Chapter 222: Chapter 66
Underworld, City of Nox.
Bone Appetit, the crown jewel of the underworld’s fine dining, gleamed with subtle opulence even in its private rooms.
Black crystal lanterns gave off a soft glow, their light reflecting off polished obsidian walls carved with intricate scenes of myth and memory.
It was a place designed to impress not through grandeur, but through an elegance that even the dead could envy, a restaurant so refined that Aphrodite herself had given her personal certification.
The irony was not lost on Hades, as he now sat across from Hera in one of its secluded chambers, their table draped in black silk, with gold utensils and dishes steaming with delicacies rare even for gods.
This was not his idea.
He would not have chosen this path, not when he himself had yet to understand what it truly meant to love Aphrodite, or anyone for that matter.
He had promised her, though.
Promised that he would give Hera and Hecate their chances as well. Still, as he sat there, wine untouched, his silver hair catching the soft lantern glow, Hades could not help but feel that all of this was exhausting.
Who knew that love—this supposedly wondrous thing mortals and immortals alike sang endlessly about—could be so tiring, so heavy and so complicated?
He had faced wars, rebellions, betrayals, and even the endless cries of the dead, yet none of it drained him quite like this did.
Hera, composed as ever despite the storm she had been drowning in since the rumors of his union with Aphrodite spread, lifted her glass to her lips.
Her golden eyes shimmered faintly as she sipped, her gaze never leaving him.
Finally, she placed the glass down with deliberate calm and asked, her voice measured but carrying an undertone of tension, "Tell me, Hades... what does it feel like, being with Aphrodite?"
Hades did not look away, though her words pressed heavily on him.
He thought for a long moment, his fingers lightly drumming against the table, before answering with the same truth he had always wielded in place of pleasantries.
"I do not know yet," he said evenly. "She speaks of love as if it is the simplest and most natural thing, but I am still... learning. What I feel when I am with her, I cannot name with certainty. Perhaps it is love, perhaps it is something else. For now, I only know that it is different."
Hera tilted her head slightly, her lips tightening, though she kept her tone calm as she continued. "Then tell me this. How is being with her different from being with me... or with Hecate?"
Her words lingered in the air, deliberate, heavy, meant to press him to the very heart of the matter.
Hades leaned back, closing his eyes for a breath before answering. He knew that evasion would be an insult, and Hera deserved honesty, even if it cut deep.
"With Aphrodite," he began slowly, his voice carrying the weight of reflection, "I feel as though I can let go. She pulls me away from duty, from burdens, from the constant calculations of ruling this realm. When I am with her, I can forget, even if only for a little while. I can live only in the moment she creates, a moment filled with... warmth and laughter."
He paused, opening his eyes again, watching Hera carefully. "It is a dangerous freedom, but also a tempting one."
His gaze shifted, softer now. "With you, Hera... it is different. I value your company because you see as I do, because we share the same drive—to guide, to order, to build something that will last. When I am with you, I know that if I falter, you will correct me. If I err, you will tell me without hesitation. With you, there is security. With you, I can completely act as I pleased, because I know if I ever made a mistake, you are there to help me."
He exhaled, turning his gaze downward briefly before lifting it again. "And with Hecate... I do not need to be a king. I do not need to act as though the world rests on my shoulders. She listens to my complaints. She accepts the darker corners of my thoughts, my doubts, my uncertainties. With her, I can speak without restraint, confide without shame, because she has seen all of me and remained."
The silence that followed was suffocating in its depth.
Hera sat very still, her hands folded neatly on the table, though her nails dug faintly into her palm as she listened to each word.
For Hades, speaking them aloud only underscored the truth he had been avoiding: that what each of them gave him was not the same, and could never be the same, but each was something he could not dismiss.
Hera sat in silence for what felt like a long eternity, her golden eyes shimmering faintly in the dim glow of the obsidian lanterns.
Hades’ words replayed themselves in her mind, one by one, the distinctions he made, the way his tone shifted depending on which of them he spoke about.
She realized, with a heavy, almost painful clarity, that each of them filled a place in him that the others could not.
