Olympus Academy: The Complete Series

by Raine, Eliza

  ‘If you’re impressed by that…’ Dasko chuckled. I blushed, feeling silly, but it was the first proper magic I’d seen, if you discounted my mad-dash journey to the academy.

  ‘Try to move the flame, Pandora,’ said Chiron from behind me.

  ‘Move it? How?’

  ‘Concentrate on it. Stare at it until you feel like you know which way it’s going to go next. Then make it move a different way.’

  I could do that, I thought. It didn’t sound hard. I looked at the little flame, flickering in the dish. I thought about it moving. Nothing happened. I looked harder, bending so I was closer to it. I watched the colors changing, white at the base, deep orange at the top. I thought harder about it moving. Still nothing happened.

  I stared at the flame a full ten minutes before Chiron said,

  ‘Let’s try water.’ I stepped back, disappointment overwhelming me.

  ‘Is it normal for nothing to happen?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Yes. Very,’ said Dasko, and we left the fire room.

  The water room looked identical, with the curtain of water running down the back wall, but instead of pedestals there was a large hole with a metal grate over it in the middle of the room.

  ‘For any excess water to drain away,’ Dasko explained. We stood in front of the waterfall and Chiron told me to do what I had in the last room, concentrate on the water moving, and try to make it do something different. I stared and stared and stared until my eyes hurt. Just as I was about ready to kick the wall in frustration, the steady stream of water in front of me gave a little ripple to the right. I looked at Chiron.

  ‘Was that me?’ Hope blossomed in my chest.

  ‘Yes, I think it was. Excellent,’ he answered.

  The next room was earth. Instead of a stone floor this room had soil, and rocks and plants were strewn around everywhere. The back wall was covered in ivy, tiny flowers making it look quite pretty. This time I stood in front of a tall viney plant, and willed one of the leaves to move. Precisely nothing happened. Frustration was building inside me. I so desperately wanted the plant to respond to me, why wouldn’t it?

  ‘Can people control all of the elements?’ I asked as I trudged out of the earth room.

  ‘A few, but most can’t,’ answered Chiron.

  ‘Can you?’

  The centaur laughed.

  ‘I can’t use elemental magic at all. Centaurs have other gifts.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You’ll find out in your Olympian Geography classes.’

  I scowled. I wanted to know now.

  ‘I can,’ said Dasko, in a loud whisper. I looked at him, eyebrows raised.

  ‘You can use all elemental magic?’

  ‘Yep.’

  My mouth fell open a little bit.

  ‘Which is your favorite?’

  He frowned, thinking.

  ‘I think fire,’ he said, as we reached the next door, a massive lightning bolt carved on it.

  I had no more aptitude for electricity than I did the others. I stood at a huge metal sphere, both hands pressed to it, concentrating as hard as I could on the little vibrations running through my skin, but nothing happened. And it was the same in the last room, for air. Holes ranging in size dotted the walls, and howling gusts of wind ran through them into the room at different speeds and strengths. I couldn’t get the gentle one I was supposed to be working with to do anything.

  I tried to squash the bitterness I felt as we headed back to the main temple, replaying Chiron and Dasko's words, that it was normal for nothing to happen early on, and that few people could use all of the elements. But other than the little wiggle of water, I hadn’t been able to do anything at all. And I needed to be powerful or I had no hope of getting back to my family.

  ‘You’ll have History of Mythology this afternoon, then join the other students for swimming. The gong’s about to sound for lunch. You know where I am if you need me,’ said Chiron, then trotted off towards the front building, leaving me with Professor Dasko.

  ‘You did well today. Don’t worry about having a slow start,’ he said, comfortingly. I smiled at him.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll see you in History of Mythology,’ he said, and headed back towards the training ground. I sighed as the gong sounded and people began barreling out of the curtained doors around the room, making for the tables.

  9

  Zali was thrilled that I was joining them for swimming and neither she or Tak looked worried that I’d had such little luck with the elements.

  ‘I’m good with air, and a little bit of earth, and that’s it,’ shrugged Tak, around mouthfuls of hot dog. ‘But Hermes can fly and works with Hades underground, so it figures.’

