.How pitiful,she thought.
“Indeed!” He laughed gaily, clapping his hands together and sending a roll of thunder through the room.
Adorable.
“Now…” Zeus looked between Erebus and Nyx. “It seems to me that there has been some… unpleasantness of late, involving my dear wife.”
Nyx dropped her smile as her face turned to stone and her thoughts grew violent.How dare he beckon us to this charade? He acts like Kronos or Chaos, some king of these new gods, and he wishes to get ahead of the massacre Hera ordered.Black clouds began gathering around Nyx and Erebus’s feet. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd assembled.
“Yes.” Nyx’s voice had taken on a deadly echo as it dropped, her titan form beginning to crack through. “Although, if you call an attempted massacre merely someunpleasantness, then we might really find ourselves in a situation.”
Zeus swallowed thickly, looking to Erebus as if he was going to negate her. Erebus merely shrugged, ruffling the curls out of his face and smirking.
“Indeed.” Zeus let his hands drop to the armrests of his chair. “I’ve hidden Hera for the time being. I didn’t know what she had planned. She knows that she has overstepped. We would appreciate your… forgiveness when it comes to this matter.”
“Forgiveness?” The black clouds rose from Nyx’s feet and began curling around her legs. “Hera set out to destroy a temple in my honor and demanded my acolytes bemurdered.”
“— and she feels bad about that,” Zeus cut in, waving a finger in Nyx’s face. Erebus’s eyes got wide as he looked at Zeus, mainly in shock that the new god had grown so bold. A deadly silence settled over the crowd.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Nyx smiled.
She vanished.
Erebus laughed.
The gods screamed as the hall was plunged into blackness, flames being swallowed up by the shadows. Nyx evaporated into her titan form and sent all of Mt. Olympus into nightfall. Erebus was only a moment behind her, following her around the hall and amplifying the night with crushing darkness.
“Hear me now, Zeus.” Nyx’s voice was the sound of power and it reverberated off the stone, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “You claim that you had no knowledge of what Hera was going to do. This is my gift to you—the gift of knowledge. May you and Hera have a special tie of spousal privilege. Everything you do, Hera shall know. Everything she does will ring in your dreams.”
“Nyx!” Zeus’s voice was laughably quiet compared to hers. “You would dare curse a god—”
Erebus’s dark shadows circled Zeus until he choked, cutting off his threats.
“I do notdare,”Nyx continued. “To dare implies audacity. There is nothing audacious about what I say to you now. So, it shall be. May you both be cautious of causing the other any… unpleasantness.”
The finality of Nyx’s words echoed around the hall. As soon as it had descended, the night evaporated. The torches were relit, and the gods stumbled around the room, trying to find one another as they got accustomed to the light of day once more. Erebus and Nyx were gone. Zeus leaned back on his throne, too stunned to speak. He had tangled with the titans and lost. Somewhere, hidden in Greece, the knowledge of Zeus’s long string of infidelities began running through Hera’s mind—and she shrieked.
Back in the Underworld, Nyx and Erebus’s titan forms intermingled in the sky and caressed one another in the depths.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to tangle with the gods?” Nyx prodded, wondering why Erebus had shown a change of heart.
