Chapter 4
This chapter alternates between the perspectives of Melisseus (Zeus's foster father) and Zeus.
[Melisseus's Perspective]
I, Melisseus, sighed.
"Haah... damn it all."
Not the sort of words a god should utter. But then again, my situation was hardly that of an ordinary god.
A cart drawn by four oxen rumbled along the mountain paths of Crete. Every time a wheel struck a stone, the whole thing jolted and clattered. And riding on top of it were me and my three lovely daughters.
The eldest, Adrasteia. The second, Ida. And the youngest, Amalthea.
All three had been the nurses who cradled the infant Zeus and raised him. Adrasteia and Ida had soothed the young god, bathed him, and lulled him to sleep. Amalthea had nursed him at her own breast. As for me and the Kouretes, we had clashed our shields and spears outside the cave so that the baby's cries would never reach Cronus's ears.
And the child we raised had finally brought Cronus down.
Something to be proud of. It was supposed to be something to be proud of.
"So anyway," Adrasteia said, arms crossed, "I'm the eldest."
"I know that," Amalthea replied with a sweet smile. "But what does that have to do with anything right now?"
"It has everything to do with it." Adrasteia lifted her chin. "Because I was the one who received His first experience."
My shoulders, planted on the front bench of the cart, flinched. Proud. I was supposed to feel proud.
"Or don't you remember that you couldn't handle it alone, so I joined in?" Amalthea asked, gentle as spring water. "And besides—"
"Besides?"
"He was raised on my milk as a child. One could argue that I'm the one bonded to Lord Zeus most deeply of all."
"Ho-ho." Adrasteia's eyes narrowed to slits. "So you're saying you intend to stand above me?"
"That's not for me to decide." Amalthea covered her mouth with a hand. "Couldn't we simply ask Lord Zeus himself?"
Invisible sparks flew between the eldest daughter and the youngest.
Meanwhile, the middle daughter, Ida, tilted her head back and gazed at the sky.
"Haha." She laughed, dry as dust. "What a disaster."
Both Adrasteia and Amalthea whipped their heads toward her. "What?"
"Got a problem with that?"
"Oh, I have a problem, all right." Ida looked back and forth between her older sister and her younger sister. "I helped raise him too, you know."
"Did anyone say you didn't?"
"Then why was I the only one left out that day?"
Silence. Only the oxen's hooves echoed along the mountain path.
Amalthea's gaze slid away. Adrasteia coughed.
"Well... that's because you weren't there—"
"Who was it that sent me out to gather herbs?"
"Lord Zeus was about to come of age, so we needed to prepare something good for his body."
"And while I was out digging roots, the two of you got to him first?"
"Got to him? What vulgar language."
"That's right." Amalthea cut in. "We were the ones whose wrists were grabbed, and very courteously at that, sister."
"You do realize that's exactly what makes it more infuriating?"
Ida's eyebrows twitched. Adrasteia swept back her hair, feigning the magnanimity of a victor.
"Don't sulk too much, dear. Once we reach Olympus, there may yet be chances for you."
"Chances," Ida repeated, chewing on the word. "The question is whether His Majesty even remembers us."
At that, Adrasteia and Amalthea fell silent too.
The news that Cronus had been overthrown had reached our homeland of Crete. Zeus was no longer the young god hiding in a cave. He was the new King of the Gods. Lord of sky and lightning. And at his side stood Metis, goddess of wisdom, along with the five elder sisters rescued from Cronus's belly.
Compared to all that, my daughters were merely low-rank goddesses of Crete. I was a son of Gaia and Uranus myself, true, but next to the Titans my power was meager. So long ago I had settled down in Crete and lived as a local god of that land, and my three daughters were born of me and unnamed native goddesses—scarcely more than nymphs.
There was no guarantee that a king who rose from poverty and weakness would remember those who suffered beside him once he wore the crown.
"His Majesty will not pretend not to know us," I said, without looking at my daughters.
