by Raye Wagner
“What about the other one?” he asked. “What are you going to do with it?”
The other Book of the Fates, the soft buttery-yellow one she’d been given while in the Underworld. How she’d been able to take it with her, she had no idea. She knew there must be something great in there, except she couldn’t read it. Whatever mysteries it held were unattainable for her. She exhaled slowly, trying to relieve the frustration bursting through her whenever she thought of the yellow Book of the Fates. She seriously couldn’t catch a break with it. “Still nothing. Maybe I should give that to you, too.”
The words were bitter in her mouth, but there was no relief in spitting them out. She’d lost so much in that trip to the Underworld: Priska’s immortality, as well as Athan’s, Dahlia had been damned to an eternity with the goddess Hecate, and Hope’s only memories were fleeting images of the god of death.
She wished she could remember meeting her parents, but knowing she had was a small consolation. She’d been lucky enough to see Xan before the disastrous dunking in the Lethe. She’d told him her parents were happy together and her next step was to go to Olympus, which was the only reason she knew either of those facts. The reality of whatever had transpired during her time with her parents was lost in the depths of the river.
And somehow, she’d acquired the thin volume from the Fates, which still remained blank. Neither Athan nor Xan could read it. So the gift was a waste.
Even knowing her parents were happy didn’t bring a resolution to her feelings of frustration about her father’s disappearance. He’d still left her mom right after finding out she was the Sphinx. It was the worst kind of betrayal. At some point, he had died, but his death didn’t absolve him of the bitterness Hope had toward him. Regardless of how irrational her feelings were, she couldn’t just change them.
Perhaps Athan felt that same sense of betrayal about his father. Pity welled from deep within, and she patted his chest and then laid her head on his shoulder. “At least you know your dad cares about you. He might be overbearing, or controlling”—Hope remembered feeling that way about her mom when they would have to pick up and move—“but you know he loves you.”
She was all over the place with her thoughts and emotions. The stress of what she knew was coming made her scattered, but she couldn’t seem to rein it all in.
Athan’s chest rose and fell with his deep breath. Then he asked, “Do you want to talk about your dad?”
“No.” What was there to say? He’d left and then died. Was she judging him unfairly? “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Athan kissed her head. “I don’t think this is about your dad. Not really. You tend to bring him up when you’re upset, and I get that. But what you’re really saying, or what I’m really hearing, is that you’re feeling powerless.”
He’d always been able to read her, and the truth of what he’d said shook her to her core. She’d been consumed with what-ifs, terrorized by the aftermath of her decisions, and even after so many had sacrificed to help her, she was still in the same place. What if nothing changed? What if she couldn’t really break the curse?
She swallowed as the futility of her quest overwhelmed her. Maybe she should quit. A single tear escaped and trickled a slow path down her cheek.
As though he sensed her despair, Athan pulled back and tilted her face up. Looking her in the eye, he continued, “But that’s just it, Hope. You’re not powerless. You’re one of the most powerful people I’ve ever known, and I don’t mean because of your immortality or the fact that you have super speed, or excellent vision, or whatever. Your power is here,” he said, pointing at her chest. “Don’t let frustration, anger, or disappointment determine your actions. That’s what started this mess.”
Instantly filled with defensiveness, she narrowed her eyes at him. “I didn’t start this mess.”
He laughed, and the warm sound shattered the tension. “Not you. Apollo. And even Hera. They acted out of anger and hurt, and look at the destruction they’ve caused.” He cupped her face with his hands. “Every time you talk about your father, you get angry. But when you saw Xan, after you’d seen your parents, you weren’t angry, right?”
Athan’s gaze lifted, and Hope followed it to Xan leaning against the wall by the kitchen. Xan pulled away from the wall and came toward them. “He’s right. You were excited, happy, almost ecstatic.”
Athan dropped his hands to her shoulders, and his intense gaze made her nervous.
“Maybe you need to let your anger go,” he said. “Maybe then you can read that book.”
