“Still,” I argued. “It’s a resource. Aphrodite, you’re—”
“Useless,” she muttered darkly.
“You’re not,” Otrera said, rolling her eyes. She didn’t have much patience for self-pity. “But your part doesn’t come into play until we get off the island. Until then, the best way you can help out is by keeping a low profile.”
Aphrodite didn’t seem to like that at all, but she nodded reluctantly. “Believe me, I’ve got no intention of putting myself in that position again.”
Hastening to get us back on track, I stood. “I can heal, shield, and teleport. You—” I pointed at Aphrodite as I stepped over Otrera’s dirt-caked shoes “—called what I had the standard power set. Does that come with anything else?”
Aphrodite groaned. “I am such an idiot, sometimes. I should have thought of this the second I realized you could shield.”
“That was only a few hours ago,” I reminded her. Though it felt like weeks.
“Forget the timeline.” Otrera waved her hands at me as if a flurry of motion could shut me up and turned her attention to Aphrodite. “What are you even talking about?”
“Dreamwalking. It takes so little in the way of power that sometimes even gifted humans can pull it off.”
“Gifted humans?” Otrera tilted her head in confusion.
Aphrodite waved a slim hand with a dismissive grunt. “Demigod powers aren’t supposed to last more than one generation. Once a demigod and a human get together, they should always produce a full human. But sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, a divine power will pop up a few generations down. We run into them dreamwalking sometimes.”
“How does it work?” I asked, eager to try a new power.
“What good is it?” Otrera asked at the same time. “What?” she demanded when she noticed we were both looking at her. “It’s a legitimate question. We can’t dream our way out of here.”
“But we can coordinate with the Pantheon.” Aphrodite’s voice rose with excitement.
She leaned forward on the worn, leather couch, her face lighting up at the prospect of seeing her people again. “We don’t have to brainstorm this alone. We’d have some of the oldest beings in existence at our disposal, and because we’re dreamwalking and they aren’t here, they’ll have to work with you.”
Which means they’d have to negotiate with us. “How do I do it?”
Aphrodite hesitated. “Okay, so it’s easy to do, but not to learn. We’re in for a long night.”
“Can I learn how to do it, too?” Otrera raised a golden eyebrow, suddenly interested.
“Probably not,” Aphrodite admitted. “But Medea might be able to pull you into a dreamscape, once she figures out how it works.”
“In that case,” Otrera stood and stretched, a yawn warping her words, “I’m going to go get cleaned up—” She broke off as if a thought had occurred to her. “How the hell do we still have running water?”
“Oh, that.” Aphrodite rattled off a bunch of technical speak about cisterns, pipes, and reservoirs that I barely understood. “Plus the higher ground stayed a lot more stable,” she finished. “Well, at least the bits that didn’t crumble off into the sea.”
Otrera and I blinked at her, and just like that, I remembered she was an actual goddess who knew pretty much everything.
“Um . . . good to know,” Otrera said, sounding impressed despite herself. “In that case, I’m going to take a shower and get some rest. It’s been a long day, and Narcissus asked everyone to meet in the courtyard bright and early tomorrow. I want to be ready for anything. If you guys figure it out . . .”
“We’ll wake you,” Aphrodite promised.
“Otrera, why don’t you take the bed tonight,” I suggested.
Aphrodite scowled, but didn’t object. “I need to clean up too,” she reminded Otrera, holding out a slim, golden arm and wrinkling her nose at the dirt she saw there. “So don’t take too long.”
Otrera scoffed at that and disappeared into the bedroom.
The second the door closed, I turned to Aphrodite, my gaze snagging on the red bandage on her arm. Was she still bleeding? “So, how do we do this?”
Chapter XXII
Aphrodite
WHEN I CAME INTO being as a fully formed adult, I knew how to shield, dreamwalk, heal, and do everything power-related, except control my charm. And I only lacked that knowledge because Zeus was a douchebag.
