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Hestia’s Child
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Providence, Rhode Island – 2006
Even before she understood the true meaning of her name, Kupiter Eriside knew that she was the daughter of a spiteful Goddess.
Her father’s family didn’t share her name. The Goddess had made sure of that, and had made sure that her father told her the full story of her conception in far more gruesome detail than any ten year old girl deserved. Kupiter knew how Eris had seduced her father for a cheap fuck at a strip club while he was out cheating on her stepmom. She knew exactly what that sex had entailed, and the way that it had been flaunted in her stepmom’s face afterward. She knew how her father had beaten her stepmom any time she brought it up, and how he bragged to her older half-siblings, uncles, and cousins at every opportunity: how very proud Markos had been to have bagged a Goddess. That pride had lasted for approximately nine months, until the day that a very smug Primordial had shown up with an infant on his family’s doorstep.
“She will know me,” Eris said coldly to the mortal as Kupiter dozed in her arms, oblivious to her damnation. “Tell her that her mother is the Goddess Eris, Lady Strife, Mistress of Discord. Tell her that I will never answer her prayers, and that if she ever dares to insult me, I will make her suffer beyond her wildest imagination. Make sure she receives an adequate education in Greek and Hellenic mythology. No brat of mine will walk around like an insolent fool. Teach her of the Primordials and the creatures of the Pit, for they are her family, and she will return to us in time.”
“I’m not raising your devilspawn, you filthy bitch,” Markos spat. When he tried to take a swing at her, his breath stinking of alcohol, Eris sidestepped it in amusement and shoved Kupiter into his arms.
“Oh, I know. I know you won’t raise her.” Eris’ red eyes glowed with cruel delight. “That’s what I’m counting on. I look forward to spending eternity with you in Tartarus, mortal. I’m sure all my other mortal lovers will be pleased to have new company.”
And thus Markos had no choice but to take care of his demigod bastard, and Kupiter’s miserable fate had been sealed before she reached her first week of life.
Kupiter’s childhood home was already unstable before she arrived, but the sudden physical manifestation of Markos’ conquests threw a turbulent situation into hostility and abuse. The household, which could have been any household, was loud and perpetually messy – never filthy, but never clean – and crowded to the brim. Aside from Markos’ wife and three sons, they also lived with her stepmom’s aging parents, Markos’ two brothers and their wives, and the two kids of Markos’ older brother. All fourteen of them were crammed into a large suburban house that hadn’t been renovated since the 1970s, with the grandparents receiving the luxury of the guest suite in the garage, leaving everyone else to cram into seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. Each of the three adult couples had a bedroom, and Markos’ three sons had their own bedrooms. The two male cousins shared a room.
Unwanted and unholy, hated by her father and reviled by his Greek Orthodox relatives, whose faith only grew once evidence of Satan materialized on their doorstep, Kupiter was given a lone air mattress and a single set of sheets. Her bed was placed in the unsheltered far corner of the less popular living room, right next to the cages where Markos kept his twin rottweilers.
Sometimes the dogs took the bed, and Kupiter slept in the cage.
It was always loud in the household that did not bear the Eriside name. Kupiter knew that her mortal father had a last name, but her mother had placed a curse on her as a child that made it fuzz over in her memory when others said it to her. No mortal could call her anything but her full proper name, either. She was Kupiter or Eriside, nothing but. Her relatives learned to say Eriside like an interjection.
There was always someone arguing in the kitchen, talking loudly on the phone, kicking on her mattress to wake her in the morning, watching loud television at night when she was trying to sleep. Her living room had a large set of screen doors that opened onto the backyard, and her half-brothers would come in stomping when the dogs started barking, cursing and rattling the screen doors to let them out to piss. Sometimes they’d throw her out of the house to sleep on the porch. It was a small comfort, Kupiter thought, that at least the dogs weren’t treated much better than she was.
By the time Eris was old enough to understand her lot in life, things had already begun to reach a breaking point. She finally snapped and gave into her divine nature for the first time when she was six – the first and only time that a man in Markos’ house tried to sexually abuse her.
One of Markos’ sons had approached her in the living room which she was shimmying into her ragged pajamas.
Before he’d touched her, Kupiter had sensed the malice within him and recoiled, her helpless fear and anger twisting into a violence that no mortal child could have had.
Markos’ household was a swirling maelstrom, a glowing red haze of misery and hatred. Kupiter could see the bonds between her family members like spectral chains, digging their claws into their souls, wrenching and cutting and sawing any time a fight broke out. It all added to the aura, the strife, and Kupiter saw how she held all the chains at her mercy, free for her own manipulation.
She found the ones she needed and pulled.
One of Markos’ brothers had allowed his son to borrow money. Kupiter had watched them fight about it when they thought nobody else was watching. But Kupiter was always watching.
Kupiter’s other uncle owned a gun.
The living room carpet looked glorious in crimson.
Markos had come running down the stairs into the living room, and he had found the scene of a renaissance painting: his son lying dead on the floor, his two brothers holding the smoking gun, and his Eriside daughter watching from the corner, her entire body glowing a hazy red.
Nobody dared to touch her after that.
Things got marginally better for Kupiter after that, though the sight of her uncle’s dead body remained burned in her core memory. Two days after her orchestrated murder, Markos marched into the living room and chucked a book of Greek mythology at her, ordering her to read it. More books were soon to follow. Rather than forcing her to abstain from all family activities, Markos allowed Kupiter to begin eating with the rest of his kin, so long as Kupiter helped with the cleaning and dishes Kupiter was allowed to change in the bathroom rather than the living room. The rottweiler cages were moved to the other living room, and suddenly the rest of Markos’ kin began avoiding her living room like a plague.
Greek mythology was fascinating, but it didn’t take long for Kupiter to find her mother in the books. Eris was not a popular deity. She did not get multiple pages like Zeus and Poseidon and the other Olympians. When she was mentioned, it was with healthy fear and disdain. Kupiter read about her mother, and her horror grew into a deep, numbing terror. Eris wasn’t just the Goddess of Strife and Discord. She had passed down her powers to her daughter as well, and Kupiter had already used them to kill someone. The only way she’d ever used them. She could never, ever use them again.
Now that Kupiter knew the chains were there, she could monitor the rest of Markos’ kin, following their tensions points and evading the worst conflict. Her powers seemed unhappy to be used in such a manner, craving the violence she’d given for her mother’s first offering, but Kupiter refused to give in to the impulses.
She needed to find another path, or every single member of her mortal family was going to die at her hands.
Desperate for answers, Kupiter had turned back to her Greek mythology books. Maybe she could convince another God or Goddess to save her. After reading her books over and over again, she found herself drawn to one entry: the Goddess Hestia, Lady of the Hearth, who cared for the family of Olympus.
