by Diana Tyler
Orpheus’s skeptical eyes narrowed to slits as he lowered his lyre to his side. “What purpose?”
“That of saving my son.”
Orpheus shook his head slightly, as if doing so would make Hermes’ words make sense. “You have a son?”
Hermes nodded.
“With Mania?”
Hermes nodded again, but more hesitantly this time.
“This is news to us as well, Orpheus,” Ethan said.
Chloe took a deep breath. “It’s in the past. It’s forgiven. Don’t be angry, Damian.”
She turned to Hermes and asked softly, albeit through gritted teeth. “Would you mind telling us why you didn’t mention your son before?”
“I was ashamed, which is itself a shameful thing to say.” Hermes’ eyes fell to the fire, where they lingered for long, still moments. “After my time with the All-Powerful, shame no longer dwells in me, least of all concerning my flesh and blood.”
“I’m glad, Hermes, I really am, but can’t we just focus on getting my brother back right now?” Chloe could feel her nerves starting to unravel as she thought of Damian in chains in some dank cell, expecting to die at any moment, probably wondering if she knew he was there and, if she did, whether she cared.
“Duna showed me the future,” said Hermes. “A potential future, I should say. And in it, my son, Hermogenes, is sacrificed to Hades by Leto’s hand. This abomination assures him immortality, or so she has convinced him, even if the ambrosia is withheld from his mother.”
“What do you mean, ‘or so she has convinced him’?” Charis asked. “He cannot be granted immortality?”
“Quite the contrary. With half ichor in his veins, he’s already nearly immortal. Leto only means to use his sacrifice as a vehicle to gain her closer access to Hades’ throne.”
Orpheus plucked a sad, single note with his finger, and its sound seemed to echo to the moon. “What would you have me do?”
Hermes paced a few steps, head down and hands joined behind his back. “The lad, as all boys do, adores his mother. As such, he will not stand to see her precious ambrosia taken from her. He will intervene, and afterward bear even more affection for her.”
“So Orpheus needs to put him to sleep,” said Ethan.
Hermes stopped walking. “Exactly. While Chloe distracts Leto, Orpheus will sit outside his window and start to play. Charis, it will be your responsibility to bring the boy back here, behind the wall, as soon as you can.”
Charis grinned. “I can do that.”
“What can I do?” Ethan asked.
“Wait for us,” said Chloe. “And if you don’t mind, pray while you’re at it. Hard.”
Hermes beckoned them to their feet with an urgent wave of his arm. “Come now. Let us finish this before dawn. Orpheus’s music is more potent beneath a theater of stars.”
Charis and Orpheus followed the messenger down the hill, but Ethan held Chloe’s hand tightly.
“Ethan, I have to go,” she whispered. “I’ll be back, I promise.” She lifted herself up and lightly kissed his forehead.
“I want to go with you,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous. I just want to be with you.”
Chloe lifted their interlaced fingers and brought them to her chest. “You are with me. Right here.”
It was well after midnight when Leto spotted the party making its way toward her walls. They stood out starkly on the open road, the stars like lanterns beaming down on them. They are wise to approach as friends, she thought.
“It appears you were correct.” She turned to Damian, who was still chained inside the kitchen. “Your sister comes for you. Unless you want to watch her die, you’ll let her make her deal with me.”
If Damian’s glare were a sword, it would have pierced clean through her skull. She smiled at him, amused by the hatred burning like cinders in his eyes. She’d never been looked at with such contempt; she had killed any who had come close to regarding her in such a way.
She went to the courtyard gates and flung them open. It had been ages since she had had real company. She looked around, taking in the disarray of what had once been as pristine as the Eirenian temple, every tree and flower planted by the touch of Hermes’ wand. She wasn’t expecting visitors, and the house was such a shambles.
With wide, slow strokes, her arms sent swift wind to sweep the dirt from the floors and carry away any remaining rubble from where the lightning had struck the owl. The owl’s carcass, half eaten by Panther, she left as a subtle warning.