She hated when he made sense like that. Knowing she was being irrational was worse than eating sour grapes. And even if he was right, how did one let go of their anger?
He started laughing again.
“What’s so funny?” she snapped.
Xan chuckled, too, and when she glared at him, he raised his brows. “You’re sulking, luv. It looks funny on you.”
Tonight was her last night with Athan before she and Xan left, and Hope decided right then she wasn’t going to sulk for it.
“Gods, I hope this works,” Hope said to Xan as they crossed the empty parking lot to the squat temple of Ares.
Misty drizzle stuck to them like dew. The early morning air was not cold, but the wind at the base of the pass was violent and biting, making the temperature feel much cooler than the alleged thirty-five degrees. The sharp smell of pine hung heavily as the trees swayed with the wind.
She’d said a courageous goodbye to Athan not even an hour ago, and they’d kissed like she was going to be gone for the day. But if all went well with the god of war, Hope and Xan would be at Olympus today, and time there was measured differently than in the mortal realm, so who knew when she’d be back. She told herself it would be only a couple weeks, but in her heart, she knew that was wishful thinking.
And then, if their visit to Ares, or even Olympus, didn’t go well . . . Hope refused to think about what that could mean.
Despite refusing to dwell on the what-ifs, nervousness crept through and over Hope, making her want to hit something. “Do you think it will work?”
She’d asked the same question at least a dozen times since they’d left the house, always a different iteration, but the same question nonetheless.
Xan stopped walking to stare at her. His eyes flashed fire and then turned to ice, and she was only able to see his irritation because of her supernatural powers.
“Right.” He bit off the word like the admission was repulsive. “Me best advice is don’t get your hopes up, princess.”
Hope wanted to shrug off his bad mood. Wanted to say it was the tension of the mission. But she couldn’t help bristling at his sharp words. She bit her tongue to keep from retorting.
They were all on edge. Even Athan had snapped several times this morning, and his repeated apologies grew wearisome after only an hour. No doubt he was upset about not being able to come to Olympus. Or maybe it was more than that.
But now that they were at Ares’s temple, Hope was relieved Athan wasn’t with them. Back at home, with the statue of Hecate, he would be safe. Which brought a little comfort, or maybe it was just one less thing to worry about.
Crossing through the parking lot, the chilly morning air seeped through Hope’s jacket, through her sweater, and burrowed past her skin to her bones. The damp air made the cold so much worse. One day, she would leave the Pacific Northwest and move somewhere sunny and warm.
Maybe.
But when she tried to envision what it would be like to live out her dreams, her thoughts went to Priska and Charlie, not the beach. What did that mean?
They passed under the single streetlight illuminating the stalls on either side of a single red car with a dent in its back bumper. Hope looked at Xan’s empty hands and asked, “Don’t we need an offering to get to the inner sanctuary?”
The demigod’s dark hair was standing up in clumps, but not because he’d spent any amount of time in front of the mirror. The son of Ares h
ad a nervous habit of running his hand through his hair, and as Hope watched him go through the motion, she wondered if he would go bald from all the anxiety.
“Me da’ won’t want an offering like you’re thinking,” he said in his heavy brogue. “And if we get there, don’t be surprised if he asks you to start a war, or something worse.”
There was no way she’d agree to starting a war. But as soon as the thought crossed her mind, it was followed by the memory of the Olympian temple floor covered in ash. Maybe they’d already started one. And what could or something worse be?
“Is the parking lot empty because it’s so early?”
Xan had parked his sporty coupe on the far side of the lot, and the only other vehicle was the red one they’d just passed.
Xan said nothing, but he clenched his hands into fists by his sides.
“Do you think it will work?” She couldn’t help herself from asking.
Xan blew out a long breath next to her. His shoulder bumped her, and then he grabbed her hand. Intertwining their fingers, he answered, “I don’t know, lass. But I hope so.”