Hestia’s powers sounded like the opposite of Eris’ powers, and that meant that Kupiter already liked her by default. But then, a lot of other Olympians seemed different from Eris too. What Kupiter liked about Hestia was that she was a quiet Goddess, a watchful Goddess. She tended the flame while the others ruled, even though she was the eldest of the Olympians. Maybe Lady Hestia could see the chains too. Maybe instead of chains, she saw the good feelings that families were supposed to have for each other, the feelings that Kupiter heard her classmates talk about in school when they thought the weird kid with the creepy name wasn’t listening. If Hestia was the sister of all the powerful gods… Maybe she was strong enough to protect Kupiter from her mother.
Kupiter didn’t know how to pray to Hestia, but she liked the way her books talked about Hestia tending the hearth. She didn’t have a hearth to tend, but Kupiter did do dishes for fourteen people every night before she was allowed to leave the kitchen.
So one day, when Kupiter was washing moussaka off their ugly patterned plates, she reached down into the quiet part of herself she associated with her chains.
Um… Hi Hestia, she whispered to herself. I don’t know if this counts as an offering. But I am tending to my family’s home, even though they don’t deserve it. I don’t want to be like my mother anymore.
There was no sign from the heavens, no divine answer. But Kupiter did it the next night. Then the next. Then the next.
It was hard to never use her powers. When her family’s ire was turned on her, it was so easy in a household build on raw discord to reach out and redirect it to somebody else. Kupiter knew that her presence alone was enough to make people angry and unhappy. She’d gotten kicked out of three separate schools until Markos had given up and demand she homeschool herself. But it was worth it. The price in flesh was too high if Kupiter failed.
One day, a few months after Kupiter began her quiet worship of Lady Hestia, she made the peculiar realization that in the second living room, the place she’d slept for her entire life, there was a fireplace, an old stone hearth mere feet from her air mattress at the center of the room. Had that always been there? She could have sworn it was a television cabinet. There was a small pile of firewood and kindling stacked against the wall, close enough to her pillow that she could smell the comforting wood as she slept, and a red lighter atop the lintel. Kupiter had never built a fire before, but she found herself stacking a small pyre, picking up the lighter with curious hands to set it ablaze.
Kupiter had never been so close to fire before. The flames danced across her entranced face, soothing old hurts, curling around the chained maelstrom in her chest. She sank to the knees at the foot of the fireplace and stayed there, stoking the fire with the old bellows that must have been hidden in one of the piles of junk in the corner of the room, her mind going quiet for the first time since she’d unlocked her powers.
This is better than the dishes, Kupiter thought happily. Thank you, my Lady.
There was no answer, but the flames flickered on, steady, constant.
Once the hearth had been lit, it seemed simple enough to keep the fire going, throwing a new log on every few hours and adjusting the coals to keep the living room warm. It took weeks before anyone else in the house noticed Kupiter’s fire, at which point Markos stormed into the room with a bucket of water, tossing it onto the hearth. Kupiter shrieked in horror as her hearth was extinguished, and her best connection to Lady Hestia alongside it.
“Are you insane, Eriside?” Markos shouted, earning the rest of the house’s attention. “Are you trying to set us all on fire? Fancy yourself a little pyromaniac?”
It was an unfathomable conclusion. Kupiter couldn’t imagine using Lady Hestia’s fire to do anything but heal and warm; it was the only thing keeping her from tearing her mortal family apart. With the fire extinguished, her best coping mechanism had gone up in wispy smoke.
That night at dinner, every member of Markos’ family got into the worst screaming match of Kupiter’s life. Kupitar sat in her chair at the end of the table, watching the chaos with a cruel smile.
It was only once she returned to the dishes that she realized what she’d done.
Kupiter cried over the sink, hoping that nobody else was paying enough attention to see her sorrow. I’m sorry, Lady Hestia, she sniffled. I failed you. I wasn’t strong enough.
The dishwater was warm and sudsy. Her quiet determination led her to relight the hearth.
It took a few years for Kupiter to realize that she’d never needed to ask Markos for more firewood. Even though she only had a small indoor pile, it had been enough to keep the fire going for years, her new sleep schedule naturally waxing and waning with the pyre. The household still overwhelmed her, but it didn’t control her sleep anymore; the fire did. With few possessions other than her Greek mythology books and her special lighter, Kupiter took to cradling her lighter in her sleep, running her fingers over the engraved donkey on the plastic hilt until Morpheus swept her away. At some point, their household had begun to receive the daily newspaper, and Kupiter’s mortal grandfather had taken to reading the paper in front of the fire, offering her the occasional smile and hug on the days where his declining mind forgot about his Orthodox convictions.
It was on a quiet morning in September of 2006, when Kupiter was ten years old, that her grandfather caught her attention while she knelt in her usual spot by the fire, losing herself in her distant thoughts.
“Kupiter,” her grandfather said, sharp but not unkind. Kupiter glanced curiously at her favorite family member (aside from you, Lady Hestia, of course). “They named a planet after your mother.”
Kupiter caught her breath. “My… My mother.”
Her grandfather nodded and tossed her a page of the newspaper. “Look for yourself.”
The newsprint had a picture of a barren, frozen planet in the depths of outer space, surrounded by the text of an article that made her blood run cold. Kupiter locked her eyes on a line from the first paragraph: “The newly christened Eris, located in our solar system’s Kupiter Belt, which orbits the sun beyond the outermost planets…”
The planet Eris was located in the Kupiter Belt.
Eris had named her child after herself twice over, and Kupiter’s eyes swelled with tears, her breath catching at her throat. Even the warmth of her fire couldn’t ease the blow. She was never going to escape her mother, was she? The Goddess of Strife was inescapable. She would never be more than a collection of barren, lifeless rocks in the void of nothingness, endlessly orbiting her mother, too far from the sun for the fire to ever reach.
“Huh,” her grandfather muttered as she trembled on the floor. “Thought you’d like learning about astronomy. Guess not.”
A fact from her mythology books drifted to mind. When discussing the ways the ancients worshipped the Gods, one of the authors had mentioned giving them sacrifices, typically food and other libations. Kupiter stared down at the crumpled newspaper in her fists. She looked to the hearth.
Then she reached over and dropped the news of her namesake into the flames.
Lady Hestia, Kupiter whispered, bowing so deeply that her forehead touched the hearthstone. I give you my name. I give you my fate. Please don’t abandon me to the outer darkness.
The newspaper curled as Eris’ photo burned away. Kupiter did not move from the hearthside for a long while after that.
“Eriside! Get up girl!”
When Markos stormed into the room holding a dingy backpack, Kupiter jerked upright out of her sleep, clutching her sheets to her chest. He threw the backpack at her, and she caught it in confusion.