She plucked a larkspur and stuck it behind her ear as she strode into the kitchen. “This will be the last night I enjoy wine,” she mused, pouring a cupful. “After this I shall sustain myself with nothing but nectar and sweet ambrosia.”
“Have you ever stopped to think that maybe nothing will satisfy you?”
Leto clenched her fists, restraining the fury within them. “Immortality always satisfies,” she said.
“Uh-huh. And that’s why things are going so well for Hermes and Mnemosyne, wherever they are.”
“Silence!” Leto took a damp rag from the table, stormed over to Damian and secured it over his mouth. “You’re awfully bold for a man no better off than an unlucky lamb picked for slaughter.”
She waved at the party halted at the gates. “Come in, my friends. My doors are open to you.”
There were three in total: two girls—one the Asher, she presumed—and a young man, a handsome chap with hair as long as a woman’s and downcast eyes fixed shyly on his sandals.
“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t come alone,” the blond girl said. “Charis brought us here, and my new friend from the village gave directions.”
“I don’t mind at all,” replied Leto, smiling cordially at each of them. “They may leave now. When your brother is free, your friends can guide you back.”
Chloe turned to her companions. “I’ll see you later.”
The pair gave her long, unwilling stares.
“I swear on the graves of my beloved mother and father,” Leto told them, “your friend will reunite with you shortly.” This, paired with a solemn bow of her head, seemed to satisfy them. They threw their cloaks over their heads and set off into the shadows.
“Tell me,” Leto said when they were out of earshot, “how did you know I wished to see you? Did that miscreant Hermes pay you a visit?”
The girl’s head cocked sideways. “Hermes? Why in Zeus’ name would he want to help me? Do you have any idea what he did to me where I come from?”
“I can imagine,” said Leto. “He cares for no one’s interests but his own.”
Chloe folded her arms and sighed bitterly into the cool night air. “You can say that again.”
Leto smiled. She couldn’t help but feel a sort of solidarity with this rival. After all, an enemy of Hermes’ was a friend of hers—at least for another few hours.
“What is your name?”
“Chloe. And it was Carya who told me my brother was here. Do you know her?”
A sour taste crept up Leto’s throat. Indeed, she knew the messenger. Carya had appeared to her just after her father died, speaking in rhymes like a blathering fool, making not one iota of sense except for what she’d said about Hermes, whom she called “the beguiling imp of Hades.” Carya had warned Leto not to listen to his lies. She’d said his promises were empty and that he would only bring more heartache to her already woeful life.
But Leto had seen no other alternative. If Duna, whom Carya claimed to represent, cared anything about her, he would have done more than send down some spindly waif who offered only worthless words of caution. He would have stopped Hermes from exiting that fissure to begin with. He would have swooped Leto up from her homelessness and given her a new family, a new purpose, a new life.
Leto knew she had become Mania long before Hermes’ charms won her over. Her heart had turned black the moment she knew the All-Powerful had left her to rot in the ghostlands of Ēlektōr.
“I don�
�t know how you tolerate that singing loon,” Leto hissed at Chloe.
“Her rhyming does get a little annoying.”
“As does her nosiness.”
Leto glanced around at the nearby poplars and atop the pergola. She wondered how many times Carya had perched among the trees to spy on her late-night lessons with Hermes. She was probably here now, weeping in silence over the deceased owl or Damian’s present plight.
Carya’s compassion turned Leto’s stomach. Even on the morning Carya had appeared, her crystal eyes seemed to pierce straight to her soul. They’d wept at what they saw, and she’d pleaded with Leto to take her words to heart. Maybe if she’d done more than speak eloquent words. Maybe if she’d done something to free Leto from her undeserved circle of Hades. Maybe then she’d have received Carya’s message in a more favorable manner.
“Did she tell you what it is I request of you?” Leto asked, shoving the messenger’s cherubic face from her mind.
“She mentioned something about ambrosia. I’ll be more than happy to get it for you, on one condition.”
