The Master Strategist

Love

I never used to understand the deep chains of romance that Aphrodite talked about.

My father certainly never felt it for anybody, not even dear Queen Electra.

Hera I believe...felt it once. Before I was born.

Apollo has it, always has. Artemis doesn't feel that way, and that's okay.

Aphrodite seemed more physical than emotional in the romantic sense.

I never understood the love tragedies, the heroes who would do anything to get their "true love" back.

I do now. I'd do anything to hear her voice, feel her fingers in my hair, anything of her.

Alithia. Alithia. Alithia.

Her name rings in my head with each step.

She isn't dead. That I know. I would feel it, literally. I get a feeling each time there is a new soul to collect.

Alithia would laugh.

All I see is a ghost of her everywhere I am.

In the war room, in Olympus, running at super speed.

I've asked everyone, every ally of Hera or Hades I can. But they either don't know or have been enchanted not to remember.

I suspect Hera more. She does more of the spells. Hades usually only leaves corpses.

Alithia. Alithia. Alithia.

She's mortal. She dies and the last I'll ever see of her is her riding Charon's boat.

I'm angry. Angry at everyone, for dragging her into this.

Heron, Hades, Athena, Alexia, Serephim, Hera.

And I want to be upset with her, just a little. But how can I? She didn't do anything wrong. She didn't choose a side in our war.

But the gods love to take what they don't have.

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Athena suggested it.

The war with Hades had only just started, with barely the first battle over, a draw.

But a draw makes it sound easy. It was a blood bath. So many dead, so many souls to ferry...and no place to go.

At Hades's declare of war, the gods had dictated he would get no more souls. Which meant they were kept at the banks of the River Styx, left only as Wraiths.

I took Alithia there to see them once. She was amazed and horrified. She asked me how I could leave them here. She gave up much money to have them cross but there were too many who came with no toll, and no kingdom in the world had enough money for them.

So we had many problems. Souls with no place to rest, Hades and his army of the undead and Seraphim, the power vacuum we were suffering from with Zeus's--my father's--death, and what to do about the neutral gods who refused to intervene.

Athena and Ares both agreed they would not be allowed to stay that way.

But at this time, we spoke of strategy.

"Hades had us out-everything; numbers, matched, supplied. But where they truly beat us was strategy."

"Hades had a way to counteract every move we made. Because he thought about every move we could or have the chance of making, no matter how small."

"None of us, even I or Ares, have the strategic mind to battle against him."

"Aren't you literally the god of strategy?" Evios asked.