“I wonder why it’s not working?” Hera waved her arms and hands.
“It is working,” I called up to her. “Look at your hair and skin. The specks are all over you.”
“I want more!” Hera chuckled. “I always want more.”
Shade stuck his head out of the tunnel. “Are they absorbing?”
“I think so. Maybe.” Hera brought the ends of her dark hair around to her face. The dust particles danced on her hair follicles like fireflies.
“Do you feel any different?”
“Not really.”
“Well, you don’t look dead yet. All right, come down. Let me try.” Shade squeezed past me.
“Wait a moment.” Hera closed her eyes. Her dark curls pulsed and blew back off her face as if a stiff wind had confronted her. She stood a while longer with her arms outstretched. She turned a half-rotation toward the Throne … paused and then wheeled back around. “What? These flakes do not make me more attractive, Shade. Why would you say that?”
“I didn’t,” Shade stammered and then covered his mouth. “Hold on. I didn’t say that … out loud. But I—” He looked around at me then back at Hera. “I did think it. What? How did you?”
Hera stepped gingerly on her way down. Her eyebrows pinched. She placed the charm of her necklace between her lips and looked each of us in the eyes. Eventually she settled on Shade.
“Shade, you thought I could read your mind before. It’s on now, brother. Your innermost secrets are mine.” Hera laughed wickedly. “And by the way, I promise not to tell Meter. If we ever find her.”
“First Rhea, now you?” Shade placed his palms to his temples. “Get outta my head!”
“When we find her,” I corrected Hera, thinking back to when I discovered Rhea could read minds. I chewed my thumbnail.
“Sorry, right. When.” She smiled. “And Zeus, I won’t even begin to betray your thoughts.” She shot me an intense glare. Her green eyes twinkled with energy and fire. “I’ll have a few choice words for you later.”
I tried to shut my mind off to keep from divulging anything at that moment.
“Metis.” Hera looked deeply into her eyes. They stared at one another for a long, tense moment. It reminded me of the time Metis squared up to Hera in the Andron. Circumstances were a bit different now, though.
“You actually don’t have any real malice toward us, do you?” Hera said. “I know that now. Poor thing. Just don’t get in our way.”
Metis’ eyes flooded with tears. Her voice choked. “I won’t. I promise. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Hera came all the way down the invisible steps, turning in every direction, looking herself over. Her skin still bore the iridescent marks of absorption.
“I know Don calls you Hare,” I imitated Don’s voice near perfectly. “But I have a brand new name for you, Freckles.”
A slow, engaging smile spread across Hera’s face. I glanced sidelong at Metis who revealed a less than enthusiastic, tight-lipped expression. So, I turned my attention to Shade who’d climbed the stairs next.
He held his arms out. Dust particles coated his dark olive skin … arms, legs, face, and neck. I could’ve sworn I saw his hair lengthen and his muscles become more defined.
“You feel anythi—” I asked, but stopped short when I saw something peculiar. I closed my eyes for a second and shook my head. “Freckles, did you see that? Shade? You all right?”
Hera gasped as Shade’s body disappeared for a half moment then came back. It blinked off again. And then reappeared.
I looked at Hera as Shade climbed back down, flexing his muscles. “I don’t feel any different. No fair.”
“Maybe you didn’t do it right, Shade,” Hera joked.
“But something did happen. Either you disappeared or I’m losing it,” I said.
Shade’s eyebrows pinched.
Hera nodded.
“I don’t know. Maybe my eyes played a trick on me. You saw it too, didn’t you, Hera? Tell me I’m not crazy.” I chewed the inside of my lip. “And your brand is glowing now.”
We looked at the ‘Ω’ shaped brand on Shade’s arm. He ran his fingers over it. Sure enough, it pulsed yellow against his olive skin.
“Wicked!” Shade said, rubbing his hands together and staring at his flexed bicep. “Well, it’s your turn.”
I looked over to Metis and raised my eyebrows.
“I’ve already been up there,” Metis responded with a smile. “I absorbed some dust inadvertently. I’m not sure it made any difference though. Your turn, Zeus. By the way, what’s this business you have with heights, anyway?”
