by Diana Tyler
Chloe stepped on Hermes’ toe as she knelt down and gently hugged Ethan’s neck. Her heart still in her throat, she let her tears do the talking for her.
Hermes aimed the wand into his hand, creating a honey-colored mixture that smelled slightly of garlic. He scooped it up with his fingers and pressed it between the crusty cracks of Ethan’s scab. “A precaution against infection.”
Then he turned to Chloe, his features more angular than usual, more severe. “I hope this will be a lesson to you. The past is not a playground. Domas are not meant for one’s recreation.”
Chloe felt her cheeks flushing. Hermes was right. She’d been naïve to think that time traveling for the sheer fun of it was harmless. Going back to see old friends was one thing, but sightseeing through unknown mountains was quite another. And thanks to her stupidity, Ethan had almost died. Part of her was tempted to undo the whole outing to save Ethan from the pain and to spare herself from Hermes’ lecture, but she didn’t. She knew she had needed to experience it. Maybe now she would be able to mind her own business and leave the past in peace.
“I don’t mean to shame you,” Hermes said, his barbed tone faintly blunted. “I’m only trying to protect you.”
Ethan stood, gingerly rubbing his shoulder as he stared down at the bloody arrow. “Thank you.” He shook his arm, and then swung it forwards and backwards to test it, slowly at first, then faster. “It’s like nothing happened to it.”
The sun passed behind a cloud as two deer darted into the grove. They froze, listening.
“Those centaurs might come back,” Chloe said, taking Ethan’s hand.
Hermes’ face was caught between weariness and austerity. Deep lines creased his brow and his eyes misted, whether from emotion or the biting wind was not clear. “Evil never stays away for long,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
MOUNT AETNA
I brought you something,” Chloe said, as she peeked into Ethan’s dorm room. He was in the armchair by the window, looking like an idealized portrait of a reader as he sat there, with perfect posture, nose in a book, a steaming mug on the table beside him.
Chloe leaned forward to read the title. “The Fall of Zeus: How Apollo Dethroned the ‘God of Thunder.’”
Ethan lifted his nose and sniffed the air. “A grilled-cheese sandwich?” He eyed the hefty brown bag in her hand. “What else you got in there?”
Chloe stepped into the room and set the bag on the coffee table. “Oh, not much.” She pulled out the first to-go container, the one with the delicious-smelling grilled cheese, then a second one filled with tomato soup. Next came a large yellow box with a blue bow tied around it, bearing the logo of the pound-cake shop downtown.
Ethan put down the book and leaned forward. “Chloe…”
“There’s more.” She reached into the bag again and produced a cold bottle of vanilla root beer, a box of chocolates, and an extra-soft teddy bear holding a heart. “I know the last two things are a little on the cliché side, but who doesn’t love chocolate and cuddly stuffed animals?”
“Chloe, you didn’t have to do this.” He untied the bow on the cake box and opened the lid. “Is that white chocolate?”
“Mmmhmmm…” Chloe smiled, then immediately frowned. “Don’t you like white chocolate?” She shot her thumb toward the door. “I can take it back if you don’t. I knew I should’ve asked you first. But then it wouldn’t have been a surprise. I just— ”
Ethan reached for her hand and drew her onto his lap. “It’s perfect. I love chocolate in all its forms. I love cuddly stuffed animals.” He laughed. “And I love you.”
Chloe brushed her hand across his shoulder. “Even though I almost got you killed?”
Ethan sighed and pulled her closer. “What happened yesterday wasn’t your fault.”
“It was, Ethan. I’m the one who had the bright idea to go gallivanting through centaurland. You wanted to go to the library to study. No one gets shot with arrows at libraries.”
Ethan laughed, and then reached for the teddy bear. “Here,” he said, pushing its face toward hers, “you need this more than I do.”
Chloe squeezed the bear as she slumped back into the chair. “I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Well, you’d better, or you’re going to go broke and I’m going to get fat.”
Chloe let herself laugh, then stood and handed him the box with the sandwich. “It’s better when it’s hot.”
