Another chirp, and his warm little body brushed up against the crook of my neck.
“I want to live a life of respect and equality. Of partnership. I want someone to love me for who I am, not what I can do for him. I want someone who keeps his promises. Who doesn’t see me as a conquest.” I sighed and stared down at the pattern in the rock. “I want to be happy.”
Without warning, the bird took flight, disappearing into the trees. My heart leaped, and I stood, ready to follow his path. He couldn’t leave, too. I could take him back to Olympus, make him immortal, keep him as my companion—
But he didn’t return. The forest was never silent, with the rustling leaves, gentle laps of waves on the lake, and countless other sounds that mixed together in natural harmony, and I strained for any signs of his chirps. Nothing.
A sob escaped me, and I sank back onto the warm rock. So this was how my life would be. Constant loneliness, an ache for something I could never have, and everyone I ever loved would leave me. First my mother, then Hades, and now a creature that I barely even knew. Yet his abandonment still stung as badly as the rest, a reminder of the pain I’d already endured.
I buried my face in my hands, and without any thought to dignity, I cried. For myself, for the life I would never have, for the eons that would never end. For the hope that had been stolen from me time and time again, until it dwindled into nothing.
“Hera?”
I stiffened midsob, silencing myself. The voice had been too muffled for me to make it out properly, but it was male. One of my brothers. Hades?
A twig snapped, and I was on my feet in an instant. No time to wash away my tears in the lake. A figure moved through the trees, at first obscured by shadows. As soon as he stepped into the sunlight, however, I recognized him.
Zeus. Of course. I would never get my way.
“What do you want?” I sank back down onto the rock and drew my knees to my chest. I expected a smart answer, a joke about how I could stop crying now that he was here. Instead he knelt a few feet away, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the concern on his face. Sincere or not, I wouldn’t accept his pity.
“I am sorry.” His words sounded heavy, as if he were weighing each one before he spoke. “Not only for how I have treated you, but for how I have thought of you, as well. Father—” He hesitated. “Father was no role model, but I am afraid I took his treatment of Mother to heart. You deserve better, as did she, and for that I apologize.”
I shut my eyes. He could apologize all he wanted. It wouldn’t change anything.
“You are the best of us all, Hera,” he said quietly. “You are the strongest, the smartest, but you are also the most deserving, and—you are the loveliest girl I have ever seen. Not simply on the outside, but on the inside, as well.”
That was a lie and we both knew it. Hestia was the kindest, the gentlest, and Demeter was the most even-tempered. I had power, and I had pride. I wasn’t content with what lay before me.
But his words washed over me anyway, a small oasis within the desert of my life. Still, I didn’t acknowledge them.
“I love you.” Zeus set his hand on my shoulder, the way Hades had the evening we’d won the war. “Not as an ornament. Not as a conquest. I see you, and I love you.”
I jerked back from his touch. “You were spying on me?”
“Only to make sure you were all right. After the meeting, I was worried—”
“You had no right.” I stood furiously and started to march off. “That was a private conversation.”
“Hera.” There was a command in his voice so reminiscent of our father’s that even I couldn’t resist stopping and turning to face him. In that instant, my tiny bird took Zeus’s place, flying closer to me before he changed back. Zeus was barely a foot in front of me now. “Everything you want, that is what I want to be to you. For you.”
The magnitude of his deception hit me, and I slapped him. “I don’t care what you want to be to me. You will never be anything more than the god who stole my rightful place from me, and the god who tricked me into spilling my secrets.”
“They are my secrets, as well.” Zeus took my hand with gentleness I’d been certain he wasn’t capable of. I pulled away, and his expression shattered. “Please, Hera—I’m lonely. I’m burdened. I want nothing more than someone to share my life with. Not to rule over as the Titans did. But a true equal in every sense of the word.”
I shook my head. He was only repeating the things I’d unwittingly told him, and I would not let him worm his way into my heart. “You’re lying. You could never be faithful to me, and I will not settle for anything short of absolute fidelity.”
“Then you will have it. The other women—they are nothing compared to you, and I only want you. I only need you. I am yours, and I will forever be yours, despite the seasons that pass. I will do anything to prove myself to you, Hera.”
“Then give me your kingdom,” I blurted before I could think it through. But that was the true test—if Zeus wanted me as badly as he claimed, then why not pit the two things he loved most against each other?
I expected hesitation. I expected bargaining. Instead he nodded, and with the sun as our witness, he knelt before me. “My kingdom is yours. You will be queen, and I will be your king. We will rule together as partners, as equals, whether you consent to marry me or not. From this moment on, it is done, regardless of your choice.”