“Hey, I know it’s not easy holding one of those shields up.”
When I turned to look at him, I noticed the long, thin scar along his jawline.
He rubbed his thumb across it, then he winked at me, and I couldn’t stop the smile blossoming on my face.
Then a shadow loomed over me.
“I said no laughing during class.” Ares glared at me, his scowl so deep it cut lines into his granite-like face.
“Technically, I wasn’t laughing. I was smiling.”
He got right into my face. I had to crane my neck to look up at him. He was so close I could smell his body odor.
“You need to check your attitude, Blue Belle, or I’m going to rip that nose ring right out of your face.”
The intensity of his anger rippled over me. I didn’t like how it felt on my skin. Like snakes, a thousand tiny snakes slithering over my body, every muscle quiver constricting me tighter and tighter.
“To help you with this lesson, I want you to go out in the middle of the field and do some pushups. You will keep doing them until I tell you to stop. Do you hear what I’m saying to you, recruit?”
“Yes, sir.”
Revana, who was nearby, started to snicker.
“Sounds like someone else is laughing, sir.”
Ares whipped around and glared at Revana. “You can join her.”
I walked out onto the field and dropped down to my hands and knees. Revana followed me out and nearly stepped on my hand as she took up a position beside me. As we both did our first pushup, she glowered at me, her eyes like dark storm clouds.
“I know you’re a fraud. When I find out how you got in here, I’m going straight to Zeus, and you’ll be expelled from the academy and exiled from your life.”
“Wow, girl, you really need to relax. You are much too tense.”
As she did pushups, she continued to glare at me. I didn’t know how one person could put so much effort into hating someone they didn’t even know. It must be exhausting.
It was just another reason, in a long list of them, of why coming here was a bad idea, and one I was sure I was going to regret. I should’ve given the box back to Callie, and maybe she’d be the one on the ground doing pushups until she puked.
Chapter Six
LUCIAN
Despite all my past training, the reality of the academy and what we were being put through paled in comparison. Walking into the gymnasium for hand-to-hand combat class and seeing Heracles, the giant of a man who stood seven feet tall and was built like a semi-truck, training us crushed any confidence I had going in. This was in no way going to be an easy class.
All my life, I’d been training for the possibility of being invited to join the Gods’ Army. For my parents, it was inevitable since my older brother, Owen, had been called four years earlier by his eighteenth birthday Shadowbox. I hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day he’d left, as recruits were cut off from the outside world. In the back of mind, I had hoped he’d be here at the academy when I arrived. But that hope had been dashed when I realized that those who had completed the training and gone through the trials transcended to Olympus to await the Great War. Maybe I would see him again when I, too, transcended.
Since I was six years old, my father had started training me in various disciplines like archery, deep sea diving, and hand-to-hand combat. And my parents had placed offerings at the temple of Ares since I’d been born in the hopes I would become part of his clan. Like my brother had. Or at least, I assumed he had.
“Form a single line,” Heracles bellowed, his voice echoing off the dark wooden floors and paneled walls.
Everyone rushed to get side by side. My friend, Diego, made sure to get next to me. Revana pushed another girl aside, so she could get in on my other side. The girl could be ruthless, which I didn’t like, but I supposed a person had to be to get through this training.
I looked down the line and spotted Melany about ten people away. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. She seemed so much out of her element, like she didn’t truly belong. From misreading where the entrance to the academy was, to diving out of the portal and nearly drowning, to talking back to Ares. I’d never thought anyone with any kind of smarts would ever risk that. She intrigued me; that was for certain.
“The first thing we are going to learn in this class is stance, how to keep your center of gravity. If you perfect this, you will never be knocked off balance, no matter how you move or what hits you.” He moved to the center of the floor and put his left leg forward, toe pointing straight, and his back foot pointing outwards. He bent his legs a little and then put up his hands to his chest, hugging his arms a little into his sides.
“Now, from here, I can perform any kind of maneuver.” He did a jab, and then upper cut, then threw an elbow, then he spun on his foot and did a back kick, coming back to rest in the same position. He moved so quickly, his limbs blurred.
Beside me, Diego sucked in a breath. “Damn. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.”
“In this stance, nothing can knock me over.”
From the far back corners of the room, two six-foot tall wooden dummy robots on wheels rolled toward Heracles. Both carried long wooden Bo staffs. One of the robots rolled in front of Heracles, lifted its arms, the staff reared back as far as it would go, then it swung with all its power.
Heracles lifted his arm, tight to his body; the staff smacked him across the shoulder, the cracking sound reverberating off every surface, and snapped in half. Splinters of wood rained down onto the floor.
He grinned, his whole demeanor changing, as the second staff hit him in the other side, and snapped into pieces from the force of the blow. He straightened and brushed off the small wood chips still clinging onto his shirt. “Ha!” He pumped his fist in the air. “I am invincible. Nothing can knock me off balance. Now, it’s your turn.”
I heard a snicker down the line. I didn’t need to look to know it was Melany.
“You’re seriously going to smack us with wooden staffs?” She had her hands on her hips and appeared indignant. Her lips were curled in disgust.
