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Once, when she was very little, she had looked up her namesake and asked her mother why she had named her after such a wicked woman.
"She wasn't wicked darling." Her mother had said gently. "Wicked is just a word men call women who are more powerful and clever than them. Wicked is what men call women when they are afraid of them."
Kneeling before the thrones of her father and the king of the gods, she cannot help thinking about that long ago conversation. Zeus speaks so casually of smiting her before her own father. He already nearly killed her several times over.
Her father is protecting her as best he can, but Zeus is still his king. Poseidon's protection is not enough.
She is twelve years old, scrawny, half-starved and feral. She's clever too, she's always been clever, just not the way school wants her to be. She knows how people work. She knows how to get inside them and make them work for her instead of themselves.
No one's ever called her wicked for it. Not yet.
Twelve year old Theodora looks up at the sky king's empty throne and her mind is whirling. She talks to her father. He makes a half-hearted jab at Zeus's dramatic exit but there is a hesitance to him as well. He is afraid of Zeus.
Theodora remembers stories of the walls of Troy. Her father had built them by hand as a mortal, hadn't he? That had been his punishment for daring to rise up against Zeus. It's been thousands of years since then - would he dare to do so again for a mere demigod?
Theodora doesn't do calculations like Annabeth does, but she doesn't need to. She takes one glance back at the empty thrones as the great doors close behind her and her father.
She's good at finding weaknesses, but for this she doesn't even have to be. Everyone knows what Zeus is weak for. It's in all the myths.
She's young for it yet, but she won't be forever. She will grow up. All she has to do is survive long enough and she can reach for the stars themselves.
Theodora smiles at her father and dares to hug him. He may not be powerful enough to protect her but he will still be useful. At the very least, he is the reason she can get to Olympus. That's worth a lot.
She's thirteen when she meets C.C., Circe of legend, one of those terrible, wicked women that her mother had told her bedtime stories about.
Perfect. A teacher.
"We can stay here for a while, can't we?" She asks Annabeth. "We need to recover for the home stretch."
They've been best friends for a year by now and Annabeth trusts her judgement. She knows Theodora has a long-term plan that will get them both divine favour, if not more.
They are both of them terribly greedy girls - or perhaps that is just what men would say they are.
C.C. calls them brilliant instead.
She teaches them to laugh, to smile, to speak. She teaches them to do their hair, to dress, to walk in heels sharp enough to kill a man. She teaches them that all men are weak to a pretty face, weaker still to a kiss, weakest of all to a pretty face that denies them a kiss.
"You're a little young to pull this off," she says during their first lesson, "but you'll grow."
And Theodora does.
She blossoms properly that summer, which all the boys and some of the girls at camp notice. Her first kiss is given to Lee Fletcher when he gives her flowers on her birthday. He follows her for the rest of the summer with starry eyes and love songs on his lips, which turn into curses for Mark from Cabin 5 when she lets him whirl her into a dance at the campfire.
She watches as the two boys get into fights all summer long, and sees how long she can spin them out. Until Lee's head gets crushed in by a giant, she learns. Even then, Mark still follows her with gentle hands and uncertain smiles. It feels bitter now, knowing she toyed with Lee until it got him killed. She kisses Pollux in front of Mark, and hopes it will stop him from pining for her until he dies.
After that, she practices on mortals. Less dangerous, more fleeting. She doesn't like promising things like time to people. Not when she knows what she's ultimately after. It feels unfair to them.
Annabeth points out that some people would see using those boys as practice at all was unfair. Perhaps she's right. But it's necessary all the same. She's going to have to be good at this when the time comes.
Theodora is sixteen when the prophecy comes true. Olympus has been saved. The gods no longer need her. All that now stands between her and death for an insult or her birth or her power is her father. And powerful her father may be but all it would take is one well-aimed blow while his back is turned.
But Theodora is not afraid, not yet. She's been planning for this day from the moment Annabeth told her the prophecy after they met Medusa.
(Theodora had heard Medusa's story with a gentle expression, and then cut her down without faltering. "She was weak," she had said to Annabeth softly that night, "she let the gods dictate her life to her. I can't afford that." Annabeth was just as clever and ambitious as Theodora herself. Wicked, they could both be called. They made their first plan that night, over Medusa's head. One day, they would be immortal.)
