The War Older Than the Throne
The lightning left my hand and tore the world apart.
Light came before sound. A blinding white flash erased every color between Cronus and me—and then, one beat later—
KRA-KAAA-BOOOM!
The sky collapsed.
The bolt slammed into the blade of Cronus's raised scythe dead-on. The weapon in the Titan king's grip flared white-hot, and his colossal fingers, unable to withstand the shock, were wrenched apart. The scythe—dozens of yards of it—spun away into empty air.
"My scythe...!"
Shock bloomed across Cronus's face. But it wasn't over yet.
"Sister Poseida!"
"Do not give me orders, little one."
Poseida stepped a single stride in front of me, her deep-blue hair whipping in the fierce wind.
In her hand was a trident that hadn't existed a moment before—a spear born of gathered seawater. She leveled its point at Cronus.
"Though on this occasion, we share the same thought."
Beyond the shattered earth, a dark blue wall rose up. A wave. A wave taller than any mountain swallowed the sky as it came crashing down on Cronus.
"Nothing but seawater!"
Cronus spread his arms wide. The instant the Titan of time invoked his authority, the plunging wave slowed in midair. Every single droplet hung suspended like glass beads.
I swallowed hard.
He could do that?
In the original myths, Cronus had been interpreted both as a god of time and as a simple god of the harvest. Whichever was true, only one fact mattered now: he wasn't dead yet. And he was still terrifyingly strong.
"Do you see it now!" Cronus laughed. "Struggle all you like—you cannot defeat me. I am the king who rules the ages. I governed this world before you were ever born, and I will rule it forever—"
"You do go on."
Demeter pressed both palms to the ground.
GRRRRUNCH.
The earth split beneath Cronus's feet. Two cliffs reared up like enormous jaws and clamped down on his ankles. While his authority over time held the wave in place, the ground dragged the Titan king down.
"You wretched clod of dirt!"
Cronus thrashed—and Demeter's face twisted into something savage.
"You ate the crops grown from that soil, and with that strength you swallowed us whole!"
The earth split once more. This time an entire mountainside came crashing down. For the first time, Cronus's knees buckled.
And in that instant, the frozen wave surged back to life. Poseida had shattered the bonds of time.
"Kneel."
KRA-BOOOOM!
Tens of thousands of tons of seawater slammed into Cronus's upper body. The Titan king toppled backward—a landslide seized his legs, and the wave pinned his body down.
"Sister Hestia!" I shouted.
No answer came. Instead, a warm hand settled over the back of mine. It was Hestia.
"Can you call the lightning once more?"
"Honestly, I don't know."
"That's all right."
Embers kindled in Hestia's violet eyes. "Kindling a new flame is difficult. But reviving one already lit—that is my work."
She wrapped the small current still flickering between my fingers. Hearth fire was never as loud as lightning. It burned quietly at the heart of a home—feeding people, keeping them from freezing to death, gathering a family together out of the darkness.
But the flames of Hestia, robbed of that home, were nothing quiet at all.
"Our home."
The fire climbed my arm and rose into the sky.
"Give it back."
The lightning still lurking in the storm clouds bled crimson. I gritted my teeth and swung my hand down. The second thunderbolt fell—and this time it was not blue. A colossal spear, its blinding-white core wreathed in red flame, impaled Cronus's chest.
"GRAAAAAGH!"
The Titan's shriek shook the mountain range. But Cronus did not fall. Even with his flesh burned away to bare bone, he pushed himself up on one hand—while the other was already reaching for the fallen scythe.
This guy seriously does not die.
Expecting to be able to kill a being of myth the way you'd kill a human had been my mistake from the very start.
"Don't let him reach the scythe!" Metis shouted. She became a small snake, sliding through the crevices of the rocks, then a falcon soaring skyward to alight on the scythe's handle. The next instant, the falcon swelled into a massive bull.
THUD!
Crushed beneath the bull's weight, the scythe sank deep into the earth.
"Metis!" Cronus wailed. "A mere Oceanid dares lay hands on a king's weapon!"
The bull melted back into Metis. She planted one foot on the empty hilt and smiled coldly.
"And how does it feel, knowing that 'mere Oceanid' brewed the potion that made you vomit up every one of your children?"
Cronus's face went scarlet. "I'll start by chewing you up and swallowing you whole!"
He opened his mouth—the very mouth my sisters had been locked inside until moments ago.
No. Nope. Absolutely not, you insane bastard.
I twisted my whole body, hurled myself at him, and swung my fist. "Shut that damn mouth!"
CRACK!
A god's fist caught the Titan square under the jaw. Cronus's body lifted off the ground. It was an unbelievable sight: a mountain-sized giant completing a full flip in midair, then slamming down right beside the scythe Metis held.
KRRRUUUM!
The ground lurched again and again. Even after the dust settled, Cronus lay motionless.
"...Is it over?" I asked.
"Doesn't he usually get back up when someone says that?" Hestia pointed out quietly.
"Ah."
An ominous silence fell. Right on cue, Cronus's fingers twitched.
"What..." Blood seeped from his split lips. "What went wrong...?"
Cronus stared at us as though we defied comprehension. "It was a perfect plan. I swallowed every child who might steal my throne. The youngest was swapped out for a stone, but if I killed just that one—"
I stood before him. "That was the problem."
"What...?"
"You swallowed your own children."
The answer was that simple. "No father, no matter how blinded by power, swallows his own kids."
Cronus's eyes wavered. "I... am a king."
"Not anymore."
