Fifty — No, a Hundred Mistresses
"Your Majesty, this humble woman dares to lay one small petition before you for the good of Olympus. Take me in marriage, receive me as your First Wife and Queen, and acknowledge the eldest son born between us as your successor — and I shall gladly accept fifty — no, even a hundred — mistresses."
"Μεγαλειότατε, η ταπεινή αυτή γυναίκα έχει ένα μικρό αίτημα για το καλό του Ολύμπου. Αν με παντρευτείτε, με δεχτείτε ως πρώτη σύζυγο και βασίλισσά σας και αναγνωρίσετε τον πρωτότοκο γιο μας ως διάδοχό σας, είμαι πρόθυμη να δεχτώ ακόμη και πενήντα — όχι, ακόμη και εκατό — ερωμένες."
(Megaleiótate, i tapeiní aftí gynaíka échei éna mikró aítima gia to kaló tou Olýmpou. An me pantrefteíte, me dechteíte os próti sýzygo kai vasílissá sas kai anagnorísete ton protótoko gio mas os diádochó sas, eímai próthymi na dechtó akómi kai penínta — óchi, akómi kai ekató — eroménes.)
A blonde woman with blue eyes bowed before me where I sat on the throne of Olympus, lifting the hem of her dress with the slightest, most practiced of motions. It was court etiquette without a single hair out of place. Her voice was as warm as tilled earth on a spring day, and her smile brimmed with kindly grace.
And yet the moment she sank to her knees, the whole of Mount Olympus trembled. The young grass sprouting between the palace columns bowed toward her in perfect unison.
The primordial Earth. The Mother of the Gods. Gaia was proposing marriage to me.
The terms were simple. She was to be made First Wife and Queen. The eldest son born between us was to be acknowledged as my heir. In exchange, she would turn a blind eye to as many as a hundred mistresses.
Hold on.
Something about it refused to add up, no matter how I turned it over. A humble woman? If the primordial goddess Gaia counted as humble, then human beings had to be ants... no, specks of dust?
And why a hundred?
It was Metis who cut my musings short.
"Lady Gaia."
The woman standing at my right spoke with a smile — a composed smile worthy of the goddess of wisdom. Except that the golden goblet in her hand was slowly crumpling inside her grip.
"His Majesty's first wife is me."
"I am well aware."
Gaia replied with perfect mildness.
"Which is why you shall simply become the second wife."
Crunch.
The goblet didn't merely break — it was crushed to powder.
Across the hall, the sea goddess Poseida tightened her grip on her trident. Barley ears shot up from beneath the earth goddess Demeter's feet, and flames leapt to the ceiling from the hearth of the hearth goddess Hestia. The underworld goddess Aides and the marriage goddess Hera clutched each other's hands and sniffled. Below the throne, my — for all practical purposes — foster father, Melisseus, muttered something under his breath with his eyes closed, surrendering to fate. And his three daughters, the three nurses who had raised me — Adrasteia, Ida, and Amalthea — wore the expressions of women calculating which of us to restrain first.
I drew a slow breath and traced my life back to find where exactly it had gone wrong. The answer came easily. Everything. From the very beginning, everything had gone wrong — starting a mere three days ago, when I first opened my eyes.
They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die. It was a lie. At least, I never saw mine. There had clearly been some untimely accident, but in that final moment I didn't even register pain. The world flared blinding white, everything was severed at once — and my next memory was of vomit.
None of it mine, I should add.
"HUUUURGH!"
With a roar that seemed to flip heaven and earth, a colossal man doubled over. His belly, swollen like a mountain, heaved like a storm-driven sea. Each time his mouth opened, he spewed out filth enough for a full-grown person to pass through whole.
No — it wasn't only filth. People came out. One. Two. Three. Young women, coated in slime, tumbled onto the floor one after another.
What circle of hell is this now?
Face-down on the stone floor, all I could do was blink. The air reeked of iron, blood, and sour gastric acid. Storm clouds churned overhead, and beyond the cracked earth I could see a dark blue sea. A giant clutching a scythe dozens of meters long was glaring down at me with yellow eyes.
Then someone seized my shoulder and shook it hard.
"Get up, darling! Hurry!"
A woman with loose brown hair and pale green eyes. Her gaze was razor-sharp, and her beautiful face was smeared with blood and dust. An empty medicine bottle in one hand, a bronze dagger in the other.
"Your... sisters, all of them, are out of Cronus's belly. My emetic potion worked perfectly!"
Cronus. Emetic potion. Sisters pulled from a belly. The three terms locked together in my skull. No way. No. There was simply no way.
"You're... the goddess of wisdom, Metis...?"
The woman's eyes narrowed.
"What's gotten into you all of a sudden...? Did you hurt your head too?"
Metis patted my cheek lightly.
"Pull yourself together, Zeus."
