The sun punished Olympia as if it had something personal against it.
Kauã wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and looked at the Amphitheater for the third time, trying to understand how a structure that size could exist. The columns were so tall they seemed to hold up the sky. The white stone reflected the sunlight so fiercely that looking directly at it hurt, and yet thousands of people crowded the steps, shoving, shouting, praying, crying—all at once, as if the entire world had decided to go insane on the same day.
“Stop staring with that fish-face,” his mother said, tugging him by the arm. “Come on.”
“I do not have a fish-face.”
“You do. The same face your father used to make when he saw something too big to understand. Come on.”
Kauã did not answer. Not because he had nothing to say—he always did—but because his mother had mentioned his father, and that meant she was nervous. Helena Padoan only mentioned her dead husband when the world around her became too big for her, too.
Leoni walked ahead, and people made room for him without realizing it. That was how it was with Leoni—he did not ask to pass, shove, or raise his voice. People simply moved. Eighteen years old, broad-shouldered, with a firm jaw and clear eyes that looked as if they had been drawn by a sculptor with too much time on his hands. Leoni looked like he belonged there. Kauã looked like he had been dragged there by mistake.
Which, technically, was true.
“You stay here,” his mother said, pointing to a side section of the Amphitheater, where families were settling onto stone benches. “Don’t leave, don’t talk to strangers, and don’t make jokes about any priests.”
“Mom, I’m sixteen.”
“Exactly. Sixteen years of experience telling me you’re going to do exactly what I told you not to do.”
Kauã opened his mouth to protest, but Leoni turned and placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch was firm and warm, carrying that silent weight Leoni always had—as if every gesture he made said something words couldn’t.
“Relax,” Leoni said. “In fifty years, it’ll be your turn.”
He smiled. Kauã smiled back. And for one second, the two of them were just brothers again—with no ceremonies, no gods, no expectations. Just two boys who had grown up sharing the same room in a house that smelled of salt and dried fish.
Then Leoni turned and walked toward the central arena, where the candidates were gathering. Their mother followed, and Kauã was left alone.
He sat on the stone bench, which was hot enough to fry an egg, and looked around. The Amphitheater was a sea of people. Old men and women who had seen the last Initiation fifty years ago and cried just to be there again. Children who understood nothing but screamed anyway. Eighteen-year-olds with glassy eyes, praying to be chosen, praying not to be, without knowing which of the two options was worse.
And then the gods arrived.
There was no warning. No trumpets, no rays of light, no celestial choirs. One moment the sky was clear, and the next—they were there. In the center of the arena, as if they had always been there.
The entire Amphitheater held its breath.
Kauã had never seen a god. No one from his generation had. And no story, statue, or painting on pottery could have prepared anyone there for what it was like to stand in their presence.
Zeus stood at the center. It was impossible not to look at him first—not because he was the biggest or the brightest, but because the air around him vibrated. As if the atmosphere itself recognized who he was and bowed. Hair white as a storm, eyes that seemed to contain lightning not metaphorically, but literally. When he moved, Kauã felt thunder in his bones.
Poseidon stood to Zeus’s left. Shorter, broader, with the weathered skin of someone who had spent eternity beneath the sun on the sea. His eyes were the deepest green Kauã had ever seen—the color of the ocean where light never reached. He looked bored, which somehow made him even more intimidating.
And on the right—no one.
Kauã frowned. The Big Three were three. Everyone knew that. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. But where Hades should have been, there was only empty space.
The other gods spread out behind the Three—or the Two, at that moment. Kauã recognized some of them from descriptions he had heard all his life. Athena, with gray eyes that seemed to dissect everything they touched. Ares, radiating an energy that made Kauã want to fight and run at the same time. Apollo, who glowed—not metaphorically, either; the guy actually glowed, as if someone had lit a bonfire inside him.
The ceremony began. Zeus spoke, and his voice filled the Amphitheater without him needing to shout. Words about honor, duty, the sacred bond between gods and mortals. Kauã tried to pay attention, but it was hard when every word made the stone bench vibrate beneath him.
The gods began moving among the candidates. Athena went first—she walked straight to a young woman with braided hair who looked ready to faint, touched her shoulder, and said something Kauã couldn’t hear. The young woman dropped to her knees. The crowd roared.
Ares chose two. Apollo chose one. Hermes chose three, laughing as he did it, as if the entire ceremony were a joke only he understood.
And then Zeus moved.
The Amphitheater fell utterly silent. Zeus walked among the candidates with the calm of someone who had eternity at his disposal. He passed dozens without looking at them. And then he stopped.
In front of Leoni.
Kauã felt his stomach drop. Not from surprise—from confirmation. Of course it was Leoni. Of course Zeus would choose Leoni. The entire world seemed to have been built for that moment, for that broad-shouldered boy with clear eyes to stand before the king of the gods and be recognized as worthy.
Zeus did not touch Leoni’s shoulder. He extended his hand. An offer, not an order. Leoni looked at that hand—the hand of the most powerful god in the cosmos—and shook it.
The thunder that followed did not come from the sky. It came from inside the Amphitheater, from inside the people, from inside the earth itself. Fifty thousand voices shouting at once. Somewhere down below, Kauã’s mother was probably crying. From pride, fear, everything at once.
Kauã should have been shouting, too. He should have been on his feet, punching the air, proud of his brother.
He was sitting. Quiet. With a smile on his face that never reached his eyes.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
The voice came from behind him. Kauã turned.
A man was sitting on the bench beside him—which was strange, because Kauã was certain that bench had been empty ten seconds ago. The man wore a simple black tunic without ornaments and a hood that covered most of his face. What Kauã could see was an angular chin, pale skin, and the shadow of eyes that seemed to watch everything without being impressed by anything.
