ONE CLICK OF MY LEATHER CLAD BOOT ON THE IVORY FLOOR OF OLYMPUS MADE THE WHOLE COUNCIL FALL SILENT.

“The hell is the meaning of this?” I thundered.

No one squeaked out a single sentence, stiller than the porcelain gargoyles adorning the sunlit gardens.

“The meaning of what, beloved brother?"

Zeus reclined lazily on his throne of gilded gems. Golden locks adorned his grecian, sun kissed face, and those piercing, electric blue eyes shone, bearing a cold severity at the sudden arrival of the Lord of the Underworld in his realm.

My white fingers dangled a piece of painted silk in the air, a dainty wisp of airy fabric.

“What is this?” Hephaestus slowly muttered in a cynical voice.

“A question I should be asking your wife, Hephaestus.”

“Aphrodite, you mean? My wife…?”

Just then, a concoction of glittering diamonds and lustrous pearls breezed past me in a whirl of overbearing perfume as a tall woman delicately swept back her golden hair.

Aphrodite.

Talk of the devil.

“I believe this belongs to you,” I snapped, holding out the sliver of satin to her.

“Why, so it is!” She amusedly looked at it and trilled into another bubble of laughter.

“What have you been up to?” Zeus now demanded of her, descending the steps of his throne as a fervent gleam shone with anger in his face. The King of gods approached her with measured caution, yet his fury was clear in the set of his eyebrows.

“Well,” she threw back her head and laughed. “You refused to marry your daughter to Hades, so I spent the day killing lovers over the world and sending them to the Underworld! More work for Hades and so much fun for me! I even wrapped them with a token of appreciation, you know,” she murmured in a high thrill, and waved the thin strip of satin at me.

A maniacal laugh lit up her lips and she went off into perilous giggling again, wiping the blood off her sharp knife, inciting me to greater anger than ever.

“She brought the whole Underworld to a standstill with her insane antics, Zeus!”

“But-”

“-just because I refuse to marry your daughter doesn't mean that you send insane goddesses to send even more dead people that my Kingdom! How the fuck am I supposed to rule when I have a couple of dead spirits popping up every damn minute?”

“Isn't it better? You have more subjects to rule over!” Poseidon merrily swung around his seat, sending splatters of joyful rain drizzles to the ceiling.

I resisted the urge to throttle him.

“I don't think you even understand how the Underworld works, brother.”

“You should have just married my daughter in the first place. None of this would have ever occurred,” Zeus suggested lewdly, his gaze a storm blaze.

“Of course,” I spat bitterly. “You're going to educate me in the joys of marital life now, isn't it? I can very well see how joyful your own is,” my tone was harsher than weathered rock.

Silence cloaked the entire room like a heavy cape at the extent of my fervent outburst.

“Right your wrongs, Aphrodite,” Zeus ordered.

“I won't,” she tipped a glass of golden ambrosia down her slender throat and aligned her lips to the sweetest of smiles. Her light blue eyes descended on mine. “You better change your mind about marriage, my Lord. Or prepare yourself for worse,” she tinkled, sweeping back her lustrous mane and kissing the blade of her knife before vanishing.

A bevy of lilac turtle doves fluttered in the wake of her shadows.

“Hypocrites,” I spat at Zeus, fit to bursting into vehement anger. “I should never have approached you for justice, brother.”

He stood up, golden jaw twitching in the sunflares, reeling with woven lies spinning in his clever mind.

“I am leaving.”

The messenger hurriedly opened the door, face diluted with pure fear and pale with apprehension. Twice did he fall over himself to make way, and my fingers itched again to press themselves onto living skin, thirsty for death to vent off my anger. He stopped suddenly, frozen like ice, as another figure stepped in through the door.

Her cheekbones were aglow with firelight. Her skin could have burst open, dripping gold nectar into the valleys of spring. Fractured patterns shone in her knucklebones as her amber eyes looked over mine without the slightest tinge of interest.

Demeter, Lady of Harvest, my dear, dear sister.

“Brother,” she cooed with faux pleasantness. “What a delightful pleasure to see you here.”

“The pleasure is all mine, dear sister,” I hissed softly. Bruised knuckles clenched, I walked away, tucking my bitterness in the confines of a dead heart.