Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  With the kind of passive nonchalance that I knew was born from an eternity of family drama, he said, “My guess is Hera. She thinks you’re Zeus’ child. She wants you dead.”

  “I’m not,” I answered needlessly.

  He smiled at me, “No, but your sister is. She’ll figure it out soon enough. I wonder who she’ll send after little Honor. Maybe a harpy or a minotaur. Or a cyclops. I would pay good money to see that execution.”

  “You’re a monster.” Rage quivered through me. My power started to build. Water rushed through my veins. It was the source I called to, the energy I borrowed from. This saltwater wouldn’t hurt me; it would fuel my vengeance.

  “You weren’t expecting something different from me, were you? After you lied to me for so long?” His grip tightened again and I winced in agony. “After you dragged Smith into your deceitful lure and convinced him to help you? Does he know that you put him under your spell? Or is he too deep to realize he’s being played?”

  “I never played Smith! Unlike you, he doesn’t want to manipulate my power!”

  Nix threw his head back and laughed. “Is that what he told you? Is that the lie he fed you? He just wanted to get close to you.” He suddenly let go of me. My hand and arm screamed with relief, but I only had a second before his hands were back on me, cradling my face. “He wants what’s mine. He wants to have what only I can.”

  I shuddered from his vile touch. I wanted to recoil into a ball on the ground. I wanted to run again.

  But I knew I couldn’t this time.

  “I’m not yours,” I ground out. “I will never be yours.”

  “That’s where you’re-”

  “Let go of her,” Ryder’s gravelly order traveled across the limestone plaza.

  I looked up to see him taking the steps from the temple two at a time. He raced to get to us before Nix could disappear with me.

  I felt a tremor of relief vibrate through me.

  Nix seemed unconcerned. He threw his hand toward Ryder and I watched in horror as a massive wave of water crashed over the steps.

  It wouldn’t have been enough to kill him, but when the water receded I expected to find Ryder on the ground, bleeding and injured.

  Instead, he stood his ground on the steps, protected by a force field of energy. I sucked in my breath, remembering the night Nix attacked us at the hospital.

  I didn’t understand Ryder’s powers, but I was thankful for them.

  Ryder pushed forward, wading into ankle-length waves that hadn’t yet disappeared. He threw out his hand and Nix jerked backwards. I couldn’t see anything or how Nix had been physically affected, but his hand slipped from my body while he tried to regain his balance.

  I didn’t wait around. I sprinted forward toward Ryder.

  Gods and goddesses appeared on the top steps of the temple to watch the commotion, although none of them stepped in right away.

  Before I could get to Ryder, Nix hit him again, this time using the water inside of him trick. Water streamed down Ryder’s chin as he held his mouth open to let it out. He shut his eyes and shook his head while he visibly choked on the constant deluge of saltwater.

  His hands flung toward Nix, knocking him backwards three steps, then four. Nix grunted with the impact of the last hit as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

  Ryder had to do more or he was going to die.

  I found my footing a few yards away from Nix and turned to help. I let my power pool in my blood for precious moments before I set it free against Nix.

  He stumbled as soon as my water hit him. His dark eyes flashed to mine as he coughed water out of his mouth and nose. His eyes were instantly bloodshot and dangerous.

  “What is this?” Hera’s voice screeched from the top step. “Make them stop! Zeus, make them stop!”

  “Ivy!” Zeus hollered at me.

  I realized that this was everything he spent days arguing I wasn’t, but we were fighting for our lives. Nix wanted to murder Ryder and run away with me.

  We had no other choice.

  Ryder fell to his knees, but tried to keep fighting. He used his pulses of power to attack Nix relentlessly, but there was nothing that could stop the god of the sea.

  I attacked him with my power too, but nothing slowed Nix down. Nothing was enough.

  Ryder dropped to the ground, supported by one hand.

  “Smith!” I screamed for help. “Help us!”