It was not redundancy, but a necessity.
If Aphrodite had not been there, he would never learn to release himself from his own burdens, never learn to laugh or feel warmth outside the cold chambers of duty.
If Hecate had not been there, he would drown silently in his own thoughts, with no one to hear the truths that even a king cannot admit aloud.
And if she herself were not there, then all of his grand ambitions and endless labor would lack the structure and precision needed to endure through the ages.
Her lips trembled, and she bit them before the feeling could show, but the thought was already lodged deep in her heart: if one of them were missing, Hades would not be the Hades she loved.
He would be reduced to the perfect king, yes, but also a hollow one.
Cold, unfeeling, calculative, a being who would work himself endlessly into the dust of eternity until there was nothing left but the shell of a ruler.
He would never understand his own heart, he would never pause to laugh, and he would never unburden his mind to another.
He would bury himself in his office, in his ledgers, in his endless duty, until even the gods forgot that he was more than the sum of his responsibilities.
Her nails pressed into her palm, and a bitter laugh almost escaped her throat at the irony.
She knew herself. She was possessive to the extreme. If Hades had chosen her first, she would have never allowed Aphrodite to get close to him, never tolerated Hecate lingering in his shadow.
She would have kept him to herself, caged in her love, bound only to her.
That was her nature, the goddess of marriage, the goddess who defined fidelity as a law rather than a choice.
She would not have shared him, not willingly, not even with those two.
And yet, staring at him now, watching the way he looked down at the table as if even he did not fully understand the tangle of his own emotions, she realized something that burned like a cruel truth inside her chest: without Aphrodite and Hecate, he would not be this man.
Without them, she would not love him as he was, because he would not be the Hades she had chosen.
For the briefest moment, Hera felt something strange welling up in her chest, something almost alien to her.
A small, reluctant gratitude.
Aphrodite, that insufferable, reckless goddess who had dared to stake her claim first, had opened the path.
If not for her, Hera might have never realized this, might have stolen the man she loved into a prison of her own making, and in doing so, destroyed what made him worth loving in the first place.
Her eyes softened, but only for a breath. She straightened, gathering herself once more, her pride settling like a mantle across her shoulders.
Then she fixed him with a steady gaze, firm and unyielding, the golden light of her divinity flickering in her pupils as she asked, "If I were to get along with Aphrodite... would you also accept me?"
The question struck Hades harder than he expected. His hand froze above the rim of his untouched wine glass, and for a long moment, silence stretched between them.
He could see how serious she was, how much of herself she had poured into those words, how tightly she was holding herself together even as her domain of marriage strained against the very idea she had just spoken aloud.
He parted his lips, but for the first time in this dinner, words did not come easily. Finally, he exhaled slowly and said the only thing he could.
"I do not know." His voice was quiet, almost reluctant, yet it carried the full weight of honesty. "I do not even know if I have already accepted Aphrodite."
It is true that Hades wanted Aphrodite by his side, and doesn’t want to let her go. But was that really love? Or just mere possessiveness?
The words were knives, not only to her but to himself. Hades was a god of certainty, of order, of absolutes, and yet here he was, implying that his heart was the one thing he could not measure, could not command, could not even understand.
Hera pushed her chair back and stood, the movement smooth but filled with restrained force.
Her robes fell gracefully around her as she looked down at him, her lips pressing together before curving into the faintest shadow of a smile, though her eyes still burned.
"Then we are going to find out." Her voice was steady, not a plea, not a question, but a vow.
She would not run, she would not shatter, and she would not give in to despair. If Aphrodite had made the first move, then Hera would make the second.
She would not retreat.
She turned, the hem of her robe brushing the polished floor as she walked toward the door, her steps firm, her aura controlled, though every stride carried the weight of decision.
Behind her, Hades sat in silence, watching, feeling both relieved and unsettled. For the first time since this all began, he realized something simple and terrifying: this was not just about Aphrodite, or Hera, or Hecate. This was about him, too.
About whether he could even understand what it meant to love, or if he was only a god pretending at it.