by Melody Rose
Just as I did, Khryseos and Argyreos met me on the doorstep with a little pop. I jumped back a little and put a hand to my chest, surprised.
“Holy Hermes, boys,” I gasped. “Give a girl some warning next time.”
The dogs looked unapologetically back up at me.
“Did you get them?” I asked, holding out my hand.
Dutifully, Khryseos and Argyreos leaned their snouts forward and opened their mouths. Their tongues uncoiled, and the little pieces of Harmonia’s cursed necklace landed in my open palm with a sticky, sploshing sound.
I held back a gag. “Thanks. Good dogs.”
With my dry hand, I patted each of their hands before straightening up and acknowledging the Eternal Flame hanging out in the lantern next to my front door. With a grateful exhale, I unlatched the lantern door and beckoned the piece into my hand.
However, the Flame didn’t come right away. It looked as though there was a magnet pulling it in a different direction. I strengthened the connection between me and the Flame, asking it with kind but forceful commands to come to me. Still, the Flame struggled. The bottom of it wiggled in my direction, but the top flayed about. It stretched from a teardrop shape into a thick line as the Flame yanked in two directions.
In an act of desperation, I pulled off the Helm of Invisibility so that the Flame could see me, recognize me, remember me. It seemed to work because, with a snap, the Eternal Flame recoiled into a teardrop hovering above my palm.
“You,” someone growled from behind me.
Finally, I whirled around to see who or what might have been coaxing the flame away from me. She had a heart-shaped face with a pointed chin. Her skin was vampirically pale, only enhanced by the coal-black hair that hung around her face in stick-straight lines. She parted her hair right down the middle, which did nothing for her style either.
My brain jolted at the sight of her. I recognized the woman, but she was completely out of context. What the hell was the mortal shopkeeper who sold me my red dress doing here?
Khryseos and Argyreos growled at my sides, and I knew that no matter who this woman was, she was bad news. No doubt about it.
“Daughter of Hephaestus,” the woman said, her voice low and gruff as if it hadn’t been used for hundreds of years. It was in a completely different range than when she spoke to me at the dress shop. “You have been a thorn in my side for too long.”
The answers fell into place right before my eyes. The woman was the goddess of chaos, the one who had orchestrated every horrible thing in my life for the past three years. Eris stood before me with her slender fingers clenched into fists and boney shoulders hunched forward in anger.
I begged for some snarky remark to pop into my head. I would have loved to throw some sass at the goddess, but I couldn’t think of anything. Instead, I ran into my house.
I slammed the door behind me, praying to no one that the supposed wards would work against this powerful goddess. But I wasn’t holding my breath.
“You can’t defeat me, daughter of Hephaestus,” Eris’s voice boomed through the walls of my house, as if she were on surround sound.
“Wanna bet?” I shouted back to the ceiling as if she were hanging out up there.
In response, the walls began to shake. The dogs and I lost our footing, and each fell into a piece of furniture. Khryseos and Argyreos whimpered in response as their paws skidded against the tile floor.
Then the wind picked up.
It thundered around the house like a hurricane. The windows burst from behind me, scattering glass all around the floor. The dogs and I ducked down, blocking ourselves from the onslaught. The walls shook, and some bricks tumbled down from the fireplace. They collided with the floor like bombs, breaking into thousands of rock pieces.
Khryseos and Argyreos huddled against me, and I brought them as close as I could while still keeping the Flame alive. I raced to put it into my necklace, but I struggled to fight against the wind, which now poured into the house through the open windows. Some mighty force ripped the door from its hinges, which allowed for another opening.
Through the windows, I could see Eris standing out in my front yard, hands open at her sides. A cackle rattled over the roar of the wind. A calm and malicious smile appeared on the goddess’s face.
“Give up Cheyenne,” Eris called. “You will not win.”
I burrowed my head in Khryseos’s black coat, trying to get a handle on my thoughts. The walls of the house stood strong, but if the goddess continued this assault, the three of us could be in more danger. I was running out to time as I could see more of Eris outside by the minute.
If I could just get to the forge in my backyard, I might have enough materials to make the scythe. The workshop had the same protections as the house, that much I knew. We would be safe there. Or at least safeish.
“Come on,” I said to the dogs over the roar of the wind.
Slowly, I managed to get to my feet and pushed through the onslaught. I shoved the Flame in the locket for safekeeping and readjusted all three of the weapons so that they stayed attached to me. I migrated to the backdoor, also blown in by Eris’s tornado. The forge was only about thirty feet away. I could dash across the green glass yard in no time. With their speed, I knew Khryseos and Argyreos wouldn’t have trouble.
I didn’t waste time signaling the dogs. I had to believe that they would follow. I burst forward and darted directly for the forge without stopping.
When the dogs didn’t follow me right away, and instead responded with a whimper, I knew this was a horrible mistake.
I looked over my shoulder and watched as Algae, the daemon spirit of pain, gripped both Khryseos and Argyreos by the scruff of their necks. They writhed under her grip.
“Let go of them!” I shouted, my voice pitching into a shrill shout. I yanked the scissors out of my pocket, the closest weapon I had on hand, and chucked them at the daemon spirit.
