by Kieran Scott
“Aphrodite,” he said, his voice like thunder. “You’re a party to this?”
My mother released my hand and clasped her own. “My purview is love, Your Highness. My daughter is in love with this boy and therefore, it is in my interest to bring her here.”
I gazed into Orion’s eyes. Sweat poured from his brow as he fought for breath. His fists clenched, straining against the iron clamps around his wrists. He was terrified, but trying so hard not to show it. I loved him more in that moment than ever before.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Zeus said with a sneer. He looked at my father. “Do it.”
My father lifted the spear again. Orion turned his head to the side and braced himself. Without thinking, I threw myself over Orion’s chest, landing sideways so that our bodies formed an X, and waited for the spear to gut me.
Nothing happened.
“Eros! You have no idea what you’re doing,” my father roared.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” I spat back, rolling awkwardly onto my back but not daring to remove myself from Orion’s chest. “I’m saving his life.”
“You know I can remove you from here with a flick of my wrist,” Zeus said, hovering over us.
“I know that, Your Highness,” I said, placating. “But I’ll do anything. Anything you wish. Just please, for the love of Hera, don’t kill him.”
“I apologize for this insubordination, Your Majesty,” my father said under his breath. “I swear to you I will—”
Zeus held up a meaty hand, stopping my father cold. He looked down at me, one eyebrow cocked. “Anything?”
I slid off Orion’s chest, sitting on the floor next to him. I reached for his hand and held it, warm and slick, inside my own, his necklace still clutched in my other hand. Through my back, I could feel his heart pound. Still alive. I had to keep him alive. “Anything.”
Zeus studied Orion and me. “Your father tells me you claim to have rescued Orion yourself, from his place among the stars.”
In the corner of my vision, my mother and sister exchanged a glance.
“Yes,” I said, clearing my throat.
Zeus’s eyes narrowed. It was as if I had spoken in a language he didn’t quite understand, which was, of course, impossible. There wasn’t a language spoken by man that we gods didn’t speak fluently. After a moment, he paced away from us. While his back was turned I slowly, deliberately, moved my gaze around the room. There were two dozen windows, but four dozen guards, and my father. Even if I could somehow release Orion from his chains and get past them, which was not only unlikely, but impossible, Zeus would be able to track us anywhere. He was the king of the gods, more powerful than any being anywhere in the universe. I had been an idiot to think I could fool him.
But no. I had fooled him, with some help from my mother. For months now I had kept Orion safe, traveling back and forth from Olympus to Earth at will, while my mother had made sure our position was cloaked from his sight. Had he known what I’d done in February, he would have snatched us back to Mount Olympus the moment I’d done it. But here it was, the end of the summer, and here we were. Now. Why now? Why hadn’t he known before today, and how had he found out?
I glanced over at my mother and Harmonia, the only two goddesses I had entrusted with my secret, as Zeus continued to pace the room and brood. I was certain neither of them had betrayed me. Harmonia was my sister, my best friend, the only being who would never turn her back on me no matter what. My mother had been known to put her own interests before those of her children in the past, but not on this. She wanted Orion’s and my love to succeed. If she didn’t, she would have found a way to split us up at the very beginning, rather than helping me visit him and nurse him back to health. I hadn’t even told my friends Nike and Selene about my secret sojourns to Earth, since Nike sometimes placed her quest for my father’s approval above everything, and Selene had a tendency to speak out of turn. So how? How had Ares and Zeus found out?
“In that case, Eros, I will strike a bargain with you,” Zeus announced finally, causing an interested murmur to undulate around the lofty chamber.
“A bargain?” I asked cautiously, sitting up a bit straighter.
“Yes. I’ve been disappointed by your results of late. The kindling of true love is down, and the endurance numbers are sickening, to say the least. You haven’t been producing, my dear,” he said, stepping toward me and lifting my chin with one finger. Then his eyes flicked dismissively, disgustedly, to Orion. “And now I know why.”
He hauled off and kicked Orion in the ribs so hard I heard the crack. I let out a wail as Orion coughed and sputtered, writhing away from us as best he could with his limbs bound. Harmonia buried her face in my mother’s shoulder as Aphrodite’s expression went stoic. I wanted to spit in Zeus’s face, but I held back.
“This is my offer,” Zeus continued. “You will be banished to Earth without your powers. You will be, essentially, a mortal.”
My mother and sister gasped at this. Even my father shifted his weight.
“You will then prove your worth to me by forming true love between three couples with no godly tricks up your sleeve,” Zeus continued. “Only then will you be allowed to return to Mount Olympus.”
“And Orion?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“If you succeed in this task, I will spare his life,” Zeus said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Until then, he is to be my slave.”
The king glanced at my father, who gripped his spear tightly in both hands. “What say you to this, Ares? Is my proposal fair?”
