The Garden of Eden.
How could I even begin to describe it? Words felt brittle in my mouth, hollow things compared to what spread before me.
The air itself shimmered with a fragrance that could not belong to this world—a mixture of wisteria, rain-soaked earth, and something older, something primordial that made my chest tighten. The light was different here too: softer, not the harsh glare of Helios' chariot or even the pale embrace of Nyx's veil. No, this light breathed. It wrapped itself around the leaves, the water, the soil, the very bones of the place.
And gods, the trees.
Some I recognized—oaks, cypress, apple, olive—but they were taller than any tree that had stood on the earth in centuries. And others… Others belonged only to memory and fossils. Towering ferns, colossal cycads, flowers that glowed with an inner fire. The animals moved freely, without fear—aurochs, lions, cranes, wolves—all mingling as if the divisions of predator and prey had been set aside in this sacred place.
For once, even I was silenced.
My boots whispered over a narrow stone path winding through groves of color so brilliant they seemed painted. At the end of it, beneath the cascading purple of a great wisteria, stood a table carved from alabaster. Two chairs faced each other. And in one of them sat the being I had come for.
Yahweh.
Her white hair, braided over her shoulder, caught the light like threads of the moon. She wore a simple dress—white, yes, but not ostentatious, flowing like river mist. A cup of tea rested in her hand. She didn't glance up until I drew close, but when she did, her eyes—pale as dawn—seemed to pierce me straight through.
"Lord Hades," she said, her voice carrying like a soft bell through the garden. "It has been too long."
I inclined my head and slid into the chair opposite her. "Far too long. Though I cannot say I expected our reunion to be here."
"Few are invited past the walls," she said, lifting her cup to her lips. "Consider it a courtesy."
The corner of my mouth twitched. Courtesy, from Yahweh, was a rare gift indeed. I folded my hands over the table. "Then I thank you for it. It is… beautiful here."
"I know," she replied simply, as though beauty were a fact, not a boast. Then she tilted her head. "How was your journey?"
"Uneventful, until I reached Mesopotamia." My voice sharpened without meaning to. "The battlefield stretched for leagues. Gods dead—Sumerian, Semitic, fallen where they stood. Their corpses rot in plain sight, mountains of divinity unburied. Tell me, Yahweh, what happened?"
Her eyes flickered down, the smallest shadow passing her expression. "War. As it always has been, as it always shall be. You should not dwell on it. That is not why you came."
She was deflecting, but I let it lie for now. I had not flown across the world to wring secrets from her that she would not give.
"Very well." I leaned back in my chair. "Then let us speak of why I am here. Prometheus sent me."
At that, her lips curved faintly, though it wasn't quite a smile. "Prometheus. Of course."
"You took Adam and Eve from his workshop long ago," I reminded her. "He still hasn't forgiven you."
"Forgiveness is his burden to carry, not mine." She placed her cup down, eyes glinting. "But tell me, what troubles him now?"
"The mortals." My tone grew heavy, the weight of Olympus' council still fresh in my mind. "They do not last longer than a month. Their bodies crumble, their lives flicker out. Something is wrong with the clay."
Her brow arched. "Clay?"
I nodded. "Primordial clay. Prometheus swears it is not the material at fault. He says something is missing. Something that should sustain them. He asked me to come here, to you, for insight."
Yahweh's fingers tapped against the porcelain cup, a slow, thoughtful rhythm. "Tell me, Hades. When he shaped them—when he molded flesh from clay—did he fire it?"
I frowned. "I believe so. He has a furnace in his workshop. Every body he crafts is placed within, hardened before he breathes life into them."
"Ah." A note of disapproval crept into her tone. "And the fire he uses?"
"A simple flame," I answered. "Lit fresh each day. A normal fire."
Yahweh sighed, shaking her head. "Then no wonder. A mortal flame burns down before its vessel reaches the span of true life. A month, perhaps, before the body collapses. What he needs…" She trailed off, eyes distant, then snapped back to me with piercing clarity. "What he needs is an eternal flame."
The words struck me like a bident to the chest.
"An eternal flame?" I repeated, though my mind was already racing.
"Yes," she said calmly, lifting her cup again. "Every pantheon has one. Mine burns in Heaven, and always has. It sustains my angels, my world, my creations. Without it, they would wither as your mortals now do."
Her eyes lingered on me, sharp, knowing. "And surely Olympus, too, has such a flame?"
My breath caught. The image flashed into my mind with sudden clarity: the heart of Olympus, where a fire burned that never dimmed, never faltered. The hearth at the center of it all, tended by Hestia herself.
Of course.
The Eternal Flame of Olympus.
I felt the realization ripple through me, a chill and a heat all at once. "Hestia…" I murmured. "Her flame. It has always burned, never seen it go out."
That's when it clicked, Prometheus' theft—the fire he had stolen from Olympus—it was not simply to help the mortals survive the dark. It was to give their souls a spark, to grant them a longer life span.
I sat in silence, staring down at the cup of tea that had appeared before me at some point. My fingers closed around it, grounding myself. For the first time since I had entered the Garden, the beauty around me felt almost suffocating.
"So this was the truth all along," I muttered. "Prometheus thought he could shape life from clay, breathe life into it, but without the eternal flame…"
"They are but husks," Yahweh said. "Brief flickers in the wind."
I drank from the tea, bitter and sweet at once.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The Garden whispered around us, leaves rustling in an eternal breeze. Somewhere in the distance, a bird sang a song I did not recognize.
