Hera remained still until they were gone, the sound of the doors echoing like the closing of a judgment she had not yet faced.
Only then did she allow herself to breathe—and with it came a whisper of something she did not want to name.
Regret.
It coiled in her chest like an uninvited serpent, winding between her ribs, tightening with each heartbeat. She told herself it was foolishness. That she had acted as she always had—calculated, decisive, without hesitation. Yet the silence of the throne room seemed to disagree. It pressed against her ears, heavy, oppressive, as if the marble itself disapproved.
The echo of her own decisions lingered in her mind. Zeus had looked at her with suspicion in his eyes, yes, but also something far worse—clarity. Poseidon had said little, but his silence was never empty; it was the kind that came before the wave broke, when the sea pulled back and left the shore bare.