Everyone present knew it didn’t matter whether my father thought it was fair. Zeus was only testing Ares’s allegiance to him, assuring himself that he meant more to my father than his own daughter did.
“Fair, wise, and benevolent, Your Majesty,” my father said, looking directly at me.
“Good,” Zeus said with a nod. “Oh, and Aphrodite.” He turned to my mother, who raised her chin.
“Yes, Your Grace,” my mother said with a slight curtsy and bowed head.
“Since it’s abundantly clear that you were complicit in all this, you will be banished as well.”
“What?” my mother shrieked. “Zeus, no! Please! You mustn’t send me to that awful place.”
Harmonia and I glanced at each other, alarmed. My mother had a flair for the dramatic, but she was also the strongest goddess we knew. I’d never heard her voice reach such a frantic pitch.
“I can and I will,” Zeus replied, impassive.
“I beg of you!” my mother wailed. “I will do anything you ask of me! Anything!”
“You may go now,” Zeus said.
As he flicked his wrist, I turned and grasped Orion’s hand with both of my own, pressing the arrow pendant into his palm. My mother sobbed, falling to her knees on the floor as Harmonia clung to her. I could already feel my cells vibrating, my mind begin to go weightless. I had only minutes. No, seconds. Desperately, I locked my eyes onto Orion’s.
“I will be back for you,” I told him, holding on to his fingers for dear life. “Depend upon it, Orion. I won’t let you down!”
“I love you,” he said through his teeth, as my fingers began to slip from his. “I believe in you.”
I tried to tell him I loved him, too, but before I could respond, I was ripped away and the only sound my voice could form was a scream.
CHAPTER ONE
True
Pressure. Pain. My head was wedged inside a vise. Squeeze release, squeeze release, squeeze release. I pried my eyes open and winced as the sunlight stabbed at my retinas. My skin felt tight, dry, and cold. My scalp tingled. My toes were numb. As the room around me gradually came into focus, I realized why. I was buck naked and the room was freezing. Shivering from my very core, I grabbed the rough brocade blanket beneath me and wrapped it up and around my shoulders. Something fell to the floor with a clang.
A small, silver arrow glinted in the sun on the hardwood. Orion’s necklace. I had tri
ed to give it back to him. I had thought it would be something for him to hold on to. But I had failed. I had failed him in so many ways, and now he was trapped in Zeus’s palace, alone and terrified, and I was the only one who could save him.
I bent to pick up the arrow, then double-knotted the broken chain around my own neck. The pendant felt warm against my cold skin and I touched it with my fingers, closing my eyes and trying to send a message to Orion.
I will save you. I will return for you.
As I pushed myself up off the floor, a slice of pain through my temples sent me off balance and I staggered sideways into the ice-cold iron radiator attached to the wall. The pain moved to my forehead, throbbing with each pump of my heart. I closed my eyes and breathed, pressing one hand against my skull, and waited for the ache to subside.
If anything, the throbbing intensified. I pulled my trembling fingers away to stare at them. They weren’t warm. They didn’t glow.
Seized by panic, I whirled toward the window, leaning against the glass as the pain gripped me all over again. Outside, the world was bright and full of motion. Cars whizzed by on the street. A couple jogged along the sidewalk in matching sweat suits, weights strapped to their hands. On the corner a woman in uniform held up a stop sign and waved a group of skipping children in front of stopped traffic. Verdant trees lined the brick walkways, a pair of tiny dogs yipped as their owner cleaned up their excrement, a mail carrier tipped his hat at the driver of a bakery truck idling near the curb. American flags adorned the porches, and the license plates read New Jersey. So at least I now knew where I was.
It was so picturesque and adorable, I felt an almost irrepressible need to scream.
“Sent me to the happiest place on Earth, didn’t you, Zeus?” I muttered, casting my gaze toward the heavens. The King of the Gods had a wry sense of humor. But, I supposed, it could be worse. At least in a place like this, people would be open to love. He could have sent me to a dank cave in some oppressive, war-torn country devoid of hope. The fact that he hadn’t, said something. It said that on some level, Zeus wished me to succeed. This was a very good thing.
Taking a deep breath, I braced both my hands on the desk surface, letting the blanket fall to the floor. I homed in on the mail carrier, focusing every ounce of energy on his heart. If I had my powers, his inner yearnings would reveal themselves to me. I concentrated and held my breath and prayed to the gods, but nothing happened. He simply stood there, whistling as he went through his mail. I felt no inkling of his true self, no surge of emotion; I didn’t even hear his name or his age or his status. My heart sank so low I could have crushed it under my heel. This power was innate. Not having it . . . it was like not having the ability to blink or to breathe.
Any surge of defiant adrenaline I’d felt back on Olympus withered and died inside my chest. I didn’t know how to do this without my powers. How was I to begin? I’d never been to Earth for more than a day or two at a time, aside from my weeks spent alone with Orion. And other than Orion, I’d never interacted with a human in my existence, not for more than a few minutes.
