Page 3 of The Trickster's Heart

“Yes!” Aeëtes sounded close to tears.

“Oh, for the love of the gods. For the love of me,” Hermes griped, sounding exasperated. He went to Aeëtes and pulled him up to his feet. “I’m going to say this as rudely as possible.” Hermes grinned. “Pull yourself together!” He gave Aeëtes a little shake and sat him back down while Aeëtes allowed himself to be maneuvered like a training dummy.

“She’s never taken off like this before! I don’t know where she is or how long she’ll be gone. I know Hecate can take care of herself—”

“You have no idea,” Hermes interrupted, a sly smile on his face that alluded to a more illicit memory. Aeëtes ignored him; he knew that Hermes and Hecate shared a bit of a past, but every immortal had a past with Hermes.

“She can take care of herself,” Aeëtes continued, “but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about her. I don’t know how this works when she disappears.”

Hermes studied Aeëtes, feeling a little perplexed himself. He had no experience with whatever it was that Aeëtes was feeling. It was common for people to come in and out of his life, take what they needed or what he was willing to give, and then leave again. Hermes had never come close to what Aeëtes was describing, this feeling of loss or want, especially with a permanent partner. It was easier that way.

Hermes leaned back against the kitchen counter, his white tunic stretching across his chest. He managed to look positively devious and cherubic at the same time; it was an innate talent.

“She’s going to be fine. It’s Hecate.” Hermes stressed her name. “I promise, she’s taking her time getting her revenge and is going to spend a few days getting wine-drunk with her acolytes, castrating rapists, and adopting stray dogs. Girl stuff.” He winked at Aeëtes and managed to get a smile out of the brooding demigod.

“I suppose you’re right.” Aeëtes’s expression lifted slightly. “You must think I’m insane.”

“Entirely so,” Hermes answered honestly with a shrug. “I’m going to chalk this up to being another human emotion and blame it on the fact that you were raised by mortals.”

It was Aeëtes’s turn to chuckle as he held up his cup in Hermes’s direction. “You say that now, Trickster, but no one falls in love like the gods. Hades talked a big game before Persephone. Thanatos did too.”

“Ha!” Hermes snapped his fingers again, and their cups refilled. “That was because they were bored.”

Aeëtes shook his head slowly, the smile on his face utterly disbelieving. “You really think that Hades and Thanatos were bored?”

“Emotions are for mortals. They’re pointless. You can always pick up more jobs. Look at me.”

“So you admit it. You stay busy instead of ever considering the idea of settling down? You’re honestly telling me that you aren’t looking at me right now, in my desolation,” Aeëtes jested, “and you don’t wonder what it feels like? To care about someone that much? To miss them?”

Hermes feigned a shocked expression, but a very real anxiety came to life in his chest as he struggled to keep his tone playful.

“And you call me a trickster! Excellent wordplay, I’ll give you that. Alas, you’re wrong, young man.” He held his hands out as his scepter reappeared and his helmet settled atop his curls. “No one could ever keep up with me.”

The wings on Hermes’s sandals and helmet fluttered rapidly as if to prove his point, and without another word, Hermes vanished from the kitchen.

2

Before Hercules was a man, a myth, and a legend—he was just a man.

A man who cared deeply about his family and loved ones, and who would stop at nothing to see justice doled out on their behalf.

In the months that followed Apollo’s attack on the mortal population of Greece, the gods prided themselves on how quickly they restored order.

There were thousands of men and women who felt differently.

Hercules was one of them.

In the height of the chaos, Alcmene, Hercules’s mother, was killed in the melee. Hercules wasn’t able to save her. He watched in disdain as the pantheon threw feasts in their own honor in the ashes and aftermath. In that moment, he realized the gods weren’t any different from men. They drank, stole, cheated, and fucked, and they did it all while admiring their own reflections in polished limestone and marble.

There was a vacant spot on the Olympian’s roster—a true people’s champion. So Hercules set himself to task and decided his only option was to become a god. He repeated it to himself day and night, until he lived and breathed it. It consumed him. When he closed his eyes at night, the only thing he’d see was his mother’s face, telling him that immortality was his birthright.

It wasn’t, not really.

Until Hercules decided it was. He had a dogged determination about him. When Hercules decided he wanted something, he wouldn’t stop until he got it.

There were a limited number of ways to become a god. In fact, there was really one option—immortality had to be freely given by someone who already possessed such a gift. Even then, that would turn Hercules into a demigod at best, but that could be enough. He had seen suffering that no mortal should be able to come back from—all because Apollo’s pride had been wounded.

Prior to the loss of his mother, Hercules’s life had been fairly simple. When it was apparent that Alcmene was pregnant, she was forced out of the small village that had been her home all her life. There was no man or god who stepped forward to claim the child, and being pregnant out of wedlock meant she was not only forced out of town; she was run out of it.

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