His kindness brings me to the verge of tears. “I need you so much. But what kind of daughter fantasizes about a boy when her mother is sick?”
Kieron tilts my face toward him. “I love that you see me as a boy instead of a god. But I’m not a careless boy—I’m a grown man—and I’m here for you.”
His lips crush against mine in a silent promise. I sigh as I lean into the kiss. My lingering fears thaw under the gentle coaxing of his tongue, and his arms tighten their embrace around me.
I shift so I can face him and lock my arms around his neck. His hands fly to my hair, his fingers entangling themselves in the dark mess, keeping me captive.
There is no chance I’d run anywhere. He’s my weakness, but he’s also my strength, the best thing to come out of this cruel competition, my shadowy light in the midst of constant grief.
There are only three days left to the competition, three days before I resume my earthly life, three days before I have to let him go. Until then, I want each minute to count, and that means spending all of them with him.
As he lays me down on the grass, pushing on his elbows so he hovers over me, I drink in his chiseled features, his magnetic beauty. If I’m to return home with a broken heart, I might as well fill it with love before it shatters. I’ll never love anyone after Kieron—no one could remotely compare. But I’m grateful I have him, for whatever short amount of time spared to me.
“I love you,” I whisper, trailing my hand in the pale silk of his hair that brushes against my cheeks.
His lips caress mine reverently. I raise my face to deepen our kiss.
“What a charming reunion!” a sinister voice growls.
Kieron and I freeze.
“My father?” he mouths against my lips.
I peek over his shoulder to see Hades looming over us. The panic in my eyes answers Kieron’s question, who rolls away from me, back against the grass, still clutching my hand in his.
“I thought I was King of Erebus, my decrees unchallenged. So imagine my surprise when I found my prisoner gone,”—he hurls a sketchpad at Kieron, hitting him in the forehead—“and my son’s pathetic sketchpad proof of his betrayal.”
I glimpse at the first charcoal drawing. It shows a map of Tartarus, with me in the center, my face set in a screaming mask. Is that how he found me? How?
Hades starts again before I have a chance to ask. “My son, the useless artist. As weak as his mother.”
Kieron balls his free fist, the other one crushing my fingers. I grit my teeth against the pain, ready to suffer if it means I can lend him strength for once.
“You betrayed your own father, and for what? A pitiful human girl who doesn’t know to hold her tongue and respect her superiors? Do you really think I would ever approve of this choice? Has lust gotten to your head so much that you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that you have free will? I make the rules. I tell you who to screw and eventually, marry. And trust me, it would never be her.”
Kieron jumps to his feet while I huddle against the tree, clutching my knees to my chest. Hades in all his splendor is terrifying. But Kieron doesn’t quiver like me—his back is erect, his chin held defiantly as he resists his father.
“Do not delude yourself, father. You don’t own me.”
Hades strikes his son’s cheek with darkness, bringing him down to his knees. “I think you must be the one deluded if you don’t fear me. But I have an eternity to show you why you should.”
“But you don’t have an eternity. Not anymore.”
Hades lashes again, shackling Kieron’s wrists with midnight ropes. “I will stop at nothing to get what I want. Tell me, boy, who should pay the price? You? Or the girl?”
With a vicious smile, the ruler of Erebus shortens his chains of darkness, dragging Kieron’s face down against the ground in a submissive posture that’s unbearable for me to witness. I run to Kieron’s side and cast pure light against his bindings to free him.
Kieron lifts his face up toward me. “Don’t,” he mouths silently.
His shadows come to his rescue, twisting around his father’s ropes and disintegrating them with ease. When he stands up, Kieron’s insurgent expression has been replaced with cool fury.
“You will not so much as look her way,” he growls. “I won our bargain and Hope is the price I claim. She will be left out of our squabble.”