“Am I going back to school?” Kupiter asked quietly, hopefully.
Markos scoffed. “Absolutely not,” he snapped. “I’ve finally figured out how to get rid of you. There’s a camp a few hours away for other devilspawn like you, and I’m going to take you there. Then you’ll be your mother’s problem, not mine.”
It was the best news that Kupiter Eriside had ever received.
All of her possessions took three minutes to gather and pack. Kupiter had her dirty old mythology books, and her lighter, and a few changes of clothes. That was it, and the backpack hung light and loose at her shoulders. For the first time in years, Kupiter bounced after Markos into the car, faintly realizing in the back of her head that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d left the house. When was the last time she’d done anything but tend the hearth? She couldn’t remember, but the flames lingered in her mind, even as the hearth went dark and cold in Markos’ household for the final time.
The drive from Providence to Long Island took around four hours, the furthest away from her birthplace that Kupiter had ever gone. By the time they rolled up to a strawberry farm in the middle of nowhere, Kupiter was breathlessly excited. Was she finally going to make friends? Would she meet other demigods? Were there finally going to be people whose chains didn’t make her powers glow in her chest? Maybe she could meet the children of her mother’s sisters, like Hemera or Nemesis.
Markos pulled their sedan up into the field and all but shoved Kupiter out of the car. “You’re not my problem anymore,” he said, rolling down the window to look at her one final time. “Try not to kill any of your new little friends. If they throw you out on the street, don’t come begging for handouts.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kupiter said, and watched in silence as her father’s car screeched away.
Hitching up her backpack, she turned toward her new home.
Nobody came to greet her or tell her where to go. Kupiter wandered in the direction of a large group of cabins, where she could see several other children in bright orange shirts running around. Were they fighting with swords? Was that a volcano? Eyes wide, Kupiter turned her gaze in the direction of the biggest house, which sat on a small hill overlooking the rest of the camp. She decided to go there first.
Even though it had yet to snow, the December grass was brown and dead, and there was a terrible chill in the air that cut through Kupiter’s bare arms. She crept onto the porch and knocked, waiting anxiously to see who was inside.
When the door was answered by a half-horse man, Kupiter gasped in awe.
The centaur frowned at her. “Hello, child,” he said. “We weren’t expecting any new campers today. How did you get here?”
Kupiter shrugged. “My father said I was going to live here now,” she said. “I don’t know how he found this place. Maybe my mother told him.”
“Your mother?”
“The Goddess Eris.”
The centaur’s lips parted, and he gazed down at her with very obvious pity. Kupiter shuffled before him, flushing in shame. She knew what it meant to be Eris’ daughter, of course, but it was uncomfortable to know that others here would as well. A bad feeling started sinking in her stomach.
He led her into the Big House, where a weird old man sat by a table with a can of Diet Coke, a deck of cards laid out before him. The man peered at her, and Kupiter saw a sudden flash of purple, going rigid.
“Lord Dionysus,” Kupiter said, bowing deeply.
Dionysus raised an eyebrow at her. “You recognized me,” he said. “Interesting. At least some of you show me proper respect around here. What’s your name, brat?”
“Kupiter Eriside.”
The God of Wine scoffed, his lip curling in amusement. “I knew it was a vanity project,” he sneered. “Having a planet named after herself in this millennium. Only took her thousands of years.”
“My name is Chiron, Kupiter,” said the centaur, doing his best to smile at her. It was fake, and Kupiter withdrew into herself when she saw the beginnings of a chain growing between herself and Chiron. Dionysus looked at her sharply when she gave it an experimental twang. Chiron’s smile dimmed. “It’s quite unusual that a new camper arrives at Camp Half Blood already knowing about their divine parent. How long have you known Eris was your mother?”
Kupiter blinked in confusion. “Always? Mother told my father that she would torture him eternally in Tartarus if he didn’t make sure I knew I belonged to her.”
The earth trembled beneath her feet, and Chiron reared back.
“Do not speak the titles of the divine so casually,” Chiron said. “Names have power, Miss Eriside. Especially those of your primordial cousins.”
Dionysus snorted. “Don’t deter the brat, it’s refreshing,” he said without a hint of warmth. “I can’t wait to see one of my relatives kill her when she offends the wrong God. Don’t expect your mother to ever claim you, girl. You’ll be lucky if she forgets you exist for the rest of your life.”
“What does claimed mean?” Kupiter whispered, wrapping her arms around herself.
“When your godly parent-”
“It means you’re wanted,” Dionysus interrupted. Even though his words were cruel, Kupiter didn’t feel a chain forming between them, and she could tell he didn’t mean to cause her strife. The God was being honest. Blunt. Maybe he knew that Kupiter didn’t need white lies about her fate. “Claimed children of the twelve Olympians have their own cabins. Unclaimed children and the children of minor Gods sleep in the Hermes cabin. Claimed or not, that’ll be your new home. It won’t matter for you – Eris is the last Goddess who would want a cabin here. You get a bed until you’re eighteen. Then you’re on your own.”
“Lord Dionysus!” Chiron exclaimed, but Kupiter nodded and bowed her head.
“I understand, my Lord. I will try not to cause your campers strife.”
“You’ll fail,” Dionysis said. “Don’t go near my boys, Daughter of Eris. If I ever see you speaking to Castor or Pollux, it will be on your head. Kill someone, and you’re out on the street. Am I clear?”
“Dionysus!”
“Yes, sir. I swore to Lady Hestia that I would never kill again.”
Chiron paled at her words. Dionysus’ brows rose high. Kupiter flushed, unable to meet either of their eyes, haunted by the magnitude of her childish crimes.
“Interesting,” Dionysus murmured, lifting his Diet Coke to his lips. “Get out of my sight.”
It was a very quiet Chiron who gave Kupiter a tour of Camp Half-Blood, showing her around the various cabins and explaining the rules to her. Though she could tell Chiron wasn’t a fan of Dionysus’ approach, he seemed to understand that she was dangerous, and held her at arm’s length. Kupiter hated it, but she understood. Her mere presence was enough to worsen the lives of the people around her. The Gods had taken her in out of obligation, not goodwill.
“Come, it’s dinnertime,” Chiron said once the tour had concluded. “You can meet your new cabinmates. Make sure that you sacrifice a portion of your dinner to the Gods. Your Lady Mother will not appreciate it if you spurn her.”
There were around fifty campers who lived on-site around the year, and the majority of them seemed to be clustered at the Hermes table. When Chiron led Kupiter down to sit, she was met with curious looks from the other campers.
“Hey, there,” an older boy asked. “You’re new, then? Minor god or unclaimed?”
Kupiter couldn’t meet their eyes. She hated having siblings. “My mother is Eris,” she said, earning a mixture of confusion and worried recognition.