Hope clung to his hand and his words, grateful for the kindness in each. Her anxiety didn’t melt away, but security in the rightness of her purpose filled her.
The gray predawn began to feather its way across the sky, and Hope stared at the temple of Ares.
It was much smaller than the Olympian temple she’d been at a few weeks ago, but this shrine was solely dedicated to the god of war. The building was stone, a dark slate color, and boxy, only a single story. The narrow windows had metal grates over them, as if they were in the middle of a bad part of town, instead of the middle of nowhere. There appeared to be only one way in or out of the fortress, unless there was a back door, just a single narrow opening in the middle of a wall of dark rock.
As they approached, Hope saw the door was carved with various weapons, guns, knives, spears, even a horse rearing, its rider in full armor. It could have been beautiful, but the mushroom cloud with the total destruction of a city at its base was the centerpiece of the artist’s rendition. The image was as much repulsive as it was disturbing. No one should glorify what that represented.
She really hoped there was a back door.
Xan stopped at the carved entrance. Letting go of her hand, he drew his immortal daggers and turned to Hope. “Do you need one of these, or do you still have Athan’s blades?”
She looked at the red-jeweled dagger and patted the green one in its sheath at her side. “I still have one of Athan’s.”
He extended one of his own to her, and when she didn’t move to accept it, he shook it in front of her. “Take it. Please. If things get really bad, I want you to use it.”
What he was proposing was preposterous, and she shook her head. She’d been cut by a Skia blade across her neck. Afterward, she’d learned that it had severed an artery, just like in the Olympian temple a couple weeks ago. Both should’ve been fatal blows, but the immortal daggers were limited because of her curse. She would have to cut off her own head for it to work. “It won’t work on me.”
“I wasn’t talking about for you.” The lines around Xan’s eyes exaggerated his haunted look. “Ares can’t kill you without violating the treaty. And if he or his priest harms you, Apollo will come, as we’ve seen more than once. But I don’t have that same safety net. There are worse things than dying.”
Her stomach flipped. She was about to protest, to tell Xan there was no way his father would hurt him. But experience with the gods told her otherwise. Could she do it? From deep within, the very idea filled her with abhorrence. Even if it meant saving Xan from his father . . . “I’m not sure I could.”
“Humor me.” Xan pushed the blade at her until she took it. Then he smiled, the corner of his lip turning up in a sad sort of way. With a wink, he said, “And, don’t be afraid to step in front of me.”
Hope laughed, but there was more nervousness than humor in it. Xan better not die. She couldn’t take any more dying.
“Let’s go see me da’,” Xan said, and he pushed open the door.
The hinges groaned in protest as the intricate door swung wide. Hope stood, mouth agape at the interior. This was not an ancient marble temple with an altar. There was no raised dais, no statue of the Olympian god of war for parishioners to leave offerings, and no marble columns. This room smelled of lemon disinfectant, the lights washed the space in unnatural fluorescent illumination, and the lack of even a single scrap of paper out of place made the area feel sterile. A bank of dark computer screens lined a wall, a single game of solitaire on one of them. Dozens of keyboards with large touch pads sat on a granite counter with black office chairs pulled up to them. At the front of the single chamber, perpendicular to the massive conference table in the center of the room, a smartboard filled the entire wall, looping the image of a bomb detonating over a large city. The other wall, parallel to the table, was covered with whiteboards, each filled with names, dates, and symbols—some crossed out and others circled.
Hope’s hands turned cold and clammy all at once. Ares was the god of war and bloodshed. This wasn’t a room for just strategy. It was a room to plot death.
A lump formed at the back of her throat. She swallowed, but the mounting trepidation refused to go away.
“May I help you?” a man asked. A black office chair swiveled, and the speaker, dressed in a black, tailored suit stood to greet them. He was still young, probably early to mid-twenties. His hair was the same color as Xan’s, and his eyes just as icy.
“Bloody shite.” Xan glared and the man and hissed through gritted teeth. “You’re the priest?”
