CHAPTER 111: HERA COUNTERATTACK (PART 1)

Hermes moved like a shadow down the narrow streets of Athens, the mortal night warm against his skin. The marketplace had long since closed, but the city still breathed—quiet conversations from taverns, the clink of dice on wood, the scent of spiced wine drifting in the air.

He wasn’t here for leisure. His sources in the underworld’s less reputable corners had whispered about a "thin place" between realms, somewhere in the mortal world where divine influence seeped through. If it was real, it could lead him back to whoever had nearly enslaved Zeus.

It was exactly the kind of trail he lived for—half rumor, half danger.

Which was why Hera had chosen it for him.

She’d been careful. No direct contact, no commands. Just an overheard conversation in the palace garden, between two attendants she knew Hermes trusted. Talk of an ancient ruin in the hills outside Athens, a place where "the air bends wrong" and "old words wake the stones."

She had made sure he overheard it without realizing he’d been meant to.

Now, high above in her private chamber on Olympus, Hera’s eyes glimmered in the reflection of a scrying pool as she watched the god of messengers slip through the streets below. The scene in the water shimmered with faint distortions, as if even the magic knew the truth of the place he sought—it was empty of anything but dust and echo.

Perfect.

Hermes paused at the city’s edge, glancing back once before vanishing in a flicker of winged sandals.

The next instant, he was on the hill path, the ruins rising before him—columns broken like rotted teeth, the wind sighing through cracks in the stone. He could feel something here... but it was faint, indistinct. Like the ghost of a melody.

"Too quiet," he murmured. He crouched, brushing his fingers over a carved symbol on the nearest stone. It was old—older than the city, older than even the Titans. The mark shimmered faintly under his touch.

A thrill ran through him. Maybe the whispers had been right.

From the scrying pool, Hera allowed herself a small smile. Hermes would spend hours here, chasing phantoms. The sigils she’d arranged for her agents to etch days earlier had no true power, only enough residual magic to feel authentic to a god’s senses.

She had given him the equivalent of a locked door with no keyhole—a puzzle that led nowhere.

On the hill, Hermes began mapping the carvings, muttering under his breath as he traced the faint glow from one stone to the next. A mortal scholar would have taken years to catalog them. Hermes worked faster, but even for him, this was painstaking.

The trap was already working.

---

Hours passed. The moon slid toward the horizon. Hermes’s satchel was filled with sketches, his head buzzing with half-formed theories. He was certain there was a pattern, but each attempt to fit the pieces together unraveled in his hands.

And the deeper he went, the more convinced he became that the truth was here—buried under layers of deliberate obfuscation.

From her vantage point, Hera tilted her head, watching his frustration grow. She knew the way his mind worked—quick, restless, always needing to know. This site would gnaw at him until he returned, again and again, trying to wring meaning from stone and shadow.

Every hour he spent here was an hour he didn’t spend looking in the places that mattered.

---

Near dawn, Hermes finally stepped back from the carvings, running a hand through his hair. "There’s something here," he said to himself, "I just haven’t seen it yet."

He was already making plans to return.

As he vanished into the wind, Hera let the water in the scrying pool still. She had other threads to weave today—Aphrodite’s vanity to exploit, Ares’s hunger for war to inflame—but for now, the messenger god was chasing ghosts.

She rose, moving to the colonnade where the first light of day spilled over Olympus. Her lips curved faintly. Chaos had been right—the three were clever, but cleverness could be turned inward, tangled into its own knots.

And Hera knew exactly how to pull those threads tighter.

---

Far below, Hermes reappeared in the sanctuary where Ares and Aphrodite were waiting. His expression was alight with that dangerous mix of exhaustion and excitement.

"I found something," he said without preamble. "Old magic, older than the gods. A breach point between realms, hidden in ruins near Athens. If we can unlock it—"

Ares snorted. "If."

Hermes’s grin didn’t falter. "I’ve mapped some of it already. It’s not random. I think the carvings are coordinates—or maybe a key. Could be a way to trace where the control came from."

Aphrodite leaned back, studying him with cool, appraising eyes. "And how sure are you this isn’t a wild goose chase?"

"Not sure enough to walk away," Hermes replied.

Which, Hera thought from her high seat on Olympus, was exactly the answer she’d been counting on.

---

The gardens of Olympus shimmered under the noon light, petals of every hue bowing in the warm breeze. Aphrodite sat at the marble edge of a fountain, dipping her fingers lazily into the water as she thought over Hermes’s breathless report from the night before.