My aim struck true, my connection with the metal giving it an extra bump. However, the scissors left my hand awkwardly when the ground shook beneath me.
There was a tremendous rumble echoed all around. I lost my step mid-throw and fell spectacularly. All the items dropped from my hands and scattered about the grass. The Helm rolled dangerously close to a new crack in the ground.
It looked like a crooked smile. It separated me from the forge, a widening gap too far to jump across. I dove for the Helm, unable to think about losing the precious piece. But I misjudged the distance and lost balance. I couldn’t stop my body as the crack grew, large enough to tip me right over the edge. I made a grab for the top, clinging to a stray rock protruding from the dirt.
My arms jerked from the weight of my body hanging freely over a seemingly endless black chasm. It was a literal void that Eris had created in the Earth. Nothing represented chaos better. And I had fallen right in.
I used my core and my legs to try to hoist myself up, but the toes of my boots slipped off the dirt, unable to get a steady hold. Still, I kicked and struggled for some kind of lift up.
A shadow descended over me, and I couldn’t help but look up at it. Eris stood above, her hands on her hips with a triumphant smile on her face.
“I tried to warn you, demigod,” Eris said with a sneer. “But you didn’t listen.”
The goddess of chaos crouched down and lowered a hand. At first, I thought she was offering me a way up, but then she grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me face to face with her. I wiggled my limbs to use the opportunity to get back to the surface, but even though we were level, she held me too far out to grab anything. I jerked like a fish on a line, but the goddess had a supernatural level of strength that held me in place.
“You have done nothing but disrupt my plans since you came into existence,” Eris snarled. “After I convinced Hephaestus to hide away on that island, I didn’t think there would be anyone left to make the Ultimate Weapon. Finally, I had the chance to get even with the Academy. But you just had to come along, didn’t
you? Well, I guarantee you won’t make anything else, ever again.”
Then, the goddess reached out with her other hand and snatched my necklace with the Eternal Flame in it. It ripped off my neck with a snap that echoed through the still air. I tried to call it back to me, speak to the metal, and send it back to my hand. While the metal wiggled in response, Eris held onto it with a firm grip.
I changed my tactic in a split-second decision. I changed my energy from the locket to the items still on the ground. I reached for the scissors and the bow. These were the weapons Eris wanted from the beginning because she knew they had the power to stop her. That’s why she tried to get rid of them.
I needed to protect those weapons. So I called out to them and begged them to follow me.
The scissors and the bow zoomed towards me just as the goddess let go of my shirt. I fell down into the pit, the weapons falling alongside me. I watched Eris’s face recede from me, and the sky above her lit up with the first signs of dawn.
33
“Cheyenne!” the voice rang in my ear like an alarm clock. “Cheyenne! Wake up!”
For a split second, I thought I was back at home, and my brain convinced me that the last three years of my life had been a dream. That was just my mom waking me up because I’d slept through my alarm again, and if I was late for work again, Michelle was going to fire my ass.
None of it was real. There were no gods, I wasn’t a demigod who had metal and fire powers, and there wasn’t a boy named Ansel in the world who I was madly in love with.
However, the mere thought of none of those aspects of my life existing made my heart stop. I sat up immediately, my eyes popping open.
When I wasn’t in my bedroom, I breathed a sigh of relief. But then I realized that I wasn’t in the pit either. That was the last place I remembered being. So unless at the bottom of the pit Eris created, there was a magic forge, I was somewhere I didn’t recognize.
It was a beautiful workshop, but with darker tones than I normally would have liked. It had a modern industrial feel, with metal walls painted to look rustier than they actually were. Everything was polished and touched up with the finest steel accessories. The cement floor had recently been cleaned and looked freshly poured.
I picked myself up off the floor to see who had been speaking to me. Temperance stood over me with her hands on her hips, looking pissed as all hell.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Temperance scolded, her tone matching an elementary school teacher’s when punishing a child. “I swear to the gods that if you’ve gone and got yourself killed, I’m going to go to the Underworld, bring you back to life, just so I can kill you all over again.”
“Wait, I’m dead?” I balked as I scrambled up to my feet, worry making me move faster.
“No, you idiot, but you were close to it,” Temperance informed me as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re just unconscious now, thanks to me.”
“Well, thank you,” I said sincerely. “But how did you save me?”
“I’ve been going around the battlefield, trying to keep near death soldiers alive,” Temperance said as she cocked her hip out to the side. “I move from death dream to death dream, yanking them back to an unconscious state. I’ve had to bounce around a lot because we don’t want to be killing our fellow soldiers.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, desperate for updates.
“After Violet, Benji, and Darren broke Ansel’s soldiers out of jail, they attacked the graduation ceremony at the amphitheater,” Temperance said slowly as if she was explaining a complex math problem. “But the Olympic Officials and the other soldiers didn’t recognize them. They attacked, assuming they were intruders. We’ve been trying to fight non-lethally because they're our comrades, and it’s clear they’re not in control of their actions, but it’s hard to do. Darren and I have been running around doing damage control.” Temperance let out a heavy enough sigh to make her lips flutter. “But then you had to go and pass out, so I popped into your dream.”