  “Enough, Poseidon!” Zeus’ voice boomed above everything else.

  Water started to bubble up around Ryder, rising until it covered his knees, then his shoulders. In seconds it would cover his face and he was too weak to fight it.

  I abandoned my efforts to drown Nix and tried to make my way to Ryder. The water that had invisible boundaries pushed back at me. Violent waves kept me from making headway.

  Frustrated, I thrust my hand into the salty tumult, but this was not my water to command. I had no control over this.

  I fought until I was bruised everywhere from the force of the waves. My gown was drenched and sticky and my lungs breathless. But I couldn’t make it to Ryder.

  Nothing I did was good enough.

  “You will listen to me!” Zeus’ voice boomed until my ears hurt. Lightning flashed constantly in the suddenly dark sky. “Poseidon, stop!”

  Just like that the water whooshed down the street. I fell to my knees, bloodying them and ripping my dress. Ryder collapsed on the wet ground, coughing up the remaining water and sucking air into his raw lungs.

  I crawled toward him. I was exhausted and my body ached, but I did not stop moving until I grasped his outstretched hands.

  “You have gone against my orders!” Zeus continued to bellow. “You have attacked those that I offered to protect. You have violated our laws!”

  Nix’s maniacal laughter answered Zeus’ accusations. I pulled myself to my knees again so that I could watch the exchange.

  When Nix stood on unsteady legs, he smiled at Zeus and inclined his head toward me. “There will be new laws,” he said with a raspy voice. His grin stretched wide and sinister promise danced in his dark eyes. “And while we’re at it, there will also be a new order.”

  Zeus reached the bottom step and level ground with Nix. “What are you implying, Poseidon?”

  “I think you’re smart enough to figure that out, Zeus. Or should I call you Smith like the child.”

  Smith stepped forward. “You were out of control. I had to step in.”

  “You mean step on? You took what’s mine. Where are the laws against that?” Nix’s golden face flushed with fury. His robes were dripping wet like Ryder’s and mine, but the sodden garments only made him look more savage… more primal with his hatred and determination. “You interfered in my realm. You went behind my back to sire a child that should have been mine. You mingled in business that didn’t concern you. You have broken every rule that you have ever established. Now you will be the one that is persecuted.”

  “I did what I had to in order to save this Pantheon. You want to destroy it. You won’t even win the mountain. You’ll use power you don’t understand and obliterate everything that we are.”

  “You’re damn right,” Nix growled. “I’ll take what is mine and then I will take everything else.”

  “It didn’t matter what I did. As soon as you found out what she is, who she is, you planned to take control. I did nothing wrong except react to your treachery.”

  Nix rocked back on his heels and surprised everyone with a smile. His ancient accent thickened as he casually smiled and admitted, “Fine, Zeus. Let’s have it your way. We’ll call a stone a stone. Or in this case, a coup a coup. The Siren is the key to all of it. Patrons, the mountains… control. Control of the entire world. She is everything I need to assume the throne.”

  “How?” Hera demanded. She didn’t look as desperate as Smith did. Her long gown billowed out behind her and her voluminous hair whipped in the wind. If anything she looked as though she were weighing her options
and deciding which god to side with.

  “Her father is Pontus, her mother is Ava. She is the true Siren. If she opened her lovely mouth and sang for us, she could enslave the entire world with just a few notes. You my friends, have no choice but to follow me willingly. But make no mistake that you will follow me. She will make certain that you do.”

  “No,” Smith disagreed. “We’ve taken steps. She can be controlled.”

  I bristled. I didn’t need to be controlled. I needed to be set free so I could make my own decisions and decide not to enslave the entire world.

  It wasn’t much of a discussion for me. I knew what I would and wouldn’t do.

  But nobody bothered to ask my opinion.

  “By your bastard? Not likely,” Nix scoffed. “She’s barely old enough to tie her own shoe laces. She won’t be able to match my Siren’s power. And by the time the little girl is old enough, it will be too late.”

