Page 9 of Where Darkness Bloomed
“This will be the greatest conflict mankind has yet known,” Ares finally finished, his voice thick.
Zeus’s expression darkened. “What do the Greeks seek?”
The chamber fell into heavy silence. Ares’s eyes shuttered, his fist tightening subtly around his spear.
“Well?” Zeus’s voice cracked the stillness, louder now, ringing with impatience.
“They seek Helen.”
Hera spoke coolly from her ivory throne, where she sat statuesque and remote, as if carved from marble. The queen of Olympus fixed her eyes on Aphrodite, her gaze sharp as cut glass.
“Sparta’s queen was recklessly promised to Paris of Troy by Aphrodite,” she said, “in exchange for a golden apple plucked from the Hesperides’ grove.”
Across the dais, Aphrodite’s serene composure wavered, all languor slipping away. Ire sparked in her teal gaze as she snapped, “You offered Parisall of Greece, the very throne of Agamemnon. And you dare blamemefor starting this war?”
Hera’s high cheekbones flushed, a crack in her stoic mask. “My gift was not chosen,” she bit out. “Yours was.”
Aphrodite’s lips parted with another retort, but a different voice cut through the growing storm.
“The Greeks have chosen unwisely.” Apollo rose, his golden armor blazing fiercely in the firelight. His voice was smooth, but the words simmered with warning. “Troy stands under my protection. Its people are devout, my altars there ever-burning.” A pause. “As are Poseidon’s.”
A low rumble answered him.
From his throne of glistening abalone, Poseidon leaned forward. “You may speak for yourself, Apollo.” His voice crashed like deep waves. “Troy wronged me long ago under Laomedon’s reign. His son, Priam, will find no ally in me.”
Still standing, Ares gave a faint, sardonic smile. “The Greeks outstrip Troy in men and ships. If Troy is to survive, it will need an ally in someone,” he remarked dryly.
Apollo’s gaze sharpened. He turned to Zeus, his expression drawn tight. “This pantheon must intervene.” His voice rang through the chamber. “Will we sit idle while the Greeks raze a city consecrated in Olympus’s name—an entire kingdom lost to the pride of kings and our own quarrels?”
The words had barely settled when a new voice, low and masculine, sliced cleanly through the rising tension.
“The slaughter will be endless if we do.”
Kore’s eyes snapped toward the obsidian throne.
There, Hades leaned forward, forearms braced against his knees, fingers idly rotating the black-stone bident between them. Firelight danced off the prongs, glinting darkly. But there was nothing idle in his gaze.
His deep voice rolled through the hall like thunder rising from the earth’s depths. “The mortals’ conflict is their own. Our interference will only deepen the bloodshed and invite discord among ourselves. We should leave them to their course.”
A hush descended.
Apollo’s golden gaze found him, frustration burning hotly across his features. “You speak with great authority, uncle,” he retorted, tone biting. “Has there been much warfare of late in the Underworld?”
The bident stilled. A breath of silence passed.
Kore felt it before she saw it, the tremor beneath the surface. Shadows clung tighter to the marble alcoves, the firelight flickering lower.
Hades’s gaze lifted, finding Apollo. His eyes glinted like embers in the dark, but he did not move. Only offered the faint arch of his brow.
“Careful, lord of the sun,” the dark god replied, his voice softer now. Dangerous. “I held a spear long before your name was ever spoken.”
Apollo bristled. A golden bow shimmered into his grasp, its string taut, gleaming. His fingers twitched toward it, the promise of violence rising in his eyes.
The silence grew heavy, oppressive. Tension crackled in the air, power coiling between them. No one in the hall moved as the suffocating moment stretched.
Then Hades rose.
He moved with unhurried, purposeful grace. Broad shoulders rolled faintly beneath his dark mantle, steeped in silent strength. The firelight barely seemed to touch him. When he turned to face Apollo, it was like a mountain shifting its gaze—immovable, eternal.
