by Amy Braun
I moved it closer to the circle of gods.
Beyond me, I could see Selena and Corey moving in a blur. Both were free of their shackles, and both had plans.
Selena leaped onto the back of the aether-snake, her hands filling with fire. She seared the creature’s back, giving me time to breathe—and time for Corey to dart behind me and unlock my shackles.
“How?” I asked quickly, glancing over my shoulder and seeing Ares scowl.
“You distracted the snake, and Selena got me out. She had lock picks.”
She did. Of course, she did. She would have Seen this possible future, even in her confused haze, and knew to be ready for it.
Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t care. I needed to get my friends away from here. I wouldn’t let the gods take them from me. No one was taking my family from me.
Ares turned, leaving the sword in Thea’s shoulder. Its weight forced her to topple forward and drip more blood onto the Trident and the circle. I raised my hands and threw a ball of fire at him.
The war god swept up his hand, forming an even bigger blast of fire, and swallowing mine. He shoved the fireball at me. Eyes wide, I dove past the blast and came up behind Mason.
A flicker of white caught my eye. Inside the circle, an orb of glowing energy had formed. Crimson and gold blood beaded through the air and sank into the light. Sparkling water, slithering aether, and crackling lightning followed the blood. The magic from the Trinity Weapons adding new layers of power. Spokes of blood and magic stood out from the orb of light, and it slowly began to curve.
The Sickle was forming.
I didn’t know how to stop the spell or how to keep magic from hurting my friends.
Selena cried out, and I saw she had been thrown from the aether-snake’s back.
Leaving it open for someone just as desperate and foolish as me.
I bolted for the aether-snake, Adapting to make myself faster.
My peripheral vision glowed bright and red. Heat swelled through the room. I pushed myself harder, flames swiping at my feet and back. Holding my breath, I leaped for the snake. The fire crawled up the creature’s side, drawing a hiss from it, nearly throwing me off. I grasped it as tight as I could, locking my legs in place despite the icy burn of aether.
Ares hurled another round of fire at me. The monster pitched and bucked as the flames bit at its skin. I held on for dear fucking life, holding my breath while Selena raced for Thea, one hand filled with fire and her eyes constantly on Ares.
I yanked off my shirt, grabbed the hem with my teeth, and ripped it in two. I started loosely wrapping the halves around my palms, my fingers slipping every time a blast of fire bolted past me or the aether-snake tried to throw me.
Finally, my hands were bound in thick but rough-looking mitts.
Hopefully they protected me for at least a minute.
I pressed my chest to the aether-snake. Cold smoke seared my bare skin. I Adapted to harden myself against damage, but not pain. I curled my hands under the aether-snake’s head and reached into its mouth, seeking the fangs.
They weren’t hard to find.
Immediately on grasping them with my shitty mitts, the acid started eating through them. I wrenched the aether-snake around, facing it toward Ares. The god snarled and blasted another gout of flame at me. Selena hurled her own flame at the god of war. He couldn’t fire back, because she stood right next to Thea, who likely needed to survive for the ritual.
I glanced in the circle. The white light continued to glow, but the Sickle was half formed. A weapon as long as my arm and curved sharp enough to rip a person in half, this weapon would not fuck around.
I needed to be faster.
Adapting my strength, I grasped the fangs. The white-hot acid burned through my mitts. In seconds, my skin would be exposed. I grit my teeth and yanked on the fangs.
Spending years hunting monsters had taught me about defanging, but I’d never done it, and these fangs were thick, about as wide as my wrist. Acid ate through the last of my mitts, and the pain blasted into my hand. I thought about Mason, his jokes and his sweetness to Corey. I thought about Corey’s honesty, resilience, and how many times he’d saved my life just by being there. Thea, the new goddess who sat next to me and comforted me when she should have been screaming her fears. Selena, the sister I didn’t deserve, who feared nothing and no one.
I bit back a scream and pulled, pulled, arms trembling, muscles straining––
Crack, crack!
I tumbled backward, nearly falling off the snake, two venomous fangs in my hand. The beast under me thrashed in rage and agony. Holding the fangs aloft, I rolled off the snake and raced for the circle.
Selena no longer battled Ares with fire. She fought him hand to hand. He was quicker than her, but her foresight must have kept her alive.
Just a few more seconds. Hang on, guys––
I raced for the edge of the circle, heart pounding, skin melting, and tossed the venomous fangs into the circle, pushing them past the makeshift ring of weapons and blood, giving my friends a weapon to fight with or for the acid to burn away the spell, or––
A spike of aether slammed into my stomach.
I stared at the spike impaling me, trying to understand how it got there.
Then the pain hit.
I’d been stabbed before. Clawed, burned, frozen. I knew pain. But this...
The pain blacked me out. I slumped onto the smoke and ripped my insides to ribbons. I blacked out again. My body shuddered and twitched and froze. Someone screamed.
Another blackout, and I was on the floor. Everything smelled like copper. My back was wet and sticky. So was my middle. Spinning stars filled my eyes. I couldn’t move. Gods, I was cold.
My head lolled. I stared at the circle of weapons, gods, and bloody friends. Fire careened past me, but I couldn’t tell who was hurt.