Heracles shook his head. “Of course not. It’s only the first day. I don’t do that until at least week four.”
That got a round of laughs through the group.
“Take up your stances.”
I put my left leg forward, and my back leg turned like I’d practiced over and over again since I was six. The others around me all did the same, as Heracles walked down the line and inspected us. He spoke to a couple of people, correcting them, and then when he got to me, he stopped. He looked me over and then shoved me hard.
I stumbled a couple of steps backward, but I didn’t break my stance. I didn’t lose my balance.
He nodded. “Good. Step forward.”
I did.
“Name?”
“Lucian Remes.”
Heracles’s eyes narrowed. “You have a brother.”
“Yes, Owen.” My heart leapt a little, knowing that Owen had made some kind of impression. He would’ve done well in this class.
“I want you to go down the line and try to knock down every person.” Heracles glanced at the rest of the group. “Your job is to not let him.” He pointed to the far end of the room where a short blonde girl stood.
I walked down the line and stood in front of her. Fear clouded her eyes, and I felt bad for doing what I had to. It didn’t take much to knock her onto her ass.
One by one, I pushed and shoved my fellow recruits. Some stayed on their feet, most fell. When I got to Diego, I had a feeling he thought I’d go easy on him. I didn’t. He lost his balance after one hard shove. Revana kept her feet, even after two hard pushes from different angles. She grinned at me in triumph.
When I reached Melany, she looked like she was already ready to go to war. The fierce expression in her eyes made my gut clench. But I didn’t think it had anything to do with being afraid of her.
“You ready?”
“Take
your best shot.” She lifted her chin in defiance.
I came at her from the side and pushed on her shoulder. She stayed pretty much in place. I tried again from the front. As I stretched my arms toward her, she stepped into me and swept my leg. I ended up on my ass. A ripple of laughter went through the room.
Stunned, I gaped up at her. She shrugged and offered her hand to help me up. “He said to not let you knock me down. So I didn’t.”
I grabbed her hand, and she pulled me to my feet. I felt a buzz of something not entirely unpleasant on the palm of my hand. I quickly let her hand go and rubbed it on my pants. The skin still tingled.
“Oh, I like this one.” Clapping, Heracles walked over. “Name?”
“Melany Richmond.”
“Melany, the dark one. I love it.” He looked at the rest of the group. “All right, everyone pair up. We’re going to learn to spar.” He pointed at me and Melany. “Congratulations, you two are now partners.”
When he moved away, we gaped at each other.
“We are going to learn how to jab, cross, and uppercut properly. Three fundamental punches in your arsenal. One of you grab a pair of focus pads from the wall, then we will start.”
I looked at Melany. She sighed. “I’ll go get them.” Then she jogged to the far wall and grabbed a couple of rectangular pads and came back.
I took them from her. “You can practice first.” I slid my hands into the holders and lifted them up in front of my body.
“Get in your stances,” Heracles instructed. “Then we will practice a jab, cross, jab.” He demonstrated, smacking huge fists into pads that one of the wooden dummy robots held up. I was surprised he didn’t break the robot with his punches.
Melany got into position, then jabbed my one pad, then did a cross punch with her left, then another jab. Her punches were solid, and I liked that she didn’t seem to hold back.
I nodded. “Not bad, Blue.”
“Thanks.”
She did it again and again, landing every punch with power. I could feel the zing of her fists even through the pads. It was impressive.
“Switch!” Heracles shouted.
I took off the pads and handed them to her. She slid them on and raised them up. I got into my stance and led with a jab. I may have not put all my weight behind it, and I think she must’ve known because she gave me a disgusted look.
“I’m not fragile. You’re not going to break me into little pieces.”
“Are you sure? You are kind of small.”
She shook her head. “You really do have a big ego, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “No bigger than most.”
Her lips twitched, but she fought back the smile.
I took up my stance again and jabbed with full power. Her arm snapped back a little, but then she pushed it forward, so I could hit the pad again. I did. Then I was doing my sequence of punches without any hesitation.
By the time Heracles yelled to stop, sweat covered my face and rolled down my back. It was the same for Melany.
“Woe ho ho, looks like we got ourselves a dream team here.” Heracles grinned at both of us. “Keep up the good work.” He smacked me on the shoulder, and I stumbled backward, but not before I caught Melany snickering.
“Are you laughing at me?” I gave her a searching look.
“No, of course not.” Sarcasm dripped off her like the sweat dripped off her brow.
At first I’d been hesitant to be paired up with her. I thought she would slow me down somehow. But the truth was we made kind of an awesome team. It was both surprising and unnerving. There was something about Melany that unsettled me. It was more than just her unconventional good looks, her dark blue hair begging me to touch it; it went deeper than that. She was different in many ways. In ways I think she didn’t even realize.
I’d spent my entire life around true believers. I’d been training for the day I got invited to the army. There had never been a question whether I would or not. I was certain that I had Gods’ blood in my veins. I suspected that my friends had Gods’ blood as well.