It helps that she is beautiful, she thinks. Her hair is long and dark, her skin is clear, her eyes are bright and bottomless.
"There's something dark and deep in those eyes of yours," Circe had crooned on the enchanted island all those years ago, "like hooks for the soul." Weapons. Tools.
Theodora blinks those bottomless eyes up at the king of the sky. "I don't want immortality." She says, her voice light and lilting.
She can see the moment his attention turns fully to her. The moment his eyes are caught by hers. Good.
"What do you want?" Zeus asks, leaning forward without seeming to realise it.
Theodora allows a smile to curl the very edges of her lips and asks for justice for the children of the gods. Justice, family and hospitality, all three falling under his domains.
It gets his attention alright, heavy enough that she almost stumbles under the weight.
She doesn't do anything more after that. Not with Queen Hera and her father sitting right there. But it's enough.
His blue eyes follow her for as long as she is on Olympus. They probably follow her as she leaves Olympus too.
Good.
"Come to dinner with me." He says, appearing beside her while she's walking home from work a week later. It's a command rather than anything else. Clearly the thought that she could do anything but agree hasn't even entered his head.
Theodora blinks at him, filling her eyes with mild surprise. "Dinner, my lord?"
"Yes." He replies, snapping his fingers. "With me." The world wavers around them and resolves into a fancy restaurant of the kind she couldn't afford in a million years.
It's got crystal chandeliers hanging above the tables, a string quartet playing classical music, and tail-coated waiters attending assiduously to their customers' every need.
Theodora herself is wearing a clinging dress the colour of the summer sky with half of her hair pinned up and the rest curling around her shoulders. She takes note of that. Things that show the shape of her body, things in his colours, hair framing her face.
"What do you want?" Zeus asks, now in a suit that looks like it cost more than ten skyscrapers. "Wine? They have a few half-decent vintages, by mortal standards."
Theodora stands up, letting her chair scrape unpleasantly against the expensive floor. "I'm too young to drink, my lord." She says, folding her hands together as if to stop them trembling. (They are steady as they ever are in battle, for what is this but her greatest battle?) "Thank you for the invitation but I'm afraid I have to decline."
And she walks out of the restaurant. She can feel his shocked eyes on her back, so it's no surprise when he materialises again right in front of her.
"Somewhere else then?" He asks, holding out his hand with unshaken assurance.
Theodora does not take it. "I think you misunderstood me, my lord."
A frown, but the blue eyes keep getting caught by the dress he had put her in.
"What have I misunderstood, Jackson?" He asks, his voice rumbling like thunder. Hm, Jackson still. She's going to have to work on that.
Theodora curtseys, dropping her eyes from his. "I do not wish to have dinner with you, my lord." She says softly. "I just want to go home."
Father, she prays while Zeus blinks at her in complete and utter shock, Father, Zeus is trying to bed me.
"What do you mean?" Zeus demands. The sky is growing dark and cloudy, with thunder already rumbling. She's going to have to tread carefully with this one.
"I'm flattered by your interest, my lord, but-"
"I am the king of the gods, Theodora Jackson." Zeus interrupts her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to him. "If I want you-"
Right on cue, the three prongs of a trident are at Zeus's throat.
"Release my daughter." Father says, but Theodora can see his free fist clenched behind his back. He is risking much through this. She probably shouldn't bank on his direct interference again. She's too fond of him to risk him like that too often.
Zeus snarls at him. "Do you want another war, Poseidon?"
"You once condemned my son for raping the daughter of a god." Her father says steadily. "Would you condemn yourself for the same crime?"
Theodora backs away and runs. That was too close. She's going to have to rewrite her plans with Annabeth. Clearly she underestimated just how unused gods were to being denied.
When her father appears in her room that evening, he looks pale and drawn. "Zeus has sworn not to force himself on you." He tells Theodora. "But he has forbidden me from interfering so again."
"That's alright." Theodora says softly, smiling up at him. "Thank you, Father. It means the world to me that you tried at all."
Poseidon smiles at the title, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He loves her, this immortal father of hers, even if he cannot always show it. Perhaps in another world Theodora would even have been satisfied with his protection. Unfortunately for him, Theodora was born with a hunger that will never let her rest. She needs this. She wants it. She wants it all.
And she knows just how to get it. She's off limits now. Forbidden fruit. Zeus has sworn an oath of forbearance about her and now she's gone from a potential dalliance to a curiosity. She's aiming for more than that, and she has plenty of chances.
