I Killed Hera's Guardian to Save Him
"If you mean to save him, you must sever his head this instant."
Hermes raised his golden scythe.
"Do not put 'save' and 'cut off his head' in the same sentence."
"That is how the curse is bound."
"Explain first."
"If his heart beats three more times, the curse will seize complete control of Argos's body."
Thread-like strands of the curse poured from the black eye that had burrowed into Argos's neck. His hundred true eyes, the life-line nerves, and the oath carved into his heart were tangled together in a nightmare of knots.
"And if you simply pluck out the black eye, the heart tears first."
"What if we burn it?"
"The real eyes burn with it."
Hermes pointed at Argos.
"If you take the head, the connection between the heart and the wicked eye snaps in a single stroke."
"Then Argos dies too."
"His flesh does."
Hera's expression iced over.
"You mean only the body dies?"
"The divinity of Panoptes resides not in the heart, but in the eyes."
Argos's soul was divided and housed within those hundred eyes.
After the head fell, before the soul could scatter, those eyes could be transferred into another vessel—and he could be saved.
Only once.
Fail, and the soul itself would be torn into a hundred shreds.
Hera cut him off.
"No."
Argos had guarded the royal house since before she was born. Her face said she would never allow a loyal retainer's head to be taken because of a curse that had stolen her own name.
Blood welled from the blackened eye.
Argos gripped his own arm and forced his mouth open.
"Give the order."
"I will not give such an order."
"Then I beg you."
One eye that had not yet blackened fixed on Hera.
"Let me remain Lady Hera's guardian until the very end."
Hera's fingertips trembled.
I crouched in front of Argos.
"If you die, Hera will blame herself for the rest of her life."
"Even so, it is better than harm coming to Lady Hera."
"Why does it have to be one or the other?"
Argos blinked.
I turned to Hermes.
"You said we can discard the body and still save the soul."
"In theory."
"Then that's enough."
"Failure means a hundred pieces."
"So we don't fail."
Hermes stared at me for a long moment, then sighed.
I asked Argos again.
"The choice is yours."
"Once I open my eyes again, will I still be able to protect Lady Hera?"
"You've got a hundred eyes. If you can't protect her with those, that would be the real surprise."
A faint smile touched the corner of Argos's mouth.
"I beg of you."
Hera closed her eyes, then opened them.
She stretched out her hand.
Blue light spread over the forest, and a single peacock descended.
Its tail still bore no markings at all.
"A hundred eyes are going to fit in that little body?"
"Your own self fit inside a tiny cuckoo, didn't it?"
"Can't argue with that."
Hera stroked the peacock's head.
"I will call you my guardian once more."
Black threads cinched tight around the heart. Argos's massive frame twisted violently in agony.
Hermes drew out a flute.
"What are you doing?"
"Putting the gazes to sleep."
The flute's song blanketed the olive grove.
One by one, the hundred eyes closed.
Ten.
Thirty.
Sixty.
The black curse tried to force the lids open again, but Argos himself strained and shut them.
Only the single black eye embedded in the nape of his neck refused to close to the end.
"Guess the fake doesn't understand lullabies."
The black eye glared at me.
"And it's got a rotten temper."
Argos's heart gave one last great beat.
Thud.
Hermes adjusted his grip on the scythe.
I gathered lightning at my fingertips.
Hera looped golden threads through the hundred eyes.
I eyed the golden scythe in Hermes's hands.
"Don't so much as nick a real eye."
Hermes looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
"I'm cutting a neck. Why would I touch the eyes?"
"You've caused too many accidents. I don't trust you."
"Fewer than Your Majesty, at least."
"What?"
The taut golden threads trembled lightly.
Hera fixed both of us with a frigid stare.
"Both of you, be silent."
Hermes and I shut our mouths at the same time.
Argos looked at her one last time.
"The order."
Hera never told him to die.
She spoke only one word instead.
"Return."
All hundred eyes closed as one.
Hermes's golden scythe flashed.
Shhk.
Argos's head fell.
The enormous body crashed to the earth with a ground-shaking thud.
Light poured from the hundred eyes.