  ‘I’m OK with water, but I can only make it change temperature. And I can’t use anything else,’ said Zali.

  ‘You don’t need to be able to use anything else, you can grow a tail,’ said Tak. She rolled her eyes at him.

  ‘I’m concentrating on Telepathy class, so I can talk to the sea creatures,’ she said, turning back to me. ‘You don’t have to be good at elements.’

  I knew she was trying to help, but it didn’t change the fact that I wanted to be good at them. The thought of controlling water, creating fire, directing wind… It was everything I’d read in my books and comics as a child. I took another long breath and chewed on my hot dog. Maybe once I’d tried Shifting and Telepathy I’d be as excited about those too. Turning into something else would be pretty cool. Unless it was something gross. Like a toad or a cockroach or something.

  When the next gong sounded Zali pointed me at the classroom for History of Mythology and I pushed through the heavy blue curtain slightly cheered up. Food and my new friends encouragement had helped, and I was excited to learn more about the gods. And maybe why being a Titan was such a big deal. The room I entered looked like my classrooms at home, but with four long rows of desks and bench seats instead of individual desks. And there was somebody already sitting down.

  ‘Oh. Hello,’ I said, when I saw him, then stifled a gasp as he looked at me. He had the most green eyes I’d ever seen, framed by thick black lashes. Black hair flopped over his forehead and for a moment I didn’t think I’d ever seen a boy more beautiful. Then his soft, full lips hardened in a line and his eyebrows drew together.

  ‘You must be the new girl,’ he said, turning back to the front of the room, where a large blackboard hung on the stone wall, behind a giant iron dish.

  ‘Erm, yeah. Pandora,’ I said. He didn’t reply, just stared ahead. ‘Who are you?’ I prompted, walking further into the room and sitting down at the end of the row he was in. He looked back at me a moment, green eyes intense, then picked up his bag from the desk and stood up. He was wearing black trousers and a white shirt, like all the boys at the academy, but they somehow didn’t seem to fit him right. His shirt was open at the collar and my eyes were dragged to the skin of his chest. Then he climbed over the desk, and sat down in the row in front.

  ‘Did you just move seats because I sat here?’ I asked him, incredulously. He didn’t answer. Anger spiked in me, my heart rate picking up. ‘Is it because I’m a Titan?’ I snapped. His head whipped towards me.

  ‘You’re a Titan?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’ We both turned to look at Professor Dasko, as he strode into the room. ‘You both are.’ I looked back at the boy, who was scowling again. ‘Pandora, this is Icarus. He started a month ago. He’s descended from Prometheus.’

  Something stirred in my memory.

  ‘Didn’t he do something with fire?’

  ‘That’s right. And it’s where we’ll start our lesson today.’

  Icarus groaned and put his head in his hands, elbows on the desk. I frowned at him.

  ‘Sorry, if you’ve already covered this,’ I said, in a last-ditch attempt to be friendly. ‘I didn’t do much mythology back home.’ He glared back at me. Why was he so rude? If he wasn’t going to be nice, nor was I. ‘Fine,’ I snapped
. ‘I’m not sorry. You’ll just have to sit through it again.’ I folded my arms and turned to Dasko, who was smiling. The lights in the room dimmed suddenly, and I looked around in alarm.

  ‘This is a flame dish,’ Dasko said, as orange fire leapt to life in the huge iron dish at the front of the room. ‘We use them to communicate, a bit like TV screens in your world.’ He waved his hand and the flames turned white, leaping high. My eyes widened as the light dimmed and an image was left in the dish. An image of a scarred, half-naked giant.

  ‘This is Cronus. He was lord of the Titans, who were the original gods. It was prophesied that he would be overthrown by his own child, so he ate every one of his children that his wife, Rhea, bore. She begged him not to, but he wouldn’t listen to her, so she decided to trick him. She gave him a swaddled rock to eat instead of her sixth new-born, and smuggled the child away. He grew up to be Zeus.’

  An image of a small boy appeared next to the huge, brutish image of Cronus.