“He’s just afraid. That’s all,” Hera said, still admiring her bespeckled limbs. Then she turned to me. “But, if you want to have it all, you’re going to have to take the risk. I’m not holding your hand on this one. Go or don’t go. But if you don’t go, or can’t go … guess who won’t ever get the Sky Throne.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I crept up the invisible steps, feeling out and testing each one before putting my entire weight on it. Looking down, there was nothing between the mountainside and myself.
Don’t look down, you goat for brains!
I hovered in mid-air with my heart hammering my ribcage. I inched higher atop trembling arms. The solid stairs beneath me felt cold and smooth like marble. I lost count of how many stairs I’d climbed. I snapped my eyes shut to keep from vomiting.
“Sometime today,” Shade called from below. If I were able to look down, I’d have heaved a glare at him.
My limbs shook as I stood there, suspended above Mount Olympus. I finally touched something with a different texture. I opened one eye … slowly. Then, it appeared. The Throne. The Sky Throne. Its gold trim gleamed in the darkness, if only to me. Shiny. Polished. The inscription on the base read just as Tia had recounted,
‘Bestowed Upon The Bearer Of The Throne
Is The Power To
Rule The Heavens Alone’
I pondered that for a moment. Of all the MO Prep professors, Ouranos was the only one who could’ve sat on it? Not Pontus? Not Rhea? Not Kronos?
I slid upward onto the marble footrest. Tia’s voice gripped me. “Don’t try to mount the Throne. It’ll kill you.”
I stretched my hand upward and ran my fingers across the smooth black footrest, which, unlike the stairs below, bore no indentation. It was etched with symbols and pictures I couldn’t understand. Inching closer, I brushed my fingertips across the rough edges of the markings.
Mount it. Don’t mount it. Take a risk. Don’t take a risk. What if I never again had the chance to sit on the Throne? But what if it killed me?
“Zeus,” Hera sing-songed from the stairs.
I saw Tos’ face in the reflection of the polished stone. Sadness strangled me. Then Amalthea’s sweet face appeared. Her easy smile warmed my torso against the sudden winds that whipped high above the mountain. And then I thought about Don and Tia and Meter. The unfinished business I had with Hyperion. And Kronos.
Kronos is more powerful than you realize. And Hyperion too.
To defeat a deity, I had to become a deity myself.
Absorbed into flesh, deities rise.
The pulsing energy of the Throne wrapped around my arm like an invisible lasso, tugging me upward. I gasped, unable to break away. The strength of the pull unsettled me. Why would something so dangerous draw me so insistently?
Cosmic dust specks floated past me. Each one hit my skin like a hot rain drop. Searing. Soon, my skin sizzled, covered in tiny iridescent dots. I struggled against the Throne’s invisible tentacles, standing with my arms outstretched. Cosmic dust coated my limbs. Soaking. Absorbing. Entering my soul.
I ripped open my tunic. I needed more. My body warmed as the dust seeped into my blood. Euphoric. Sharp pains stung from the inside of my fingers outward like I’d run my hand through a campfire’s flame. A diffused halo of light hovered just above my skin.
I felt lightheaded, like when Amalthea gave me wine for the first time. I could’ve walked on air. Yet, I dared not test that theory.
At that moment, I chose to mount the Throne. I took an extra step upward, felt the cold seat, turned around and sat down. I pressed my bare skin against the back of the seat. Nothing happened at first. Then my body shivered and shook violently, arms were held in place as if they’d been strapped down. My spine suctioned to the backrest.
A blistering torrent surged through my ichor blood vessels. Inky veins stood out prominently against my stinging, yellowish skin. Tiny mountain ranges of goose bumps rose all over.
Frightened, I struggled against the Throne’s grasp. They’d all warned me. I hadn’t listened. Again. Breathing came in ragged bursts. I felt as if I were being burned alive.
Finally, the convulsions stopped. All vitality vacated my sluggish limbs. A knot of nausea roiled in the pit of my stomach. My head slumped. I glanced down at my friends. Their mouths gaped. Even Hera’s. Astonishing her wasn’t easy.