Zeus. The instant the name landed, something burst open in my mind, and memories that were not mine came flooding in like a breached dam: a father who devoured his own children. Mother Rhea, who swaddled a stone and offered it up to save her youngest son. The cave in Crete. The Kouretes clashing shields and spears to drown out a baby's cries. Goat's milk. The arms of three nurses. And a young god who swore that someday he would cast down his father and free his siblings.
I buried my face in my hands. Unfamiliar black hair slipped down between my fingers. The face reflected in the puddle at my feet wasn't one I knew either — a young man with disheveled black hair and eyes black as the deep night stared back at me, face buried in his hands just the same. So this was this world's Zeus.
Hah. The laugh wouldn't come. This is insane. Waking up in ancient Greece was enough to unhinge anyone — but Zeus, of all people. That Zeus. The prime culprit behind every scandal below the belt in the history of the world: the most notorious lecher under heaven, who turned himself into a bull, a swan, and a golden rain to slip past his wife's eyes, then dumped a whole myth's worth of calamity on whichever woman he touched — and her children besides. And at present he was not yet a god-king or anything of the sort, merely a youngest son struck down mid-rebellion against his father.
"Darling?"
Metis called to me. Darling... So the original Zeus and Metis had already been that sort of pair. I had inherited the obligations of pleasures I hadn't even tasted. So I transmigrate and I'm a married man on day one?
Thankfully, the Metis of my inherited memories showed no sign of pregnancy. Athena hadn't happened yet. And if that was so, there was no reason to swallow Metis either. Who devours a person in the first place? A goddess, technically — but his wife all the same. To swallow your wife whole because you feared a prophecy that your future son would surpass you... How was that any different from Cronus, retching right in front of me?
"I'm sorry."
The words bolted from my mouth before I could think. Metis's eyes went wide.
"What?"
"I must have blacked out for a moment. And... thank you. If it weren't for you, none of this could have even started."
"..."
She stared hard at me. Suspicion crossed her face at a speed worthy of the goddess of wisdom. Did she catch on? Metis was the goddess of shapeshifting and schemes. Surely she could tell that the soul inside this body had changed. But then the corners of her mouth curled upward.
"Looks like you really did take a knock to the head."
"...Is it that obvious?"
"Very."
Metis took my hand and pulled me upright.
"I like you better than before, so I'll dig into it later."
A chill crawled up my spine. I won't ask now meant that one day she would absolutely dig in — and dissect me like a specimen. But survival came first.
"You filthy vermin...!"
A voice like thunder shook the air. I looked up to see Cronus hauling himself to his feet. Even after being brought low by an emetic and vomiting up five of his children, the Titan king was still enormous. Stomach acid dripped through his matted beard, and when he swung his scythe, the wind alone sheared the flank off a rocky mountain.
"You dare poison your own father?"
Poison? I swallowed a hollow laugh. "Strange words from a father who swallowed five of his own children."
Cronus's face twisted.
"You were fated to steal my throne!"
"So you swallowed me as an infant?"
"It is only natural, if one would escape prophecy!"
Apparently this family carried a hereditary habit: hear a prophecy, swallow a wife or a child. And in that instant, I made my decision. I would survive. I would take the throne, too. But I would never, ever become that — the fool so terrified of his own child taking his crown that he devoured his family, and was truly destroyed by the very act.
"Metis."
"Name it."
"Can you buy me some time?"
Metis followed my gaze. Five women lay sprawled on the ground — my sisters, freshly delivered from Cronus's belly. Hold on... where are Poseidon and Hades? Th-they're... women? Right... I'll worry about that later.
"To wake them?"
"If I fight alone, I die."
The Zeus of the original myth would probably have hurled lightning right away, brimming with confidence. I knew my own measure: a modern man less than ten minutes into owning a god's body, instruction manual not included. Omnipotence was a fantasy — I didn't even know how to switch the lightning on. "Which is why we all live. Together."
Metis studied me for a long moment. Then she smiled — and this time it was satisfaction, not suspicion, that laced her face. "All right."
Pop. Her body became a small bird in an instant.
Whoosh. Cronus's scythe tore through empty air. At the very edge of the blade the bird turned into a fly, and the fly into a single thread of mist. And while the Titan king wheeled about chasing the fog, Metis returned to her true form and flung the medicine bottle straight into his eye.
"You already drank your medicine!"
"And who said it was the same medicine?"
The bottle shattered, and violet smoke swallowed Cronus's face whole.
"GRAAAGH!"
I sprinted for the woman lying nearest. Deep blue hair spilled across the ground like water, and every cough from her made the puddles around her shudder. "Sister, wake up!"
"Si...ster?"
Blue eyes opened slowly, and a single name surfaced from the inherited memories. Poseidon. No — calling a woman Poseidon felt wrong. "Sister Poseida?" The corrected name came out of my mouth on its own. Still gasping for breath, she searched my face. "You... were the one who pulled us out?"