  “Orpheus,” Hera stated, but it sounded more like she was testing the waters than anything else.

  “You heard him testify,” Nix laughed. “He won’t hurt her. He won’t be able to do what is necessary to stop her.” He lifted his chin regally and stared down his brothers and sisters. Gigantes filled in the road behind me, empowering him to be bolder. “Brothers and sisters, it is time to make a choice. You may join me and forego the death I plan to rain down on anyone that does not abide with me or you may meet your end this morn. I will have the throne by the end of the day. And then I will have this world.”

  Fear and shame slithered through me. I hated that I was the one that could make this possible for him. I hated that I enabled someone so sickly corrupt.

  I took a step forward, suddenly seeing everything from a different perspective. I did give Nix access to powers he could only dream of before I came along. But at the same time, if I had been normal, er, normal for a Siren, then Nix would have stayed evil, just on a smaller scale. He would have still bought and sold women. He still would have spread his disease across the earth; it just wouldn’t have been so obvious.

  And nobody, not even Zeus, would have bothered to stop him.

  I brought it to light. I forced him to try for bigger things. I made him come out of the dark holes he hid in and aim higher.

  And because he was now out in the open, declaring his plans and setting up his world regime, I had the opportunity to end him.

  He would not become the most powerful god on earth because of me. He would not get a world filled with patrons worshipping at the feet of Poseidon. He would not cover the planet with water and drown out all of those that opposed him.

  Instead, he would die. Instead, I would make him pay for every sin he had ever committed against women. I would feed him the same poison he used to kill us slowly. I would make him suffer in the way that we had for our lifetimes… in the way that my mother had all of her days… in the way that I had since the moment I was born.

  I would take my vengeance for Eva and Anaxandra. I would get justice for Exie and Sloane.

  I would slay him with the judgment of thousands of girls used against their will and stripped of their free will and dignity.

  Poseidon would die.

  Today.

  Ares moved to stand next to Nix and about half of the gods followed him. The teams were evenly divided and the only surprise game-changer was Hera.

  She took steps toward Nix before turning around to face Smith. Her eyes turned black and she screeched at him until her face turned red and her hair rose off her shoulders with a life of its own. “You had a child? That’s where you’ve been for the last two decades? You’ve been raising a child?”

  Lightning stabbed the ground right next to her. She didn’t flinch. The sky overhead continued to darken, more lightning flashing across the wide expanse, displaying the intentions of the gods on the ground.

  “To protect you, my love,” Smith ground out, not even trying to make his excuse sound sincere.

  “Another affair!” she shouted. “Another whore! Your heirs must number the stars by now. How lucky the world is to have so many descendants of Zeus running around, causing trouble, cutting off people’s heads!”

  “That happened once!” Smith yelled back at her, losing all of the careful control I usually associated him with. “You won’t let that go! You’re going to nag me about it until the end of time!”

  Hera’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Lucky for you, the end of time seems to be nigh.”

  Smith’s shoulders deflated and behind his sparking brown eyes, he seemed… lost. “You would side with him? You would choose to stand with a child abuser and debaucher over your own husband?”

  Hera’s mask of hatred slipped for just a moment. I wasn’t sure if anyone else saw it, but I had been watching her closely. “It is an insult to call you my husband. You are nothing more than a stray dog that has come to the back door for scraps. I would no sooner side with you than I would a man that sells children and exploits women for his own twisted pleasure.” She glanced back at Nix. “You are one and the same to me.”

  With that final blow, she turned on her heel and walked away from the fight.

  For a few moments I felt pangs of sympathy for the mistreated queen. No wonder she was as hard as granite and impossible to crack.

  Then I remembered she had just sent a Fury to kill me and I got over feeling sorry for her.

  Weapons appeared from everywhere. Gods and goddesses of every kind brandished fiery swords or huge sparking hammers or flexed their fingers in promises of lethal pain.