“Who’s Eris?”
She could feel the chains at the table, the red mist that surrounded so many of the unclaimed campers, and dug her fingers against the wood. Instinctively, she knew she had to be the one to answer. “Daughter of Night,” Kupiter said through gritted teeth. “Goddess of Discord and Strife.”
“Oh,” said the young boy who had asked.
By the time food was served, Kupiter found herself sitting alone at the end of the table.
In the center of the dining area, the hearth burned merrily, awaiting its nightly sacrifices. Kupiter waited until almost everyone had made their sacrifices, then drifted over with her fork and untouched plate, stopping before the flames. They felt like her hearth at home, and Kupiter stared into their depths, her mind far away. Maybe living here would be no better than her father’s house, but at least Lady Hestia’s care would follow her.
“You seem lost in thought,” a girl said beside her. Kupiter glanced over to see another camper around her age, wearing a pretty red dress that seemed out of place with the orange-shirt dress code. She had the warmest eyes. “Do you know how to sacrifice to the Gods?”
Kupiter shook her head.
“Just send your food to the fire and think about who you want to pray to. They’ll hear you.”
Her peas and mashed potatoes found their way into the brazier. Resisting her urge to set her plate aside and sink to her knees, Kupiter tried to summon the urge to pray to her mother. But it never came. Swallowing, she thought: Lady Hestia, thank you for guiding me to Camp Half-Blood. Thank you for saving me from my father’s home. I will tend to your flames here too. I promise.
The flames danced higher. When Kupiter turned back toward the girl, she had already left.
After dinner had ended, Kupiter trailed after the rest of Cabin Eleven to find out where she’d be sleeping. The Hermes cabin seemed old and shabby, crammed to the brim with demigod possessions. When she entered and saw the interior, she froze in the doorway at the sight of tightly crammed bunks, a number of sleeping bags strewn across the floor. A seven-year-old girl yawned and flopped down onto a sleeping bag, inches away from a pile of dirty clothes. There was no privacy, no space, and everyone in the room was glaring at her like they already knew she’d been taking up precious space for the rest of her life.
Without thought, she slipped into her divine powers. Cabin Eleven was a disastrous mess, a cesspit of chaos and secret resentment and freshly sealed wounds. The chains were strung so thick around the room that she could barely sense Hermes’ divine blessing on the space. The red smoke was thick enough to choke.
The part of her that belonged to Eris reveled in the sight. The part of her that worshiped Lady Hestia wanted to cry.
Kupiter had left one abusive home only to trade it for another.
The Gods were no better than her father.
It was a frigid night on Long Island when Kupiter finally decided to abandon Cabin Eleven and take her chances in the rough. Three days sleeping on the floor had been more than enough. Kupiter wasn’t stupid enough to think that an Olympian would want her, so she found herself wandering off to the main brazier in the dining hall, her backpack and sleeping bag clutched in hand.
The fire made the frost dissipate, welcoming her to its side. Smoothing out her sleeping back besides the brazier, Kupiter knelt down onto the puffy fabric, reaching out her hands to warm herself on the hearth. I can’t sleep though, she thought miserably. I need the hearth. I’ll lose myself if I spend one more day feeling those chains around me.
The hearth flickered at her hands, never burning her, a welcoming tickle. Kupiter knelt beside it until her eyes grew heavy, and she drifted down to her sleeping bag. Phantom hands tucked her in to rest.
She was jerked away in the morning by Chiron, who wore a thunderous expression.
“Did you sleep out here?” Chiron demanded. The sun had only just risen, and Kupiter could see the first campers drifting outside, heading to the training fields for a quick practice before breakfast. “Did they make you sleep out here, Kupiter? You need to sleep in one of the cabins. Camp Half-Blood isn’t safe outside at night.”
Kupiter frowned up at him, confused. Sleeping by the hearth was the safest she’d ever felt in her life. She knew that Lady Hestia would never allow harm to come to her while she slept in her domain.
“I chose to sleep outside,” Kupiter said. “There was too much strife in the Hermes Cabin. Why don’t the Gods claim their children? Why don’t the minor gods have their own cabins?”
Chiron’s expression turned grave. “Please do not challenge Zeus’ law, child. I cannot protect you if you offend Olympus. And I’m afraid that sleeping in Cabin Eleven is not optional. You must sleep where the Gods can protect you.”
“The gods are protecting me by making me sleep on the floor for the next eight years of my life?”
Thunder rolled in the distance, and Chiron crossed his arms. “Pick up your sleeping bag,” he ordered. “I expect all of your things to be out of the dining hall before breakfast.”
Kupiter decided to ignore Chiron.
It wasn’t like anyone in the Hermes Cabin cared to notice her absence. Most of them glared at her at breakfast, enough so that Kupiter took her plate and wandered hearthside to eat. When it came time for lunch, she noticed that there was a small, ornate table sitting beside the brazier, carved from worn mahogany that seemed far too nice to be outside, a plate of food already waiting for her. Nervous about sitting so close to the sacrifices, Kupiter wandered over and prepared herself for every camper in the hall to stare at her. But their eyes seemed to gloss over her table as though she wasn’t there.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, Kupiter got to eat alone, and it was glorious. She made sure to sacrifice to Hestia at every meal in thanks.
When Kupiter came back to the dining hall with her sleeping bag the next night, long after curfew had been called, her gaze was drawn away from the central brazier to a portico alcove built into one of the marble side walls, which had a smaller brazier burning beside it. It wasn’t the biggest gap in the world, but Kupiter beamed and bounced over anyway, laying down her sleeping bag onto the marble. When she got bigger, maybe it would be a problem. But at ten, Kupiter still hadn’t hit puberty, and she could tuck into the quiet hollow and sleep in peace.
By the next morning, Chiron hadn’t discovered her, even though she saw him snooping around from the safety of her sleeping bag. Maybe Lady Hestia really was hearing her prayers.
Kupiter discovered within her first week that she was absolutely awful at almost every activity the camp tried to throw at her. She couldn’t even enter the weapons shed without having a panic attack, remembering the sight of her half-brother’s blood on the carpet. She sucked at archery, couldn’t row, couldn’t garden, couldn’t go near the volcano. In Capture the Flag, the Hermes Cabin wanted to use her to sow discord among the defending team, but Kupiter steadfastly refused to use her powers, only deepening her unlikability among the rest of the minor god crowd. The only weapon that Kupiter could stomach was a small poniard she’d found nestled among her things, which had her mother’s cold signature lingering in the bronze. It didn’t feel like a gift. It felt like a threat, a reminder that Eris was awaiting her sacrifice.
Not once did Kupiter dedicate her meals to her mother.
