Moonlight slipped through the half-drawn curtains, silvering the edge of a wooden crib.
Hecate stood over the crib, silent, unmoving, lost in thought.
Her torches hovered in the corners of the room, casting long, flickering shadows across the walls. In their light, her expression was revealed, one of motherly love. Here she was no longer the feared and respected Titaness of magic, but something far more human.
A mother.
She stayed like that for several heartbeats, long enough that even the torches seemed to dim as if matching her emotions.
Then, as if remembering herself, she stepped away towards the father of her child.
Steven stood in the hallway, eyes rimmed with exhaustion, uncertainty plain on his face as he watched the pair.
Hecate decided to break the silence first, fearing that if she didn't speak now, she might not have the resolve later.
"I told you once that Kate was short for something else, didn't I?" Steven nodded, one brow raised in quiet confusion.
"My true name… is Hecate."
Then, softly but without pause, she explained. Who she truly was. What she was. A Titan. One of Olympus' many forgotten supporters. Hecate continued: how the ancient myths were more than stories, how the Greek pantheon still ruled from the heavens, where mortal eyes could not reach.
Most mortals would have laughed, thought she was joking, or believed her to be crazy.
But Steven smiled.
It threw her.
Before she could speak, he offered the answer she was about to ask for.
"You know, in my line of work, history, mythology, you have to keep an open mind. Seek what's been buried, question what's been twisted. At first, I thought I was being paranoid... but the more time I spent with you," he nodded toward the floating torches, "the more I realized: some truths don't need explaining. They just are. I have long come to accept there was something unique about you."
She blinked.
"Then... Why didn't you ever confront me?"
Steven gave a half-shrug, as if the answer were obvious. "I figured whatever secrets you carried were yours to give. Not mine to demand."
Warmth filled Hecate's chest. This was the man she'd fallen for.
A man who didn't chase answers for power or pride. A man who honored the mystery for what it was.
Not a god.
A man.
Her Man.
"I'm guessing there's more," he said gently, sensing the weight still hanging in the air.
Hecate sighed, a small wry smile ghosting across her lips. A flicker of love passed through her gaze, only for it to drown in guilt.
"I can't stay."
Her voice cracked slightly. Then steadied.
"The divine law forbids it. Olympus does not allow us to raise our mortal children, as it poses too much risk. Too many gods using them as pawns before they can even walk. Dragging them into their parents' grudges before they could even speak."
Hecate remembered when that divine law came into being. The children of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had waged the greatest mortal war to ever rage across the globe. A War of pride and ego, yet instead of taking responsibility, instead of promising not to use his own children as pawns, Zeus did what he always did: cast blame elsewhere, scorning Hades for starting the war and causing Zeus to rely on his children.
Understanding both Olympus and minor gods would worry about another such war, Zeus ordered that the three brothers may no longer have children and to prevent Hades from manipulating any other children cast the law that no immortal may contact their children after birth, not until they reach Camp, where all the gods could keep an eye on them. He passed the law to save face, not lives. Then turned the gods' attention to Apollo's newest prophecy. One that spoke of Olympus' destruction… at the hands of a child of the Big Three, convincing himself, and others, that it would be a spawn of Hades, reinforcing his decisions.
She stepped closer to Steven, and for the first time, her eyes shimmered with shame.
She told him about the Mist, that invisible shroud that separates the divine from the mundane. She spoke of the monsters that would one day be drawn to their son's scent. Of how danger would come with time. And how she would not be able to protect them when it did.
Because even she wasn't strong enough to defy Olympus.
To defy Zeus.
Steven glanced back at the crib, the weight of everything narrowing into a single thought, "You're saying... he's in danger?"
"He will be," she said. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But the Mist cannot hide everything forever."
Then, quieter - barely more than a breath:
"And when they come for him... he must know why I left, why I couldn't be there. Let him remember, even if he doesn't understand it yet."
She moved to the crib once more, kneeling.
"Your mother was not weak," she whispered, voice trembling. "She did not abandon you. The gods made it so."
The torches dimmed, echoing her pain.
She leaned close, her words threading themselves into the air like a spell.
"Forgive me."
The baby stirred.
Lucas's onyx eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused, but they met hers. And she smiled.
Then, slowly, she rose. Power gathered at her feet, making her look like an angel in a whirlpool of moonlight.
Mist swirled around her ankles, rising higher, curling like smoke with a mind of its own. It thickened, glimmering a soft silver and violet, until she was little more than a vague shape within it.
And then.
Gone.
The mist unraveled into silence. The torches faded and disappeared.
But while she had vanished, something remained.
A single black hellebore lay on the blanket beside Lucas. Its dark petals shimmered faintly.
Steven stepped forward, drawn by the flower, but he didn't touch it.
He only stared.
It was not just a gift.
It was a promise.
A farewell.
A symbol of her love.
And an attempt to stay in her family's lives.
His son slept, unaware. But Steven's eyes burned.
He had no divine power. No immortality.
Yet even without them, he would use every moment to protect their child from any danger that may come.
What neither of them knew, what even the gods would not sense for years, was that somewhere, deep within that fragile underdeveloped mind, her words had taken root.
Not as knowledge.
Not yet.
But as a feeling.
A seed.
Planted.
The seed would grow.
One day, it would bloom.