Leto tapped her foot impatiently. “I have almost as little tolerance for conditions as I do for Carya.”
“I want you to let my brother go first. I think I know better than to take you at your word.”
“Even when I’ve given it to you under oath, sworn on my parents’ graves?”
Chloe nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Leto couldn’t help but grin. “Very well. Come.” She led Chloe to the kitchen and pointed to Damian. “I had no choice but to muzzle him. He’s mouthier than the harpies.”
“I get it.” Chloe removed the rag from Damian’s head. “I probably would have done the same.” She went to the table and brought him back the bowl of wine.
Damian began to whisper to Chloe, but she held up a warning hand for him to see. “Remember what I told you, Damian.” One more word from him and she’d slap him unconscious. She didn’t always need her doma to make people obey. She helped him to his feet and gave him a hug. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“I’m sorry I got here at all,” he said, as he glared once again at Leto. “Everything we heard about her is the truth.”
Leto smiled, pleased. “I’m glad to hear I’ve lived up to my reputation. I’ll unlock his shackles, but first you must separate from him and maintain your distance. I know how his doma works, and I won’t let you fool me with it.”
“Perfectly understandable.” Chloe backed up to the hearth.
Once the shackles and fetters were loosed from Damian, he stood, but didn’t move.
“No thank-you?” Leto asked. “You’re a free man now. At least thank your sister.”
He looked at Leto coldly and bent down to tie his shoe.
“Fine. Be gone with you. Wait by the shed outside the wall. Panther will keep you company.” The dog wagged his tail and lifted his snout to lick Damian’s wrist, red and raw from the iron’s abrasion. “If I see him stray, I’ll know you’ve left. But you know better than that, hmm?”
When Damian gave a half nod, she said, “Excellent.”
It was then that she saw it: a faint gold flicker winking at her from the folds of Chloe’s cloak.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CORINNA
Leto waited in silence as Damian rounded the corner and disappeared from the courtyard. Then she crossed to Chloe and placed her hands lightly on her shoulders.
“May I take your cloak?” she asked. “You must be burning up here so close to the hearth.”
Chloe pulled the garment closer. “No,” she said abruptly. “Thank you. I’m cold-natured.”
Leto gripped the cowl with both hands and tugged Chloe backwards. “I insist,” she said, swinging her against the table.
Chloe struggled to right herself and her cloak fell open, exposing the end of the golden wand that gleamed innocently in the firelight.
“I knew it,” Leto growled, knocking the full amphora from the table. The red wine pooled like blood on the floor. “Hermes did betray me and send you here. And with his wand, no less.” She lunged for it, but Chloe’s hand was too fast.
“You wanted me to come, didn’t you?” Chloe pointed the wand at the wine-stained floor. “Hermes told me not to mention him to you.”
“I should say not. He doesn’t want to take the blame for my murder.”
“I didn’t come to murder you. This is for self-defense. I didn’t show it to you because I’d hoped we could be civil with one another. Showing your host one’s weapon, even a defensive one, doesn’t exactly scream, ‘I come in peace.’”
“So we make a bargain, then,” said Leto, her heart rate slowing as reason returned to her. “I don’t harm you with my powers, and you don’t harm me with Hermes’.”
“Sounds fair to me. Now where, or should I say when, do I find this ambrosia you’re looking for?”
Leto raised an eyebrow at the wand. It reminded her, for a moment, of Eros’s arrow. “To the dawn of Petros, when immortals and men still dwelled together, long before there was enmity between the gods.”
“Sounds safe.”
“It’ll be safe enough, especially for an Asher. All you have to do is go to the cape of Tainaron, find Eros and Psyche on the eve of their wedding day, take the ambrosia prepared for the bride, and bring it back.”
Chloe picked at her fingernails. “And what if I can’t?”
Leto considered this as a strong wind rustled the trees. She would have no problem killing the girl’s friends if she failed to obtain the ambrosia, but she couldn’t let it come to that. She needed the ambrosia, and quickly, before Hermes could hatch another plot against her.
