Right. So how do I? Why have the memories come back to me?
“You know what, never mind. He’s just someone I knew before.”
“And he lives in the mortal realm? Why would anyone choose to live in the mortal world?” He shivers like the very idea makes his skin crawl. “Don’t ever talk like that, Ana. You’re going to win this competition.”
I smile weakly at him. “Thanks, Max,” I say, trying to sound as confident as he looks and doing a crappy job of it.
If I can’t even handle controlling the life force of a simple plant, how will I ever be in a position to best Haven Knightfall? Or worse, a titan?
The sun moves in a path across the room, calling my attention to the fact that the room is considerably brighter than I’ve come to expect from rooms in Hades House. I look around. “Where are we?”
“The infirmary. It’s at the top of the house so that it gets sunlight, which the healer, Elena, insisted on when she took the job.”
I collapse back against the pillow, enjoying the sunlight on my skin. And then I remember seeing Hades in my room right before the darkness swept in. I lurch upright again. “Hades stopped me. Oh gods. Was he mad? I’m shocked he didn’t toss me out right then and there. Why would the God of the Underworld come to stop me? He could have sent Nereus or Monstrat or—”
“He didn’t seem mad,” Max cuts in. “If anything, he seemed...well...” Max looks away as he searches for the right word. “Intrigued maybe?”
“Really?” I wouldn’t have expected that. “What about Nereus?”
Max rolls his eyes. “As insufferable as ever. He suggested you be disqualified.”
“And Hades told him no?”
“No, actually, it was Haven who spoke up for you.”
My heart beat ticks up. “He did?”
“He pointed out to Nereus that a display of power like that is unprecedented and that if you were to be disqualified for it, it would show the others that the Knightfalls were given preferential treatment and if Haven were to win, his positioning within Hades’s inner circle would forever be undermined.”
“That’s...actually smart.”
Max leans back into his chair and spreads out his long, thin legs. “I don’t like to admit this, but Haven is really smart. He was top of his class before he was chosen for the descendant trial. He didn’t get here on his name alone.”
In my semi-conscious haze, I could have sworn I heard Haven by my bedside. “Did Haven...come here?”
Max nods. “He was here for hours.”
“Haven Knightfall. Was sitting here. With me. For...hours?”
Max makes a disbelieving face. “I know. I was just as astounded as you are. But he was dead set on staying. I stayed in the room too for a while...just to make sure he wasn’t here to try to sabotage you while you were down and out. But he just sat there, staring at you. It was kind of sweet. And weird. But sweet.”
“He’s literally the last person I thought would be here.”
Just when I think I understand Haven, he does something unexpected. I don’t like that I’m suddenly questioning my opinion of him.
I groan and slump back onto the pillows.
A large glass door swings open to my right and a short, plump woman bustles in dressed in a simple white robe. Her dark hair is wound tight into a bun making her high cheekbones look sharper than they ought to.
She checks my forehead and throat with both hands that are dry as cracked earth.
“I’m happy to see you’re awake. So far nothing has given me cause for concern. Looks like it was just an unexpected influx of power is all. And truth be told, you probably need some sunlight. It’s jarring for the constitution to go from the light of Hestia’s House to the darkness of Hades.” She continues to poke and prod me to check for what, I’m not sure.
What I wouldn’t give for Sura in this moment.
“You should get out of Hades’s House and soak in some of that beautiful Olympian sky,” she finishes.
That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard yet. “Am I allowed to go to Hestia House?”
“For a visit? I don’t see why not. I think it’s exactly what you need.”
I glance at Max. “Would you want to come with me?”
“I would” —Max’s expression is instantly apologetic— “but my to-do list is long today. You should go though. Take the chance to get out.”
“It would be really nice to go home for a bit.” And while that’s absolutely true, there is somewhere else I want to go. An itch I need to scratch.
Elena heads off and Max walks with me as far as the main staircase.
“Good so far?” he asks and gives me a once over.
I stretch out my hands. “Yeah. I feel really great, actually. Better than I’ve felt in...well, a long time.”
He gives me a quick nod. “Have fun on your walk. I’ll see you later?”
“Of course.”
Back in my room, I find the charred hole in my floor has already been repaired and there’s a new door hanging on my wardrobe. The narcissus has even been replaced in the windowsill. It’s as if it never happened.
I change into some loose-fitting pants and a tunic that I hope doesn’t look conspicuously Olympian. Last, I plait my hair into a loose braid and then pull on a pair of walking boots.
In the mirror, I scrutinize my reflection.
I don’t exactly look mortal, but I think it’s close enough to pass inspection once I cross over into the mortal realm.
Because I need to see Theo.
I need to see him with my own eyes and find out if he remembers me too.
Chapter 27
I breathe so deeply the moment I’m outside the great doors of Hades’s House I think my lungs might burst from delight. I’d forgotten how free it feels to be outside of stone walls and dark corridors.