Hades smirks. “Very well then. The girl is off limits. But what about her mother?” One of his tendrils of smoke tickles my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Teresa, am I right? Say, girl… Your mother is very sick. Would you like me to end her misery? A lifetime in the Lower World won’t be worse than the dreary life she leads.”
A wave of nausea washes over me as I dart crazed looks between Kieron and his abominable father. Choosing between my mother and my love will kill me, but I have to protect my mom at all cost. An impossible melancholy crosses Kieron’s beautiful face. There’s understanding too, mingled with the sadness, and this is probably what breaks me first.
“You win!” he spits. “I will stay away from Hope. But threaten her or her mother again and I will unleash my wrath on you, father. Mark my words.” Kieron seems to grow taller as he warns his father. “If anything happens to Hope, your secrets will find their way out and not even the underworld will be remote enough to protect you.”
Without sparing me a last glance, Kieron strides away from the Elysian Field, leaving us behind. While I stare at his receding silhouette, I focus on my hatred for his father to keep from falling apart.
Hot coals fill my chest as I glare at Hades. “I hate you.”
“Silly girl, I feed on hate. Now obey, or I’ll remind you why should fear me.”
Chapter 35
I follow Hades away from the Elysian Fields, leaving my hopes and dreams behind. My heart splinters further with each step.
“I’m still watching you, Hope,” Hades warns as he escorts me out of Erebus.
The night has come and gone while I was underground. A new dawn is here, coloring the sky soft shades of pink, but it doesn’t bring me any joy.
“Take one step in the wrong direction, and I’ll murder your mother without qualms.”
I grit my teeth and force my quivering legs to walk away from the monster that owns me. Tears fall freely down my face as I remember Kieron’s sacrifice. He placed my needs above ours, and now we can never be together.
I walk for ages without direction, seeking the kind of exhaustion that brings blessed forgetfulness. The hurt is still intact as I reach the Pythia’s clearing, but fatigue blurs the edges, working like an opiate on my frazzled nerves.
There must be a reason why I sought out the Pythia in my daze. I climb up the steps to her temple, the hemorrhage in my heart patched up momentarily. I don’t know how I can keep it from bleeding for the duration of the competition, but maybe the oracle will help. For the first time since I learned about the River Lethe, the thought of drinking from it sounds appealing. My soul hurts beyond words. If only the old crone could make it disappear.
She welcomes me on the stoop as if she’s foreseen my visit. She probably has, actually.
“I thought you’d show up earlier.” She ushers me inside. “Your questions haven’t been answered yet.”
I don’t know that I still have questions, just a gaping hole where my heart used to be. I shudder from the cold Kieron’s absence has created within me. The Pythia blows on the hearth inside the temple, gazing into the flames while she waits for me to defrost. When I stop shivering, the questions come rushing to my lips.
“What’s the point of all this? This competition? Why do the gods need us?”
“Why do you think gods would need a human hero?”
“I don’t know!” I sigh. “None of us will ever match their powers…”
“Everyone needs something, Hope. From what you’ve learned since navigating Mount Olympus, what do the gods need?”
“They need…” I think of my conversations with Kieron and
what I’ve observed of the gods so far. “They need someone to rule over.”
“Yes, clever child. And what’s stopping them?”
“They are stuck on Olympus. They are trapped here and can’t rule humans. Humans don’t even believe in them anymore.” By placing words on my thoughts, they become a certainty. “They need access to Earth again.”
The Pythia nods. “A human hero to tear down the wall between our worlds.”
“Could the winner of the competition accomplish this?”
She clucks her tongue, moving away from the hearth, toward the altar. “In time…”
The thought worries me. I’m afraid this is what Kieron alluded to when he spoke of the gods’ plan.
“Kieron told his father he didn’t have an eternity to rule any longer. Why?”
The Pythia fills her scrying bowl with water. She doesn’t answer me.
“Aren’t the gods immortal?” I ask.
Still no answer from the oracle as she adds laurel leaves to the water. She waves at me to join her. “Would you like to ask the water? Force a vision perhaps?”
