The throne of Olympus was never meant for Zeus, who has occupied it for five long years. Five-year-old Ares shoved open the chamber doors and caught his father Zeus locked in an embrace with the goddess Leto. A sharp, stinging slap crashed across his young cheeks, and his own birth father stood by in cold silence, not a single word of protest escaping his lips.
The boy ran weeping to Hera's side, voice trembling as he asked, “Mother, did I do something wrong?” Every deity urged Hera to let the matter rest—why stir turmoil across all the realms of the gods over a single slap? Yet none knew Hera held the ancient divine covenant passed down from her father Cronus: the throne had originally been lent to Zeus by her own hand.
When the last grain of golden sand slipped through the hourglass, the old order crumbled to ruin. Some fell to their knees begging for mercy, while others plummeted from their lofty divine pedestals.