"How can you be so certain?" Ida asked.
"Because I raised him."
A short answer. My daughters may have fed the baby and rocked him to sleep, but I was the one who watched over the world he would live in. At Rhea's plea, I hid Zeus away. I gathered the Kouretes. I deceived Cronus's spies, sealed the mouths of the humans below the mountain, and turned a single cave into a small, functioning court. When Zeus took his first steps—when he raised his first lightning and brought the cave ceiling crashing down—when he came of age and left Crete to find Metis—
I was there for all of it.
If that boy had the temperament to cast us aside, he would never have risked his life defying Cronus in the first place.
"I imagine he'll welcome us," I said as calmly as I could manage. "Though what standing he'll receive the three of you under... that, I cannot say."
"I'd be fine even as head chambermaid," Adrasteia said. "I can hold a different post at night."
Hiiik—
I nearly dropped the reins.
"I'd settle for being a mistress," Amalthea said. "Far wiser than demanding to be the legal wife and fighting the goddesses over it, wouldn't you say?"
Well, that one's at least grounded in reality...
But still—that is not the kind of conversation a father should be forced to overhear, is it?
Ida sighed. "You two at least have memories to argue over—whether it happened or not. Me?"
"Ida."
"I have to make mine from scratch."
That was somehow even more grimly practical.
I closed my eyes. The cart rolled on. Ahead of us, the road ended at a cliff's edge.
"Father!"
All three daughters screamed at once. Oh—damn it all!
"HRRRGH!"
I yanked the reins with all my strength. The oxen shrieked and veered. One wheel swung out over the precipice—and by a hair's breadth, swung back. For a long while, none of us said a word.
"...Father," Adrasteia ventured carefully. "Why?"
"Why what."
"Was our conversation... too much for you?"
Hoo.
"That would have been wrong," I said, gripping the trembling reins anew. "Yes. That would have been wrong."
"..."
"It's true that I set you three as Zeus's nurses. It's true that I asked you to care for him well until he came of age. But I did not send you off so that your wrists could be grabbed the very moment he grew up."
The daughters fell into a brief silence at that. Then, after a moment, Amalthea spoke up with a mischievous expression. "But just think—you might get an adorable grandchild out of it?"
In that instant, I felt the urge to steer the cart straight back toward the cliff. But I resisted. With three children, a father learns patience. All the more so when all three were Zeus's nurses, and two of them were already... that sort of something with him.
The road from Crete to Olympus was long. But for gods and nymphs, human distances were never absolute.
A few days later, we finally reached the foot of Mount Olympus. The storm clouds left behind by the battle with Cronus still had not lifted from the peak. Between summits split apart by lightning, the columns of a palace rose into view.
Palace was a generous word for it. Half the walls had collapsed; the roof was scorched black. It was closer to having seized Cronus's old court and thrown it into temporary use. And yet down the mountainside, nymphs and lesser gods were already lining up for an audience.
A new age always demands a new master.
Eoksha.
As I climbed down from the cart, I turned to warn my daughters one last time.
"This is the last time I'll say it. Do not fight over did-it-happen-or-didn't-it in front of His Majesty."
"Yes, Father."
"We'll bear it in mind."
"And what if he asks us first?"
At Amalthea's playful question, something inside me snapped clean through.
"HE WOULDN'T ASK SOMETHING LIKE THAT!"
The nymphs nearby flinched and turned to stare at us.
Ahem. Hoo... yes... well. At least I didn't strike them across the face. For that much, I'm a better father than the average human father in Crete—no, in all Achaea.
"Let's go."
We climbed toward the palace. There was no one guarding the entrance. There weren't even doors. The list of things that needed doing began sprouting in my head like weeds. Organizing a guard detail. Establishing protocols for audiences. Restoring the bedchambers and the storerooms of nectar and ambrosia. Compiling a registry of the nymphs and lesser gods. Preparing the coronation.
And traffic control around the women orbiting Zeus.