The best official camp activities were the lessons, which let Kupiter finally go back to school for the first time in her life. Most of the other campers didn’t understand her zeal, but it won her some affection with the three Athena kids who stayed the winter, including one Annabeth Chase, who was apparently a big deal for going on some major quest the past summer.
“You know,” Annabeth told Kupiter quietly one evening, standing awkwardly in the middle of the dining hall as Kupiter knelt by the main brazier. “I thought you were Hestia until you started taking classes with us.”
Kupiter blushed. “You honor me,” she said.
Annabeth chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Your mother, Eris,” she said. “One of her symbols of power is the torch. Maybe that’s where your fascination with fire comes from.”
It was shocking to hear of more overlap between Hestia and Eris’ domains, but Kupiter drank in the knowledge, happy to have an excuse to use for her preferred passtime. When she woke up in her alcove the next morning, two torches flickered on either side of her bed.
They didn’t feel like her mother. They felt like Lady Hestia.
As Kupiter’s first winter at Camp Half-Blood drifted on into spring, Kupiter found herself spending less and less time doing normal camp activities, and more time kneeling by the brazier. She learned more about her mother’s powers, and drew on Eris’ command of the shadows, letting herself drift into the background, away from Charon’s judgment and Cabin Eleven’s hatred and the rest of the camp’s apathy. The only people who seemed to watch her was Annabeth, who always wore a puzzled expression whenever she caught a glimpse of her, and Lord Dionysus, whose sharp gaze followed her like a hawk.
The flowers were blooming when Kupiter found a strange little candy on her small dining table one night, a pink taffy dusted in sugar. She sacrificed to Lady Hestia, and with some small part of her mind ordering her to eat her dinner first, she chewed her way through her usual fare, popping the candy in as an afterthought. It immediately made her freeze at how sinfully good it tasted, and Kupiter bit back a moan of delight.
Kupiter must have taken extra good care of the hearth lately, because she wanted a treat like that every night. Camp Half-Blood served them dessert on weekend, but never candy.
Strong fingers closed around her wrist.
Dionysus loomed over her, his purple eyes burning, and Kupiter froze in terror, vividly remembering how her family had touched her before she’d killed her half-brother. “Where did you get that, girl?” Dionysus thundered, though the rest of the camp didn’t seem to notice them.
Kupiter had frozen completely. When he tightened his grasp, she shook her head, vanishing into some blank place within her mind.
“Let go of her.”
The pressure vanished. Kupiter began to breath again, sharp gasps, as the God of Wine released her and warm arms wrapped around her shoulders, drawing her into her side. Kupiter trembled as she began to cry. Dionysus stared at her in disbelief.
“I see,” Dionysus said quietly, then nodded at them and returned to his throne.
Kupiter looked up at her savior, and managed a watery smile at the sight of the girl in the red dress, who ran a fond hand through her dark hair. When the girl smiled at her, Kupiter crushed her into a fierce hug, sobbing helplessly at the foreign feeling of safety. It felt like hugging fire. It felt like home. She didn’t know who the girl was, but she trusted her implicitly.
“Peace, my little one,” Hestia whispered, lulling Kupiter off to sleep in her arms.
Time slipped by. Some days, Kupiter felt like there was nothing but the hearth, hypnotic fire that entranced her body into stillness. She could still see the chains and feel the red smoke, but the rabid desire to tighten them seemed distant now. Easy to ignore. In the silence of the hall, Kupiter found that her mother’s powers could also be used to sense the absence of discord, if only by omission. She could feel which campers felt at home, and which felt excluded. She saw that some of the campers had chains that trailed off into the far distance, and an insistent instinct that she was under no circumstance allowed to follow those chains to their conclusion. Somehow, she knew that if a daughter of Eris was sensed by Kronos, Kupiter would place herself into grave danger.
It was simple enough to cloak herself from the chained demigods, the ones who meant to sow discord in the camp. Kupiter began whispering to Annabeth in their math classes, quietly guiding campers with weak chains away from the ones who sought to bind them. Annabeth always listened when Kupiter came to her, and Kupiter often saw her talking to those campers between meals. She suspected that Annabeth had seen her confrontation with Dionysus, but Kupiter got a funny feeling when she tried to think about that and resolved to never bring it up.
Before she knew it, summer had arrived, and dozens of new campers arrived at Camp Half-Blood, crowding into the dining hall and filling the air with joy and life. Kupiter delighted in the chaos, good chaos, and made sure to give her hearth extra love, poking gently at the flames and asking them to greet the newcomers kindly. The camp’s fire wasn’t like the fire at her father’s place; it was playful and responsive, almost alive.
(It occurred to her in passing moments that the fire seemed different since her arrival; that perhaps it was not the fire that had changed, but herself. But those thoughts were gently washed away by the warmth of the hearth.)
Chiron was apparently gone, and there were new monsters watching the camp. Kupiter hated them all, but shivered whenever Dionysus shifted himself between her and Tantalus, shielding him from view. At some point, the God of Wine had started quietly watching out for her, and Kupiter had begun sacrificing to him as well as Lady Hestia in return. She knew exactly who had made grape vines crawl around the base of her brazier.
One morning, Kupiter was rudely awoken by the last person at camp whose attention she wanted.
“Who are you?” Percy Jackson demanded, staring at her with confusion and hostility. Thankfully, breakfast hadn’t started yet, and they were the only ones in the dining hall. “Why are you sleeping in the dining hall? Shouldn’t you be in your cabin?”
Kupiter forced herself upright with a yawn, raking her hand through her hair. “I sleep here,” she mumbled.
“Why?”
“Cause I do.”
Percy scowled at her. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m Kupiter,” Kupiter said, her voice trailing. “The daughter… The daughter of Eris.”
Why had that felt so strange to say?
“I thought Eris was a minor god,” Percy said, oblivious to the way the chains thrashed at his words. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping in Cabin Eleven?”
Every part of her being rejected that idea. Kupiter hurriedly shook her head, and Percy glanced off in surprise as Kupiter’s torches and little brazier flared in disagreement. “It’s gross in there,” Kupiter said, unsure why she had to explain herself to Percy. “I don’t like it. My place is by the hearth. And you can ask Annabeth if you want to know more. We’re… friends, I think.”
Percy’s gaze immediately softened at Annabeth’s name, and Kupiter relaxed when the faint chain threatening to connect him to her vanished. “Oh, okay,” Percy said. “It’s weird that nobody else ever seems to notice you. I’m glad I’m not having a demigod dream right now. Nice sleeping nook, by the way.”