“Yeah,” Kauã said, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“Your brother?”
“How do you know?”
“You have the same nose.”
Kauã instinctively touched his own nose. The man did not laugh, but something at the corner of his mouth moved—almost a smile, restrained before it could be born.
“Zeus made a good choice,” the man said. “Your brother has presence. People look at him and want to follow him. That’s rare.”
“Everyone’s always wanted to follow Leoni,” Kauã said, with no bitterness in his voice. It was just a fact. Like saying the sky was blue or the sea was salty. “Ever since we were kids. He walks into a place, and people organize themselves around him. I walk into a place, and people ask if I’m lost.”
The man was silent for a moment. Then:
“And does that bother you?”
Kauã thought about it. Really thought, which was unusual for him—usually the words came out before the thought.
“No,” Kauã said, and it was true. “Leoni deserves it. He’s… he’s good at it. At being what people need him to be. I wouldn’t be good at that. I’d say something wrong in the first five minutes and start a war.”
“‘In the first five minutes’ is generous,” the man said.
Kauã laughed. A real, startled laugh that escaped before he could hold it back. The hooded man had made a joke. A dry, almost invisible joke, but a joke.
“Where are you from?” Kauã asked.
“Far away.”
“That’s pretty vague.”
“It’s intentional.”
“All right. And what do you do?”
“I manage things.”
“What kind of things?”
“The kind no one wants to manage.”
Kauã narrowed his eyes. Something about the man didn’t fit. He was too calm. In an Amphitheater with fifty thousand people screaming, gods walking among mortals, the air vibrating with divine power—that man sat as if he were on his front porch.
“You don’t look very impressed by all this,” Kauã said.
“Neither do you.”
“I am impressed. I’m just not good at showing it.”
“No,” the man said, and for the first time his voice carried something beyond neutrality. Something like interest. “You’re not impressed. You’re observing. Those are different things. Most people here are so busy feeling that they’ve forgotten to see. You’re seeing.”
Kauã didn’t know how to respond. No one had ever said anything like that about him. People said he was funny, that he was a good guy, that he talked too much. No one had ever said he saw things.
“Can I ask you a question?” the man said.
“You’re already asking one.”
“A real question.”
“Go ahead.”
“If a god chose you right now—not your brother, you—what would you do?”
“I’m sixteen. No god is going to choose me.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Kauã looked at the man. The hood covered his eyes, but Kauã felt the weight of that gaze as something physical—as if a hand were pressing against his chest, not hard, but with a firmness that said: I’m paying attention to you. Real attention.
“I’d accept,” Kauã said. “Not for honor, not for glory, not because my mother would cry with pride. I’d accept because….” He paused, searching for the words. “Because I want to know what it’s like. To be part of something bigger than me. To see things no one from my village will ever see. I don’t want to be worshiped. I just want to… see.”
The silence that followed lasted exactly three of Kauã’s heartbeats. He counted them.
The man raised his hands and pulled back his hood.
The face that appeared was not what Kauã expected. It was not monstrous, not radiant, not anything the stories said. It was a serious, angular face, with dark eyes that seemed to contain the stillness of a place where no light reached. Short black hair, with gray strands at the temples. Fine lines around the eyes—not from laughter, but from time. A very, very long time.
“My name is Hades,” the man said. “And I would like you to come with me.”
The world stopped.
Not metaphorically. The noise of the Amphitheater, the shouting, the wind, the heat—it all seemed to recede, as if the universe had taken a step back to make room for that moment.
Kauã looked at Hades. Hades looked at Kauã.
“I’m sixteen,” Kauã said, because apparently his brain had decided that the most logical response to a primordial god inviting him to serve was to point out a bureaucratic issue.
“I know,” Hades said.
“The rule says eighteen.”
“I know. I helped write the rule.”
“And you want to break it. For me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Hades studied him. Not hurriedly, not impatiently. With the calm of someone who had eternity to answer and chose to use that time carefully.
“Because in three thousand years of Initiations, you are the first person to speak to me without knowing who I was and not change your tone when you found out.”
Kauã realized it was true. He hadn’t changed. He felt no fear, no crushing reverence, no urge to kneel. He felt curious. And something else—something he didn’t know how to name, but that resembled recognition. Like finding someone who understood a joke no one else understood.
“All right,” Kauã said. “I accept.”
Hades nodded. No smile, no celebration, no thunder. Just a brief nod, like someone closing a deal he already knew would be made.
“But I need to warn you about something,” Hades said, rising. “That honesty of yours. I like it. But you’re going to be my spokesperson. My eyes and voice where I can’t be. And there are gods who don’t respond well to honesty.”
“Are you asking me to lie?”
“I’m asking you to moderate it. There’s a difference between being honest and being reckless. You’re going to have to learn that difference, or you’ll cause problems even I won’t be able to solve.”
“In the first five minutes?”
Hades looked at him. And this time, for the first time, the corner of his mouth truly curved.
“In the first two.”
When they descended together to the central arena, the Amphitheater was already in chaos over Leoni and Zeus. But when people saw Hades—Hades, who hadn’t appeared at an Initiation in centuries, Hades, whom everyone thought wouldn’t even come—the chaos turned into something different. Something quieter and heavier.
And when they saw who was standing beside him—a boy. A sixteen-year-old boy, skinny, with messy hair and a scar on his chin, who looked just as out of place beside the god of death as a sparrow beside a storm—the silence became absolute.
Kauã’s mother did not cry. She stood there with one hand over her mouth, eyes wide, wearing an expression that was neither pride nor fear, but something between the two that had no name.
Leoni, standing beside Zeus, looked at his brother. And for the first time in his life, Kauã saw something on Leoni’s face he had never seen before.
He didn’t know whether it was surprise, concern, or jealousy.
Maybe it was all three.