He appears at her school, in her apartment, in her cabin (leading to her father nearly declaring war), anywhere she goes he pops up. It would be creepy if Theodora hadn't planned for it. Men are so predictable.
She keeps her distance at first. He doesn't transport her to places again, nor does he do anything remotely threatening. He talks, mostly. About himself, about Olympus, about day to day things.
Gradually, Theodora allows herself to soften. To bend her iron walls of respectful courtesy ever so slightly. She responds to his questions. Lets him brush against her without pulling away like a startles deer. But every time he asks her to come with him, she refuses. Again and again he asks her, like a helpless moth caught by a candle flame.
Perhaps that is part of Hera's reasoning for taking her from camp, to keep her out of Zeus's eye or to discourage her from trying for him. If so, it failed miserably.
It's like Hera doesn't know that forbidden fruit is the most desirable. It's like she's forgotten how she herself gained Zeus's attention - by refusing him, by being unattainable. All men love the chase and immortal men only have more time to dedicate to it.
Six months of interruption is nothing. Theodora intends to be immortal and her plans are made to account for such. She prays to Zeus every few days. Once, she begins to say that she misses him, but she cuts the phrase off just after it becomes clear what she was going to say. The scent of ozone that surrounds her is enough to tell her she still has his attention.
Hera kidnapping her will have lost the queen a good deal of favour with Zeus, favour that Theodora doubts Hera even knows she needs. After all, she is a Kronide, an elder goddess in her own right, is she not untouchable? Theodora remembers stories of the queen dangling over Khaos and not a single being lifting a finger to help her. Stories that even Hera seems to have forgotten.
When they fight the giants at the Acropolis, Zeus materialises beside his son - but his eyes keep straying to her. A lightning bolt even hits Porphyrion once. She can see her father's eyes narrow at that. Ah well, he is forbidden from interfering after the restaurant incident. Even he will not go against a direct order from the king, not after he was made mortal.
Besides, Zeus's daughter is the bride of Hades, her father needs some representation. She wonders if that would persuade him. Perhaps he's sentimental enough that she can ask him to let it be because it makes her happy (and it does make her happy, just not in the way he might think). He nearly risked war for her before. It might work.
He never does ask though. Perhaps he's already realised that she is precisely where she wants to be. Perhaps her father has realised what she is doing. Perhaps she didn't get it all from her mother after all.
She sits beneath Thalia's pine tree after the dust has settled. She's wearing a soft blue sundress that makes the green of her eyes seem even brighter by comparison. Her feet are bare, and her hair is draped about her like a cloak.
She isn't sure how long it will take for him to get away, especially after a war. So she leans her head back against the trunk of the tree and closes her eyes. The sun is warm on her skin, and the air is thick with the scent of the pine needles. It's remarkably pleasant.
It's so pleasant, in fact, that she's almost asleep by the time she smells rain and ash.
"Theodora." She opens her eyes, letting a little smile brighten them at the sight of him. He is standing over her, with a frown furrowing his brow and something delightfully soft in his cold eyes.
"I used to have nightmares about your lightning." She tells him by way of greeting, just to see the flinch. "I dreamed about you killing me."
He looks devastated. She wonders if she could get him to swear never to hurt her. Probably, but she doesn't want to show her hand too soon.
"I don't dream about you anymore." She continues, after letting him wallow for a few minutes. "I dream about the Pit now.''
Silence.
She looks past him, into the distance, thinking about Tartarus. Just remembering it is enough for tears to gather on her lashes, and her lip to start wobbling. She's practiced it with Annabeth before, and is proud to say she looks very vulnerable and soft indeed.
C.C. would be proud.
Just before the first tear falls, he sits down beside her. Not quite touching but close enough that she can feel the heat of his body.
"I remember the Pit." He says, quietly enough that it's almost gentle. "It was not a place that should exist."
"It didn't feel real." Theodora agrees, letting her head droop forwards a little.
She's watching him out of the corner of her eye, so she can see the hesitant way he settles one arm about her shoulders.
His voice, when he speaks, is diffident in a way she would never have thought possible in the sky king. "I know I am not known for kindness, but I have some understanding of what you have been through. Would you tell me?"
She widens her eyes, and hesitates. It's only a moment before his free hand has taken her own, squeezing encouragingly.