Kupiter glanced down at her bed, and blinked in surprise at the realization that her sleeping bag had turned into a plush mattress, covered with soft red sheets and decorated with three pillows. She had a little bookshelf for her Greek mythology books, and her red lighter was safely tucked away in a drawer that also held the pretty banglets she’d started wearing recently. She was sleeping in cute red pajamas, and her stuffed donkey was tucked under the sheets by her side, which she’d been cuddling last night. It had rained, but her alcove was completely dry as though indoors, even though she could see the puddles at the foot of her brazier not three feet from her bed. Her mother’s poniard rested on a wall mount, untouched in the months since she’d received the divine gift.
I don’t remember getting any of this, Kupiter thought, trying to figure out how her sleeping nook had turned into such a nice, comfy space.
“Thank you,” Kupiter whispered, feeling like a little girl. She drew her covers to her chin, unsure if she was ashamed, scared, or warm. “I really like it.”
Percy smiled at her and went off to find Annabeth.
The important demigods left for a quest that Kupiter never learned the details of. Then they came back. There was a girl who smelled like lightning who noticed her little table by the brazier for a brief moment, and waved when she walked into the dining hall, Percy and Annabeth by her side. Kupiter blushed and waved back.
“Why is Aunt Hestia at camp right now?” Thalia asked Percy and Annabeth after dinner was over, tucked away in a small grove between Poseidon and Zeus’ cabins.
“Oh, that’s not Hestia,” Percy said. “That’s Kupiter, Daughter of Eris. She’s really nice, even though nobody notices that she sleeps in the dining hall, which is kind weird. I think Mr. D likes her too. I see him smiling at her while she eats sometimes.”
“She’s a demigod?”
“Uh. Yeah? Obviously?”
Thalia opened her mouth, glancing back at the distant warm glow of the hall, then closed it again. She crossed her arms in disbelief. “She doesn’t seem like a demigod,” she muttered. “I thought I saw her eating- It doesn’t matter. You’re right. I’m just… Seeing things.”
“All that time as a tree went to your head, Pincecone Face.”
“Hey!”
Thalia got Percy into a headlock, and the two of them devolved into play-fighting, the topic of Kupiter slipping out of mind.
Annabeth stared at the dining hall and said nothing.
The first time that Kupiter visited Olympus was the summer of 2008, where she was shepherded along with the rest of the campers into New York City. Apparently Olympus’ new location was above the Empire State Building, which was very impressive to most of the other campers, and only mildly interesting to Kupiter. She didn’t like being so far away from her hearth, and the closer they got to Olympus, the more visible the chains of the group became. Chains that led to the Gods, Kupiter realized after Annabeth had explained Luke’s army to her.
When they reached the 600th floor, they were met by a dizzying sea of temples, palaces, and excited divine Solstice guests, many of whom scooped up the children to go and meet their parents. Kupiter had been surprised when Annabeth had told her they were going, and even more surprised when she admitted the trip had been inspired by Kupiter.
“I told my mother about how you could see the chains to Kronos,” Annabeth had murmured by the hearth one evening. “She was very concerned. All the Gods were. I thought that it might be a good idea to let the Camp visit on the Solstice. The Council agreed because they thought it would reinforce loyalty.”
Annabeth’s disgust told Kupiter all she needed to know about that.
“The Gods have chains too,” Kupiter said softly, stirring her hands through the flames. “The Titan is not the only one whose shackles must be broken.”
“I know,” Annabeth said gently, ruffling her hair. “But at least it’s a start.”
Since Thalia had left to join the Hunt and Annabeth and Percy had run off into the Labyrinth, Kupiter was left friendless amid the crowd, lingering by the elevator until most of the students had wandered off elsewhere. She didn’t like what her godly gifts told her one bit; somewhere on Olympus, her mother was waiting to meet her, and she wouldn’t be pleased. Enraged, in fact. It scared Kupiter, but the guards wouldn’t let her leave Olympus without a chaperone.
All of a sudden, the girl in the red dress slipped her way through the crowd, approaching Kupiter with a warm smile. Kupiter perked up in delight at the sight of her secret friend. She still didn’t know who the girl was, but sometimes she could almost imagine her tucking her in at night, or telling her stories by the hearthside. The last year had passed in a blur of warmth and comfort, and Kupiter’s memory had been funny for a while now. But she knew more than anything that the girl was safe, that the girl was home.
“Hello, Kupiter,” the girl said gently, reaching out to take her hand. Kupiter blushed at her touch. “I know a place where we can hide from your mother. Come with me.”
Hand in hand, the girl led Kupiter through the dizzying halls of Olympus. They wandered past the clusters of minor gods, the nymphs, the Naiads, the friendly Titans, the immortal heroes, the elder monsters, the shades. They wandered past several Gods busy entertaining their children, including Apollo’s brood and Dionysus with his twins. Dionysus offered the two of them a slight smile as he passed, and Kupiter waved shyly at him. They came dangerously close to where Kupiter could feel Eris, but the girl did something that made Kupiter feel tingly and led them down a side path, and the crisis was averted.
Soon they came to the throne room, where the towering seats of Olympian power rose high, empty for the moment as the Council went out to mingle with the crowd.
Kupiter was almost certain she didn’t belong here, but she trusted the girl, and followed her faithfully to the most beautiful fire she had ever seen. She gasped in wonder at the sense of it, and knelt down beside the girl, giggling when the flames danced up to greet her.
“They recognize you, little one,” the girl whispered. She let go of Kupiter’s hand to run the gentlest hand through her hair. “My Kupiter.”
“I don’t know what to call you,” Kupiter admitted.
The girl blinked back tears, her red eyes glowing. “Call me Mama,” she said.
“Won’t that offend my mother?”
“No. Never. The child of Nyx had never deserved you.”
“Okay, then.” Kupiter offered Mama a shy smile. “Mama.”
Mama beamed and kissed her on the head.
Kupiter and Mama sat together and tended the hearth for hours, enjoying each others quiet company as Kupiter watched the flame dance against her bare fingers, and Mama hummed quiet nothings, words that slipped her mind as soon as they were said. At some point, the throne room got loud and busy, but Kupiter was so used to the chaos of the Camp Half-Blood dining hall that she paid them little mind. Mama drew her into her lap and shielded her face when things got too shiny, and Kupiter dozed off to sleep, utterly content in Lady Hestia’s arms.
It was a little sad to wake up back at Camp Half-Blood the next morning, but Kupiter’s hearth danced happily when she greeted it, and she could feel Mama’s lingering touch keeping her warm inside. She remembered Mama’s fire when the monsters came pouring out of the Labyrinth, and hid the whole dining hall in her shadows, which never felt like shadows anymore. The hearth is my Domain, Mama had whispered to her when… She didn’t know when. No harm will come to you there. Not so long as Olympus stands. Kupiter protected the little ones from Kronos’ army, who were circling the camp, searching for children to steal. She wiped away tears and gave little blessings to the brave ones, gathering them all around the hearth in her safety.
