Crowned in the realm of death

Rhea's Point of View

I sit alone in the shadowed halls of Mount Orthys, the once radiant golden temple now cold and hollow. No hymns echo here anymore. Only silence... and the faint sound of my grief.

In my trembling hands, I hold a small, black feather a piece of Hades's wings, left behind when Cronus swallowed him. A fragment of my firstborn son. It is charred at the edges, as if the darkness that clung to him tried to fight even in his last moment before vanishing.

I pressed it to my chest and wept.

Not for the first time.

And not for the last.

I am the goddess of motherhood, bearer of life and warmth.

Yet… I could not protect my children.

Hestia, taken.

Then Hades, my first son… his cold body still fresh in my memory.

And now, Demeter, Hera, and Poseidon… all gone, one by one, devoured by the man I once loved most.

No.

The monster I once trusted most.

---

Each day since has dragged on like an eternity. I have grown weak… no, pathetic.

I feel it in my soul.

A stagnation, a rejection of the very godhood I carry.

Even the essence of motherhood itself… rejects me.

Because what kind of mother loses five children?

I had tried. I sought help. I had tried very method I can .I reached out to ancient Titans for allies.

But nothing mattered in the face of Cronus, the tyrant king, His hunger for survival consumed even his own blood.

And I Rhea, queen of the heavens.

Could do nothing but cry behind closed doors, cursing the fate that I could not alter.

Time passed, and in the silence of my despair, the impossible happened…

I became pregnant again.

My sixth child now grew within me a fragile flame in a world of storms.

But I no longer felt joy.

Only terror.

Because I knew what awaited this child.

I had seen Cronus's eyes narrowed at the newborn's cry, the way his mouth opened not to bless them, but to devour them.

I had no strength left to watch another of my children be stolen from my arms.

So I tightened my heart, pushed aside my grief and softness, and made a vow:

This one… I will not lose.

Even if I must defy fate itself.

---

I knelt upon the sacred earth and called out, not to Olympus, not to my kin but to Gaea, the Primordial Mother, the earth itself.

She had long been in her ancient slumber, retreating from the affairs of Titans and gods.

But I pleaded. I wept.

I pressed my forehead to the soil and whispered as a daughter to her mother:

"Please… let me save this one."

And the earth trembled.

The winds stilled.

From the deep womb of the world, Gaea answered.

She rose not with grandeur, but with quiet strength, her voice like the rustle of leaves, the hum of stone, the breath of mountains.

She gazed upon me, tired and sorrowful.

Then, with gentleness, she extended her hand.

In it, she held a white stone, smooth and oval, wrapped in soft, divine cloth.

It was shaped perfectly like a newborn child.

To any eye, it would seem real.

 "Rhea," she said, her voice echoing from the roots of the world,

"Hide your child far from Cronus's gaze. Let him be born in secret.

When the time comes, return to Mount Orthys…

And place this stone in his place.

 "Fool cronus. Fool fate… if you must.

But protect this child… he will be the one who brings the change."

Clutching the false child to my chest, I bowed deeply.

I did not cry this time.

I had no tears left, only resolve.

For the first time in an age, I stood tall again, not as a grieving mother

But as Rhea, daughter of Gaea, Queen of the Titans… and mother to a future that Cronus could not control.