That last item looked harder than all the rest combined. Why am I already worrying about that? The instincts of a man who had run something like a court his whole life had kicked in without permission.
Hoo.
With a long sigh, I stepped into the audience chamber.
And froze solid.
Zeus was there. At his left sat Metis. Poseida, Demeter, and Hestia had each claimed the seat farthest from the others and were glaring at one another. Aides and Hera were recovering a short distance away.
All of that was within the expected range. The problem was the woman standing directly before Zeus.
An elegant noblewoman in a pale dress. Wherever she set her foot, flowers bloomed from the cracks in the broken marble.
The primordial earth. The Mother.
Gaia had arrived first.
"..."
I took one slow step backward. Should I leave? Perhaps they haven't noticed us yet. If I turn around quietly right now and head back to Crete—
"Welcome, Melisseus."
Gaia turned her head. A benevolent smile. "It has been a long time."
It's over. We're done for.
"M-Mother, what brings you to this place...?"
"I have come to pay my respects to the new King of the Gods." Gaia's gaze drifted toward my three daughters—my grandchildren, as far as she was concerned. "So these children are His Majesty's nurses."
"Yes. My three daughters, dearer to me than the light of my own eyes."
"I see." Gaia looked each of them over in turn. "Two of them seem to have already surpassed the role of nurse."
Adrasteia's and Amalthea's faces flushed red. Ida's face, by contrast, went stiff. Gaia studied her for a moment, then smiled with deep, unreadable meaning. "The middle child will follow soon enough."
No. I mean—yes, you are the primordial goddess who married your own son Uranus and bore the Titans and me, but still... is there no such thing as decorum?
"Mother!"
I all but shrieked it. She remained perfectly serene. "What is it?"
"...Nothing at all."
The road from Crete to Olympus had not been the end of my suffering. It was the beginning of a new one.
[Zeus's Perspective]
The moment I saw Melisseus walk in, I shot up from the throne. "Melisseus!"
And then I saw the three behind him. "Adrasteia, Ida, and even Amalthea. You all came."
All three faces lit up at once.
It truly gladdened me. The memories I carried were the original Zeus's, and in those memories, these people had unquestionably been family. The ones who hid me. Fed me. Rocked me to sleep. Saved my life.
"I was wondering how I should send for you. I'd meant to travel to Crete myself..." Melisseus gave a small smile. "Simply knowing Your Majesty is safe is more than enough."
"I could never forget the grace of those who spared my life." I turned to the three nurses in turn. "All of you as well."
Adrasteia bowed her head. "Your words alone are an honor."
Amalthea smiled with her eyes. "So you really didn't forget."
Ida hesitated a beat, then asked, "...Do you remember me as well?"
"Of course." I tilted my head. "Why would Ida be the only one I forgot?"
A bright smile bloomed across Ida's face. And yet Adrasteia and Amalthea, for some reason, looked distinctly uneasy.
Why?
I wanted to ask—but standing before me at this moment was a problem several times more dangerous than that.
Gaia. The primordial earth. The goddess who had been regarding me with that elegant smile from the moment she arrived.
Melisseus asked on my behalf. "But Mother—have you truly come merely to offer greetings?"
"Do you think that could possibly be all?" Gaia answered with breathtaking smoothness. Sweat rolled down Melisseus's back where I could see it.
"Then..."
"I have come to explain why I must become His Majesty's First Wife."
"...I beg your pardon?"
I very nearly said the same thing.
Adrasteia, Ida, and Amalthea went rigid. The cup in Metis's hand crumpled. Water boiled up from beneath Poseida's feet. Vines sprouted between Demeter's fingers. The hearth fire before Hestia surged upward. Aides and Hera clutched each other's hands.
I closed my eyes quietly. Ah. Here we go again.
Gaia watched each of these reactions as though savoring them one by one. Then, lifting the hem of her dress just slightly, she bowed her head.
"Your Majesty, this humble woman wishes to make a small request of Olympus."