“You can,” she said, “and you will.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’m going with you.”
Chloe knew Hermes and the others might never forgive her, but she was going to change the plan and risk her life in the process. It was only a matter of time before Leto took the wand, and Chloe was willing to bet she’d use it for far more than self-defense; sooner or later she would use it, along with her own doma, to take down her rivals and wipe the Ashers from the face of Petros, just as she’d planned all along. Once the ambrosia was in Leto’s system, all bargaining and talks of peace would be over.
Chloe couldn’t let that happen.
“Hold onto me,” she told Leto, wrapping her hand tightly around the wand. She had the feeling that if Ethan were here, he’d tell her to knock Leto out cold while she had the chance. But she knew in her heart that he knew better than that. Like her, he had to believe deep down that killing Leto wasn’t the answer. And that maybe, just maybe, Leto could change.
Leto wrapped her fingers around the back of Chloe’s girdle, and Chloe jumped at the fiery heat of her hand.
“I beg your pardon,” said Leto blithely. “My hands get a little warm whenever I feel threatened.”
“Well, I hope you don’t feel threatened by darkness and a little motion sickness.”
“Are you stalling?”
Chloe sighed. “No. I’m just warning you.”
She closed her eyes and quieted her mind long enough to focus on the single word Damian had whispered to her before he left: Corinna. The black tunnel rattled and shook as the buzzing sound popped in her ears. Bright flashes, like tiny lightning bolts, electrified the swirling shadows around them. They were going somewhere, that was for sure.
“How marvelous,” Leto shouted, her hand much cooler than it had been seconds ago. She wasn’t threatened in the least. She was enjoying this. “It’s like a storm.”
A few minutes later, the rattling stopped and the flashes faded into a deafening downpour of rain. When the tunnel disappeared, Chloe could see the faint silhouette of a mountain range, backlit by the cloud-covered moon. There seemed to be nothing and no one around. Where had she brought them?
“This is the desert,” Leto yelled, pushing Chloe away from her. “We’re supposed to be by an ocean.”
“How do you know?”
“Do you smell the sea?”
“All I smell is rain,” Chloe said, trying to suppress any signs of fear. Let this be the right place, she prayed, and the right choice.
“I’ll prove it to you.” Leto stretched out her arms to the storm overhead, and with a slow, controlled exhale, turned the sky as bright as noon with rapid bursts of thunderbolts.
Chloe saw a giant cage fifty yards ahead, and a bird, ten times the size of an eagle, peering at them from within.
“Mother…” Leto dropped her arms and took off for the cage, then fell on her knees before it. “Stop!” she shouted at the sky as she lifted a defiant fist into the air. The rain ceased. The lightning fled. The clouds broke apart. The full moon was free to shine again.
Chloe threw off her hood and approached the cage, standing a safe distance away. The gryphon’s yellow eyes were staring at Leto, the black-tipped talons of her front feet clawing at the wooden platform on which she was perched.
“Mother, do you know who I am?” Leto said, her voice higher, sweeter than before, like a child’s.
The gryphon’s tufted tail swung back and forth. Using her lion-like paws, she jumped off the platform, landing in front of the cage’s log latch. Motionless, the two looked at one another as rain slid down the bars and splashed their faces.
The gryphon opened her mouth as if to speak, but only a soft squawk came out.
Then, as if she was standing right beside her, Chloe heard Carya’s words whisper in her mind: Orpheus must save Hermogenes, and Chloe must undo the spell.
The first part she’d understood, as had everyone else. If all had gone according to plan, Orpheus, Hermogenes and Charis would be back at the village now, enjoying a celebratory cup of ironwort tea. But the last part had been brushed over, forgotten about as seemingly more important things, such as winning over Orpheus and getting away from the crazy snake lady in one piece, stole their attention.
Now, however, Chloe realized it was just as important. The spell Carya referred to had to be about this, about Leto’s mother.