The tension in the room, like the temperature, rose exponentially. Hope looked at her companion, and her heart pounded against her chest. Why was Xan so upset?
The man raised his black eyebrows and sneered at Xan. “I am, you rat. What, in the name of our father, possessed you to show your face in his temple?”
Xan’s gaze slid over to Hope, his lips turning down into a frown. “Xavier is my brother. Half brother, really. But he’s a total tosser.”
Hope studied the man more closely. Like Xan, the demigod was aesthetically pleasing. His features were symmetrical and well proportioned, and his blue eyes, a shade darker than Xan’s, contrasted with his black hair. Xavier was well-built. His suit accentuated his broad shoulders and trim waist. But something about him seemed infinitely cooler. It was the harshness in his icy features and the way his lips curled into a dark sneer that separated them. Even when she’d first met Xan, and hated him, it was because he was a jerk. Not because he emanated cruelty.
This demigod was the product of his father, and bloodlust radiated from him.
“Why are you here?”
Xan rolled his shoulders like he did before sparring. “I need to speak with our father.”
Xavier studied Xan with raised eyebrows. “Do you think that’s going to happen?”
The air was charged with tension, and the energy crawled over Hope and made her nauseated as it escalated.
“I’m here to make sure it does happen,” Xan said with a shrug. “Have the rules to the inner sanctuary changed?”
Xavier unbuttoned his suit coat and, with feline grace, removed it. Folding the coat in half lengthwise, he laid it over the back of the chair and pushed the chair in. He tilted his head from side to side, the tendons snapping over the bones, and smiled cruelly. His eyes lit with excitement as he crossed the room and asked, “Who am I fighting?”
Fighting? The anxiety coursing through Hope turned to panic. “What is he talking about?”
Xan, keeping his focus on his brother, pulled out his other immortal dagger and waved it. “Are we using weapons?”
The man snorted, a sound of disgust, and before Hope had time to sort out exactly what was happening, Xavier lunged forward. His hands moved in a blur, and whatever technique he was going to use was hidden in his constant activity.
Xan blocked a hook punch and countere
d with a fist to Xavier’s stomach.
Xavier huffed as he doubled over.
“I’ve been practicing,” Xan said.
Hope’s mouth dropped open. Xan had landed his counter with the smooth response of muscle memory after practicing thousands of times, and with the same fist that was still holding the immortal blade. Xan could’ve killed his brother, but he hadn’t.
Xavier drew himself up and squared his shoulders. “You call that an improvement? That was nothing more than a lucky shot. And you punch like a girl.”
Xan’s skill had nothing to do with luck, but the insults seemed to irritate him nonetheless. The muscles in his neck became taut, and his pulse feathered at the base of his throat. After sliding the blade into its hilt, he brought both fists up into guard and shifted his stance into a defensive position. “Bring it on, arse-face.”
Xan and Xavier danced in a circle, but Xan inched his way toward the head of the conference table. The cramped quarters were not designed for fighting. The biggest space was at the front of the room, where the whiteboards lined the wall.
Xavier closed the gap at supernatural speed, and a blur of strikes and blocks began. Xavier threw a combination of strikes from the left, followed by a rapid set from the right.
Xan blocked and pushed Xavier into the counter with a sidekick. As Xavier collided, Xan chuckled.
The two keyboards toward the end crashed to the ground as Xavier fell against the long counter.
“You’re using the same techniques,” Xan taunted. “Don’t you have anything new?”
Xavier threw a keyboard, and Xan ducked. The black plastic crashed against the looping image of the nuclear blast.
With a loud bellow, Xavier advanced again with a series of kicks. Xan deftly stepped out of the way of the onslaught, but Xavier continued his advance with strikes. Xan blocked a jab but failed to see the power strike that followed. Xavier landed it solidly on Xan’s chin, and he swayed from the impact, blood trickling from his split lip.
Oh gods. Should she jump in? Or would her involvement make things worse for Xan?