He Knows

Hera stood at the edge of Asgard's feast hall, silent and unmoving as the final songs of Baldr's naming faded into the flicker of torchlight. Her crimson robes pooled around her feet like spilled wine, her dark eyes half-lidded in quiet calculation. Servants moved around her, pouring fresh mead into bronze cups and clearing platters heavy with roasted boar and barley bread. But Hera saw none of it.

She felt it.

By now, Olympus would be hers.

She could almost taste the quiet triumph blooming on her tongue – the sweet iron tang of a fate fulfilled. Metis would be dead by dawn's rise. The throne room would lie silent under the first light, guarded by her loyal cohort until Zeus returned to crown her queen. Her heart beat slow and calm in her chest as she folded her hands before her, her gaze fixed ahead but seeing far beyond these halls.

"Soon…" she whispered under her breath, so faintly that no one heard her. "Soon, I will stand above them all."