Mother Took Revenge on the King of the Gods for Me Chapter 2

Zeus came to my mother’s temple with Hera, the Queen of Heaven, at his side.

Anyone with eyes could see it was Hera who tormented her. In the old days, every meeting with that woman left my mother choking on her anger. Hera would say the cruelest things behind the sweetest smile, tread on the hem of my mother’s robe the instant Zeus turned his back, mock her mortal birth in front of every servant in the hall. And Zeus took Hera’s side every time, scolding my mother for being small-minded.

“Semele, can you not be a little more gracious? Hera is the Queen of Heaven. Whatever she says or does, she does for the good of the gods.” That was his favorite line.

But watching my mother now, so calm, so far away, I understood. She would never let him wound her again. Her eyes were a pool of dead water that no wind could stir.

Hera held out an exquisite vial, her smile sweet enough to run cold. It was carved from obsidian, its sides cut with runes of rest, and inside was the incense for the dead that Hephaestus had made with his own hands. My mother knew that vial at a glance. The same obsidian. The same ghost-blue runes. This was the second time she had seen it. The first time, she had lit it herself, to send away her own Hebe.

“Semele,” Hera said, her voice soft as honey, “this is Hephaestus’s incense for the dead. It settles the spirit and brings sleep. King gave it to me, but I hear you sleep poorly. A daughter in the grave, what mother could rest? We are both women. I understand your pain.”

She leaned a step closer and lowered her voice until only my mother could hear, soft as a snake sliding over dead leaves. “Soon you will have my child to keep you company. You will heal, in time.”

My mother’s face changed. A tremor went through her that she could not stop. I knew what she was thinking. The child Hera spoke of was her own kin, the very one who had killed me: her nephew, Alcyoneus, a thick, dull-witted demigod boy. The day he shoved me from the Sacred Stair of Olympus, he had been smiling. He thought it was a game.

Zeus stood behind Hera, watching it all, the corner of his mouth even curving up. He thought Hera was making peace. He thought his house had finally gone quiet.

“Semele,” he said, smiling, “see how kind Hera is to you. You ought to learn from her. Stop sinking into what is done. Let the past be the past. Hebe would not want to see you like this.”

The past. He called my death the past.

My mother took the vial and said nothing. Her fingers shook, but her face stayed empty, the face of someone who had already died once and had nothing left to fear.

That night she hurled the vial to the floor. Obsidian splinters scattered, and the ghost-blue scent unfurled and filled the whole temple. It was sweet, sickly sweet, sweet enough to turn the stomach.

The weight of all those days finally crushed her. She slumped before my shrine and at last let herself sob — not the wild, tearing kind, but a stifled, broken weeping wrung straight from her chest.

“Hebe, your mother is useless.” Her voice splintered into pieces. “I smiled at the woman who killed you. I smiled at her. Am I wicked? I should have killed her. But I could not. I cannot do anything at all.”

I drifted at her side and watched her shoulders shake, and there was nothing I could do.

Seeing her cry, I wanted to cry too. But I was a shade. I had no tears, no voice, no warmth. All I could do was hover there and lay my hand on her hair, over and over, though she felt nothing of it.