And here was this girl, who looked completely and utterly out of place, and I wasn’t sure she even truly believed she should be here, but out of every first year recruit, I was sure she had more reason to be at the academy than anyone.
Chapter Seven
MELANY
There was a buzz of excitement and nervousness as we descended a large stone staircase into the deepest and darkest part of the academy. Everyone was psyched to go to metallurgy class with Hephaistos. Everyone except me. I just wanted to go back to my dorm room and hide under the covers. I’d had a day of embarrassing blunders and didn’t really want to suffer through any more.
The morning’s archery class with Artemis had been mortifying. I’d wanted to impress Artemis, as she was badass. During the demonstration, the way she moved, so gracefully, so flawlessly, as she sprinted across the training field and shot three arrows into a moving target, rendered me speechless. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be that skilled.
But as it turned out, I had no skill whatsoever for the bow. During training, I couldn’t even hit the static target. All my arrows had limply hit the ground in front of them. The first few I understood. I mean, not everyone had hit the target on the first few tries. But even after an hour of pulling back the bow, I still couldn’t hit anything but grass, while almost the entire class had at least struck the target. Jasmine had gotten a bullseye and Artemis’s praise.
The disparaging looks and cruel snickers I’d gotten from Revana and her crew had nearly reduced me to tears from frustration. I didn’t cry, though. I refused to, especially in front of them.
Jasmine nudged me in the side as we walked down the stairs. She knew how upset I was. “You’ll get it next time. No one is expecting you to be great the first week of training.”
“You were.”
“I guess it’s just my thing.” She shrugged. “Anyway, you more than kicked ass during hand-to-hand combat. And you made Heracles pump his fist and clap. From what I heard, he’s not an easy person to impress.”
“I had help,” I wanted to say, as I spotted Lucian on the stairs in front of me. He was with his usual group, Diego, Revana, and a couple others I didn’t know. Why did he hang around them? They were all kind of mean, and he wasn’t. At least he wasn’t with me. They were laughing about something, probably making fun of someone, then his head turned, and his gaze met mine and my belly clenched. I immediately turned away, but the sensation still lingered.
I peered down the long, winding staircase. It felt like we’d been walking on them for an hour already. “How many floors down are we going?”
“I heard the forge is deep in the bowels of the earth.” This from Georgina, who’d been quiet until now.
Jasmine and I snickered.
“Bowels of the earth?” I gave my roommate a look. “Seriously?”
She shrugged.
Mia, she was in the room one down from Georgina and I, came along Jasmine’s other side. “You were so good in archery, Jasmine.”
“Thank you.” She dipped her head a little, as if she was embarrassed.
As Lucia moved on down a couple of stairs from us, Jasmine watched her.
I nudged Jasmine. “So, what’s going on there?”
“Nothing.” She frowned.
“Looked like something.”
“Oh, like the something you have with Lucian?”
I was about to sputter a protest when we finally reached the bottom of the stairs. I turned to look back from where we came. We were at least five or six stories below the main academy.
Pandora led us down a long corridor. It looked more like a tunnel carved into a mountain, as the sides and ceiling weren’t smooth, but rough with pieces of rock jutting out. With each step forward, the air around me seemed to be getting warmer. I noticed beads of sweat on Georgina’s forehead. Bright orange light flickered ahead in the distance. The sounds of machinery thundered all around as we neared
Hephaistos’s classroom.
There was a wave of gasps as the tunnel opened up, and we stepped into a cavernous space. I couldn’t even call it a room, as it was way too expansive. Stone steps led to bridges hovering over rivers of what I assumed was molten metal, linking various large, circular platforms. Past the biggest platform, bellows puffed, fanning the flames in a forge; its opening mimicked that of a mouth of a black dragon.
Above on the nearest platform, a man stepped out from the steam and smoke of the churning foundry. “Welcome to the forge.” His voice was as baritone and resonant as the huge gears turning nearby.
Beside me, Jasmine grabbed my hand. “I don’t want to be here.”
“It’ll be fine. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Technically, you could fall off one of the bridges and into the fire.”
I frowned at Georgina, letting her know she wasn’t helping.
Carefully, as a group, as everyone seemed to be a bit on edge, we went up the stone stairs and over a bridge to the platform nearest the dragon furnace. I kept my eyes straight ahead; I didn’t want to tempt fate by looking over the edge of the bridge. There were several long rectangular stone crafting tables and bowls of fire at the ends. On top of the tables were various sized hammers, iron tongs, and metal files. Near the bowls of fire were several anvils.
We lined up behind the tables, as our professor took up a spot in front of the dragon. On close inspection, I could see that Hephaistos wasn’t a pleasant looking person. He appeared a bit misshapen, especially his face and head. Longish, curly brown hair couldn’t hide the scar running along his scalp. And his thick mustache couldn’t cover the cleft in his lip.
“In this class,” he bellowed above the rumble of the foundry behind him, “you will be forging your own personal shield. This shield you will use in various classes and one day out on the battlefield. By third year, the crest of your assigned clan will be proudly embellished on the metal.”
“Cool,” one of the guys at the table said.
Demigods Academy - Year One Page 5