They returned to themselves in silence
No sky, no familiar ground, no throne, no realm, no power. Only emptiness that seemed to stretch itself in all directions in an unfinished thought, in a shape that refused to be defined. The air was thick and cold.
Zeus was the first to rise to his full height.
Chaos no longer obeyed his summons as it had in the final confrontation. The power that had once been his rested now, inert, in the hollow of the world that no longer existed. He looked at his hands. Bare. Empty of lightning or rage or the desperate energy of the last stand. The universe that he had fought and bled for was no longer there, and the absence of it ached in his ribs as if it had a second heart beating there.
In addition to the world, he had lost something more.