Unfortunately, gods who were born rather than created had a steep learning curve. Persephone took weeks learning how to dreamwalk, despite the frickin’ god of sleep and dreams talking her through it every step of the way. Medea didn’t have that kind of time.
“I am not a telephone!” Medea slammed her hands on the couch after yet another fruitless attempt. “You can’t just press buttons and make me work, Aphrodite. Gods!”
“You done pitching your fit?” I asked, taking a sip of soda. My nose wrinkled when I realized it had gone flat. “Or would you like another moment?”
The scent of lemon was the only evidence left from Medea’s cleaning spree this afternoon. With the couch bed out, the living room was cramped again. The edge of the bed almost brushed against the bookshelf partitions Medea had set up to divide the sleeping spaces. I leaned against the lip of the hallway that led to the single bathroom and bedroom. From my vantage point, I could see the entire living room, the small kitchen off to the side, and Jason’s old office.
Medea let out an exasperated groan, flopping back on the couch bed. “I am never going to get this! I’m not a full-blooded god. What if I just—”
“Have every standard divine ability except dreamwalking?” I stretched my legs until they met the other side of the wooden, doorless frame. “Come on. You just need to try harder.”
“I’ve been trying all night!”
“Shh,” I hissed, with a glance behind me toward the room where Otrera slept. “You’ll wake her up.” Not likely—the demigoddess slept like a rock. But the last thing I needed was for Otrera to come out and start griping at me.
“Sorry,” Medea grumbled, her dark hair spilling over slim shoulders. Curled up on the bed like that, she looked too small, too young to be a part of this.
“Look.” I took another swig of my noncarbonated syrup, desperate for the caffeine, then rubbed my arms in a futile attempt to warm up. It was so much colder here than wherever the island used to be. “I’ve never been good at the whole teaching thing. If I’m pushing you too hard—”
“No.” She shook her head, deflating at my apology. “It’s okay. I know you’re just worried. I am too.” Medea let out a heavy sigh and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s just . . . we’re friends, right? Outside of this. You’re not just . . .” She trailed off, uncertainty lacing her voice.
Using you for your powers. “This isn’t just for me, Medea.” Pins and needles pricked at my legs, so I shifted, my limbs creaking as I tried to find a more comfortable position on the hardwood floor. “I mean, short-term, yes, I’m teaching you to dreamwalk to meet up with my people, so I can coordinate with them, but you benefit from this too.”
“Because I’m going to be one of your people.” Determination flashed in her violet eyes.
“You’ve got my vote, but it’s not my call.” The Pantheon had every reason to distrust Medea after that disastrous truce meeting. “Being able to negotiate with them before all hell breaks out here is your best chance. But I don’t just mean that you benefit from this short-term either. It’s . . .” I leaned my head against the frame, grasping for words. “The more you understand your own powers, the less likely it’ll be that someone else can use them against you. People, yours and mine, have a long history of controlling others through ignorance.”
“Yeah.” She fell silent for a moment, reaching behind her head, fabric rustling as she bunched up her pil
low. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
I frowned, trying to remember what she’d asked. “You mean about us being friends? I think so. I’m pretty new to the concept.”
Relationships in general always seemed to ambush me. Persephone surprised me by being my friend, no matter what I’d done to her. I’d made a reluctant friend in her former head priestess, Melissa. But Melissa pretty much dropped off the face of the earth when she went to college. As for the rest of the Pantheon, everyone went their separate ways after Zeus died. Once, I’d assumed that meant they didn’t care.
But in the past few months, I’d seen the entire Pantheon take risks on my behalf, fighting for my life when I couldn’t. I’d spent countless hours with each member in dreamscapes and realized they cared deeply. We were all connected on this level I didn’t fully understand but loved being a part of. They felt like home.
Medea didn’t. Not in the same way, but I cared whether she lived or died. And I liked talking to her and hanging out with her. Was that friendship?
