Page 43
“The Fates are here!”
“It’s someone’s turn to die!”
“They came all the way here! You all know what it means when they come in person!”
“An immortal is about to be taken!”
“They never show up like this for anyone else!”
“Oh Helios, I still have so much to do! I’m not ready to face Hades, I owe her too much money to cross the Styx.”
Voices, whispers and shouts gushed from everywhere. Hera closed her eyes. She knew that across the ballroom, Nemesis was watching for her nod, for any expression that she should proceed and wrap this entire farce up.
The Inflexible reached into her pocket, and the shears caught the candlelight. The gods and goddesses closest to the crones staggered backward.
“Do it, Empress! Finish what you started! We wait for nobody.” The Inflexible’s broken voice rang around the ballroom.
Hera swayed harder. Aphrodite’s arm around her tightened. Nemesis’s eyes across the room turned glacial as she finally noticed the Fates. She looked at the crones, at the shears, and straightened entirely. Hera felt her gaze deep in her bones.
Forgive me, forgive me…
She wondered if Nemesis would, knowing that she had been instrumental to Hera’s own death. She also wondered why she had still not given the nod. After all, this was just as it should be, now that the damn Cupid had shot Nemesis and Hera could never have her.
Have her?
Hera dropped her flute, glass shards spilling all over the floor in front of her.
Have her?
“Ah, what’s happening?” Abby’s voice carried a note of panic. “All I did was ensure that Nemesis stops fighting her Perfect Match, since she looked certain to mess it up out of sheer stubbornness and isolationist tendencies.”
Hera barely heard the words.
Her life might be over, with the remarkably steady hand of the Inflexible Fate holding the scissors, but she’d be damned if she’d go along with this farce. If she did nothing else, she’d confess to one thing and one thing only. Among her myriad of sins, among her eras of perceived villainy, there was one truth that deserved to see the light of day. Tonight.
Hera loved Nemesis. She loved this stubborn, impossible demon-woman, and no other would have her!
“Am I not the Empress?” She asked, her tone so quiet, the entire ballroom strained to listen. The bears sang out a somewhat subdued “Is she not the Empress?” She could see their tears. Dammit, she hoped Aphrodite would take care of them.
The Inflexible lifted her watery, unseeing eyes, meeting Hera’s gaze.
“As your Empress, this is my last command. Vengeance is mine.” Hera infused her voice with as much power as she could muster, the candles around her flickering in and out.
In the ensuing silence, the ballroom ceiling suddenly opened up with warm rain.
Demeter… Sister…
Hera felt the rain soak her gown. It was a pleasant respite, if this was to be the last thing she ever felt. She’d be content. But she wanted Nemesis. She wanted her Revenge, not her revenge. She wanted her woman so much, just one last time.
“Vengeance is mine, and mine alone.”
Next to her, Zeus suddenly clutched his chest. Hera did not spare him a glance. The Fates’ smiles were feral. Sabine Goddard bit her lip. For a second, Hera wondered if the Cupid had used her arrow on Zeus after all. It didn’t matter. The thunder shaking the ballroom was her answer. He dropped to his knees, face ashen, watching her reach for the Goddess of Vengeance.
And then she heard it, not thunderous, not loud at all. The tiny sound of his heart breaking. Not with a bang, with a whimper.
It all made sense. In a perverse sort of way. Hera wanted to gloat. She had been the one to break his heart. All the adultery, all the cruelty, all the fights and dismissals. He had spurned her and humiliated her again and again. Yet, after all the misspent eternity, and it was her for him after all. And what sweet retribution that he was never the one for her. Watching the ice-blue eyes in the distance grow hotter, Hera smiled.
Aphrodite’s arms dropped, and suddenly everything and everyone was in motion around her, as the Fates walked in step, slowly and patiently, as time itself, towards her. The gods and goddesses fell over their own feet and gowns and tuxedos to get out of the way.