  ‘Zeus did indeed grow up to overthrow his father. His mother gave him a potion to make his father vomit up his other children, and then together they fought a war with all of the original gods, a war called the Titanomachy.’

  The image in the dish morphed, showing an epic battle across a broken, shattered earth. There were huge monsters, giants with one eye, creatures with a hundred arms, waves the size of buildings, the chaos lit by fierce sparks of lightning.

  ‘Zeus won and he called himself, three of his siblings and eight of his offspring the Olympians. He made Hades god of the underworld, and Tartarus. Tartarus is a bottomless abyss, a place of eternal, brutal torture. This is where most of the Titans were imprisoned, and they are still there to this day.’

  Discomfort rolled through me. Imprisoned forever in a pit of torture? That was worse than dying, surely?

  ‘Three titans stayed neutral in the war though, and they were allowed to stay free. Oceanus, original god of the ocean, Helios, original god of the sun and Prometheus. Zeus was great friends with Prometheus and allowed him to create mankind, from clay.’

  The image in the dish changed again, showing two men bent over tiny clay figures of different colors.

  ‘Prometheus fell in love with mankind and secretly harbored deep resentment towards the Olympians for imprisoning his family. When Zeus became angry with the humans and took fire away from them, Prometheus decided he couldn’t let them freeze and die. So he stole the fire from the gods, and gave it back to mankind.’

  Zeus’s furious face, framed by fire, filled the dish and I let out a little gasp.

  ‘What did Zeus do?’ I whispered.

  ‘He nailed Prometheus to a rock and instructed eagles to peck out his liver,’ Icarus said, moodily. I looked at him.

  ‘He let him die, instead of suffering eternal torture in Tartarus?’

  ‘Nope. He made sure his liver would regenerate every night, and then it happened again the next day.’

  My stomach turned. Who would do something like that?

  ‘Can Gods feel pain?’ I asked, quietly.

  ‘Zeus made sure that Prometheus could,’ Professor Dasko answered. ‘It was a very severe punishment indeed.’

  He could say that again. I stared at the face now in the dish, a black haired man, greying over his ears, bright green eyes shining. That must him. Prometheus. Creator of mankind.

  ‘So why don’t humans worship him instead of the gods?’ I asked.

  ‘Zeus would not allow it. Mankind live in fear of the Olympians. They do bestow favors on those they see fit, but rarely and not without cost.’

  ‘How… how does my world exist without them?’

  ‘Your world is an experiment of Athena’s. She has been allowed to conduct it for a long time now, likely only because she’s Zeus’s favorite child.’

  ‘An experiment?’ I repeated dumbly.

  ‘Yes. To see how much can be achieved by mortals if they are left alone.’

  I stared at him. Could that really be true? My whole world was just a god's experiment? My dad, my sister…

  ‘Get over it, new girl,’ drawled Icarus, casting me a bored sideways look. I glared at him.

  ‘You’re new too!’ I snapped back. He just made a tutting noise at me and turned away again.

  ‘Both of you, listen to me. This is important,’ Dasko said, waving his hand and making the image vanish and the flames flicker back to life in the dish, orange and gentle again. He stepped towards us. ‘It has been a long time since Titans were allowed in Olympus Academy. You must both set an example. Zeus is still very distrustful of Titan power.’

  I suppressed a snort.

  ‘Why? If he beat the Titans, surely he thinks they’re weak?’

  ‘Far from it, Pandora. Zeus’s army was four times the size of the Titan one, and your father and Helios, two of the most powerful Titans, did not fight. The Titans created the world. They are strong.’

  I frowned as a question occurred to me.

  ‘Where are they now? Helios and Oceanus and Prometheus?’

  ‘Nobody knows. But, there is a rumor.’ Dasko leaned forward conspiratorially.

  ‘What’s the rumor?’ I breathed.

  ‘Gods, you ask a lot of questions,’ muttered Icarus, rolling his eyes. But he was looking at the professor now, shifting in his seat, and I knew he was as interested as I was.

  ‘Legend has it, that somewhere in Olympus is a box. A box that was sealed by Titan magic and hidden by Oceanus. Nobody knows what’s inside but it’s believed that the box is the key to finding the lost Titans.’