I head in the direction of Hestia House, up the hill, just in case anyone is watching me go. As I walk across the lush green hills, I realize the other things only a few days of darkness have made me forget. The sound of birdsong, the wind whispering through the flowers and across the meadows filled with tall grasses. For a moment I feel the hairs on the back of my neck and arms rise, like I’m being watched, but when I turn all I see is the tail of a dog-like creature slinking into the bushes on the far end of the meadow. I quicken my pace because while animals wandering freely aren’t uncommon here, animals who are spying are.
As soon as I clear the hill that crests to Athena’s palace, I cut behind it and head down the hill on the other side toward the God Gate that leads to the mortal realm. I’ve not been to the crossing place since I was a girl, and even then Clea and I only dared to go there twice. Once was around the mortal’s summer solstice when we could hear the music wafting up from the gate while we picked flowers nearby. We didn’t cross through but stopped to look out and watch their revels in the forest. Though the mortal realm exists on a separate plane from Olympus, there’re places, like the gate, where the veil between the two worlds is very thin.
The second time we ventured through the gate into the woods over a year later, we got hopelessly lost. We had been following one of the older girls who had decided to sneak out to meet a mortal lover. In the dark, we lost sight of her and got turned around. Sura found us a few hours later where we huddled, cold and wet from the rain that had started to fall. We felt extremely foolish when Sura ushered us back and we realized we’d only been a few tree groves away from the gate the entire time. But the fear of having been lost was enough to keep us from the gate from that point on, especially when Sura told us a warning tale of how one descendant had ventured too close to the gate only to get sucked to the other plane, never to return to Olympus.
I know that descendants regularly visit the mortal realm and return without issue, so I’m not sure that tale was true. But back then, it’d done what Sura had intended—it kept us safely home.
As I approach the gate now, I’m surprised by how much smaller it looks. Whe
n we were younger, the God Gate seemed like such a grand, terrifying, mystical thing. Now I see it for what it is. A simple country gate that’s powerful because of the power the gods have given it, not because it holds any special power of its own. I open it slowly and step through, ready for the rush of mystification I felt as a child, but there’s nothing. Simply a small, quiet click as the gate latches behind me.
It’s only once I’m walking through the forest that I realize I have no idea where Theo would have gone when he left Olympus. But if he was able to meet a mortal girl, I’m hoping she lives in the village near the gate.
I brush my hands along the leaves reaching down in my path. For a moment, there’s a crackling along my skin as my new power reaches out to find the life force of the trees. I quickly yank my hand away. Most of the time, a descendant’s power doesn’t work in the mortal realm and I don’t want to be an exception. Lately, whatever I touch seems to burn and die.
When I hear children laughing in the distance, I know I must be closer. I quicken my pace and clear the woods on the edge of an aspen grove.
I’ve never been this far out into the mortal realm and it...it is a sight to behold.
I know what automobiles are—I’ve studied them in Hestia’s books. But I’ve never actually seen one up close.
A large truck roars past perfuming the air with the acrid stink of exhaust.
I double over and cough.
It isn’t until my lungs are full of fresh air again that I’m able to straighten and decide on a course. With traffic clear, I hear the children again and see a park to my right, just beyond the tin roof of a quaint little bookshop.
At the park, I stop a young woman who looks to be about my age. Her dark hair is pulled back in a braid similar to my own, but her clothes are much more structured and close-fitting than mine. There’s a silver hoop pierced through her left nostril and more in each ear.
“Excuse me...I’m looking for a friend. His name is Theo.”
The girl looks at me, her eyes flaring wide for a moment. I immediately check myself. Did I forget something important like shoes? I don’t see anything out of place. Usually mortals can’t tell when we’re amongst them, but I’ve never been to the mortal realm so it’s possible I’ve misrepresented myself.
“Reyla’s Theo?” the girl asks, her accent slightly rougher than that of girls in Olympus.
“I’m not sure. We’re friends from...where he lived before.”
“Oh, so definitely Reyla’s Theo.” The girl smirks, but not unkindly. She points at a row of houses just across the way. “The blue door with the number 34 on it. That’s where they live.”
I bow my head. “Thank you for your kindness.”
The girl looks uncomfortable for a moment before jerkily mimicking my bow. “You’re welcome,” she says with an amused expression.
Though I’ve studied mortals for most of my life, I’m now realizing how very little I truly know.
I approach the door the girl pointed out and knock, unsure suddenly if I want Theo to be here or not. I hadn’t considered if my presence would be an unwelcome reminder of his home after he’d been banished. But my worries lift the moment Theo opens the door and a huge smile breaks across his face.
“Ana! What...what’re—” He looks past me into the street, a frown etched between his eyes. “How are you here?”
“I’m not sure,” I reply. “Suddenly I remembered you and...well...I was curious to see how you’re doing out here in this place.”
He pulls the door open to allow me inside. It smells like lavender and honeysuckle. The electronic contraption that I think is a television blares across the room. Theo says, “Trini, turn down the TV.”
I scan the room for someone who looks like a Trini, but there’s no one there.
A tiny black box glows orange, lets out a soft PING and the TV goes quiet.
“Who are you talking to?”
Theo grins and nods at the black box. “Trini. She’s a smart speaker. She controls most of the house.”
The black box is made of mortal plastic and metal. I go to it and give it a poke. It feels like nothing. There’s no magic, no electrical zap. “This thing controls your house? And you talk to it?”