When the dust settled, Dionysus came to Kupiter and knelt by her hearth, pressing a lingering kiss to her forehead.
“I must go to fight Typhon, cousin,” he murmured. “You did so well during the battle. I pray that you and your mother watch our children while we win this war.”
Kupiter peered up at him in confusion. It had been a long time since Dionysus had hated her, she was pretty sure, but it was strange to receive such affection.
“You still haven’t awoken, then,” Dionysus said, rising and brushing off his pants. “I suppose that’s for the best. No need for a godling to wonder if she’ll still have an Olympus to ascend to. Be well, child.”
His words felt important. But Kupiter drifted off before she could parse his meaning.
There were no demigods at the Winter Solstice, but Mama still picked Kupiter up from camp to bring her anyway, nestling her in her arms while the faint aspects of the Gods discussed their ongoing battles against Kronos, Oceanus, and Typhon. Then the war came to a head during the next Summer Solstice, and Kupiter was hiding all the little ones at Camp again. It seemed strange that another year had passed, but Kupiter was as she always was: tending her hearth, receiving knowledge and ambrosia from her Mama, doing her best to break the mortal’s chains.
When they all went to Olympus after the war, Kupiter was more alert than she’d felt in ages. She hid behind Mama as the Gods offered Percy Jackson immortality, and giggled at the thought. The noise drew sharp glances from a few council members, but only Dionysus and a very confused Hera seemed to actually see her.
“What’s so funny, my little torch?” Mama whispered to Kupiter, stroking through her hair.
Kupiter wrinkled her nose. Wasn’t it obvious? “Percy has no chains,” she told Mama solemnly, knowing that both Dionysus and Hera were listening. Three Gods stiffened at her words. “He’ll never accept it, that’s silly. Besides, he’s special. I like him. He doesn’t need to be a God.”
Dionysus and Hera exchanged a brief look, though not quite brief enough to keep Demeter from narrowing her eyes in confusion. Demeter glanced around, then paled at the sight of Kupiter in Mama’s lap.
“I agree,” Mama whispered back to her, tickling her cheek. “Percy is very special. But some of my siblings are silly, you know. They can’t see how special he is like you can.”
Kupiter sighed and turned her head into Mama’s shoulder, ignoring the way that Demeter had joined her fellow Gods in gawking at her.
By the time of the next Winter Solstice, her special Percy, her champion who broke the chains, had vanished from Camp Half-Blood, and Thalia’s weird brother had taken his place. Mama got all weird when she looked at Jason, but Kupiter decided that she liked Other Mama too, even if she seemed a little confused and overwhelmed to have a daughter. Kupiter could taste Hera on the mortal when he sacrificed at the hearth, and she started glaring at Cabin Two whenever she passed it, knowing that Hera had taken her friend and champion away from her. Annabeth noticed those glares, and pieced two and two together, leaving an embarrassed Kupiter to try and cover for the Gods in the middle of the Dining Hall.
“You know where Percy is,” Annabeth snapped at her, hands on her hips before the sacrificial brazier. Kupiter shrank back into herself. Annabeth was scary when she got mad. “Tell me. I need to know.”
“Mama says I can’t tell anyone,” Kupiter whispered. “She says it’s important. And there are chains where he is too.”
Annabeth softened at her unhappiness, because Annabeth had never been able to stay mad at her for longer than a few days. Kupiter gave her donkey eyes, and the demigod sighed, pulling her into a hug.
“You’re so big,” Kupiter sniffled, hiding her face. “Why did you get so big, Anna? You’re only two years older than me.”
A quiet, knowing sigh. “I didn’t get big, Kupiter. You just stayed small.”
Kupiter knew that, but it wasn’t time for her to understand it yet. So the flames washed it all away, the quiet ichor that had settled under her skin and into the cracks of her mind.”
Her little alcove had been renovated into a full side building after the Titan War had ended, the new Hestia Cabin annexed to the dining hall. Now Kupiter had a special room for her brazier, and a warm cozy bed to sleep with all her favorite pillows, and a big closet for all of her pretty red dresses, and even her own bathroom to change and bathe in. Most of the campers seemed to know about Kupiter now, and Kupiter didn’t mind when they all came up to the Hestia Table to say hi to her when they sacrificed. She liked having the extra tasty meals they gave her when they whispered her name, fresh on their minds. It was a little weird when everyone started calling her Lady Kupiter, but Kupiter knew they didn’t mean it against her.
Kupiter’s second Winter Solstice was strange because nobody was there to celebrate with them. Alongside Dionysus, Hera, and Demeter, Athena and Artemis both seemed to have also noticed her presence in Mama’s lap, though it still remained unspoken. Then the earth got all rumbly, and Kupiter knew there was another war, but Mama promised that she would be safe and didn’t need to worry about it. Her third Summer Solstice was even weirder, and now Apollo saw her too. But the Gods were busy and didn’t have time to wonder about the child in Hestia’s arms.
Gaia fell. Olympus rejoiced.
It wasn’t until the Winter Solstice of 2010 that Kupiter’s existence was finally acknowledged by the Gods, interrupting a long discussion about a suitable punishment for Apollo following his interference with the prophecy.
“We seem to have reached a stalemate,” Hera said, breaking up the argument with a hand. “Before any decisions are made, do we have no intention of acknowledging that my eldest sister has brought a child into the Solstice Council for the fourth time?”
“Sixth, actually,” Dionysus said in a bored tone.
The room erupted as Kupiter became visible to the full Council.
“After all this time, you would break your vows of maidenhood, sister?” Zeus boomed in rage, storming to his feet and reaching for his weapon. Poseidon stared at her in disbelief. Hades seemed curious, and not the least bit amused.
Artemis and Athena were on their feet before Zeus could move. “Father, sit down,” Athena snapped. “No vows have been broken. Kupiter Eriside in the daughter of Eris and a moral man, and she had been claimed by our sister, not birthed. I have confirmed this, and you’re scaring the child.”
Zeus sat down heavily and stared at Hestia, who had grown to adult size and was glaring at her siblings. Terrified of divine wrath, Kupiter hid in her mother’s arms, trembling at the angry chains that snapped around the room. There was so much old strife between the Olympians. So much history of abuse. It tasted like rust on her tongue, and she yearned to snap the chains. Mama was the only one who was free of bonds.
“Kupiter is mine,” Hestia said, her voice carrying clearly through the Council. “My daughter. My firstborn. Eris may be her other parent, but I forsake her pathetic excuse for a mortal father. I have overwritten him completely.”
Many of the Gods seemed uncertain of how to respond, staring at her with a wide range of emotions. Zeus looked especially lost. “Why now, sister?” he asked. “Why after all this time? What did you see in a demigod child of the Pit that no other person has captured?”
