CHAPTER 110: PLOTTING (PART 3)

The sanctuary’s broken columns loomed like skeletal sentinels in the dim dawn, their shadows reaching across the cracked courtyard. The air was cool, still holding the night’s bite, and the three gods stood in the quiet center, reviewing the threads of their plan one last time.

Hermes adjusted the strap of his satchel, eyes scanning the horizon as though the sun’s first light might reveal hidden dangers. "We move separately, but we keep the link open. Anything unusual, you pulse once through the bond. Twice if you’re in trouble."

Ares grunted, his armor catching the light like smoldering embers. "I’ll be testing the eastern gate. That ward won’t open easy, and I’m not going in blind. If I trigger anything... you’ll know."

Aphrodite, standing between them, gave a slow nod. Her gown shimmered like liquid pearl in the faint light, a disguise as much as attire. "I’ll keep pressing from within. The control over the others is deep, but it’s not perfect. Doubt spreads quietly, but it spreads." She glanced at Ares. "Don’t smash anything important until we know what it does."

His smirk was all teeth. "No promises."

---

Aphrodite slipped back into Olympus with the ease of a shadow returning to its source. The marble courtyards were already alive with the sound of sandals on stone, servants moving between shrines, and the faint, ever-present hum of divine energy.

She moved gracefully among the others, speaking with warmth, offering small compliments, never revealing her purpose. It was in the weaving hall where she made her first play of the day. Hera was there, seated beside Athena, both working threads on a great loom whose pattern seemed wrong to Aphrodite’s eyes—too symmetrical, too ordered.

She let her gaze linger on the design, then smiled faintly. "Strange... I thought the last time we wove the pattern of the western coast, there was a curve in the shoreline. But here..."

Athena’s hands paused on the shuttle, only for a fraction of a second before resuming. "You must be thinking of another work," she said evenly.

"Perhaps," Aphrodite replied, though she caught the almost imperceptible tightening of Athena’s jaw. Another crack.

---

Hermes walked among mortals again, but this time he moved through a market square in a seaside city where old temple stones had been used to build the harbor wall. The scent of salt and fish filled the air.

He bartered with fishermen, not for their catch, but for their stories—asking about strange tides, odd dreams, whispers of voices in the waves. Most laughed him off. But one old woman, her hair like tangled driftwood, leaned close and said, "The sea remembers the Three, even if men forget their names. Some nights the waves hum, and the nets come up empty."

From her, he learned of an ancient altar half-submerged in a cove beyond the cliffs. That night, he found it—just a slab of stone etched with symbols worn nearly smooth. But when he touched it, the divine link between him, Aphrodite, and Ares shimmered faintly, as if the place itself resonated with the same fold of reality he’d felt before.

---

Ares approached the eastern gate under the guise of routine inspection. The guards there moved with the same mechanical precision as before. He tested their awareness by tossing a pebble across their path. None reacted.

He stepped closer to the ward, keeping his movements casual. The shimmer was faint in daylight, but his battle-honed senses still felt the wrongness in the air—like the moment before a spear is thrown.

He reached out, fingers brushing the invisible surface. This time he pressed harder, channeling a fraction of his strength into the contact. The shimmer rippled outward, and for a heartbeat he saw it again: the pale corridor, stretching into a darkness that swallowed sight.

But something else happened—a whisper slid into his mind. Not words, exactly, but a sensation. Cold, deliberate, watching. It withdrew before he could push deeper, leaving only the faint sting of recognition in his thoughts.

When he pulled back, one of the guards was looking directly at him. Its eyes were wrong—pale and flat, like glass. It said nothing. Ares met its gaze for a long moment before walking away.

---

By the second night, they regrouped again at the sanctuary. The ruins were shrouded in moonlight, and the air carried the distant rustle of leaves.

Aphrodite was first to speak. "Athena hesitated today. Only for a breath, but enough to know my words touched something beneath the surface. It’s like they’re all holding a memory underwater, and I just stirred the ripples."

Hermes set down a small sketch he’d made of the cove altar. "Found another thin place. Mortal-built over it, but the old magic’s still there. When I touched it, the link between us... flickered. Like it was reaching for the same fold Ares found at the gate."

Ares’s tone was harder than usual. "The ward isn’t just a barrier. It’s a door. I saw the corridor again, but something on the other side felt me. It’s aware of us now."

Hermes’ eyes narrowed. "Then we need to move before it strengthens its defenses."

"Or before it decides to come through," Aphrodite added quietly.

They spread their findings on the altar: Hermes’ sketches, Ares’s crude diagram of the gate ward, Aphrodite’s notes on behavioral slips among the controlled gods. The pattern was beginning to emerge.

Thin places. Wards. Cracks in control.

It was Hermes who pieced it together aloud. "The fold isn’t sealed everywhere. These points—gate, cove, perhaps more—are seams. If we force them open in the right sequence, we might find the place where the control originates."

Ares cracked his knuckles. "And when we do?"

"Then," Aphrodite said, her voice like silk over steel, "we cut the threads."

---

The next day, they began preparing for a coordinated strike. Hermes would continue seeking more thin places among the mortal world, mapping them like stars in a hidden constellation. Aphrodite would escalate her conversations in Olympus, pressing harder for slips in memory while avoiding suspicion. Ares would test the ward further, looking for weaknesses in its structure without triggering its full defense.

