"YOU HAVE CROSSED A LINE THIS TIME, DEMETER."

My knuckles uneasily tightened on the armrest, whitening to a shade of pale bone. A cup of ambrosia sat on a golden pedestal beside me, untouched.

Fifty stairs below my throne, Demeter looked across to me with only despair and death looming in her gaze.

Her hair withered, her lips a deep shade of plum, her eyes fathomless pits of misery.

"What do you stand to gain from this, sister? What does killing so many men in a fit of revenge give you?"

"It gives me something you never could," Demeter spat. "Vengeance."

My jaw tightened, slowly beginning to throb. I could feel the quiet beginnings of a demanding headache starting to form between my brows.

"Revenge is for those who have been wronged."

Demeter's bloodshot eyes snapped at once to meet mine, anger boiling in them.

"You wronged me," she seethed. "You wronged me - you stole my daughter from the safety of my home - and oh - you think I haven't been wronged! You fucking men!" the goddess spat. "You men, with your entitlement and your patriarchal nonsense!"

"She was my daughter too," I said quietly.

"Yes," Demeter screeched. "Yes she was. And you saw fit to give her away to a monster whose sins put the entire world to shame."

"That is not the way of Hades. That is not the way of his world-"

"Of course," her voice was soaked in pungent bitterness. "Of course - because you would know. Because you spend so much time with your brother. And knowing the kind of man you are, Zeus - it would not even take a fool to guess the kind of company you keep!"

Silence. Utter silence.

Miles away, clouds of storm and thunder gathered on the horizon.

Their growl drowned away the cackling of young peacocks just emerging from their well manicured lawns.

The anger rippling in my veins silenced the voice of reason in my head, the voice that had so far been completely unsuccessful in convincing her to stop her fatal plague.

"Do not forget who you are speaking to, Demeter."

She let out a loose bark, malice dripping in that wicked smile of her as she climbed the steps.

"You think I give one fuck, brother?"

"I am the King of Gods first, and your brother second. And you will speak to me with more respect."

The hatred in her eyes - I had never seen such loathing as the one simmering in her eyes.

"I have accorded you the respect of being my sister, Demeter. But you have just crossed a line."

The growl tearing apart my words begin to slowly brew into a tempest, my head throbbing more than ever. Stupid, stupid woman. If only she knew. If only she knew why I had had to make this decision - to save Hades from Aphrodite's wrath, ingenious as she was - far more deadly than this deity of wheat and forest grass.

One step, and then another - and then another. She climbed up the stairs, until our eyes were at one level.

"Go on, then," she croaked. "Go on. Punish me."

A corner of my lips tipped. And as much as I wanted to make her pay for the loss of life, the havoc she caused - it would not do to enrage her further. To endanger more lives in a second outburst of her anger.

"Stop this madness." My only demand.

She shook her head, a figure of stubbornness.

Never.

"Last warning, Demeter. Do not force me to take action, goddess."

She only bored her death gaze into mine.

"Say what you want. Do what you want. I swear to you Zeus - will not stop. Not until I have my daughter back safe. In my arms - not in those of that spawn of the devil. I will get her back - come hell or high water. And if you try to stop me Zeus - I will repay you. I will dry up the rivers of the world and scorch them barren with the flames of my fury. I will send upon my plague to eat out every last bit of nourishment Mother Earth has to offer. I will take and take and take - and nothing else you could ever give me will satiate my lust for revenge."

She turned to go, and that was when I stood up.

Electricity rippled in my veins, sending them boiling. My staff struck the ground thrice, and when the words left my mouth - they were not of this world, but coated in poison and bitter ice.

"You will pay for this, Demeter!"

Her retreating form stopped to look back at me, face dripping with fury.

"Pay how, pray tell me?" she taunted. "You already took away everything that meant everything to me."