Ethan took a small bite and closed his eyes with pleasure. “You’re hereby forgiven.”
“Joking aside, I am sorry. I feel so stupid for—”
Ethan pulled her onto him, shushing her with his kiss, drowning all her thoughts of guilt and regret as her mind became flooded with cascading sensations, beside which any shame ceased to exist. The kiss endured longer than any of their others, slowly intensifying as the seconds passed. Chloe’s hands drifted smoothly from his neck to his chest, feeling his heart as it pounded, fast and hard, to the same wild rhythm as her own.
Chloe heard her cell phone vibrating in her purse. Ethan pulled back. “Let it ring,” she whispered. While they were in Ourania, she’d grown accustomed to life without the constant interruption of texts and calls, which always came at the most inconvenient times.
“It could be important. Whoever it is would text you if it wasn’t.” Ethan pointed at her purse as he took another bite of his sandwich.
“Fine,” Chloe said, dragging out the word and groaning as she took out her phone. Damian’s name was flashing blue. “Hi, Damian, what’s up?”
Like Mnemosyne’s note had informed them, Chloe’s memories of her new life were returning one by one, like jigsaw pieces fitting together in an unending puzzle. So far, she’d gathered that she and Ethan had been in love since grade school, though she still couldn’t recall their first kiss, and her brother Damian was studying to be a poimén, the old Próta word for shepherd. Damian’s teacher, ironically, was Hermogenes.
“Have you seen the news?” Ethan said, pointing at the TV.
There was a headline running across the bottom of the screen: EIRENIANS EVACUATE THE CITY AFTER VOLCANO ERUPTS. Chloe grabbed the remote from the coffee table, pointed it at the TV and turned up the volume.
Ethan jumped up and stepped out into the hallway, phone in hand.
“I thought Aetna was extinct,” Chloe said down the line to Damian, eyes unblinking as she took in the aerial footage of gray plumes billowing over the city.
Damian sighed. “Turns out it was just dormant. The whole mountain has exploded.”
“Are Mom and Dad okay?”
“I’m with them now at the house. So far there haven’t been any casualties. At least that’s what the news is saying.”
Chloe’s breath caught as another image showed the summit gushing with bright orange fire and countless rivers of blazing lava streaming down from it. “Unbelievable. Ethan and I will be there soon.”
Ethan walked back into the room, raking a hand through the messy hair she’d tousled. Why couldn’t there be peace just a while longer? He smiled at her softly, and then packed his gifts back into the bag.
“Chloe?” Damian said in Chloe’s ear, his tone hesitant and edged with fear she wasn’t used to hearing in his voice.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t think this has anything to do with Apollo, do you?”
Chloe glanced out the window. Everything from sky to street was eerily gray, enveloped in a dense, choking fog. A thick layer of ash was settling over the cars in the parking lot two stories down.
“He doesn’t have the authority to cause it, remember?” She searched the sky for any sign of the sun, but it was hidden, blotted out by the blend of gases and particles now swirling through the atmosphere. “It’s just a natural disaster.”
“A natural disaster that was caused by an unnaturally active volcano.”
“We’ll be on the road as soon as the visibility’s better. I love you.”
“I love you, too. Be
careful.”
Chloe hung up to see Ethan sitting on the edge of the bed, his book about Zeus opened in his hands. “It’s true what Chione told Damian back at Mount Othrys,” he said. “Apollo doesn’t have the power to cause catastrophes, at least not like this.”
Chloe took a step towards him. “It sounds like you’re about to say ‘but’.”
Ethan rubbed his lips together and simply pointed to a page in the book. “But Hephaestus can.”
Chloe peered down at a black-and-white pencil drawing depicting a broad-shouldered, gruff-looking man scowling as he bent over an anvil, black hammer raised. Beneath the picture, the caption read: “Hephaestus. Son of Zeus and Hera, conceived 1500 years after the Olympians’ fall from Heaven. From Zeus he was given coveted control over Petros’ volcanoes, beneath which he made his workshops. Like his father, he was imprisoned in Tartarus by his half-brother, Apollo.”
