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“And now?”
Hephaestus’ smile was vaguely menacing, but I was pretty sure that was just how his face looked. “Now, Ares has learned to share.”
Huh. I mean, no judgment here. Apparently, I’d had a boyfriend and a girlfriend once.
For a long while, we sat in silence. Or rather, I sat in silence while Hephaestus pottered around his workshop. I hadn’t realized I’d needed a break from the information overload until I had one, and now my brain was trying to process everything I’d seen and learned and heard, basically from the moment I’d materialized in that empty stone palace.
“What would you do in my shoes?” I asked, staring into the flames of the forge.
“You’re in an unfortunate position,” Hephaestus said quietly, metal clinking against metal in the background. “If you don’t remember the time before, then how are you supposed to decide if we are a better choice?”
“There was a baby.” Hephaestus was silent, his movements stopping, and I took that as an invitation to continue. “Wherever I was, I could hear a baby. And the baby cried sometimes but mostly laughed a lot. And it was really nice.”
Hephaestus sighed heavily. “I miss watching mortal lives. The way they take pleasure in the small things that we can never appreciate—a hot meal on a cold day, a warm bath after a hard day’s work. A goodfuckwith an enthusiastic partner.” He paused for a moment. “I suppose I can appreciate that last one.”
I laughed before I could help myself, catching his beard twitch out of the corner of my eye.
“There is no perfect answer, halfling. You can only do the best with what you have. Are you ready to go back in? If we’re truly lucky, Ares will regale us with a long detailed description of his exploits during the Trojan War.” Hephaestus smirked. “But my wife has ways of making him quiet if you get bored.”
There was a sort of strange muscle memory in my face, and I was pretty sure that if I was in my regular body, I’d be blushing.
The moment we were back, the regal, important-looking goddess—Hera—gestured for me to join her on a long seat. I made myself as small as possible as I sat down, feeling as though I was breaking some invisible protocol. She was theQueenof the Gods. Then again, I was important at this moment, wasn’t I? I was the deciding factor here.
I’d just act important and hope for the best.
“There are many things we’d all like to tell you,” Hera began. “I have been sitting here, thinking of the things I myself wanted to say while you visited Hephaestus’ forge. We have only had each other’s company for so long, and perhaps we are a littleenthusiasticin regaling you with our stories, but I’d like to ask you to listen to just one more. I don’t tell you this to sway you, Conscience of Tartarus, but to help you understand why I believe Tartarusneedsa conscience.Whyhe is conflicted.”
Considering how enthusiastic they’d all been to talk before, the other eleven gods had gone eerily silent.
“Okay,” I replied slowly, hoping I wasn’t betraying Tartarus by agreeing.
“We have already told you that we are here because of Gaia’s hunger for power; well, you should know that Gaia is Tartarus’ great love. There was a time in which he’d do anything she demanded of him without question. He gave her the son she asked for, knowing the child would be used as a weapon before being hidden away and ignored. He imprisoned us here, despite his personal concerns about leaving the running of the upperworld to Gaia alone, because she demanded it of him. And though she’s never offered him a scrap of affection in return, he has always lived in hope that if he does everything she asks of him, she’ll finally,finallylove him.”
This was a really sad story.
“We are immortal beings,” Aphrodite added, perching on the edge of a stool in front of the couch. “However long we’ve been trapped here—we lived even longer on Olympus, even longer in power. I tell you this so you understand we cannot see and interpret time the way mortals can. Usually, for immortal beings,to waitis nothing, and Tartarus is older than all the gods you see here—”
“—but even he cannot wait forever,” Hera continued. There was a hint of genuine sadness in her eyes, of compassion and sorrow, that spoke louder than any of her words ever could. “Tartarus is the only one who can free us, but to do so would be in direct opposition to Gaia’s wishes, and he hasnevergone against her wishes before.”
“What’s to stop Gaia throwing you back in here again if Tartarus frees you? Just his will?” I asked, trying to understand it.
“Don’t underestimate his will,” Zeus warned. “Or us.”
“We are stronger than we have been in so long,” Dionysus added. “Because of you and the others inspired by your worship. Here—where no prayers or sweet-smelling smoke can reach—we are rather restricted. We can hear hints of prayers, but the power that worship and offerings give us cannot penetrate this clever cell Tartarus made for us. It is building, though, collecting on the outside, waiting for us to be free and claim it. For a few blissful days, the sounds of worship were so loud through the pit Gaia opened.” He closed his eyes, a languid smile spreading across his face. “So loud, I can taste the power of them on my tongue.”
“We have been thoroughly humbled by mortals,” Zeus said wryly. “It is abundantly clear that we needed them more than they needed us.”
“We are gods. We have roles. We needpurpose. We need prayers, we need to beneeded. Crave it,” Dionysus sighed, still looking sort of blissed out, lounging in a chair.
Humanity. I was supposed to be looking for humanity.
But I wasn’t going to find it, not entirely. With no memory of my previous life and only vague ideas of what Ithoughthumans were supposed to be, I could understand that gods would never see the world or its inhabitants the same way we did.
“So all of this comes down to Tartarus?” I confirmed.
“I can say with certainty Gaia will not think Tartarus is capable of going against her. She will have full confidence in her control of him,” Hera said slowly. “But no. All of this comes down to you.”
I didn’t like any of this. Tartarus was a good dude, he deserved better than that. He deserved love, or at the very least not to be treated likethat.