At last, I set the cup down. "Then it seems I must return to Olympus with this knowledge. And somehow convince my siblings that allowing Prometheus access to Hestia's flame is in everyone's best interest."
"Zeus will not like it," Yahweh said mildly.
"When has Zeus ever liked anything that did not serve him directly?" I snorted.
Her lips curved again, faintly amused. "You have not changed, Hades."
"Nor have you," I replied.
But as I looked at her across the alabaster table, the wisteria petals drifting down around us, I wondered—not for the first time—how many games Yahweh was still playing. And whether I was a piece on her board.
I finished my tea slowly, letting the warmth linger in my throat as silence settled between us. Yahweh had a way of stretching silence until it pressed on your chest like a stone. For a while, I simply sat there, studying the wisteria petals that drifted down from the great tree overhead, trying to decide if I should thank her and leave before she found a way to twist me into some subtle bargain.
But Yahweh surprised me.
Her pale eyes softened, distant for a moment, and then she spoke, her tone less divine decree and more… weary mother.
"Samuel is trying my patience again."
I blinked, caught off guard. "Samuel?"
"One of my sons," she clarified. "He's been restless—rebellious. Testing boundaries. I thought he might grow out of it, but he only grows bolder." She sighed, swirling what little tea remained in her cup. "Sometimes I wonder if he resents me for keeping him so close to Heaven. Perhaps I sheltered him too much."
I leaned back in my chair, studying her carefully. Yahweh rarely revealed cracks in her marble façade. "Children chafe when they have no purpose," I said finally. "Perhaps what he needs isn't discipline, but direction. Something to do. Something that matters."
Her lips pursed slightly, thoughtful. "You think I should give him responsibility?"
"Responsibility," I confirmed, "or at least the illusion of it. Even a god—especially a god—wants to feel useful. If you bind him with nothing but expectation and obedience, he will gnaw at his chains until he breaks them."
Yahweh tilted her head, considering me as though she were seeing something new. "You speak as if you've dealt with such matters yourself."
I gave a humorless smile. "I have. The dead are not children, but they behave the same if you leave them restless. Purpose holds everything together. Without it…" I trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the vast, perfect garden around us. "Without it, there is only rebellion, or rot."
She nodded slowly, then drained her cup with the calm grace of one who never spilled a drop. "Perhaps you are right."
For a while, neither of us spoke again. My mind circled the battlefield I had crossed on the way here—the ruined forms of Semitic gods lying sprawled in the dirt beside Sumerian ones, the smell of their corpses clinging still to my cloak. I wanted to ask her about it. I wanted to demand answers. But to press her too directly…
I was weighing how to slip the matter into conversation when she saved me the trouble.
Her sigh was heavier this time, the sound of a woman exhaling centuries of memory. She placed her empty cup down, turning it slowly in her hands as if it were a mirror.
"Hades," she said softly, "I know what lies on your mind. The fallen. The gods who rot in the desert."
My eyes sharpened. "You know what happened to them."
"Yes." Her fingers traced the rim of the porcelain cup, over and over. "Because once… long ago… I was one of them."
The words hung in the air, impossible. I stared at her, sure I'd misheard. "You were—"
"A goddess of the Semitic pantheon," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Storms and war. That was what I embodied. Rain and thunder, blood and iron. My people revered me, feared me. And I—" She stopped, pressing her lips together, fighting something inside herself. "I loved them, in my way. I was theirs."
I leaned forward, my pulse hammering. "What changed?"
Her pale eyes flicked up to mine, haunted. "The whispers."
A chill slid down my spine.
"I don't know when they began. At first, I thought them dreams, or the storm-winds echoing in my head. But they grew stronger. They told me I was greater than my kin. That I was meant to rise above them. That they were shackles holding me back from what I could become." Her voice cracked, just slightly. "I listened. I believed. And in the end… I turned on them. I slaughtered my own pantheon. My family."
The garden felt colder suddenly, though the eternal light still bathed everything in gold. The birds had gone silent.
She stared down at her hands, twisting her fingers together, a rare show of unease. "When the blood dried and I stood alone, the voice returned. It offered me more. Strength, eternity, worship beyond reckoning. All I had to do was… serve. Become its herald."
I didn't realize I had spoken aloud until I heard the words: "The Great Devourer."
Her head jerked up. Her lips parted. And slowly, she nodded.
"Yes," she breathed. "That is what it called itself. The Great Devourer."
She fiddled with her fingers, twisting them until the knuckles went white. "How do you know that name, Hades? Few do. Fewer still live long enough to say it."
I looked away, the shadow of memory rising like bile in my throat. "I've known for some time. I can't tell you how. Not precisely. But the name has been with me for longer than I care to admit."
She studied me for a long, piercing moment, as if trying to peel open my skull and read the truth within. Then she tapped her fingers against the table, restless, anxious—an unusual crack in her divine mask.
"Then you understand," she murmured. "What it means. What it hungers for."
"I understand enough," I said, standing from my chair. The wisteria blossoms fell around me as if trying to hold me in place, but I shook them off. The conversation had grown too heavy, the shadows too deep even for me.
I inclined my head. "Thank you for the tea. And for the truth."
Her mouth opened slightly, as if she wanted to say something more—something urgent, perhaps even desperate. But whatever it was, she swallowed it back.
She only nodded. "Go, then."
And I did.
I stepped into the nearest patch of shadow, and the Garden of Eden vanished behind me.