Page 118 of Where Darkness Bloomed
“Do you see me hiding?”
Athena didn’t answer. Her gaze was a sword unsheathed, but he met it stone-faced, unmoved.
After a moment, he dismissed her with a slow turn of his broad shoulders. “The forge is my nature,” he said, voice brittle. “Wisdom is yours, and bloodshed is theirs. You’ll find no ally here.”
Athena remained a moment longer, still bristled. Then she vanished, her ire lingering like a bitter aftertaste.
Hephaestus inhaled deeply in the silence, the unspent anger in him slowly settling. He turned from the hearth, dragging a hand through his hair, then—
A sharp jolt lanced through his leg, sudden and deep. He stumbled, a grunt escaping him as familiar agony struck hard.
Cursing softly, he limped to the divan.
But before he could lower himself fully, Aglaia was there. She knelt wordlessly at his side, her hands reaching for him. Concern darkened her gaze, fierce and focused.
Hephaestus stiffened.
The sight of her reaching for his ruined leg—for that broken part of him—struck something raw and instinctive. His hand shot out, shielding his leg from her touch, his teeth gritted against the pain.
“Don’t.” The word was harsh, rough-edged. “Leave it.”
But Aglaia’s eyes met his, flashing with sharp light. “Will you suffer needlessly?” she asked heatedly, brushing his hands away.
Hephaestus opened his mouth to argue, but he choked on the words as she knelt between his spread legs, her hands finding the rigid muscles of his thigh.
The first press of her thumbs was unrelenting, deep pressure that cut through the pain without mercy. A breath hissed through his clenched teeth as the sensation bit deep.
“Damn it,” he rasped, gripping the divan’s edge with white knuckles.
Her hands moved with purpose. Not gentle, not cruel. Precise. She kneaded into the strained muscle, coaxing the pain from its hiding places, unraveling what had been a part of him for longer than his memory could recount.
Ithurt. But beneath, relief stirred.
Firelight spilled over her shoulders, dancing in the silky dark curtain of her hair, casting her in warm gold. She hummed quietly, a soft, lilting melody, and those dark, raw places inside him clenched in response.
He watched her silently, cursing himself for his earlier harshness. For recoiling from the very hands he craved. His eyes traced the smooth curve of her cheek, her dark lashes cast down as she focused on the task.
Slowly, he reached for her, his knuckles grazing her cheekbone—an apology spoken in touch.
She looked up, her eyes now bright, gentle once more. “May I ask you something?”
His throat constricted. Still, he nodded. “Anything,” he croaked.
She paused, her gaze sweeping over his face as if weighing her question. “You do not favor the Greeks,” she said hesitantly. “So then why did you forge Achilles’s armor?”
The question struck hard. A hammer to iron—sudden, blunt.
Memories surged, welling up from deep within. Ancient pain that cut into him more viciously than any weapon ever could.
He watched the fire, its twisting flames echoing his unrest. “Thetis, the sea-nymph,” he began finally, dragging the words up from that harsh place, “is the mother of Achilles.”
Aglaia tilted her head. “I saw her plead before Zeus.”
He nodded once, tightly.
“When Hera hurled me from Olympus, I fell into the Aegean Sea.” The memory burned behind his eyes, vivid as the day it happened though he’d only been a babe. “It was Thetis who found me there.”
Aglaia’s hands stilled.
