Designed by Death

by Melody Rose

  Designed in Death

  Academy of Olympus book 3

  Melody Rose

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  A Note from the Author

  1

  The helmet was a puzzle I couldn’t solve. No matter how I turned my head this way and that, I couldn’t decipher how it had been made. And that frustrated me.

  I knew that if I could just reach out and touch the metal that it would talk to me. It could give me at least some of the answers to the questions I had about how the blacksmith got the metal to bend to that exact curve. Or what steel was used to create that kind of wavy pattern on the grate across the mouth. Finally, I needed to know how smooth the inside was, optimized for comfort and wearability or for strength and durability. Was it possible to achieve both?

  I blinked once to give myself time to think of another series of questions when a familiar voice called me out.

  “You lost.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see a tall blond man wearing a tight turtleneck sweater with an orange scarf draped casually around his neck. The sculpted muscles in his arms pushed against the fabric of the sweater as he reached up and ran a hand through his hair. He sauntered up to me, his dress shoes clacking on the tile floor, and got close enough to my back for the hairs on my neck to stand up.

  “I didn’t lose,” I protested, turning back to the suit of armor. After a pause, I glanced around at him. “What did I supposedly lose?”

  “The staring contest with that suit of armor,” Ansel said with a teasing tone. “If I were the jealous type, I would be jealous of the amount of attention you’re giving him.”

  I rolled my eyes and leaned into my boyfriend to reassure him of my loyalty. Though, I never took my attention away from the piece of armor before me.

  “It’s just so fascinating,” I commented as I gestured to the full suit. “I could probably get the rest of it down just by looking at it, but that helmet? It’s confusing me.”

  “Confusing you?” Ansel said, mock surprise in his voice. “The world’s greatest blacksmith can’t figure out how that helmet was made?”

  “No,” I grumbled. I crossed my arms across my chest as if I could stubbornly get the suit to reveal its secrets.

  “Well,” Ansel said as he lowered his mouth down to my ear, “can’t you just sense it?”

  His voice tickled across my skin, and I had to fight the urge to turn around and kiss him right there. But, as we were in a very public place and the kind of kiss that I wanted wasn’t a chaste one, I resisted.

  “I can’t sense it from here,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “Not with this stupid thing in the way.”

  I gestured to the glass box that stood between me and the armor. As it was the exhibit’s prized possession, the suit of armor was fiercely protected from the grimy, germy, and oily hands of the public. But the temptation to break the glass and get a sneak peek, just to learn the metal’s secrets was there. And it was loud.

  “We should probably get going before you get any ideas,” Ansel said as if he could read my mind. He looped his arm through mine and gave me a gentle yank.

  “But I want to figure it out!” I whined as I dug in my heels.

  “You’ve been staring at it for twenty minutes,” Ansel argued. “I’ve already been to the Impressionists exhibit and the bathroom while you’ve been standing in the exact same place. And you’re supposed to be on this date with me, remember? Not the art.”

  I sighed and reluctantly followed my boyfriend out of the room with the suit of armor into another brightly colored room, this time with tapestries created in the Middle Ages. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as the room with the armor and the weapons that we were just in, but my mind was admittedly less distracted. I could actually focus on my date, the son of Apollo, who had kindly brought us to the local art museum for the day.

  It was Ansel’s attempt at a normal date. One that didn’t involve mythical monsters, Grecian gods, or fire-wielding powers of any kind. So far, we were really successful at keeping things normal, but part of me was just waiting for a gorgon to pop up from somewhere behind one of the marble statues.

  We walked hand in hand through some more rooms of art from the Middle Ages in Europe. We pointed out the dark colors as well as the somber subjects.

  “They all look so depressed,” I commented offhandedly as I looked at a particularly grim picture of a nun as she gazed out a window.

  “It was a depressing time,” Ansel added. “What with the Black Plague, no toilets, no electricity.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I chuckled at his commentary. “Is that all?”

  “No,” Ansel said, shaking his head. “I’m sure the whole time was bleak, with countries going to war over religion, dying of the common cold, believing in only one god, those kinds of things.”

  “I guess it was a depressing time,” I conceded as we passed a portrait of a maiden looking longingly into a river with a spilled bucket beside her.

  “If only they could have predicted the future, seen that good times were ahead,” Ansel said, timing his exclamation perfectly as we moved through history into the Renaissance paintings on display.

  I fell silent at his comment, however, losing any amusement I previously had. Ansel sensed my discomfort and stopped walking. He didn’t drop my hands, but he did turn to look at me with an accusing eye.

  “You’re still thinking about not telling her, aren’t you?” Ansel said sharply.

  I bit my lip and shook my head, unable to admit the words aloud.

