Mother Took Revenge on the King of the Gods for Me Chapter 1

My father was the God-King, and he loved my mortal mother with all his heart. To help her adapt to life in the divine realm, he even infused his own blood into her, granting her eternal youth and elevating her to the rank of a goddess. Defying the unanimous opposition of all gods, he built a resplendent palace solely for her here in the divine realm, making her the happiest woman across all heavens.

Yet he never loved me — his first child, born of him and my mother.

As time went by, he visited my mother less and less frequently. Eventually, I passed away. Mother begged him to seek justice for me, but he only replied indifferently, "We shall have many more children."

His words crushed every last glimmer of hope in her heart. Mother grew utterly disillusioned with him, and resolved to avenge me with her own hands. The God-King’s patience toward her dwindled day by day. It was as if I had been born bearing nothing but misfortune. To avenge my wrongful death, Mother cast aside everything she once held dear.

When she finally turned her back and left the divine realm forever, that aloof, domineering God-King went mad. He chased after her, begging desperately for her to return.

* * *

For half a year after I died, my mother never broke down again.

She no longer shattered the sacred relics Zeus had given her, no longer wept over my shrine until the temple shook. Now she only sat by the window of the small temple on the western flank of Olympus, and she would sit there from morning till night.

Only in the deep of night, when everything was still, did she press her face into the little blanket that had once covered me and weep without a sound.

I drifted beside her and tried to wipe her tears away, but my hand passed through her half-transparent shoulder, again and again. My fingers slid over her cheek and met nothing. I was a wandering shade now, a ghost so bound to her mother that even the underworld would not take me in.

My mother’s hollow grief began to wear on Zeus. He came in frowning, golden lightning crackling at his heels, not with rage but with impatience. He looked at her the way a man looks at some old ornament he has tired of but cannot quite bring himself to throw away.

“Semele, she is dead,” he said. “Stop tormenting yourself.”

“I have already raised her to the rank of nymph. I have kept a place for her on the Isles of the Blessed. I gave her the best of everything. Hebe lived in a side hall while she breathed; in death she sleeps among the blessed. What more could you want?”

He paused, and when he spoke again it was the voice of a man tossing a coin to a beggar. “Stop pining for her. From now on we will live well together. As for Hera, I will deal with her. Only do not make trouble. Remember this: you stand on Olympus because of me. Without me, you are nothing.”

My mother said nothing. She only closed her eyes. Her lashes trembled like a butterfly caught by the wings.

That same evening, word ran through all of Olympus that Zeus meant to name one of Hera’s handmaids the new keeper of the temple household. He made a point of having my mother preside over the ceremony — less an invitation than a command. His messenger stood before her, courteous and immovable at once. “King asks only that you take the seat of honor. You need not say a word. A smile will do.”

My mother did not refuse. She sat in the place of honor, wrapped in the violet robe Hera had sent.

It was only when some tactless young god mentioned “the little princess who died so young” that she faltered, just for a moment.

She was not angry. She was not even sad. She only said, mildly, “The past is the past. Let us not speak of it.”

From across the room Zeus nodded, satisfied, and said to Hera, “You see? She has finally come to her senses. I told you all she needed was time.”

Hera’s smile was gentle and perfectly placed. “King, you have taught her well.”

After the ceremony broke up, my mother sent away every nymph who served her and sat alone in the cold temple. Olympus has no true darkness at night; Selene’s silver light pours into every corner, always. But that light is cold too.

She cradled the amulet I had worn in life. It was a small gold disc with a single word cut into it, Peace, bought from an old silversmith back when she still lived among mortals. After Zeus brought her up to Olympus she had kept it on me always, saying it was the one piece of the mortal world we had left.

“Hebe,” she whispered, her voice scraped raw, “wait for your mother just half a month more.”

“Let me set everything in order. Then I will come and be with you.”

I pressed a kiss to the bright gold scar on her wrist. She had made it one night with Zeus’s dagger, when being alive simply hurt too much. A passing nymph had found her in time. When Zeus heard, all he did was send word through a servant: “Tell her to stop carrying on. If she does it again, I will send her back to the mortal world.”

Send her back? As if that would keep Hera from hunting her down.

Out in the gardens of Olympus, Zeus drank and laughed with Hera. I drifted down the long colonnade and saw her leaning against his shoulder, his hand resting at her waist. They were deciding what honors to grant Hera’s family in the morning.

He had no idea how little of my mother’s time he had left.

* * *

I did not want my mother to die. I wanted her to live, and live well.

But she could not hear me. She kept saying that without me she could not go on.

So I prayed to the Styx, the river by which even Zeus dares not lie, the heaviest oath a god can swear. I said to the black water: let the best mother in the world live, and live well.

The Styx gave me no answer. It only flowed on without a sound, carrying away the sighs of the countless dead.