Metis laid a hand on the back of his neck. Silver chains unfurled from her fingertips and wound themselves around Cronus's body. Poseida's seawater froze over the chains, Demeter's rock sheathed them, and Hestia's flames branded them with a divine seal. Four authorities braided into one.
Cronus's colossal frame dwindled. A mountain became a hill, then the size of a house. When he was finally only slightly larger than an ordinary man, Metis gave the end of the chain a sharp tug.
And Cronus shrieked out his dying words.
"I am... time..."
"The sea, the earth, the sky, the hearth, wisdom..."
"In the end, all things, given time..."
Ha... this guy really doesn't quit...
"That's true. Nothing lasts forever."
"But today is not that day."
Then, a bitter expression finally crossing his face, Cronus shrank smaller still—and vanished without a trace.
Silence fell. The Titan king who had shaken the world mere moments ago was gone. A single shaft of sunlight broke through the black clouds.
I sank to the ground where I stood. "It's over..."
My fingertips were trembling. How long had it been since I possessed this body? An hour? Or maybe not even ten minutes. The moment I opened my eyes, I had a goddess claiming a common-law marriage with me, my father had vomited up my sisters, and I had fought that father for my life. And I had won.
Surely I could rest now.
"Metis."
"Hm?"
"Let's not decide anything today. Let's just rest."
Whether it was choosing a new king or carving up the world—later. First a bath. Then food. Above all, sleep. That was all I wanted.
Metis smiled softly. "Of course, darling."
Then, with utter naturalness, she hooked her arm through mine. "I'll take wonderful care of my husband and see that he rests, so you sisters-in-law needn't worry yourselves."
The air froze solid.
Sisters-in-law?
I looked up. Poseida was smiling. It was, without question, a beautiful smile—except that behind her back, the sea was surging upward again.
"'Your husband,' you say."
"Yes." Metis hugged my arm a little tighter. "We'd already promised each other our future before I ever fed Father the emetic."
"Did you hold a wedding?"
"When we've already shared body and soul, is a ceremony really necessary?"
Did you have to mention sharing bodies right now?
The words never made it out of my mouth. Poseida's blue eyes turned to me.
"Little one."
"Yes, sister."
"Is what she said true?"
I wanted to answer that I couldn't remember, since it had been the original Zeus who did it. But then I would have to explain—that the body's rightful owner had vanished, and a human from more than two thousand years in the future had moved in. Would they believe me? Metis might. And then she might decide to make me her research subject.
"...I suppose so."
A coward's answer, in the end.
Metis's grip tightened on my arm. Poseida's eyes narrowed to slits.
"'I suppose so?'"
"I hit my head pretty hard. My memory isn't all there."
"Then until it returns, I shall guard you at my side myself."
And Poseida seized my other arm.
"I am the one protecting him," Metis said. "I concede that you bought time against Cronus. But I was the one who fought him to the very end."
"Have you already forgotten whose doing it was that you got out of that belly at all?"
"I have not forgotten. That is why I said I would repay the debt. But I never said I would yield this child as well."
This child. Yes, technically I was the youngest. Still, two women calling a grown man "this child" while tugging him back and forth between them—that felt like something worth objecting to.
"Both of you, let go."
A low voice cut in. Demeter. She wrapped her arms around my waist from behind. "Zeus can't even stand on solid ground right now. He needs to find his footing in the embrace of the earth."
"Sister?"
"Don't worry. I'll feed him, tuck him in, and raise him up nice and healthy."
The voice of the woman who had just beaten our father into the dirt was far, far too gentle. Which made it scarier.
Metis's eyebrow arched. "And why is Lady Demeter raising 'someone else's husband'?"
"You're wrong starting from 'someone else's husband.'"
"I believe I already told you we've been together."
"So?" Demeter replied, perfectly unruffled. "Sowing the seed first doesn't make the entire harvest yours."
"That metaphor is deeply unpleasant."
"You'd forbid the goddess of grain a farming metaphor?"
The ground groaned again. Seawater splashed up around our ankles. Metis's body rippled, as if she might turn into a beast of prey at any second.
Somebody save me.
This was more dangerous than fighting Cronus had been. In search of my last hope, I turned to Hestia. Hestia would be fine. Wasn't she, even in the original myth, the peaceful goddess of the hearth—who kept her maidenhood and stepped back from every quarrel?
Hestia approached quietly.
"That's enough, everyone."
As expected.
"Zeus is exhausted." She cupped my cheek. It was warm. "You must go home and rest."
"Thank you, sister."
"And keeping the home and hearth is my authority." Hestia smiled. "So naturally, the place Zeus returns to is my side."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Hearth flames drew a circle around the two of us. A wall of fire—warm, and permitting no escape.
"Hestia." Metis's voice dropped to freezing. "Run along and tend your fire like a good girl."
"Metis, dear," Hestia answered, still smiling. "Keep talking, if you want to die."
The flames surged higher. "Because Zeus is mine."
Where in the original myth was that line? I ransacked my memory, desperate. Nothing. It was absolutely nowhere.
Metis on one arm. Poseida on the other. Demeter behind me. Hestia's fire in front. How long had it been since I'd resolved to live an ordinary, peaceful life? Probably about ten minutes.
I tipped my head back and stared at the sky.
"WHY HAS EVERYONE AWAKENED IN THE MOST SCREWED-UP DIRECTION POSSIBLLLE?!"
My scream echoed off the mountains. But in that moment, I didn't yet know—that an existence far older than the throne of Olympus had already begun to move toward me.