The thought of wasting a vision on the gods angers me. They’ve taken too much from me. But there is one person I’d like to see.
“Can I ask the vision to show me my friend, Amy?”
“Are you sure you want to do this? You may not be satisfied with the answer.”
I pause to consider her warning. As far as I know, I might not even have a vision. I just had one in the fountain, which could have been a lucky hallucination. The thought of seeing Amy’s face one last time, to make sure she’s all right, overrides my fears.
“How do I do this? Do I just look into it and ask my question?” I ask, thinking of the vision of my mother in Nereus’s grotto.
“This would be so if I conjured up the vision, like Nereus did for you. But I want you to force the vision and utilize your prophetic powers. You’ve discovered the source of your healing powers. Now is the time to connect with that other side of you.”
“How?”
“It is different for every seer. I lost my sight so I could see with my mind’s eye instead.”
I jolt away, as if she were ready to pry my eyes out. She chuckles.
“Hope, I was human, without divine parentage when I started. I had to sacrifice more than my maidenhood to my office. You’re powerful already. Seek the vision that lets you glimpse beyond the physical realm.” Her smile is bittersweet as she continues. “As for your maidenhood, I trust Hades made sure it remained intact…”
I’m grateful she can’t see the furious blushing that ignites my face. I didn’t think about sex while I was with Kieron in the Elysian Fields, but if that’s what he had in mind, I can’t promise I would have turned him down.
Trying to recover from my embarrassment, I peer into the scrying bowl and focus on finding Amy.
The only reflection in the water is mine so I turn inward, feeling for my powers. Asclepius’s powers are easy to find. They ripple under the surface, a joyful heat that begs to be put to use. I wish they could heal my heart, but their selfless nature ensures I can’t use them for myself.
I look away from them, searching for that other part of me the Pythia claims exists. It is not in my veins, not in my body, but in my brain. A silver sparkle, tiny as an ember, lodged between my eyes. It waves as I notice it, like a dog wagging its tail. After being forgotten and dismissed for a lifetime, it longs to be recognized and put to use.
I picture the sparkle growing, expanding until it is the size of a silvery orb. I look through the makeshift crystal ball into the water. Like a magnifying glass, it unearths details in the surface that are invisible to the human eye—a blade of grass, the rough bark of a tree, a tall cypress, its roots hidden behind amaranth flowers. I seek Amy in the picture but she isn’t there—just the cypress and the flowers sprouting from the grass.
I keep focusing on Amy, staring through my silvery powers until my skull threatens to burst and lightning pain sears my retinas. The vision dissolves, the water reflecting my hollow eyes and downturned lips—I can’t help noticing the resemblance to the woman mirrored in the Furies’ mirror.
Footsteps echo against the marble floor.
“Hope, the Pythia asked me to come for you,” Bellerophon says. His fingers graze my shoulder.
“What for?” I shake my head to dispel the remnants of my futile vision.
“A new quest starts soon. You need to prepare,” Bellerophon explains. I look into his face, lined with solicitude. I always liked the old archer best.
“Why did she call you?” I turn to the Pythia. “Why did you call him?”
My patient teacher shrugs. “Why not me?”
“Bellerophon can help you,” the seer says.
I chuckle mirthlessly. “Like you just helped me? I didn’t see Amy.”
“No, but you saw something. Prophecies are whimsical. Even the most proficient seers can’t always control what they foresee.”
“So my powers are useless then?”
“Do not insult your powers,” the Pythia warns. “Each prophecy is a gift.”
“Like that tree I just saw? Fat lot of good it does me.”
“Wait before you condemn it. It will become useful when you least expect it…”
“I still haven’t seen Amy.”
Bellerophon lays a hand on my shoulder to ground me. “There will be time to grieve for Amy after the competition ends. Right now you need to stay focused on surviving...and winning.”
“What is it to you? We are all your students, after all.”