  The air crackled with tension and aggression that seemed to originate beyond time. These were ancient hatreds, ancient grudges. Ryder and I had been thrust into something that had been going on longer than we could comprehend.

  But I was the catalyst that finally set this war into motion.

  I could live with that. As long as I was also the final piece that ended the conflict.

  Kill Nix, end the war.

  Kill Nix, save the world.

  Kill Nix, be free.

  I met his fatal gaze from yards away. His black eyes glinted with promise and victory. My green ones must have whispered something equally as confident because he cocked his head with bemusement.

  “Come get me,” I mouthed to him.

  Then everything exploded.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It should be said that I had never been an athlete. Not a day in my life.

  I didn’t exert myself physically, because I wasn’t allowed. I didn’t play sports. I didn’t run. Hell, I didn’t even walk fast.

  But if there was ever a time to see what you were made of, it was running from the god of the sea.

  Ryder and I were ripped apart in the sudden turmoil and thrown into battle on opposite sides of the plaza. He fought to get to me.

  And I fought to get away from Nix.

  I turned around and took off like a shot out of a gun. My legs weren’t used to this kind of physical strain and my lungs burned with the effort and high altitude. But I didn’t let any of that stop me.

  I ran like hell. I ran like the hounds of hell were chasing me.

  And maybe they were.

  On Olympus, I didn’t expect for anything to be simple or normal and the mountain did not let me down. I watched gods and goddesses grow in front of my eyes. Gigantes became towering giants that destroyed entire buildings with one crushing stomp of their massive feet. Fire and lightning zoomed around me and rained down overhead.

  I lunged forward only to jump back when a streak of hot lightning speared the ground right in front of me. I darted around a crumbling building and managed to duck out of the way just as it crashed to the ground, spitting boulders of stone and debris.

  Another building collapsed to my right and forced me back to the main battle that I was desperately trying to outrun.

  I stretched my legs and leapt over piles of burning roofing. I was disturbed to see more than a few dead bodies littering the ground. They weren’t th
e corpses of gods or goddesses, but of the lesser Greek beings that had come out to help.

  I couldn’t name them all, but I saw many that I recognized. Centaurs and nymphs, ogres and more. Some had been servants to the mountain, others had crawled from seedy places that I would expect Nix to inhabit.

  “Ivy!” Nix roared my name above the clashing of swords and gruesome sounds of battle. “I will find you!”

  I didn’t bother turning around. I needed to find Ryder first. If I could get to him, we could stand together and force Nix to fight us both.

  I might have a chance with Ryder at my side.

  Nix seemed unstoppable, especially since we hadn’t been able to do much damage a few minutes ago. But we were more motivated than ever. And Ryder wanted him dead as badly as I did.

  Where there was a will there was a way. Right?

  Sure.

  I jumped up on an overturned column and tried to find Ryder through the crowd. He stood in the middle of an attack, with a sword in his hands. I had no idea where it came from, but he had officially claimed it as his.

  He swung his new weapon with all of his strength. He might not have had precision or skill, but with a blade that sharp, he didn’t need to be accurate. He just had to hit something.

  And he could hit something.

  I caught my breath as I watched him. His hair was wild and dirty, his face streaked with bruises and blood. His biceps rippled under the strain of wielding his sword. He looked like an avenging angel in the middle of the battle for Eden. He looked like a supernatural creature born to kill… born to seek revenge.

  He looked like a Greek god surrounded by mortals.

  He put the Pantheon to shame, despite their immortality and mystical beauty.

  I had never been more proud of him or proud to be his.

  A whoosh of air blasted around me and I only had time to brace myself before they appeared.

  The Fates.

  They stood on the wide column with me with poise and grace, as if they were meant to stand there, as if this column had been toppled simply for their feet to rest upon.

  “Siren,” Enid smiled demurely, her pale pink eyes flashing with frenzied excitement.