“Kinda cool, huh?”
It hasn’t been that long since Theo left Olympus, but already he talks and acts like a mortal. Already he’s fit right in.
“Do the others remember me?” Theo asks hopefully. “Is Haven coming?” There’s an excited gleam in his eye. Theo talks about Haven like there’s no doubt in this world or the next that Haven is a kind and caring friend one would wish a visit from.
“No, or at least I don’t think so,” I say apologetically. “I think I’m the only one who remembers you so far and I haven’t told anyone else. I wasn’t sure what it might mean, or who could be trusted with the secret.”
“You can trust Haven,” Theo says. “He’s a good friend. The best kind. He risked his brother’s wrath just to help me get out before it became too dangerous.”
I frown. “Too dangerous?”
Theo nods. “Before the Choosing Ceremony, Haven and I would come here from time to time for revelries and we met a few guys here who claim to be descendants. They warned us that the trials over the years have become more and more dangerous. That if you don’t lose in the first round, you’re more likely to lose your life in the second and third.”
I think of the escaped Titan and all of the other monsters in Olympus that I’ve yet to encounter. Theo was raised in the house of a dark god and still he forfeited his spot among the elite. Who am I to think I could find a spot amongst them? Me, the orphan maiden? Who can’t even manage to pick a bouquet of flowers?
Theo leans his shoulder into the arched doorway between the entry and the living room. “I always knew that if I was chosen for the house that I’d lose. We all did. You don’t triumph over a Knightfall.”
He looks away and nods at a framed portrait of himself and a girl with dark skin and amber eyes. “And then I met Reyla and losing the trial didn’t seem so bad after all.”
I look around and take in the comforting touches of his home. The cable knit throw on the couch. The pictures on the wall. The plush rugs across the floor. It’s cozy and colorful like Olympus, but somehow it feels…simple, in a good way. Undemanding and trouble-free. “You’re truly happy here?”
“I am,” Theo says, without hesitation. “I miss my family, sure. And life without any magic definitely takes some adjustment, but I’d rather have a mortal life and lifetime with Reyla, than an immortal one without her.”
In that moment, I’m envious of Theo. He has a place where he belongs.
“I’m truly pleased for you, my friend.” I squeeze his arm. “May all the gods bless your union and your path.” I turn and head back toward the door. I’m not sure what I thought I’d get by coming here, but I don’t feel any better. In fact, I feel more confused.
“Wait, Ana.” Theo pulls me in for a light hug. “Thank you for coming to check on me. It’s good to be remembered.”
We say our goodbyes and I head out into the bustling street, back to Olympus. I wander for a few moments, marveling at how happy everyone here seems to be. At how happy Theo obviously is, how well he fits into this world. Like this is where he has always belonged.
We were always told that getting banished to the mortal realm was the ultimate punishment. Many on Olympus would rather spend eternity in the underworld than be sentenced to a lifetime in the mortal one. But this world is nothing like the one in our stories. The people here seem content and happy. They have families and friends and neighbors. They seem to live lives not that different from our own in Olympus City.
All I’ve ever wanted was to belong to someone, to somewhere. I’m jealous that Theo managed to find both here in this place so far from home.
Maybe the mortal realm isn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I could find a place to belong just as Theo did.
I head back to the God Gat
e. I have one more place to visit and one more question to ask.
Chapter 28
Though every time I’ve ever returned home to Hestia’s House, I’m overrun by orphans or cats or both, now when I push through the large double doors, I find the place still and quiet. It’s almost as if Hestia knew I was coming and shooed everyone away.
I find the Virgin Goddess in her library in one of the wingback chairs by the open balcony doors. A cool breeze wends in from Lake Nisa. In the distance, a flock of birds flies in front of the sun.
“Anastasha,” Hestia says without turning to me. “Good of you to visit me.”
I cross the library realizing too late that I’m still dressed in clothes more fitting for the mortal realm. I don’t think I’ve ever been in front of Hestia in anything other than a dress.
There’s a matching wingback diagonal from her. I come up alongside it and wait for her to invite me to join her.
You don’t assume an invite from a goddess.
“Sit,” she says.
I sit.
“What brings you here?” She finally looks at me and having her full beauty facing me straight on is both welcomed and consuming. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe around a goddess. It feels like your eyes are full of stardust and your lungs of honey.
But the strike of awe is quickly gone, replaced with my need for answers. Because I don’t know what I want or where I want to be.
And worse yet…I don’t know if I’m capable of winning the second trial. I can’t seem to get control of my powers. I can’t even keep purged memories from burbling back up in my head. If that doesn’t mean I’m broken…
“I remember Theo,” I say, wondering if she’ll even recognize the name. “He’s a descendant that lost our first trial. And every time Hades gifts me a new power, things go awry. I burned a hole through the floor last night.”
She doesn’t react and that only infuriates me more.
“Who am I?” I demand. “Tell me now. Once and for all. I need to know, Mother Goddess. I need to know who I am. I want to know my Fate so I can accept it and move on.”
Hades Descendants (The Games of the Gods Book 1) Page 13