The golden threads caught them, yet the soul began to tear into a hundred strands.
"Zeus!"
I flicked my fingers.
Boom!
Lightning dropped from the sky, skirting Argos and slicing razor-sharp between the hundred streams of light.
The flash spread like a net.
A shattered shoulder split open with a sound like a scream. Blood sprayed, but he never let go.
"Hera—now!"
Hera drove the hundred eyes into the peacock's tail.
Turquoise feathers unfurled like a vast fan. A mystical eye-pattern was embroidered on every plume, and the peacock settled gracefully upon the ground.
It did not move.
Hera could not even breathe as she called the name.
"Argos."
A moment later.
The hundred eyes etched into the tail opened all at once.
"I await your command."
Hera's expression crumbled for the first time.
She gathered the peacock into her arms.
He lived.
Only, unused to the new body, Argos tried to spread his wings and rolled over right where he stood.
"Dignity took a bit of a hit."
All hundred eyes glared at me.
"I take it back."
The black eye that had clung to the nape dropped to the ground.
Eight slender legs sprouted from it and scrabbled against the dirt, straining to flee into the forest.
I pointed a finger.
A filament of lightning thinner than a hair fell.
Crack!
It pierced the black eye alone with perfect precision.
The eye did not burn; it hardened like a glass marble.
Hermes whistled in admiration.
"I didn't know you could use it that finely."
"I can control my strength."
"You always smash the palace walls, so I never noticed."
"That's because the walls are weak."
Hera picked up the solidified black eye between her fingers.
When she brought the silver plate taken from Io's anklet close, both objects trembled at once.
A man's face reflected on the surface of the silver plate.
The High Priest of the Temple of Argos.
Kalaon.
His voice spilled from the black eye.
"It was to protect Lady Hera."
Hera asked coldly,
"By stealing my seal and trying to murder my priestess?"
"Zeus has already contracted with Metis and shared kingship with Themis. Now he covets even Lady Hera's authority and the support of Argos."
Kalaon's voice did not waver.
"I believed that if scandal arose, Lady Hera would refuse the proposal."
"So you made my choice for me?"
"I prevented a wrong choice from being made."
Hera's eyes sank into ice.
"You have never protected me."
I turned to Hermes.
"Found the location?"
No answer.
Hermes had already vanished.
"Damn, that kid's fast."
A moment later, a scream rose from the direction of the distant temple.
Not long after, Hermes reappeared with Kalaon by the scruff of the neck. A temple document box was jammed onto the man's head like a helmet.
"I brought him."
"Why'd you bring the document box too?"
"He was trying to destroy the evidence, so I brought it along."
"Competent."
"Please raise my salary."
"That's a separate issue."
Even while seized, Kalaon glared at me.
"Do you think you have won?"
By the time we reached the front of the temple, a crowd had already gathered like a cloud. In the very center, the anonymous bard was singing a finished song.
When God-King Zeus coveted fair Io,
Jealous Hera made the maiden a white heifer.
Loyal Argos stood guard over her,
Yet cunning Hermes struck him down.
I stopped in front of the bard.
"Where's the part where I saved Argos?"
"The song grows too long."
"And the part where Kalaon is the culprit?"
"A love triangle sells better than a high priest."
"I've disliked you from the start."
But the song was already spreading through the crowd.
A faint smile curved Kalaon's lips.
"Behold, Lady Hera!"
What people believe is not the truth, but the story.
He raised his voice.
"Today it was Io. Tomorrow it will be some other woman!"
The crowd stirred.
"Is it fitting that the Queen of Argos take such a man as her consort?!"
The moment I opened my mouth, Hera stepped forward.
Kalaon played his final card.
"Tomorrow at noon, decide before the people of Argos."
He pointed at me.
"Refuse Zeus's proposal!"
Then he turned on Hera.
"Or abandon the throne of Argos to become that philanderer's queen!"
A chill silence settled over the temple steps.
I looked at Hera.
She gazed at Kalaon for a long time, then nodded.
"Very well."
"Hera?"
Those cool gray-blue eyes fixed on me.
"Tomorrow, before everyone's eyes, I will choose."