Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
I don’t know that Circe intends to sack the city, or if she’s even capable of it with the people she has. If I were her, I wouldn’t bother with civilians. History has shown that they’re more than willing to be swayed by clever words and a pretty face. Circe has both. If she removes the Thirteen, then the path to the city is clear.
A decade ago, I would have stood by cheering while she rampaged. Even as a teenager I recognized the way the poison goes bone-deep in the legacy families—the same families responsible for most of the people who’ve claimed the titles since the founding of the city. But now? Now that my mother is one of the Thirteen? Now that Persephone is married to one of them and pregnant with his heir?
I’ll rip out Circe’s throat before I let her touch my family.
I hoped that killing Zeus would be enough to dissuade her from full-on invasion, but so far I’ve been unsuccessful. Time is running out to find a path forward that protects my mother and sisters.
My phone vibrates in my hand, a notification of a new MuseWatch article being posted. The site is a plague on this city, but it’s useful at times. I open it mostly to distract myself than anything else…at least until I see the headline.
Legacy titles engage in coup despite lack of votes! Circe’s blockade broken!
“What. The. Fuck.” I quickly scan the article, my heartbeat racing in my ears. Zeus and the other two came together in the dead of night to attack Circe, despite the fact that we explicitly didn’t vote for them to do so.
The article frames it as a positive thing, of course. They won. The blockade is broken. Trade can resume immediately. What it notably doesn’t say is that Circe has been apprehended. And Zeus’s poor mood last night suggests he, at least, considers the whole thing a failure. It all adds up to one conclusion.
She got away.
I pace another circle around the living room and grab my phone. I memorized Circe’s number rather than risk keeping it in my contacts. It takes seconds to type it out, my heart beating too hard. This has all gotten so out of control. I recognized the risks when I agreed to marry Zeus and become Hera, but those risks feel like child’s play compared to what I’m dealing with now.
The call rings and rings and rings before clicking over to a recording saying the voicemail inbox is full. I curse and hang up. “After all the trouble you’ve caused, the least you can do is answer the fucking phone.”
A text comes through a moment later from an unknown number. It’s only a location—a bar in the theater district where I used to spend time with my sisters—and a time—thirty minutes from now. Barely long enough to get there.
I don’t text back. The timing is too coincidental to actually be a coincidence. It’s Circe, playing games just like she has been from the beginning. I shove my phone into my purse and yank on a pair of boots. My plans might be in shambles, but I knew I would be fighting an uphill battle from the moment I stood at the altar with Zeus and agreed to be his wife. I might not have anticipated Circe and all the trouble she brought with her, but I’m smart and can think on my feet. It would just be helpful if she spoke plainly about what she wants.
Ixion meets me in the parking garage the moment the elevator opens. Like everyone else on the small team I’ve gathered around me, he is an Olympian orphan who grew up in the orphanage that’s every Hera’s one responsibility in the city. When I took over, it was in a sorry state, barely getting by with a skeleton staff and far too many children. Children the city likes to pretend don’t exist.
One of the first things I did upon marrying Zeus was divert all of the available funds associated with the Hera title to fixing the place up and hiring more people. A month later, Ixion approached me. In Olympus, when orphans reach eighteen, they’re consigned to Ares, Poseidon, or Demeter—soldiers, fishermen, or farmers. Ixion and his crew had chosen the former, but they wanted to pledge themselves to me. Not my husband. Not my mother.
To a Hera who actually wanted to do their job.
As long as I continue to ensure the orphans of the city are taken care of and protected, they are loyal to me and me alone. It’s an easy enough task. The Heras before me might have ignored their responsibility in favor of playing spouse to Zeus—willing or no—but power can be found in unexpected ways. Ixion and his team, trained and ruthless and perfectly loyal, prove that with some time and effort, Hera always had the potential to be just as powerful as the rest of Thirteen. I have every intention of reclaiming that power.