The light at the heart of the circle flowed stronger and brighter. Its curve finally formed.
The Sickle.
Hades smiled, his lips peeled back and teeth bared. He reached for the Weapon, no longer caring about the glow—
A blur moved behind him.
Corey.
It happened in a blink. Corey grasping the Helm of Darkness, erasing from sight, and reappearing without the Helm.
Placing it somewhere that only he knew. Breaking the ritual and ending the spell.
Ares bellowed with rage, his voice echoing against the walls. Hades watched the Sickle’s light fade away, as if it had never been there at all. The spokes of magic surrounding it dissipated, and his eyes fixed on bloodstained concrete.
If I could have moved, I might have laughed.
Another blur. Corey was back, teleporting and darting for us, trying to get us away—
He stopped.
Went completely still.
Corey never stilled.
Then I saw the blood.
It poured down his neck in a stream, drenching the collar of his shirt. He coughed, a jet of crimson spraying out of his broken skin. He slumped to his knees, hands weakly grasping his neck. He collapsed and went still.
I stood in place, looking at his body, not understanding why he wasn’t moving. The world numbed around me, and all I could see was the blood matting blond curls. A dark pool of it against a slim body made for running.
This… this wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be fast enough. I was supposed to be strong enough.
We were supposed to make it out alive. All of us. The Olympians needed us.
But I couldn’t unsee the limp body. The shell of someone who had been my friend for years.
The corpse of someone I couldn’t save.
You don’t know that—why the fuck are you standing here? Do something!
I lunged for Corey––
A low rumble carried from the next room. Heat swelled and I heard a furious roar. A sound too primal to be considered human.
Except I knew it was.
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��d heard that voice before. That rage.
I’d heard it the last time I nearly died.
Ares turned, standing over a barely conscious Selena. His face twisted as he laughed and sneered.
“At last, you grace us, my heir.”
DEREK
EVERYTHING FELL AWAY while I stood in my nightmare.
I forgot the anger Athena would feel when she discovered I ran.
The pain Persephone would feel.
Zeus’s wrath.
Three Furies hunting me, monsters I called to when I cut open my hand and let the blood drip along the path Artemis led me on.
She bought me here to this warehouse—to a basement ripped straight from my worst dream.
All my friends lay on the floor, pools of blood staining their motionless bodies. Corey lay in a pool of blood. Selena lay on the ground, fighting to stay conscious.
And Liam…
His shirt gone, his hands pressed against Corey, forcing magic into him, trying to save him…
Because Corey was dead.
My friend was dead.
And my brother was trying to save him.
Liam looked pale as death, covered in sweat and gore, barely breathing. But he was alive and stared at me with shocked, fearful, and hopeful blue eyes.
A hope that I could fix this.
And then there were the two gods standing in the midst of it all.
Gods who had caused this.
Hot Rage burned inside me, and I welcomed it. I wanted nothing than to tear them apart for what they’d done. Who they’d hurt—an innocent, brave, selfless person who deserved to be alive.
“What is this, Hades?” I heard Artemis ask. Her voice sounded distant to me. All I could see was Corey and Liam trying to save him.
I called Ki̱demónas to my hand. Felt it tremble in tandem with my raging heart. I took a step forward, only to have Artemis push out her arm and stop me.
I glared at her, murder in my eyes. She didn’t seem to notice. That only made me angrier that she acted as if my friend and brother didn’t matter.
“This is what we must do to survive, Niece,” Hades replied to Artemis. “We have been pushed to the brink. You are a clever girl, and I know you do not wish to fall from the edge.”
Heavy magic pressed against my back. Concrete trembled and I smelled cold earth. The goddess was enraged.
Good.
“Tell me what this is,” she demanded.
“This is us making an allegiance to contain the Titans,” Ares answered, drawing a sword from his back and spinning it in his hand, smiling at me. “This is our chance for power. A chance for you to join us and greet Apollo’s spirit in the Underworld.”
The breath shot from Artemis’ lungs.
“You did not seriously think Hades would allow such a prize to escape him, do you?” He braced his legs. “Your brother still lives in a spiritual form in the Underworld.”
I gripped my spear, trembling in time with my anger. “You fucking liar––”
Pain burst in my left hand. I nearly dropped Ki̱demónas as I fumbled to heal my broken fingers. I heard Liam’s stunned gasp. For the first time, he could see my curse.
“Move, and she dies next.”
I went utterly still at Ares’s voice. He stood behind Selena, keeping her on her knees and holding her there by a fistful of hair and a sword to her throat.
Terror froze me, and Ares saw it. He knew he had won.
Selena met my eyes. Beautiful and unafraid, she shook her head as much as she dared.
Gods, I loved her so much. I couldn’t lose another person. I couldn’t lose her.
“Is he telling the truth, Hades?” asked Artemis. “Can you bring Apollo back to me?”
What? No, no––
“He will not be what he was,” clarified the Underworld King, “but you will see him.”
She hesitated, and for that single second, I understood.
My brother could barely stand. My friends were dying. One, the most innocent and kind of us, was dead.