It sounded promising—old magic, hidden ruins—but something in her refused to commit yet. Hermes was brilliant but impulsive; half of his discoveries came wrapped in dead ends.

She didn’t notice the faint ripple that passed through the water.

Hera did.

From her vantage in the shadowed walkway, Hera approached with the slow grace of someone who had already decided the conversation’s direction. Her gown whispered over the flagstones, gold threads glinting like captured sunlight.

"You’ve been busy," she said, voice warm in a way that made it impossible to tell if it was genuine or calculated.

Aphrodite looked up, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Have I?"

"Hermes has been flitting about the mortal realm like a moth after firelight. Ares is sharpening weapons in secret. And you... well." Hera’s gaze flicked over her in a way that felt like both appraisal and challenge. "You’ve been waiting. Curious."

"I’m cautious," Aphrodite said. "It’s not the same thing."

"Caution is admirable," Hera replied smoothly, "but it can also make you miss opportunities. You were always the one who could move unseen through the politics of the heart. If something—or someone—is moving against the gods, surely they would leave ripples where passion runs deepest."

Aphrodite’s brow furrowed. "You think love will betray them?"

"I think," Hera said, stepping closer, "that it already has."

---

The hook was set.

Hera drew a small object from the folds of her gown—a silver locket, delicate as spun moonlight. Inside, Aphrodite saw an image: a mortal man and woman embracing on the deck of a ship, their features strikingly clear. But it wasn’t the romance that drew her attention—it was the faint shimmer in the air around them. Divine energy, subtle and wrong.

"Do you know them?" Hera asked.

Aphrodite shook her head slowly. "Mortals, yes, but touched by something. Who are they?"

"Merchants from the southern isles. Their names don’t matter. What matters is that they carry an influence with them—one I cannot trace. They’ve begun gathering others. A quiet... movement." Hera closed the locket with a click. "And wherever they pass, small shrines to the gods are abandoned. Devotion wanes."

Aphrodite’s jaw tightened. The loss of worship weakened them all, but for her—whose power was fed by desire and devotion—it was personal.

"You’re saying someone is replacing us," she murmured.

"I’m saying," Hera replied softly, "that love itself is being rewritten. And if you want to see who holds the pen... you’ll need to follow this couple. Alone."

Aphrodite’s gaze sharpened. "Why alone?"

"Because," Hera said, her voice low and almost conspiratorial, "whoever is behind this will scatter if they sense more than one god’s presence. But you—" her eyes glinted, "—you can move as if you are merely curious. A goddess visiting her mortal admirers. No suspicion. No alarm."

It was a perfect bait: an appeal to Aphrodite’s pride, her personal stake, and her desire to act independently of Ares and Hermes.

---

That evening, Aphrodite left the sanctuary without telling the others. She wore mortal garb—simple, elegant—and let her divinity dim to a faint hum that mortals would mistake for beauty alone. The locket was warm in her palm, guiding her toward the southern docks where the merchant couple had last been seen.

She told herself this was necessary. That she wasn’t abandoning the group’s plan, just... branching it.

The docks were alive with sound and motion. Lantern light rippled over the water. Merchants hawked goods from distant lands, sailors shouted to one another across the decks.

Aphrodite spotted them easily. The man’s hand rested at the woman’s waist, and they laughed together with the kind of effortless intimacy that drew eyes without trying. But beneath it, Aphrodite could sense it—the same faint, wrong resonance from the locket.

She followed them through the winding alleys, her steps silent, until they reached a small tavern tucked away from the busier streets. Inside, the air was warm with spice and smoke. The couple moved to a corner table, speaking quietly with another figure—hooded, face obscured.

When the hooded one leaned forward, Aphrodite caught a flicker of light in their eyes—not mortal, but not a god’s either.

She was just starting to weave her way closer when the tavern door slammed open and a drunken brawl spilled inside, breaking her line of sight.

By the time she pushed past the chaos, the couple was gone.

---

In Olympus, Hera closed her scrying pool, satisfaction curling through her. Aphrodite would chase this trail across islands and ports, burning days—perhaps weeks—on a path that led only to actors she herself had placed.

And the more invested she became, the harder it would be for her to admit there was no true threat here.

Chaos’s voice coiled through Hera’s mind like smoke. They will exhaust themselves on shadows.

"Yes," Hera murmured, watching the sun sink beyond the horizon. "And when they are spent, they will have nothing left to resist with."