  “Cheyenne,” Ansel said exasperatedly. “Come on. You have to say something.”

  “Do I?” I asked with a light voice, trying to be playful but really stalling.

  “Yes,” Ansel said firmly as he put his hands on his hips. “You have to.”

  “But I want to keep my mom’s relationship with me the same and not make it awkward by telling her that she might be able to predict the future,” I said in a harsh whisper, recognizing that we were talking about some pretty unnatural stuff in a public area of mortals.

  Ansel and I were demigods, children of Greek gods. We take after those great heroes of history like Hercules, Achilles, and Perseus. We were from the same bloodlines as those great heroes. It was typical for a demigod to have one type of supernatural ability, inherited from their godly parent. Ansel could control and create fire, which made sense, considering he was the son of Apollo, the sun god.

  My other demigod friends had abilities that related to their godly parent as well. Violet was the daughter of Hebe, the cupbearer for the gods and the creator of ambrosia. As such, my best friend could blend tastes and flavors in food like the best-trained chefs. Benji was the son of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, and he could sense and pull out weeds from the ground and other things harmful to plants.

  The most literal ability was from my friend Darren, who was a son of Asclepius, the god o
f healing and medicine. Darren was the most skilled healer on campus, even working with my mentor Ruby on her treatments for Parkinson’s disease.

  It turned out that I was rather atypical with my plethora of abilities. As if I wasn’t unusual enough with the bright red hair that grew straight out of my head, my resistance to heat, and my ability to control fire. The universe thought it would be amusing to add on the ability to look back at the past and have knowledge of nearly every Greek myth ever. This was also known as a form of the Sight.

  The Sight was the ability to see into the past, present, or future. My particular brand was that of the past. The powers relating to heat and fire made sense, considering my father was Hephaestus, the Greek god of Blacksmiths, but we had no idea where the Sight came from.

  I’d encountered Eros, the god of lust, last year, and he was the first one to suggest that I even had the Sight. When he said I’d inherited it from my mom, I didn’t believe him. But then when I realized how many of my mom’s silly, rhyming songs turned out to be true, his claim seemed to have had some truth.

  Where my version of the Sight relayed information about the past, my mom’s version of the Sight regarded the future. She could predict things when she sang silly songs, a habit that she started when she worked for the Renaissance Faire. Those silly songs turned out to be full-blown prophecies that could predict the future.

  She gave a particularly meaningful one last summer when she predicted a rather nasty case of love potion spreading around my school. Then she also predicted the cause and how to solve it. It made for a rather exciting semester, but I knew it would force an awkward conversation between my mom and me.

  Hence why I had chickened out and hadn’t said a word. I had seen my mom over Christmas break and should have done it then. But when she greeted me with an ugly Christmas sweater with a Picasso-like rendering of the Grinch’s face and a Santa hat that lit up like a disco ball around the fuzzy white rim, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to ruin this time with her.

  But now that the second semester was over and summer break was just starting, I had three months with her. This was as good of a time as any because if there was some kind of fall-out, we would have time to recover.

  Ansel and I already talked about my concern with this second power I had. It was unusual for a demigod to have two gifts like this, and I really did want to get to the bottom of this anomaly, but I didn’t know how to bring it up.

  “I gotta think that she doesn’t know about her powers,” Ansel said, trying to reassure me. “You trust her, right?”

  “Of course,” I said automatically.

  “Then trust that she has her reasons for telling you or for not telling you, whatever they may be,” Ansel said calmly.

  I stopped us in the lobby of the museum. I pulled Ansel down to me and kissed him deeply, not caring about the crowds anymore. It was a small thank you for his reassuring and encouraging words.

  “I’m going to miss you,” I said softly after I pulled away.

  “It’s just three months,” Ansel said kindly.

  In addition to being my boyfriend, Ansel was a graduate of the Academy where I was currently a student and a Fotia soldier for the Olympic Military. He was the one who originally recruited me for the Military Academy of Olympus, where they trained demigods to become soldiers who fight monsters and protect the mortal world from the threats of the Grecian myths. Over the past two years, we danced around our mutual feelings for one another because of the Academy’s policies on soldiers and students dating. When they lifted those regulations at the end of the first semester last year, Ansel and I immediately got together.

  Technically, we got together a little before the rule was disbanded, but no one was keeping track.

  We planned to spend as much time as possible together over the summer. We knew it would be difficult with him still being an active soldier and being sent on missions while school wasn’t in session. However, when he was on leave, he planned to come to my hometown so we could spend as much time as possible together.

  Because of our limited time, we decided to take this detour to the museum before I went back home for the summer. Ansel thought that we could kill some time and enjoy being a normal couple before I went home, and he had to go on his next mission for the Military.