“Me too.” Medea plucked at the comforter with short, shaking fingers. “I had some friends when I was little, before . . .” She trailed off, but soon got back on track. “But after that, all I had to go on was what I could find in books and on television. Same thing with love. I saw it so often on screen, read it so many times in my stories, that I thought I got it, you know?” Her hands clenched the comforter. “But I basically left him to die, and I don’t even miss him. What if I’m making the same mistake, now? Are we friends, Aphrodite? The kind you see in books and movies that will do anything for each other? Does that even exist? Or am I just . . . ?” She stared at the ceiling, her hand gripping the comforter, then relaxing, as if she could snatch the right words out of existence. “Am I even making sense?”
“Trust me, I know what it’s like to wonder what’s real and what’s projected.” I took another sip of flat soda. Ugh, fine. Climbing to my feet, I headed to the kitchen to get a new can, equal parts frustrated that I had to get up, and embarrassed by how lazy I’d grown.
But I was tired, darn it. The last forty-eight hours had been hell on my body. I’d dug demigods out of rubble all day despite a myriad of cuts, bruises, and sore muscles from my fight to not drown two days ago, and now I was staying up all night teaching. Was it any wonder getting up was harder than it should have been? “I wish I could tell you how to sort it all out. But I haven’t figured it out myself.”
She was silent for so long, I thought she’d fallen asleep. Then she turned to her side to look at me, violet eyes glittering with determination. “I’m ready to try again.”
We continued through the night, both of us growing more frustrated and irritable. At least Medea was getting sleep in bits and pieces. Ever mindful of the burden of the shield keeping us alive, I allowed Medea’s every attempt to stretch into power naps as the hours ticked by, tapping all my knowledge of REM cycles as I kept exhausted, burning eyes on the clock. She was never happy when I woke her up to try again. Still, she rose to my bullying, poking, prodding, and outright demanding with alacrity. I guess she’d taken my statement, that control over her powers was the first step to control in her life, to heart.
But we couldn’t fight the sun. When we heard Otrera’s alarm chiming, I knew it was time to give up for the night.
“Any luck?” Otrera asked, making her way from the hallway to the coffeemaker. Her hair was wrapped up in a black stocking, and she wore an oversized rebel alliance T-shirt over a pair of boxers that revealed long, muscular legs. Goosebumps covered her dusky, gold skin. She had to be freezing, but coffee was more important than comfort.
“No.” I worried my bottom lip, still sitting against the doorframe, but numb. My mind felt fuzzy with lack of sleep, and the thought of standing up and getting ready just felt too overwhelming to contemplate. The smell of coffee brewing was nice, though. Maybe things would look up.
“So we keep trying,” Medea said brightly, swinging her legs over the edge of the couch bed. Her purple socks thudded against the wooden floor. She wore a pair of thick, purple pajama pants and a long-sleeved shirt, but even she rubbed her arms together once she left the warmth of the blankets.
Otrera shook her head. “Narcissus wants everyone to meet in the courtyard at nine.”
Ugh, he had said something about the courtyard and morning back before all hell broke loose in the hospital lobby, but ugh. How did humans stay awake all night? Every limb in my body felt heavy. My mouth had gone dry at some point in the last couple of hours, and now, when I swallowed, I could taste my morning breath, which had definitely never happened to me when I had all my powers.
Medea scoffed. “I’m keeping the entire island from sinking right now. I don’t think anyone would object to me staying home to rest. And you—” She motioned to me. “It’s not safe for you out there.”
“It’s not safe to stay here either.” My yawn threatened to split my face open. “We don’t need to give them any excuses to come here looking for us.” The initial flush of hope from my dreamwalking idea had faded into a pragmatic realism some point during the endless night. Time was not on our side. “We’ll try dreamwalking again tonight. In the meantime, we need to work on a backup plan.”
Otrera watched me with critical eyes as she poured herself a cup of coffee. The heady smell of the beverage wafted into the air. “I hope we’re not back to the whole getting thrown in the hidden wing idea again, because there’s a good chance they’d just kill you.”