  I breathed out slowly. Hidden treasure leading to lost gods. That was surely the only thing potentially more exciting than controlling water or fire or air with my mind.

  ‘Zeus is coming to do an inspection at the end of the semester,’ said Dasko, straightening.

  ‘What?’ spluttered Icarus, sitting up straight. He looked worried.

  ‘Is that bad?’ I asked, nervously.

  ‘Zeus will find any reason he can to throw you and Icarus out of the academy,’ Dasko said. A hollow, dread feeling sank to the bottom of my stomach.

  ‘But… But that means I’ll have to live in the mortal world away from my family, alone and chased by demons forever,’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes. And Icarus will suffer an even worse fate. But I have an idea.’

  With an effort, I suppressed the urge to ask what Icarus’s worse fate was and looked hopefully at the professor.

  ‘I have spent a long time searching for that box, and I believe it is here, hidden somewhere in the academy. And only a Titan can find it.’

  My skin prickled and tingled at his words.

  ‘If you two can find the box, and present it to Zeus at the end of the semester, he’ll know he can trust you, and you’ll both be able to stay.’

  It made sense, I thought. If hardly any Titans had been at the academy in ages and only a Titan could find it, it could have stayed hidden all this time. Plus, if Oceanus was going to hide something it would be underwater.

  ‘How do you know so much about this?’ asked Icarus, accusingly.

  ‘I’ve studied more Titan history than any other professor in Olympus. I’ve read every text, every account, spoken to any living descendant with information I could find.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Titan power fascinates me. I believe demigods with Titan abilities could be incredibly powerful, if they were taught to unlock their powers properly.’

  More excitement thrilled through me, my skin now alive with adrenaline. Incredibly powerful? Maybe he could help me become powerful enough to get back home.

  ‘When do we start?’ I asked.

  10

  Professor Dasko spent the rest of the class going over maps he had of Aquarius and of the academy, and where he thought the box might be. He was close to translating a clue in an old text, and he said tell us as soon as he had cracked it. Icarus stayed moody and quiet for the rest of the class, but I got the impression that
was normal.

  When the gong rang he left quickly, without saying bye.

  ‘He’s had a rough start, Pandora,’ said Dasko as I glowered after him.

  ‘So? That doesn’t give him the right to be rude to people,’ I said.

  ‘The kids here haven’t been very nice to him.’

  ‘Well, my roommate has been nice to me, and I’m a Titan.’

  ‘Hmm. You’re a little more…’ he paused, ‘…approachable than he is.’

  ‘I guess,’ I shrugged. I still didn’t think he had any excuse to be so grumpy with people.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Pandora. And don’t mention this to your roommate.’

  ‘Why not?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘Because we don’t want to freak people out with talk of Titan powers. The girl who burned the school down has become legendary here, and not in a good way.’ He shuffled some papers on the front desk, looking a little sad.

  ‘It was a girl?’

  ‘Yes. Your age.’

  I shuddered.

  ‘OK, professor. I’ll keep it to myself.’

  When I left the classroom, Zali was waiting for me by the table we sat at to eat. She thrust a small fabric tote bag at me as I approached her.

  ‘Hurry up! We need to get down to the pool and get changed!’

  I couldn’t wait to get in the water, and I ran enthusiastically after her, out of the main temple, across the empty training ground and towards the elemental classrooms. But she veered off as we approached, going around the side of the building, towards the back. I stared up at the pegasus tower as we ran past, stretching up and up and up. How deep were we?

  ‘Everyone is changing already,’ panted Zali and my heart leapt as we rounded the building. Between the two towers was the most beautiful pool I had ever seen. It looked like something from a super-luxurious health spa. There were grand white steps leading into it at one end, and a tile mosaic on the bottom of a massive cresting wave, rippling through the clear turquoise water. And where the pool met the back of the dome, it kept going. Into the ocean. I gaped. How was it not all rushing out into the sea? The pool water just rippled gently. Before I could ask, Zali grabbed my hand and yanked me towards a small building tucked against the back of the elemental classrooms.