“But you’re different. I know you’re hard-working and courageous. You saved us during Odysseus’s quest. You’re the most heroic challenger.”
I think of the way I’ve let Hades manipulate me. “There is nothing heroic about me. I’m an awful person.” Otherwise, shouldn’t I have found a way to fight for Kieron?
By the way the Pythia resumes her rites, I gather she’s grown tired of me. Bellerophon nudges me toward the exit.
“Come. You need to eat before the next quest. I’ll walk you to your villa.”
A villa deserted of its inhabitants. I’ll never sleep again in my bedroom, now that Amy’s gone. We were fourteen girls when we started…
“How many challengers lost yesterday?” I ask Bellerophon as we step outside of the temple.
“Four.”
“Who were they?”
Deep grooves form on his forehead. “Amy, Melody, Kara and Marcus.”
Marcus who thought his father had returned to him, only to lose him again. How cruel. But I’m grateful that Bellerophon keeps track. If not the gods, at least our teachers care what happens to us.
We step into the forest’s cover, the sound of our footsteps muffled by the natural carpet of dried leaves.
“You’re not awful, Hope,” Bellerophon whispers after a while, resuming our previous conversation. “I know what awful looks like.”
Now that I think of it, I never got to hear his story. The heroes all shared their past except for him.
His eyes glaze over as he stares ahead, lost in a memory. “Pride has always been my downfall. It is for pride’s sake that I killed my brother and was exiled to Tiryns.” He hangs his head in shame.
I can hardly look at him I’m so disappointed. But the wretched expression on his face testifies to how repentant he is. I don’t think anyone can judge Bellerophon more harshly than he does himself.
“Yet the gods didn’t give up on me. They helped me ensnare Pegasus so I could slay the Chimera. As a result I was honored more than I could ever deserve and offered the hand of the most beautiful woman in all of Greece. But again my greedy pride demanded more.” He gazes through me as if he can’t see me any longer. “I flew Pegasus to Mount Olympus to demand they make me a god. Zeus punished my vanity by throwing me off my mount. I plummeted back to Earth.”
“But you didn’t die?”
“I didn’t. But for a long time I wished I had. For y
ears I roamed the Earth, my soul broken, until I decided to help out wherever I was needed to expiate my guilt. At last the gods took pity on me and bestowed me immortality, lifting me to Mount Olympus.”
This depiction of compassionate gods doesn’t suit my sweltering resentment.
“So you see, Hope. You are not awful. I was.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Not long enough. To this day I still wonder if the gods were motivated by kindness or the cruel urge to lock me in my guilt forever.”
That fits my theory better. I stride closer to my teacher in a feeble attempt to show him I don’t despise him, despite his confessions. Besides, he only admitted to his crimes to cheer me up.
We keep silent for a long time, the forest giving way to the campfire meadow then to gilded fields of wheat before I speak again.
“Do you think all heroes must have terrible pasts? You’re not the first one to confess to murder.”
“I don’t think so. Not all of us have. Look at Ariadne, for example.”
She doesn’t seem like she could hurt a fly, let alone murder someone.
“You’re right, but it happened too many times to be a coincidence.”
“It is our blood, Hope. It makes us more prone to violence. Have you never wondered why Ancient Greek history is so bloody?”
“You mean mythology…”
“You know full well that they are one and the same. There is no mythology if gods are real. There were many more demi-gods then, when gods still roamed the Earth.”
“So divine blood is an illness?” I know the answer before he replies. Marcus’s mother, Gabriel’s father—the pattern is there.
“When divine powers aren’t acknowledged, they drive their bearers mad.”
“So my mother’s dementia?”
“Demi-god madness,” Bellerophon answers grimly.
“So if I went back to her and told her of her heritage, she’d be cured?”
For the first time today, a frail hope flutters in my chest.
Bellerophon shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be enough. The only place where she can unlock her powers is here, on Mount Olympus.”
Olympian Challenger Page 25