Chapter 98 The Silence Of Shadows

• Aphrodite's Point of View
• Years had passed like shadows slipping through my fingers, leaving behind an aching, unspoken absence in our lives. Each day, the emptiness seemed to stretch, widening the rift that had settled like an invisible wall between Zeus and me. We had been so close to uncovering the truth, so close to bringing Ares home, but every lead we’d followed led only to dead ends. And now, our son had become little more than a whispered memory—a name we barely dared to say aloud, even in our most private thoughts.
• Zeus returned from yet another search empty-handed, his shoulders weighed down with the invisible burden that had followed him for years. The moment he stepped inside the door, I saw the answer in his eyes: another failure, another wasted effort. He looked exhausted, his eyes hollow, his jaw set in that familiar stoic line he wore when the pain became too much to bear. I wanted to reach out, to comfort him, but over the years, I had learned that my touch could not reach past the walls he had built around his grief.