The scream hit Zeus like a physical thing.
Not sound. Something deeper. A pulse of pain that traveled through the cracks in reality, through the thinning boundaries between realms, through whatever thread still connected him to the brother he had known for eons.
He was standing at the edge of Heaven's broken plain when it happened. The gathering had dispersed. Athena was organizing her teams. Odin was arguing with someone about anchor points. The healers were still working, still moving, still trying to stitch the world back together.
Zeus stopped walking.
His hand clenched at his side. The chaos around his wrist flickered—once, twice—then stilled.
"Hades."
No one heard him. No one was listening.
He turned. Walked away from the noise, away from the arguments, away from the gods who kept looking at him like he had answers. No one called after him. No one tried to stop him.
