Moonlight slipped through the half-drawn curtains, silvering the edge of a wooden crib.
Hecate stood over the crib, silent, unmoving.
Her torches hovered in the corners of the room, casting long, flickering shadows across the walls. In their light, her expression softened, here she was no longer the veiled Goddess 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 may 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 Goddess. One of Olympus' many forgotten supports. Hecate continued on: how the 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."
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."
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. Too much risk. Too many gods using them as pawns before they can even walk."
Hecate remembered when that divine law came into being. The greatest mortal war to ever rage across the globe had been waged by the children of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. A War of pride and ego, yet instead of taking responsibility, instead of promising to not use his own children as pawns Zeus did what he always did, cast blame elsewhere. Scorning Hades.
Understanding both Olympus and minor gods would worry about another such war Zeus ordered that the three brothers may no longer have children. 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, it would be a spawn of Hades.
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.
She leaned close, her words threading themselves into the air like a spell.
"Forgive me."
The baby stirred.
Lucas' onyx eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused but they met hers. And she smiled.
Then, slowly, she rose. Power gathered at her feet like a tide of moonlight.
Mist swirled around her ankles, rising higher, curling like smoke with a mind of its own. It thickened, glimmering silver and violet, until she was little more than a shape within it.
And then.
Gone.
The mist unraveled into silence. The torches faded.
But while she had vanished, something remained.
A single black hellebore lay on the blanket beside Lucas. It's dark petals shimmered faintly, as if kissed by starlight.
Steven stepped forward, drawn by the impossible flower. He didn't touch it.
He only stared.
It was not a gift.
It was a promise.
A farewell.
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.