"Metis brewed the potion, and I helped her feed it to him."
I had no intention of hogging the credit. What was the point of stealing the spotlight, from day one, from family I'd be living alongside for the next few thousand years? Poseida's gaze slid past me to Metis, who was still toying with Cronus, then came back to me.
"I see."
She clasped my hand in both of hers; the scent of the sea rose from her fingertips.
"I owe a debt to you both."
Next was the silver-haired woman. "Sister Aides." The silver-haired, green-eyed one fated to become the goddess of the underworld opened her eyes but couldn't pull herself upright. Her lips had drained bone-white, and from within her shadow something like a black door rose for an instant before collapsing, spent.
"I'm sorry..."
Aides said in a trembling voice.
"My power... it still won't listen to me."
In the original myth, once Cronus fell, the three brothers — Zeus, Poseidon, Hades — drew lots to divide the heavens, the sea, and the underworld. But something was different in this world. Setting aside how Poseidon and Hades had been gender-swapped into Poseida and Aides, Poseida already breathed the sea's power, while Aides's underworld seemed pinned down somewhere, refusing to open properly. Later. Deal with that later. Now was not the time to trace causes.
"It's all right. Stay here."
"But..."
"Just staying alive is helping too."
Aides looked up at me, dazed, and I ran for the third woman. Wheat ears grew among her brown hair. Demeter. The moment her eyes opened, grass surged up from the split ground.
"Sister."
"...Zeus?"
"It's time we put Father down."
"Good."
No explanation was needed. Demeter rose, cracking her knuckles one by one. The fourth was Hera. She of the reddish-brown hair and orange eyes was, like Aides, unable to properly wield her power. She reached into empty air as though trying to seize an invisible thread, but the authority of marriage and family slipped right through her fingers.
"Why..."
Hera's face crumpled.
"It is clearly mine, and yet it is not mine yet."
I rested a hand on her shoulder. "This is not your fault, Sister." I had no evidence for that. But you cannot tell a woman who was swallowed by her father the moment she was born and spent her whole life inside his belly to simply get stronger on her own. "You've only just come out. Your power can come find you later." Hera bit her lip and nodded.
The last woman had hair of deep brown. The moment she opened her eyes, warmth spread across the cold stone floor, and in her violet gaze, dying embers kindled back to life one by one. Hestia. Born first, vomited up last — the goddess the myths call both the youngest and the eldest.
"Sister."
When I held out my hand, Hestia took it. Her hand was warm.
"I want to go home," Hestia said.
Her voice was quiet, but every flame around her rose to its feet at once.
"Then first, we must put that man down, won't we?"
"Yes."
I turned back to Cronus. Metis's transformations were slowing, and his scythe grazed the hem of her dress — golden scraps of fabric scattered across the air.
"Zeus!"
she cried.
"I'm about at my limit!"
I reached out on instinct. I didn't know what I was supposed to do — but my body knew. With every beat of my heart, the storm clouds overhead spun faster. At the second beat, blue light flashed within them. At the third, something dropped into my palm. Light. Light as if every storm in the world had been crammed into a single fistful. "No way..." I breathed. Lightning sang between my fingers, and Cronus raised his head. For the first time, fear surfaced on his face.
I smiled. It wasn't the smile my old life had ever worn, nor the arrogance of Zeus — it was the smile of an ordinary man who had found a way to survive.
"My sisters."
A wave reared up behind Poseida's back. When Demeter pressed both palms to the earth, the mountain range stirred. Hestia's flames coiled around my lightning, and Metis slipped free of Cronus's shadow to stand at my side. Aides and Hera, dragging their weakened bodies, propped each other upright. Even if they could not fight, they would not fall back.
"Let us go home, all of us."
Poseida leveled her trident.
"But first," Demeter said, baring her teeth, "we return the family meal Father owes us."
Hestia's smile turned glacial.
"Served piping hot, of course."
Cronus heaved his scythe high.
"You wretches — to whom do you think you speak!"
I closed my fist around the lightning, and I thought: I had become Zeus. I still didn't know why I had come to be in this body — didn't know where the original Zeus had gone, or why even Poseidon and Hades had turned into women. But one thing was certain. I had no intention of following the future's myths as written. I would not swallow Metis. I would not be cursed by my sisters and my children. I would not cling to a throne at my family's expense. And if I could help it, I would live out a quiet, peaceful life without ever once turning into a swan, a bull, or golden rain.
I didn't know it then. That this modest little plan would be blown to bits in a mere three days. That the primordial goddess, the one offering to permit fifty — no, a hundred mistresses, would appear and demand I take her as my queen. And that what she wanted was not merely the seat beside me, nor my bed — but Olympus. The Mediterranean. No: the first throne of an empire that would swallow all of Europe.
"Let's go."
I hurled the lightning at Cronus.
The myth split in two.