The sanctuary became their meeting ground, each visit bringing more urgency. The control over the others was holding, but the cracks were widening. And somewhere beyond the veil, the thing pulling the strings had started to notice the tug back.

---

The throne room was empty except for the constant whisper of the braziers, their flames bending in a way that never matched the draft of the air. Hera sat alone, one hand resting against the cold gold of her armrest, the other tracing idle patterns over the carved surface. Olympus was quiet—too quiet.

That was when the shadows thickened. Not the natural darkness of the corners, but a rolling, viscous black that crept along the marble like spilled ink. Hera’s back straightened, but she did not rise. She knew this presence.

"Your pulse is too calm for someone about to be told their dominion is in danger," came the voice—low, layered, and without direction, as if the sound was whispered by the stone, the fire, and her own blood at once.

"Chaos," Hera acknowledged, her tone neutral. "It has been some time since you addressed me directly."

The darkness coiled tighter, forming no distinct shape, but the sensation of eyes—vast and without lids—pressed against her mind. Too long, the voice agreed. "You have been... adequate in your duties. But the board is shifting."

Hera’s gaze sharpened. "Who dares to move against me?"

"The same three who were clever enough to free Zeus from the net I cast through you," Chaos said, each word like a drop of molten metal on her thoughts. "Aphrodite. Hermes. Ares. They have seen the seams, and they are tracing them back to the weave."

For a heartbeat, Hera almost smiled at the irony—Zeus freed, not knowing his own chains. But the satisfaction was brief. "They are meddlesome, yes, but hardly a match for the hand that governs Olympus now."

A sound that was not quite laughter, not quite a sigh, rolled through the chamber. "Confidence is an admirable perfume, Hera. But even the most potent scent fades. These three are not striking blindly. They search for the origin. And if they find it before I am ready..."

Hera felt the temperature in the room drop, her breath misting faintly. "What do you require of me?"

The shadows shifted, brushing against her shoulders like a serpent curling around prey. "You will watch them more closely. But not with open hostility—that would sharpen their suspicions. Instead, you will redirect them. Feed them paths that seem promising but end in nothing. Bury their time in false leads, misdirected clues, fabricated ’thin places’ that hold no truth."

She listened, committing every word to memory. "And if they grow too close despite the distraction?"

"Then you will cut the thread entirely," Chaos said, the weight of the phrase settling like stone in her chest. "Permanently, if needed."

Hera’s fingers curled against the armrest. "You presume much, to think I will destroy my own kin without question."

"Presume?" Chaos’s presence swelled, towering though it had no form. "I do not presume, Hera. I remember. You stood at the dawn of order beside me, when even the Fates bent to my hand. You swore you would see Olympus perfected, no matter the cost. This is that cost."

Her lips pressed into a thin line. Yes, she remembered the bargain. She remembered the visions Chaos had shown her—an Olympus without rebellion, without weakness, without the chaos of petty mortal-like squabbles between gods. A perfect reign, eternal and unchallenged. And she remembered the price: her will, in service to something older and colder than time.

"They are resourceful," Hera admitted at last, "but their unity is brittle. I can use that."

The shadows pulsed faintly, approving. "Then begin. Hermes hungers for secrets—drown him in them until he chokes. Aphrodite’s pride will push her into visible moves; make them too visible. And Ares... feed his hunger for conflict until it consumes his caution."

The words slid into her like a blade between ribs—not painful, but impossible to ignore. "And when they have scattered themselves?"

"Then," Chaos murmured, "we finish what we began."

For a long moment, Hera stared at the braziers, their flames bowing toward the shadow rather than the draft. She had ruled alongside Zeus for an eternity, had fought for every scrap of dignity in the court of gods. And yet here she was, taking orders from the darkness behind creation itself.

But the truth was this: she had chosen this path. And she would see it through.

"What of Zeus?" she asked suddenly. "His freedom from the control was... unexpected. Does he remember?"

"No," Chaos answered at once. "And he must not. His mind is... pliable enough to be steered. You will reinforce the idea that his lapse in memory was due to battle fatigue, nothing more."

"Understood."

The shadows began to recede, but not before the voice came one final time, colder than before. "Hera, hear me. If they breach the weave, they will not only unravel my design—they will unmake the Olympus you crave. All will return to the raw, screaming dark. And this time... you will not be spared."

The air cleared as Chaos withdrew, the braziers’ flames snapping back upright. Hera released the armrest and found her knuckles white from the pressure of her grip.

She stood slowly, walking toward the open colonnade at the edge of the throne room. The morning sun had risen higher, casting its light over the courtyards below, where gods and spirits moved in blissful ignorance. Somewhere among them, Aphrodite smiled her false smiles, Hermes slunk in shadows, and Ares sharpened his warlike edge.

Hera’s jaw tightened. They thought they were the hunters. Soon, they would learn they were the prey.

She turned back into the room, already crafting the first of her traps—whispers placed in the ears of those who would carry them, instructions buried in casual conversation, tasks given to unwitting pawns.

The game had shifted. And she would play it better than anyone.