Page 12 of Aïdes the Unseen
He shrugged, a quiet roll of thick shoulders. “They’re not built for me.”
“Maybe they should be.”
He huffed. “You’re kind.”
“No,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I’m observant.” At the echo of his earlier words, Hermes grinned.
The god of the forge, however, gave me a look like he was testing whether to believe that. Then, after a long moment, he said, “I like the quiet in your voice. Most gods talk like they’re echoing their own names.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me,” he said, smiling faintly. “When I was younger.”
I glanced across the field. Apollo was still playing, but slower now. His music curved in on itself, introspective. Dionysus had vanished somewhere into the dark with a trail of followers. The revelry had dipped into that strange lull that comes before either sleep or something sharper.
“I used to think quiet was emptiness,” I said. “But now I think it just needs time to settle.”
“That sounds like something Hades would say,” Hermes chimed in from his spot, spinning an olive pit between two fingers. At my glance, he winked, all teeth. “Don’t worry. I’m only listening with half an ear.”
Hephaestus chuckled once—a dry, warm sound—and leaned forward to stoke the fire in front of us with the end of hishammer, which he’d tucked at his side like most people would carry a satchel.
“I’ve never seen you outside of spring,” he said.
“This is what they want me to be,” I answered. “Bright. Blooming. Harmless.” Spring would come soon, this was the harvest. In the misty dawn of another sunrise or two, it would be my time again.
“Are you not?” The soot-streaked man studied me.
I didn’t answer. The peace between us felt too good to disturb it with the troubling direction of my thoughts. Then the fire nearest us flared too high, too fast. Hermes straightened. Hephaestus turned his head.
The drums had stopped. A ripple passed through the field, one of those shifts that lives in instinct, not sight. Even the dryads paused.
I smelled metal before I saw him, all iron and blood, leather and heat. Ares stepped from the smoke like a storm made flesh. No armor. Just skin. Just strength. He scanned the crowd, choosing where to start.
Conversations died in his wake.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t acknowledge anyone. His eyes passed over Hermes, skipped Apollo, paused—briefly—on me. Then lingered on Hephaestus. The hush wasn’t reverent. It was braced. Hephaestus didn’t flinch. He sat tall, hands still folded around his cup.
Hermes gave a low whistle. “Well. Now it’s a party.”
I looked to Hephaestus. “Will there be trouble?”
He didn’t answer. Just stared into the fire and said, “That depends on who he came for.”
I rose to greet him because not doing so would’ve felt like a challenge.
“Ares,” I said, folding my hands before me. “The revel burns brighter now.”
He stopped just shy of the fire’s glow, his chest rising slow and deliberate. His eyes were the color of polished war bronze, and when they locked on mine, I felt them not just on my skin—but beneath it.
“Kore,” he said, not smiling. “You wear spring like a veil. Does it ever feel like armor?”
I didn’t answer. Not with words. I let the stillness in me speak.
He turned his gaze then, slowly, toward the silent god of the forge sitting next to me.The air drew tighter, as though the night itself had taken a breath it didn’t want to release.
Hephaestus didn’t stand. He didn’t move. He just looked up at the god of war with something that wasn’t fear but wasn’t peace either. A kind of resigned steadiness, like a mountain knowing the storm has come.
To his credit, the god of messengers, thieves, and cunning didn’t vanish or interrupt. Not yet. But I could feel his presence lean slightly forward, his grin sharpened into readiness.