“No, duh.” I rose to my feet with a stretch that moved from my toes to fingertips. “If you drop the shield keeping the island together—” I eyed Medea. “That would free up a lot of power.”
“All that does is put us on a breaking island,” Otrera argued. “The hidden wing would still be shielded.”
“I don’t think I have it in me to just let everyone else drop off the face of the earth.” Medea grunted as she pushed the bed into the couch with a squeal of springs. “They’d be crushed or drown, and it isn’t like they’d even die. I’d be sentencing them to something worse.”
“Not if Narcissus had some notice.” I locked my hands behind my back and leaned forward in another stretch. Now that my blood was flowing a bit, my mind was starting to perk up. “As far as we know, no one else can sense power. You could tell him that you’re losing your grip on the shield. If you warn him that you can’t maintain the shield, then weaken it enough for the ground to move an iota, there’s a good chance he’ll throw every shield caster we’ve got at it.”
“We can’t do that.” Two mugs clinked together as Otrera grabbed a cup for me and Medea. The smell of coffee grew stronger.
“Why not?” My chest tightened in repressed frustration. Do not yell, do not yell. With great effort, I kept my voice bright and conversational. “If he calls her bluff, she can just—”
“Because yesterday, thirty-some-odd demigods were severely injured, and her blood is a cure-all.”
Medea went still, her face going nearly as white as the comforter she’d been folding.
I leaned against the doorframe, muscles going slack as I realized Otrera was right. Bile pricked at the back of my throat. The climate on the island had changed since Narcissus took over. Medea and Otrera weren’t safe from the wrath of the islanders just by virtue of being demigods anymore. My plans could absolutely throw them to the wolves.
Otrera added Medea’s too-sweet creamer to her cup and my two sugars to mine without prompting. “He’s prepping for war, and right now, her ability to teleport us en masse is his trump card. If she implies that her powers might not be recharged enough to be useful by the time he needs them, he might decide his best advantage lies in numbers, not teenage girls with unreliable powers.”
“You’re right. You’re right.” I pushed off the unyielding wooden frame, thinking fast. “New plan. We need to bolster her pow
er. That way she can maintain the shield as long as we need, and she’ll have the power left to do something once she drops it.”
“She is right here,” Medea reminded me, shoving the couch cushions into place with muffled thunks.
I paused, mid-pace. I’d been talking to Otrera as if we were the decision makers here, and she was the only person I needed to convince. Otrera spoke with more authority, but Medea had the power, and as an actual goddess, I outranked them both. But this wasn’t about ranks or powers. I couldn’t afford to drown out Medea’s voice when she didn’t fight to make herself heard. And I couldn’t just ignore Otrera’s opinion when I didn’t like it because I outranked her. We were all in this together, and if we didn’t work together, we’d never get out.
“So?” Reaching behind my head, I gathered my hair together, fingers working to brush out the coarse tangles and weave the golden locks into a thick braid. “What do you think we should do?”
“What about worship?” Medea turned pink at the word. “Would that give my powers a boost? It works for you guys.”
“Maybe.” Demigod power wasn’t typically tied to worship, so it stayed stagnant. But who knew what made Medea tick? I finished braiding my hair, then felt along the bookshelf until I found a hair tie.
“Worship?” Otrera asked, incredulously. “Like with prayers and stuff? Medea, nobody is going to—”
“That’s not how it works.” I raised my voice to be heard as I ducked into the bathroom. Before she could respond, I turned the water on, drowning out whatever she said long enough to brush my teeth. Yes, I needed to listen to Medea and Otrera and work with them better than I had been. That didn’t mean they couldn’t wait ten seconds.
“Prayers and stuff are more direct, but any amount of thought counts,” I continued once I emerged from the bathroom, cutting off whatever they’d started discussing in my absence. “Fear, awe, admiration. All that matters is that thoughts are focused on her.”
Venus Rising: Book 3 Aphrodite Trilogy (The Daughters of Zeus 6) Page 14