“It says what we already know,” said Chloe, folding her arms. “He’s chained up in Hades along with Zeus and the other members of the arch-villain hall of fame. No way would Apollo let them go.”
Ethan reflected on her words, his gaze drifting to the stagnant grayness outside. “What if someone else did?”
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTERMATH
Eione sat on a rock within the Bay of Petrómata, named for the rocky landscape that dissuaded most mortals, and immortals, from ever visiting. There was nothing there but a jagged cliff face and short scrubby trees too sparse to offer shade. Its waters were colder than normal, too. Even the fish stayed away.
Eione had come here as a child to play with her sisters, before her father had hidden them in the caves. She remembered racing up the coiling path to the top of the cliff, where a make-believe castle had towered like a beacon shining over the sea.
At that time, only the Titans were bound in Tartarus, sent there during a war her father had managed to avoid; Nereus never had an appetite for combat. To the contrary, his gifts lay in mediation, in settling disputes between his irascible kinsmen. He had a way about him, something in his impassive demeanor that extinguished the flames around him. Even the fire of Hera had been instantly cooled in his presence. He made everyone feel they had a right to their anger, and this alone seemed to satisfy them.
But when it came to matters of mutiny, of war, Nereus was a coward, a humanlike flaw that marred his reputation as the centuries passed. He had predicted the Titanomachy; had said that the signs of its coming were as clear as day, yet instead of venturing between the gods’ respective mountains and offering his aid, he stayed buried in the shelter of the Great Sea, waiting for war as if it were just a summer squall that arrives in seconds and dissolves just as fast.
Eione never spoke of it, but her father’s gutlessness galled her. Because of his actions—or rather, his idleness—her entire family lived in dishonor. Granted, they weren’t in fetters down below, but neither were they on the lips or in the books of the mortals. For Eione’s part, she would rather be a vanquished goddess with her dignity intact and a name well known than a free one with not an ounce of notoriety to her name.
One day her father would thank her for releasing the prisoners. Because of her, the Nereids would be respected and venerated once again, called upon to bestow to the gods the same peace that defined their gulfs and coves.
Poseidon, her brother-in-law and former ruler of the Great Sea, had promised this to her, along with treasures so vast they could not be stored inside her father’s caves. When he and his brothers were reinstated, Poseidon told her, he would build for the Nereids a real palace here, atop Petrómata’s cliff, where no thief would think to journey in search of gold, and where no greedy god would be permitted. The glory of the treasures would be on display for every Olympian and Titan to see, all because of Eione’s bravery.
Eione jumped as a pebble splashed into the water beside her, sending its ripples the short distance to the beach.
“I was never skilled at skipping stones.”
It was Hermes’ voice, calling down to her. She looked up to see him toss another pebble across the water. It sank on its first strike.
Eione drew her windblown hair across her shoulder before delicately working out the salty tangles with her fingers. “Then why don’t you use your illustrious wand to skip them for you?”
Hermes looked down at the gold staff sheathed at his side and shrugged. “Not as much fun.” He plucked another pebble from his palm and flung it in the opposite direction. It also disappeared into the still black glass of sea.
“I doubt you’ve come here for lessons on skipping stones,” said Eione. “Why don’t you spare me the congeniality and say your piece?”
Hermes’ winged sandals slowed as he lowered himself until he hovered a hairsbreadth over the water. “I have no reason not to be congenial, my lady. You and I are not enemies.”
“Are we not?” Eione laughed as her eyes swung to the shore, the cliff, the sky; all of it bathed in ominous ashy haze. “You’re not blind, Hermes, nor deaf.” She paused, feeling a twinge of regret prick her throat like a needle, weakening her voice. “You know what I’ve done.” She let go of her hair, glad to let the wind whip it around her face, shielding her from his gaze.
Long moments passed. Eione shifted and shivered on the rock, her sea-nymph body not accustomed to the cutting chill of autumn, or the cold weight of doubt pulling down on her like an anchor. She snapped when the silence became unbearable. “Speak, will you!”