Hestia stared deep into her brother’s eyes. “She claimed me,” she said. “She declared herself of me. Why has anyone chosen to be born? And the cycle is breaking, brother. A time of change is upon us. There are new domains for the hearth to tend to, new domains to meet our modern age. I was the last Olympian standing before Kronos. I do not want to carry that alone.”
Listening to the Gods talk about her made Kupiter feel funny. “Mama?” she whispered, not understanding, and Hestia shushed her with pressed lips.
“Eris is furious,” Hades said, though he was still smirking. “She will never accept this.”
“Which is why I consulted with Nyx,” Hestia replied, eliciting gasps. “Lady Nyx blessed my choice to take on the girl. Eris was a fool to tie the girl to an unclaimed astronomical body, should she have wished to keep her compliant and mortal. She surrendered her domain over torches, and gave her daughter her first celestial symbol, the Kupiter Belt. The mortals already know and study her. The demigods feel her presence at their hearth. That was enough to light the spark. And I have tended to her flame since long before Eris gave me enough leverage to take her.”
Zeus chuckled, then burst out into full booming laughter. Hades settled back into his throne, content with her answer. The rest of the Council began to smile, and Kupiter calmed as their chains toward her began to dissipate.
“A new niece,” Zeus rumbled, shaking his head. “In this day and age. You bless us, sister.”
“What are her domains?” Poseidon asked, breaking his thoughtful silence. “Now that you reveal her to us, I can feel her touch on my boy. It was hidden beneath Hera and Styx and myself and the boy’s own growing divinity, but I can sense it now.”
Hestia glanced curiously down at Kupiter, who stirred enough to peer out at Poseidon. “He’s my champion,” Kupiter said stubbornly. “I had him first. Aunt Hera stole him from me.”
Hera’s presence flared with a mix of anger and amusement. “Is that so, little godling?”
Kupiter nodded with a child’s certainty. “He breaks the chains,” she said, and it fell on the Olympians like an oath. “He has no chains, just like Mama. He’s special.”
“Of course my boy is special,” Poseidon boasted.
“I’ve been trying to break the chains at camp for years,” Kupiter agreed proudly. “I told Anna all about the way Kronos shackled the mortals, and then she made Athena bring us all to Olympus, and then Percy made that awful cabin go away. It was gross in there. Too much strife.”
Hermes twitched on his throne when everyone looked at him. “Since you’re a baby, I’ll try not to take offense at that,” he said, scowling at Kupiter.
When Hestia stroked soothing circles on her back, Kupiter snuggled against her Mama, exhausted from talking to the Gods. “It’s why Percy and Anna could remember me,” she yawned. “Cause Percy breaks the chains, and Anna loves him. But Percy already did his special things. He’s not my champion anymore. He’s just Anna’s Percy.”
“What chains?” Zeus asked.
Kupiter was slipping away again, her clarity going. “Mother’s chains,” she mumbled, struggling to keep her eyes open. “Bad things. People feel bad things, and then they do bad things, even if they don’t mean to. But I make them go away. Break the chains. Break the cycle. You have chains too, Uncle Zeus. So many chains…”
And she knew nothing more, as Hestia’s divinity lulled her off to sleep.
Zeus seemed stunned by her last comment, staring at the youngest member of his family. Rising from the hearth, Hestia gave her brother her best ‘If you hurt my firstborn, I will destroy your entire kingdom’ look, which Zeus seemed to take to heart. All of the Gods rose with her, many still stunned by the notion of Hestia taking a child after so many aeons.
“All hail my daughter,” Hestia said, her divine form blazing as she rose to her true size for the first time in millennia. “The Goddess Kupiter, Firstborn of Hestia, Patron of the Abused, She Who Breaks the Cycle.”
The Gods welcomed their new daughter, and Olympus rejoiced in her reign.
The years drifted on, and Kupiter never got older.
By the time that her mind cleared enough to realize what had happened to her, her ascension fully complete, both Percy and Annabeth were into their late 20s, and had a young daughter kicking at their heels in the safety of New Rome. Kupiter visited her favorite mortals sometimes, but she knew it was strange for them to see the same ten-year-old child they had known during the wars. Kupiter had decided that she was going to take extra good care of Percy’s children, because they were her favorite demigods, and mortal children really were so very cute.
By the 2020s, Kupiter’s power had grown to where she could always be present at both camps, monitoring her little ones and finding ways to break the chains their mortal lives had placed upon them. She let the most wounded join her by the hearth, and nudged those on the verge of abandoning their friends and parents back onto the path toward healing. In her free time when she wasn’t tending the hearths, Kupiter had begun working with Percy’s friendly mom to take over dozens of domestic violence shelters across the country under Olympus’ control, blessing her favorite mortals with the skill to break chains and set the victims on a new path. She became the Goddess of Therapy, a subdomain of Dionysus that he happily gave to his favorite little cousin, and attended mortal college to learn about psychology, making some new friends along the way. It was considered a general oddity when the fountain in the middle of Washington Square Park suddenly turned into a giant brazier, but that was only to be expected when the Daughter of Hestia chose New York University as one of her first Temples.
Mama stood by her side when Kupiter finally confronted Eris for the hell she’d gone through as a child, much to Eris’ snide displeasure. “I gave you life, Kupiter,” Eris spat, even as she stood surrounded by several angry Olympians with Nyx watching her actions. “I gave you my blessing, my power, and you twist my domains into this- this filth!”
Kupiter sniffed in disdain, clinging to Hestia’s hand. “You are Strife, Mother,” she said. “But I am what comes of it. I am the way forward. I am the path out.”
“There is no path out of Chaos!”
“But we are all what came from it,” Kupiter said simply. “We were created from Chaos. If nothing came of Chaos, then none of us would have ever come to be. Discord and strife are powerful, but nothing comes from pursuing them for their own sake. Mama taught me how to make meaning from it all.”
Her mother’s red eyes glowed with hatred. “Fine. As you wish, daughter. But never come to find me in Tartarus. You have no place in my home.”
Frowning, Kupiter said, “Why would I want to go to Tartarus?”
Eris shrieked and disappeared into the shadows. It was the last time they would speak for hundreds of years.
One night on Olympus, which could have been any night, Hestia and Kupiter sat together before the hearth, basking in each other’s presence as the night fell around them. It was peaceful, and the world was a little kinder than it had been a decade before.
“Mama,” Kupiter asked, tracing rings and asteroids on Hestia’s hands. “Why did you choose me?”
Hestia smiled at her newborn flame.
“Oh, little one,” she murmured. “I did nothing to free you of your chains. You’re sitting here with me because you chose that for yourself.”
“I chose myself?”
“Again and again, until the day that you were free.”