Chapter One: The Sky Has Ears
I learned two things very early in life.
First: thunder carries farther than you think.
Second: God's have excellent hearing, which makes saying the wrong thing a truly terrible idea.
I was in the council chamber's when it happened—wedged between Athena, who was very committed to not listening, and my older brother Ares, who had the posture of someone hoping this turned into a fight.. Marble columns rose into a ceiling of unmoving clouds, the kind that only shifted when someone truly powerful lost their temper. At the far end of the chamber sat my father on his throne, lightning curled loosely in his hand, like a habit he'd never bothered to break.
I should've kept my mouth shut.
That was the plan.
It just wasn't a good one.
"For someone who claims to rule justice," I said, "you're doing a pretty bad job explaining why a fisherman in Greece got stuck by lightning."
The room went quiet.
Not the normal quiet—the kind that happens when a god is thinking. This was the quiet where everyone else suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be and wished they were already there.
Zeus looked at me.
That was mistake number one.
"You question my judgment," he said, calm enough to make my skin itch.
I shrugged. "I question the logic. There's a difference."
Mistake number two.
I was the youngest son of Zeus and Hera. Full blood. No mortal parent to blame things on. No excuse except the obvious one—that I talked too much and thought too little about who might be listening.
My mother Hera didn't look at me. She never did when she was angry. She stared off to the side, fingers folded in her lap, like a statue that had decided I wasn't worth turning toward.
Athena sighed softly. Ares grinned.
"I'm just saying," I continued, because apparently I'd woken up suicidal, "if the crime is arrogance, maybe we should start punishing gods too."
That did it.
The clouds above the chamber shifted. Lightning crawled along the ceiling, slow and deliberate.
"Enough," Zeus said.
I opened my mouth anyway. I honestly don't know why. Some people have a death wish. I just have bad timing.
"You're afraid," I said. "That's what this is. Humans change. They adapt. And every time they get close to understanding us, we swat them down like insects. That's not order. That's insecurity."
Ares laughed outright.
Hera finally turned.
Her eyes weren't angry. They were worse—tired.
"You sound like a young child," she said.
That stung more than the thunder.
"I am young," I shot back. "Two hundred years isn't ancient. It just feels that way because you've been stuck in the same arguments for millennia."
The word stuck echoed longer than it should have.
Zeus stood.
The sky followed him.
"Alaric," he said, using my full name like a sentence all on its own. "Lord of the Open Sky. You forget your place."
I clenched my fists. Lightning sparked between my fingers, answering instinct instead of command.
"My place," I said carefully, "isn't beneath you."
Silence.
Real silence this time.
Zeus studied me like a storm deciding where to land.
"You will learn," he said at last, "what it means to speak without wisdom."
Hera's voice was softer. "And what it means to live with consequences."
I didn't have time to argue.
The floor dropped away.
Wind tore at me, not violent, not cruel—just final. Olympus vanished above me in a wash of cloud and light, and for the first time since I could remember, the sky wasn't home.
I landed hard.
Not because I was hurt—gods don't bruise easily—but because the world below Olympus doesn't cushion its falls.
I lay flat on the wet asphalt, watching a slice of gray sky trapped between bricks and metal ladders. Rain fell in slow, sharp droplets, tracing icy paths down my face.
I wiped it away and sat up.
"Great," I muttered. "Earth."
The year, I'd later learn, was 2015. At the time, all I knew was that the air smelled wrong and the sky felt crowded. Too many buildings. Too many people. Too many thoughts pressing upward like they expected something to answer.
I stood, brushing dirt from my clothes. Power hummed under my skin, familiar and restless. The sky was still there. Still mine. Just… different.
Cars passed nearby, loud and fast, their lights cutting through the rain. Humans walked by without slowing, without bowing, without noticing me at all.
That was new.
I flexed my fingers. A low roll of thunder answered somewhere above the clouds.
A man across the street flinched and looked up. Someone else cursed about the weather.
No prayers. No fear. No recognition.
I laughed once, sharp and surprised.
"Okay," I said to the empty alley. "I see how this is."
Olympus had taken away my audience.
Not my voice.
I stepped out into the street, rain soaking into my hair, the sky watching quietly from above.
If I was going to live among humans, I'd do it my way.
I just hoped the world could handle it.