Theodora opens her mouth and starts to speak. She tells him about the river of fire, the mansion of night, the constant stream of monsters, the madness of it all.
She doesn't tell him about how easy it was for her and Annabeth to figure it out. She doesn't tell him how they fit in so easily like two more monsters among many. She doesn't tell him that she reached into Akhlys's chest and tore the domain of poison out with her bare hands. But it's more than she's told even her father.
When at last she finishes speaking, she sighs as if exhausted. Then, slowly, hesitantly, she lets her head tilt to the side until it's resting on his shoulder.
She can feel the shudder that goes through his whole body at that. It's the first time she's initiated any contact.
"Thank you." She says, letting her voice go soft and hoarse.
The hand holding hers tightens, almost imperceptibly. "Any time." Zeus replies.
Someday she is going to hold him to these terribly foolish promises he keeps making.
She still doesn't let him take her to dinner after that. Not yet. But she talks to him more. Sometimes touches him, lets the touches linger and watches his eyes pulse white with restrained lightning.
It's almost intoxicating enough to forget why she is doing this. To just tumble into his bed and see if he really is as desperate for her as he seems. She's never had a god in her bed before, and as good as demigods were she bets gods are better.
Almost, but not quite. Theodora knew what she was going to do when she was twelve and she isn't giving up now. Not when she's so very close.
When Hera summons her to her temple, Theodora knows the finish line is in sight. She wears the clinging blue dress Zeus had given her that first time he had taken her out and bows before his wife with an innocent smile.
"I know what you are doing." Queen Hera says with ice in her voice before Theodora can speak. "It will not work. He always returns to me. What do you think I will do to you when he grows bored of you? Do you think he will care enough to avenge you?"
Theodora smiles lazily at the goddess. She doesn't even bother to show her teeth. "I know your secret too, aunt." She says sweetly.
"What secret?" Hera demands, eyes narrowing.
Theodora leans forwards, revelling in the way the goddess matches her movements, caught by her web like a common mortal. "Until me, you were the only one who ever told him 'no', weren't you?"
It's true, Theodora knows it is. She had known even before Hera's lips go white with the rest of her face. In every myth, men and women let themselves be swept off their feet with only token protests. Who would deny the king of the gods, after all? Who would dare to turn him down?
Only Hera, and now Theodora.
"Be careful, girl." Hera hisses at her. "You are still mortal, and I am queen."
"For now." Theodora agrees sweetly. She doesn't have anything against Hera. It's just that the goddess is in her way. Removing an obstacle isn't personal, even if Hera seems intent on making it so. Theodora wants to be queen, it isn't her fault that Hera is sitting in her seat.
She turns and walks away without bothering to defend her back. It's an insult but one she has calculated is worth the risk.
Zeus appears by her side before she has walked fifty yards. "I couldn't see you." He says frantically, looking like he wants to drag her to Apollo's temple. "Did she hurt you?"
She looks up at him and allows a shy smile onto her face. "No, she didn't."
A sigh escapes him, the resulting wind ruffling the trees about her but not even a single hair on her head is blown out of place.
"Good." He says, the faintest hint of a growl beneath the word. "I would have cast her into Khaos if she had harmed a hair on your head."
Theodora pulls some of the blood away from her cheeks and widens her eyes. "Why would you do that?" She breathes, as if shocked.
Zeus stops walking, grabbing her hand so that she stops too.
"My lord?" She ventures, making her voice sound uncertain.
"Zeus."
"Zeus." Theodora echoes, allowing a little blood back into her cheeks. Just enough for a faint flush.
He shifts his grip on her hand, lifting it to his lips and pressing a kiss to the back of it. "Do you not know?" He asks, his eyes searching hers.
Theodora keeps her eyes blankly confused, even as she intensifies the blush. "Know what?"
A sigh escapes him, and he turns her hand over, pressing a kiss to her wrist, right where it throbs with life. "I love you." He breathes, as if saying it aloud would shatter it.
"No you don't." Theodora says flatly. "You just want to fuck me."
"I do love you!" He protests, his eyes growing wild. "I love you more than any man or woman I have ever known."
She scoffs, and pulls her hand away. "I've read my myths. I'm not stupid, nor am I going to risk Lady Hera's wrath."
Zeus catches her hand again. He's grown taller, his hair darker, clouds rolling in to turn the day greyer.