“I have said my piece already.” Hermes paced a few steps, as if the sea were solid ground. “We’re not enemies. Nor is Duna your adversary, no matter the outcome of your actions.” He removed his cloak and draped it about her shoulders. She nodded her thanks and pulled it close.
“Does he know the outcome of my actions?” The childlike sound of her voice made her eyes well with tears. She felt like a girl again, being called to her father for speaking harshly to her sisters, or venturing too far from the caves.
Hermes’ eyes lifted skyward, piercing through the clouds as if he could see heaven’s gates beyond them, a place Eione had never seen and had seldom heard about. “He knows all things,” he said. “And we will know them, too, in due course.”
Eione looked up at the barren cliff, her imagination painting upon it a gilded palace glowing with gold, and spilling with the laughter of her family, united again…honored again. She wanted to believe Poseidon; that he would make her fantasy real and inaugurate a new age in which immortals could live harmoniously. No more treachery. No more war. But despite her hopes, she could not fight the sense of dread rising like a tide inside her.
She’d caught a glimpse of her father’s face as the gods marched triumphantly through Tartarus’s gates, the impregnable gates she’d blown apart just by pressing the dýnami against their steel. His countenance had been filled not with relief, but disappointment, the same disappointment he’d shown all those many times he had chastised her for her unruliness. What if she’d been wrong? What if the hearts of those most powerful were beyond reach, too hardened by pride to view one another as equals, or to leave mankind in peace?
“What troubles you, Eione?” Hermes’ voice was tender, soft as sea foam in her ears.
Eione sat up straighter and wiped her cheek with his cloak. “I thought…” she began, throat dry and throbbing with tears she wouldn’t let fall, and words she wouldn’t let out. “Nothing troubles me. I have only to be patient.”
“Ah,” Hermes said, raising a pedantic finger. “How well I know that patience is not a virtue we fallen immortals prize. Nor forgiveness. Nor humility.”
Eione jerked her head toward him, the tightness in her throat diminishing as a hot huff of anger infused it. “I know what you mean to do with your orator’s honeyed words. You want me to make an admission of my wrongs, to cry out to your master Duna for pardon and mercy.” She spat indignantly into the sea. “You waste your time.”
Hermes stepped closer, then crouched low, leaning forward as if t
o tell her a secret. His keen eyes fell to the water, a placid slate of obsidian. “You misunderstand me, my lady.” He looked up at her with stormy eyes that were clouded with emotions she couldn’t name. “I only wish to tell you that the virtues I spoke of were once foreign to me. I told myself my hands were too bloody to be cleansed by forgiveness, my hubris too swollen to accept it.” He tilted his chin toward her, the gold flecks of his eyes returning as he smiled briefly. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the greatest lie I ever told, I told to myself.”
CHAPTER FIVE
RECALL
You know you don’t have to ring the doorbell, honey.” Damara Zacharias held a warm plate of oatmeal cookies, Chloe’s favorite, in her hand.
Chloe had been at home for a month and still fought the urge to greet her mother as if she’d just come back from the dead. But in a way she had. Chloe and Damian had spent hours explaining their story to their parents—their past “other timeline” story—and it had all been understood as well as they could have hoped…all except for the sadness.
No matter how long she talked, or how many different ways she tried to express it, Chloe could never convey to her parents how terribly she’d missed them after they were killed. How she’d drenched her pillow with tears night after night, and shut out the world because they weren’t in it. How she and Damian had drifted farther and farther apart, each choosing to quell their grief in different ways, both equally futile. How the sight of her father on the dreary banks of the Lethe, clothed in sackcloth, was still emblazoned in Chloe’s memory, an image she feared would haunt her forever.
Damara gave Ethan a side hug with her free arm, then handed him the cookies and squeezed Chloe tight. Chloe breathed in the fruity scent of her mother’s shampoo that was mixed with the delicious aroma of butter, vanilla, and chocolate chips. Immediately her mind was filled with childhood memories of countless weekend mornings spent helping her mother bake.