"..."
"Take me in marriage as Your Majesty's First Wife and Queen, and acknowledge the firstborn son of our union as Your Majesty's heir—"
Gaia smiled gracefully. "—and I shall gladly accept fifty mistresses. No—a hundred."
The instant her words ended, a perfect silence settled over the audience chamber.
The one to break it was Amalthea.
"Whoa."
Every head turned toward her. Amalthea cautiously raised a hand. "Do we count among that hundred?"
"Amalthea!" Melisseus clutched his head.
Gaia laughed. "So long as my child becomes the next King of the Gods, I care not one whit whether Your Majesty keeps his nurses as chambermaids or takes them as mistresses."
Adrasteia's and Amalthea's faces brightened. Ida mulled it over for a moment, then wore a complicated expression. For Metis, on the other hand, it was evidently the worst possible answer.
"Lady Gaia."
She rose from her seat. "The first wife of His Majesty is me."
"I am well aware."
"Then why must I become your Second Wife?"
"Because I was born first, dear."
"By that logic, is every being older than His Majesty a candidate for the position of legal wife?"
Metis pressed on without pausing for breath. "Setting aside His Majesty's own mother, Lady Rhea—surely someone senior even to the Titanides, Tethys, Theia, Themis, Mnemosyne, and Phoebe included, ought to have a care for her own dignity?"
Gaia narrowed her eyes in what looked like genuine admiration. "Truly the goddess of wisdom. You have the whole genealogy memorized."
"Do not try to change the subject with a compliment."
"But that is not the only reason, you know."
Poseida slammed her trident into the floor. "And where were you when we were toppling Cronus?"
"In Tartarus, educating my wretched ex-husband-who-is-also-my-son."
"..."
No one asked about the nature of that 'education' Gaia administered to Uranus. I did not want to know either.
Gaia slowly lifted her head. "I know exactly what you wish to say." Her gaze swept over Metis, then Poseida, Demeter, and Hestia in turn.
"Metis devised the stratagem and brewed the emetic potion."
Metis lifted her chin.
"Poseida raised the seas and brought Cronus to his knees."
Poseida regripped her trident.
"Demeter bound that man's feet with the earth itself."
Pride surfaced on Demeter's face.
"And Hestia fed the flames into his lightning."
The hearth fire flickered, calm and steady.
"You were all magnificent."
It was praise. And yet the four of them looked, if anything, more wrathful than before—because she said it the way an adult praises a child.
"But do you truly believe I demand the seat of First Wife merely because I am the primordial goddess? Merely because I came before you?"
"...Is that not the reason?"
The words left me before I could stop them. Gaia's gaze swung toward me.
"Your Majesty."
"Yes?"
"Would you call me 'big sister'?"
"...Lady Gaia?"
"Bi-g. Sis-ter."
Vuuuum.
The earth gave a low groan. The color drained from my face.
"B-Big sister."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
The trembling stopped. Is this really something I should be thanked for?
Melisseus was quietly pulling his three daughters behind him.
Gaia extended her hand as though nothing at all had happened. "Now, then."
Click.
She snapped her fingers. The ceiling of the audience chamber vanished. No—it only seemed to vanish. Spread across the empty air hung a map vaster than the night sky. Mountain ranges surged upward in deep green ridges; rivers flowed like threads of silver; on the dark blue sea, actual waves rolled. The cities of men were still mere sparks, but where cities would one day rise, starlight was already embedded in the land.
Achaea. Crete. The Aegean. Anatolia. Egypt. Sicily and Italy. North Africa. And beyond them all—the whole of the Mediterranean. No. The entire continent of Europa.
Gaia brushed the hem of her dress lightly and walked toward the map. With every step, flowers bloomed across mountains and fields. She spread both arms wide.
"Behold, Your Majesty."
An elegant smile. A benevolent voice. And a map so vast it was nearly ominous.
"My grand design."
No one could laugh.
The map itself stood as proof that this was no empty boast.