My exposed skin was momentarily dark as Erebus ink, illuminated by a night sky’s worth of twinkling, yellowish-green stars. My tattered tunic hung limply at my waist. A menacing laugh rumbled up from my core, one I wasn’t aware I’d had previously. One I would’ve pegged on Kronos, and yet I produced it.
I rose to my feet and clapped my hands together. An ominous thunder crack roared in the heavens, vibrating the Throne so much that I nearly lost my balance. I did it again. And again.
I loved the sound of the universe splitting and cracking and then the strong insistent roll and rumble across the cosmos, like giant boulders tumbling down an endless ravine to the bottom of nowhere.
Hera gazed at me with wide eyes. Metis held her hand over her lips. Shade’s mouth still hung open.
“What do you think?” I called out to them with arms spread wide.
No one answered.
I brought my hands near one another. Iridescent strings of energy transferred back and forth between my fingers and palms. The tendrils got stronger and bolder the closer my hands drew to one another. I closed my hands all the way and opened them again. Closed. Opened.
“Should I do it again?” I asked.
A resounding chorus of “No!” shot back up.
Hera added, “Um, I think you’ve had enough fun for today. Get your ass back down here. I’m not asking you.”
I was half taken aback by the force of her command and half enticed by it. Hera certainly knew how to push my buttons. And I liked it.
When I looked downward, my fear had vanished. I took a step to walk back down the stairs, but my numb leg wouldn’t hold my weight. I tumbled head over heels, going airborne for several steps.
“Zeus!” Metis gasped.
Shade grabbed me to halt my rolling at the bottom of the stairs. “You all right?”
I shook my head back and forth and labored to rise to my feet again. At least I hadn’t fallen off the stairs. “Woooo! What a rush.”
Shade, Hera, and Metis scrambled backward down the shaft like they were afraid of me. When we re-entered the lab, I lit the inside of it like it was daytime.
“You crazy bastard! You did it. You sat on the Throne,” Hera said with a wry smile. “But this … what’s all this?” Her hands made rapid circles around me.
I shook my head and looked down at my glowing skin. “I wish I knew.”
“How do you feel?” Shade asked.
“Like I could level whole mountains.”
“Wicked.”
“Well, you can’t stay like that,” Metis warned as she walked over. “You’ll draw too much attention to yourself. How do you turn it off?” She picked up the torn ends of my tunic and tried to wrap them over my shoulders. She gasped. “You are so hot, Zeus.”
“Wow. Thank you. Did you mean to say that out loud?” I looked over at Hera, whose jaw tightened.
“No, really. You are burning hot.”
“I feel pretty hot. Nice of you to notice.”
Hera huffed. “Give me a damn break.”
“I’m not joking around!” Metis cautioned. “Is there some water in here?”
“No.”
“Then we need to get him to the bathhouse, like yesterday,” Metis commanded. “Hades, give me a hand here.”
Hands seared into my skin at various points. Everyone’s words ran together. Strings of mumbles and incoherence. My vision blurred like it had the night Metis speared me. Then I saw doubles of everything.
“I hope nobody sees us,” Shade said.
“Oh what, this bright sunshiny ball of energy in our arms streaking through the dark of night?” Metis asked.
I felt weightless. Maybe it was because Metis and Shade half carried me down the path from the Observatory. At least I thought it was they who carried me.
“So this is what the inside of your bathhouse looks like?” I asked.
“What,” Shade said. “I can’t understand you. Speak up.”
“The bathhouse. Score. We’ve finally gotten inside the girls’ baths.”
“Do you know what he said?” Shade asked Hera. She shook her head. Shade turned back to me. “You’re mumbling, brother. Just relax.”
They slid me into an empty bath. And then threw buckets of water on me.
“Agggggggggh!” Pain and steam rose from my body. Slowly the iridescent color faded and lucidity returned like the sun burning off the morning fog. They threw a second round of water on me. Shade stood poised with a third.