“This is my death dream?” I asked, looking around the room in wonder.
“It’s the last place you want to see before you die,” Temperance explained. She also took a quick gander around the room. “Seems to suit you.”
“But I’ve never been here before,” I countered as my feet seemed to move of their own accord, exploring more of the space. I admired the high ceilings and the complexity of the equipment. Everything was the best of the best, the latest designs, and the toughest tools. It was a marvel in and of itself.
“Your death dream isn’t always somewhere you’ve been before,” Temperance continued. She spun in a circle, following me around the room as I moved like she was a signal tuned into me. “It’s often a place that you’ve never been but always have wanted to go.”
My mind scrambled for the answer to the mystery of what this place was. My eyes roamed all over the walls and the benches, looking for some kind of clue. It wasn’t until I spotted the hammer sitting atop the anvil that I recognized it. The tools were in the exact same position as the drawing on the table, the symbol on my sash.
“This is Hephaestus’s forge,” I breathed out the words, knowing they were true.
Part of me hated the fact that my father still had this much hold over me after finding out what a deadbeat he was. But the other part couldn’t help but marvel at what the greatest blacksmith in the world’s forge looked like. It felt as though I got a peek into his mind.
“Again, it suits you,” Temperance said with a shrug. Then she surprised me and took a seat on a nearby metal stool, looking as though she was settling in for the long haul.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I wondered, spinning on my heel to face her. I picked up the hammer off the anvil and twirled it around in my hand.
“Whatever you want,” Temperance answered. “I’ve already stabilized you. We just have to wait for your body to wake up.”
“We?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t you have more soldiers to save?”
“I mean yeah,” Temperance’s tone brushed me off. But then she stiffened her neck and looked me dead in the eye. “But you’re the most important person on campus right now. You’re the only one who can stop this madness and save everyone. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m not leaving until I know you’re alive, back up on your feet, and making that goddamn weapon.”
As much as I appreciated her concern, I couldn’t help but scoff. “It’s not like I’m going to have time to make a whole weapon. The sun was already rising when I passed out.”
“Uh, yeah, you do,” Temperance said, giving me her own scoff. “Since I’ve stabilized you, time’s suspended in here. Or at least it’s longer in here than it is out there.” Temperance pointed to a nearby door as if the real world laid just beyond it. “And you’re in a forge. I don’t think this is an accident.”
“Huh,” I said as I looked around. “Some deus ex machina you are.”
Temperance shrugged like it was no big deal, but I caught the smile that played along her lips, her pride unmistakable.
Just over her shoulder on the workbench, I noticed that there were four essential items I needed just sitting there. They looked lopsided, as if they had crash-landed on the bench. The scissors were open and wide. The Helm was on its side with a dent in the top. The necklace pieces were scattered about like a garnish. And the bow had a broken string, but the base was still intact.
I eyed the four items and narrowed my gaze a bit. I couldn’t believe I had managed to get them to come with me. It had been a last-minute effort, in order to get the weapons away from Eris, but they’d actually followed me. All the way to my death. Or near death, anyway.
“I can hear those wheels turning in your head,” Temperance said, a coy smile perking up on her face. “What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to make the Ultimate Weapon,” I said confidently. My fellow soldier wasn’t wrong. There were wheels turning in my head as I thought about my next
steps.
“Do you have everything you need?” Temperance asked.
“Fire,” I whispered, thinking through the process. “The one thing I don’t have is fire.”
“You’ve got a propane tank and a flame thrower in here,” Temperance said as she pointed to those items near the fall wall. “What do you mean you don’t have fire?”
“In order to make the Ultimate Weapon, I need a piece of the Eternal Flame,” I said as my hand inadvertently went up to my bare neck. I thought back to the moment that Eris took the locket and cursed. I curled that hand on my chest into a fist and slammed it against the workbench.
“Dammit!” I shouted. The weapons on the bench jumped up from the force of my blow, shifting their positions ever so slightly.
There was a heat in my hand, and I unclenched my fist, wiggling my fingers to relieve some tension. I grabbed my wrist with my other hand and rotated it around. As I did that, I noticed the scorch mark on the bench. It was in the shape of a lopsided circle. Just like my fist…
“Looks like you’ve got some fire inside of you already,” Temperance commented with wide eyes as she looked at the scorch mark. “Damn, girl, I bet your whole soul’s on fire.”
The words tossed around in my mind, like clothes in a washing machine. They tumbled over and over as I tried to dissect them. I had the ability to create my own fire using my emotions, that much I knew. But was it even possible for me to tap into the Eternal Flame?
I thought back to the form I took in my mom’s apartment and the form Erich had adopted when he was a spirit. Was it possible that there was a piece of the Eternal Flame living inside me, a child of Hephaestus?
There wasn’t anything flammable down here like the sticks we used to throw on the beach. I could use the flint or lighter provided, but something about that felt wrong. I needed to use a piece of myself for it to really connect.
Immediately, an idea came to mind. I ripped off my sash. It was the symbol of my branch, my status as a soldier, and my father with his anvil and hammer etched into the top.