  We wandered around the various exhibits, ate a snack in the café, and simply enjoyed each other’s presence. As it was nearing the end of the day, we walked out of the museum and into the humid summer air.

  The sun was still up, thanks to Daylight Savings Time, but more and more people poured out of the museum, ready to go home. Mom was supposed to pick me up soon, and Ansel would ride off in his father’s chariot, though we had to land it in a nearby park to avoid the eyes of the mortals.

  Ansel pulled me out of the crowd and led me to a stone bench at the bottom of the museum steps. He took my hands in his and rubbed the top of my hand with his thumb.

  “Before you know it, I’ll be back in the chariot, whisking you back to campus,” he said, the hope clear in his voice.

  “Can’t wait,” I said through a grimace, thinking of our past rides in his dad’s chariot.

  “Oh, come on,” Ansel prodded. “It gets better each time you ride it.”

  “Considering I’ve only ridden it a handful of times, and one of those was a crash landing, I’m not so sure,” I countered, keeping my tone playful to hide my fear.

  “The crash landing was your fault,” Ansel pointed out, “and every other landing has been smooth as butter, thank you very much.”

  While he had a point, I still shivered at the thought of riding the chariot. I had never been a big fan of heights. I liked to have both my feet on the ground, preferably by a fire, if possible. Up in the air was so cold, so windy, and just so very, very high up. I only managed to get through the last couple of trips back and forth to campus because instead of looking at the ground, I just looked at Ansel the whole time. It was cheesy, but I just put my confidence in him and held very tightly to the railing.

  Just like right then, I held onto his hands tightly and leaned into his presence. I tilted my head so it could rest on his shoulder, simply wanting to be in this moment with him. If I could drag it on for eternity, or even just another five minutes, I would have been content.

  Unfortunately, we barely got a minute to ourselves before a horn blared. The noise startled us apart, and we both looked up in the direction of the obnoxious sound.

  My mom sat in her car, a tan station wagon, with the windows rolled down so my two dogs, Khryseos and Argyreos, could hang their large heads out and enjoy the wind. The Dobermans looked ridiculous as they tried to cram their heads out and over one another upon seeing me.

  “You ready?” Ansel asked me with a serious gaze.

  “Not in the slightest,” I said honestly.

  Mom waved her hands enthusiastically upon seeing the pair of us. She threw the car in park and zipped out, jumping up and down with excitement. On her way around, she pulled open the back door so the dogs could get out. They tumbled over one another, and once they got to their feet, Khryseos and Argyreos bounded up for me, but Mom managed to run right past them.

  “Get out of the way, you two! You’ve seen her all year. It’s my turn.” Mom reached out her arms and pulled me into one of the tightest hugs. “Oh, honey! I missed you so much. It’s so good to see you.”

  I let my mom hold me for a minute, took in her smell, and let myself be home. But being my mom, she knew something was off with me the minute she could get a good look at my face.

  She pulled me away from her and held me by the shoulders with a suspicious eye. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I took a big breath. I had no idea how I was going to say this or what exactly I was going to say, but I knew it was too important to ignore. And ultimately, I owed it to my mom to tell her what was going on with me, as I had always done in the past.

  “Mom,” I said, “we need to talk.”

  2


  “It’s here!”

  My mom’s shout came from the front door, but it seemed to echo through the whole apartment, like a fire alarm. I couldn’t tell if she was excited or nervous. It didn’t help that when I came around the corner with Khryseos and Argyreos at my heels, her face was plastered with a smile.

  I cocked my head to one side. “You okay, Mom?”

  The two dogs at my side copied my movement, each of them tilting their head to one side as if looking at my mom a little crooked would help us diagnose her mood.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?” Mom said, her words tumbling out in a rush. She stood with her back against the door, a white rectangular box in her hands. My mom held the package out from her, with straight arms, as though it contained a ticking time bomb.

  “Because when you say ‘fine’ that many times in a row, it’s usually not ‘fine,’” I said as I used my fingers as quotation marks. Then, I held out my hands, offering to take the package from her. “Do you want me to open it?”

  “No,” Mom said as she yanked it closer to herself. She glanced down at it and decided against holding it so close. “Yes. I mean, I do want you there. With me. When I open it.”

  “I was planning on it,” I informed her, trying to keep my voice nice and even to encourage her to do the same.

  “Right,” Mom said with a sharp nod. However ready her voice might have seemed, her body hadn’t quite caught up. She, instead, stood at the door as though her back was glued to it. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at something in the upper corner of the living room. A memory from the past or a stray cobweb, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I did know was that she was distracted from the current task at hand.