“All right!” I put my hands up. “I’m good. I promise.” I wiped my face clean and looked at my body. My original skin tone had returned, only paler.
I climbed out of the bath and sat like a wet goat. My torn, wet tunic hung from the rope at my waist.
“There’s a lesson to be learned tonight, boys and girls,” Hera said. “Let’s try and stay away from the Sky Throne, all right. We see exactly what can happen.”
“Now that we have all that figured out,” Shade said. “We still have to figure out where Don, Meter, and Tia are. Do you know anything, Metis? Are they being detained? Have they been harmed? Are they dead?”
“Nooo! And, don’t be so morbid, Hades. Have some optimism,” Metis said. “Let’s begin with how the Oracle said find out why you Olympians would win at War Games, and you find your comrades. I think we found out why you might win.” They all looked at me. Metis continued, “Perhaps the Oracles knew that you’d ascend the Throne … and that you’d become … ” she motioned her hands toward me. “This.”
“Yeah right.” I felt heat rush into my cheeks. “Remember, I nearly got myself killed the other night and tonight.”
“Yes, and maybe all of us going up there and receiving certain gifts of deity magic is what ultimately would’ve led to a win in War Games.”
“But how could they’ve seen all of that? So many things happened along the way. The attack on Crete. Amalthea’s injury. Tos’ death. Me coming here. Tia, Don, and Meter’s disappearance. All those incidences contributed.”
Metis touched my shoulder. “You know I’m sorry about that.” The emotion in her voice snaked into my core. “Perhaps, that’s why they’re Oracles, gifted with the deity magic of prophetic vision, foresight, and the ability to sift through the dross.”
“Don’t you see?” Hera said. “Zeus really is the reason. Aside from your fear of heights, you shapeshifted the best of any first-timer. No one’s ever done that well that fast, including me. And besides, I don’t know anyone here who has shifted into a dragon, do you, Shade?”
He shook his head.
Hera continued. “And now this incident with the cosmic dust and the Throne and you survived it. You’re amazing.” She said it completely devoid of flattery.
“So what?” I asked. “I’m supposed to help you all win at War Games? And then what?”
“And how does knowing he’s the reason help us?” Shade sulked visibly.
“It goes back to what I was saying,” Metis said. “Kronos was going to take you out one by one until he forced Zeus to join him. But the other part of what the Oracles said was that once we found the reason, we’d then find your comrades,” Metis continued. “Let’s hope they’re still alive.”
“Wow, this is deep,” Shade said. “I got your back, brother.”
“Me too.” Hera looked unwaveringly into my eyes. “Whatever it takes.”
Metis sat next to me. “Whatever I can do to help out, I’ll do. I have a bit of repenting to work on.” Her smile still disarmed me in ways I couldn’t explain.
Hera rubbed her hands together. “If we’re going to fight Kronos and I’m sure other Elders, we’re gonna need some weapons. And not those old goat droppings we have down in the armory. I mean some real weapons. We need the Cyclopes brothers.”
“Oh!” Metis beamed. “Kronos banished the Cyclopes to Tartarus not long ago because they wouldn’t make him supreme killing weapons for War Games. I think Kronos had planned to take you all out during a War Games match. Like for real.”
“Bastard!” I growled.
“I get it now,” Metis began, tapping her temples. “I think the War Games reference was less about the intermural sports aspect. The triple-tongued fruit may have meant something more sinister.” Metis paused, possibly for impact. “A real war between the schools.”
My heart sank into my stomach.
“You know what I just thought of?” Shade said.
“Yes, but tell us anyway,” Hera joked.
“So that scroll said something about absorbed into metal, bearer calls the tune, right? Not musical, I get it. But maybe you can make it into—”
“Anything you want?” Hera finished the thought. “Hmmm.”
“Maybe that’s why we can’t find Tia’s research, because Kronos stole it from her. Wasn’t she on to something?” Shade asked.
“Exactly,” I said. “No, wait. It couldn’t have been her research. Whatever Tia was studying, the Elders already knew. It had to be something else.”
“Clearly Ouranos didn’t know about making weapons, or he would’ve done it,” Shade said.
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