The first friend I trusted. An awkward, shy man who never saw his own strength. Someone who saved our lives more times than I could count, who never hesitated or complained. A man who’d just fallen in love.
My chest squeezed, seeing him there on the floor, inches away from Mason who may not even know Corey had died...
If I had the choice like Artemis did, I would do anything to change this moment. To see my friend again and tell him how much he was worth. How deeply he would remain loved.
Artemis had lost a brother. Someone who stood with her through centuries, who killed monsters and shattered empires, who rose and fell and rose again.
It didn’t matter what the truth was. She just wanted him back.
Her pale eyes hardened, and she gave Hades her answer. “Tell me what I must do.”
“No!” Selena cried. “This will only make things worse, Artemis please––”
She hissed when Ares pulled on her hair and pressed the blade deeper into her throat. Thin trickles of blood slipped down her neck. Another inch deeper and Are would kill her in front of me.
Hades ignored the chaos in the background. Artemis held his entire focus. “The Weapons collected here must be moved to my vaults. I trust you can find them.”
Artemis nodded. She lifted her hand, magic trembling in the air and rumbling against the ground. Bits of stone broke and lifted from the floor. Each small piece interlocked with the next, creating shells around the Cronus Shards and Trinity Weapons. Even the lightning, which I couldn’t understand. It wasn’t the Thunderbolt, but…
My eyes drifted to Mason. Drenched in blood, barely breathing. What had they done to him?
The gods had taken everything from him. I had to do something before they finally took his life and the lives of my friends.
Ares was right. I couldn’t lose another.
My eyes drifted to Corey. The world already felt so dark without him.
As Artemis worked, she looked at Ares. “I miss my brother,” she remarked, her hands moving slowly, his eyes seemingly unfocused. “It is a pain I did not know I could feel. And the worst of it is, I do not know how he died. Not truly.” Her eyes moved to Ares. “But I believe you do.”
The war god stared at her, as if she’d just asked him about the weather. He nodded to me. “The culprit stands next to you. If I am honest, I am surprised you arrived with him and haven’t slain him.”
“Believe me, I thought of doing so.” Artemis glared at me where I stood pinned. “I do not think him worthy of the powers he was given.” She turned her eyes back to the half-caged Weapons. The Omega Knife drifted in front of her face, glowing with white power and blue etchings. Hades watched intently, an impatient frown creasing his face.
“And somehow,” the light played off her pale skin, bits of rock swirling around the blade, “I believe him more than I believe you.”
The dust and glass-sharp stones launched forward and into Hades’s face. The god reared back, stunned but for a moment. The hilt of the Omega Knife shot through the air, driving straight for my open hand. I reached for it as Ares bellowed and pushed Selena aside to sprint toward me. Artemis’s silver bow formed, and two arrows slipped into the string. She fired the moonlight arrows, their bladed tips slicing across Ares’s chin and halting him in place.
The Omega Knife struck my hand. Power thrummed through me, stinging and awake. I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Not until these bastards paid what they’d done to my friend.
Artemis staggered back, guarding me with silver arrows and a fixed eye.
I felt a familiar presence at my side. In the chaos, Liam moved next to me. He stood on shaky legs, but his eyes were hard and determined. It was all I could do to focus and not crush him into a hug.
He was trying, he was trying so hard to stay strong. To not look at our dead friend and focus on the fight. I let that sink in, and how I dreaded looking behind me.
Grief burrowed into my chest, but I reigned it in. I had to keep it together.
Hades stood in the circle, half caged weapons and barely-living scions surrounding him. An emotionless mask covered his face, and I saw a chill of fear in those cold, pale eyes.
“And you claim to love your brother so,” he drawled.
Artemis shot back, “You lied to me about him. You lied for this,” she pointed at the bodies and the circle. “To bring back Titans that will kill us?”
“Not if we control them, which I will be able to do.”
“No, Uncle. You can’t. Tartarus is the only thing that could, and you test its lock just by holding the keys.”
While they argued about this, I glanced to Ares.
The look on his face now, the fury in his eyes when he noticed the Omega Knife in my hand, the light of the Mind trapped within its blade…
I’d never seen such rage before.
It consumed him, devoured all thoughts in his mind.
And he didn’t see Selena.
Creeping behind him, she kicked out at the back of his leg. Her heel slammed into the knee. Ares barked in pain, his leg buckling instinctively.
Artemis reacted first, firing a silver arrow. Ares slashed his hand through the air, batting the arrow aside. His hands swung again, shooting fire through the small, death-trap of a room.
I swung my free hand out and formed a barrier of aether. Flames struck the dark wall and curled around the edges, nipping at my arms. I grit my teeth and bore the pain. Ki̱demónas lifted from the sheath on my back. The weapon streaked around the aether and fire, targeting Ares’s right flank.
Liam bolted from my side to where Thea lay slumped and bleeding. Hades watched him approach and snapped his fingers. Two gigantic vultures formed from the shadows and dove at my brother. I flicked my wrist and snapped a line of flame across the room to slash into the aether-creatures. The fire-whip sliced through them and dissolved the smoke. Liam pressed his hands to Thea’s bloody shoulder, focusing his power into bringing the new goddess back into the fight.