Page 203 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

A Series of Things I Had Learned

I.

When I was young, the halls of Olympus were full of laughter from Zeus and his family, laughter at Titans like me, for what are we but diminished Gods relegated to half of what we used to have.

So many of us Titans lost our powers to the Olympians after the war and those that did not end up like my father and mother, were drained of everything that brought them their godhood.

II.

My ability to split into three in times of chaos and pain meant that I was destined to be the Goddess of Crossroads and guide lost travellers to their destination.

It was Hermes who taught me this one day, when he showed me that, like him, I was a divinity who ruled boundaries.

We sometimes crafted liminal spaces together – where the boundaries of death and life were blurred like in dreams – but I lacked his cruel streak and his acerbic cleverness.

What I once thought was beautiful about him was now a thing that made me cautious of him.

III.

I missed Styx. I missed Pallas. I had not spoken to them since the day I walked away, but this did not mean I did not watch them from a distance.

Their younger children were grown and visited them now.

I watched my cousins from afar. Like their parents, the four of them represented brutal, beautiful things: Zelus, the God of Zeal; Nike, the Goddess of Victory; Kratos, the God of Strength; and Bia, the Goddess of Force.

They walked together on the banks of their mother’s river, just like I used to as a child.

Sometimes, they challenged each other to playful fights.

They were skilled warriors and often drew ichor from each other but later laughed about it.

There was a cruelty that sharpened each of their features but paradoxically, it suited them.

It was who they were. They were chthonic children, made of dirt and untold things, just like me.

IV.

Charon and Thanatos were the only two friends who had remained with me through all of it – but then, they were the only two friends I had ever made in this Underworld.

They had been with me from the naming of all my gifts, while I learned how they worked, and of the dark power that lay within them.

In my new home, they stood together stoic, watching me as I practised my art over corpses – every failure to raise the dead, every time I succeeded.

V.

I knew how to make stopped hearts beat again, how to make blood run back through veins, how to raise a dead mortal back into life, but still there was no way for me to bring my mother back or release my father from his fate.

What use was it to be this powerful without the ability to help those I love?

Even with all this power, I still had to navigate two worlds.

One with the rules of Hades, which held my father captive.

The other with the rules of Olympians, which determined that I could not bring back my mother.

The more my powers grew, the more frustrated I became with these divine rules, which felt like a golden cage designed to keep Goddesses in our place.

What use was it to have all these gifts if I could not have what I wanted – my parents finally free? The three of us together, as a family.

VI.

Olympus knew. And the sound that swelled from their halls around my name was not laughter. But hushed whispers of fear.