Perhaps he really is in earnest now. Theodora wonders how far forward she can pull her schedule. It's been much more efficient than she had thought.
"I would move mountains for you." He tells her. "I would burn worlds. I would do anything you ask me to. Whatever you want to prove my devotion."
Theodora lets him pull her closer to him, close enough to smell the lightning and ash that always surrounds him. She closes her eyes, biting her lips as if struggling with inner turmoil.
"Did you tell Beryl Grace this?" She asks, her voice sharp but with the slightest wobble in it. "Did you tell Semele this before you killed her? Or Io before you abandoned her to your wife's vengeance? Or Europa before you took her to a strange land?"
"I-"
"I will not be another conquest." She says, opening her eyes, letting them glimmer with unshed tears. "I can't do that."
"You would never be just another conquest." He promises, bringing her hands up to press kisses to each finger.
Theodora is silent for a long moment. She waits until his eyes have lifted from her hands to her face. Waits until his eyes have been hooked by that dark thing that lives inside her own, the weapon that C.C. had handed her so long ago.
"You cannot promise that." She says gently. "You get tired of everyone, and you will get tired of me too."
"Not you." He replies, gripping her hands harder. "Never you."
She shakes her head, letting a single tear fall from her lashes. His eyes follow it's trail down to the floor.
"No." Theodora tells him, her voice quiet and gentle. It is that single word which breaks him.
Zeus falls to his knees, pressing her hands to his lips like a worshipper to a goddess.
"Please, Theodora," he begs, "tell me what I must do. I will do anything. Anything."
He's desperate, Theodora realises with a thrill of wicked delight. The king of the sky is on his knees for her. Theodora Jackson has the king of Olympus on his knees without even asking for it.
"I am not an adulterer, my king." She says, lowering her eyes to the ground. "But I thank you for your most generous offer."
She pulls her hands gently from his. Then she turns around and start to walk away.
The cry of her name comes exactly on schedule. She stops walking but does not turn around.
"I will make you my queen then." He blurts out without seeming to realise what he has said. "I will give you a throne on Olympus. Whatever your heart desires."
Theodora turns back then, keeping the triumphant smile from her lips. She has him. And early too. "I don't want a throne." She tells him gently because it's true. She doesn't want an empty throne, she wants the whole damn world in her hand. "And if you can't understand that then this is never going to work."
The desperation in his eyes could feed her for a thousand years. "There has to be something you want." He protests.
"I want to be safe." Theodora says, and it's the first wholly true thing she has ever said to him. "I want to sleep at night without being afraid I won't see the morning. I want to go to places without knowing I'll have to fight for my life. I want peace." Peace and power, but that can come later.
Zeus smiles, no doubt relieved that she wants something so simple. "Peace?" He repeats. "I can give you peace."
"Can you?" Theodora asks bleakly, meeting his eyes straight on.
He is silent for a long moment, just staring into her eyes. Then he stands up, and cups her face in his hands. "I could give you the world if you asked it, Theodora," he croons, "a life without danger is nothing."
It is a start, she thinks, tilting her head up ever so slightly as he bends towards her lips.
He tastes like rain and lightning and ash. He tastes like the bitter fear she lived in from the moment that lightning bolt had hit the car when she was twelve. He tastes like power, and she wants it so badly it hurts.
She wonders what she tastes like as she tangles her hands in his hair, tugging on the dark curls without fear. Like salt perhaps, and pines, and the sickly sweetness of the poison Akhlys had tried to kill her with.
She wonders if he tastes the bitterness.
Probably not, she decides as he finally breaks away. She doubts he is thinking enough for that.
Theodora steps away from him, pressing her lips together and calling tears to bead on her lashes.
"I won't be a mistress." She tells him, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "I'm sorry, I can't, I won't do that."
This time, Zeus lets her go. She wonders if he thinks she cannot sense the invisible form that follows her. Or see the one that goes into Hera's temple, or hear the scream that comes from it.
She is twenty years old when Zeus gives her immortality and a queen's throne. As she had promised all those years ago, Annabeth is her immortal handmaiden, set to be the bride of her own god before too long. What a pair the two of them make.
History will call them grasping, greedy mistresses. Girls who reached too high, who didn't know their place. Wicked, treacherous women. Clever, powerful women, Theodora corrects in her head. Women whom men fear.