Something crashed inside the house. I turned, and the mail carrier froze in his tracks at the foot of our front walk, his jaw hanging toward the ground. Oh, right. Naked. I shrugged at him and snapped the blinds closed.
“Mother!” I shouted, going to the closet on the far side of the bed. The inside revealed a paltry selection of clothing. I grabbed a baggy white sweatshirt and pulled it on. On a normal day, I simply closed my eyes and imagined a gown or a dress or hunting apparel and it would appear on my body, perfectly fitted and flattering. Another power I was sure I would miss. “Mother! Where are you?”
I heard a groan. The wooden hallway floor creaked beneath my feet as I staggered toward the noise. I passed another bedroom, a bathroom, and the top of the stairs before coming to the largest bedroom yet. It was situated at the back of the house with windows facing north, south, and west, but every single one of the blinds had been closed and the drapes flung down, so that hardly a sliver of light shone through. In the center of the four-poster bed, a mound of blankets writhed.
“Mother?”
Her slim white hand emerged from beneath the covers. “Here.”
I walked to her bedside. She sat up with a bottle of wine, her blond hair stuck to her forehead with sweat, and flung the bottle at the floor, where it clinked and rolled toward the dresser. It was already empty. She pulled another from under her covers and popped the cork.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
My mother gulped down half the contents and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth before answering. “Wine cellar. Well stocked. Zeus has shown some mercy.”
“Mom, you have to get up. We have to figure out what we’re going to do,” I pleaded as she hunkered back against the huge, downy pillows.
“That is where you are wrong, Eros,” she said, taking a sip and smacking her lips. “You must devise a plan. You have a mission to complete.” She gestured at me with the bottle. “I was sent here out of spite and therefore, I drink.” She lifted the bottle in a toast to no one and brought it to her lips.
“But mother, I have no powers!” I shouted, throwing my hands out. “I’ve never done this without them. How am I supposed to match people when I have no idea of their inner needs? When I can’t read their thoughts? When I—”
“Enough of your incessant whining!” my mother spat, throwing the now-empty bottle at the wall so hard it shattered, exploding shards of glass across the antique armoire and ancient, worn throw rug. My heart stopped, but she didn’t even pause. “Let us make one fact perfectly clear, Eros,” she seethed, shoving herself out of bed, wearing nothing but a long black T-shirt. “It was your carelessness that exiled us. I have never been banished to Earth before. Never! Do you know how many gods can make that claim? I was a legend, and now I am nothing.” She looked down at herself, her fingers, her toes, and clutched the shirt with both hands as if she might rend it from her body. “Nothing but a mortal. And it is all down to you.”
She teetered slightly, then turned and crawled back into bed. “I should never have helped you go to him that first day. I should never have let you stay. I should have known this would happen. I should have seen it in the stars. But did I? No. Why? Because you were so blissfully happy that I, for some unknown reason, felt the need to indulge you in your ongoing, unrealistic daydream.”
Her words stung. It had been some source of pride to me that my mother had aided and abetted my relationship with Orion, that she’d done so willingly, even merrily. I had felt, for the first time in a long while, like I truly meant something to her.
“Could it have been motherly love?” I asked hopefully.
My mother scoffed and pulled the covers over her head. “Sentimentality is for the weak, Eros. Now get to work.”
My throat was dry, my stomach tight with disappointment and fear. But I knew when not to argue with my mother. She was wallowing. And when she was wallowing, there was no reasoning with her. I was alone here. On Earth. Mortal and friendless and alone.
I turned toward the door but paused, my hand on the molding. “I just have one question,” I said. “How? How did Ares find out about us?”
“I know not,” she replied without lifting her head. “I told no one and my cloak was never breached.”
“Why didn’t he come to me?” I asked. “Why didn’t he talk to me about Orion instead of kidnapping him off to Zeus?”
“You’ve now asked three questions,” my mother pointed out impatiently. “Now go!”
The floor creaked beneath my feet and she sat up, heaving a sigh. “Your father did what he did because he cares about only two things: himself, and the favor of Zeus. He knew that if Zeus found out and realized Ares hadn’t told him, or worse, that Ares hadn’t even known what his daughter was doing, that it would lower him in Zeus’s eyes. Your father is an egotistical megalomaniac, Eros. He always has been, and he always will be. As much as I once tri
ed to convince myself otherwise, he loves no one more than himself.”
She dropped back onto the bed. “Now please,” she said wearily. “Do your job.”
Silently I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me. As the catch clicked, I suddenly longed for my sister. She always knew the right thing to say, the right thing to do. But even as I wished for her wisdom, I knew we were better off with her on Mount Olympus. She would keep an eye on Orion. She would do what she could to make sure Zeus didn’t get out of hand, didn’t go back on his bargain. I needed her right where she was.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to hear Harmonia’s voice. In my heart I knew what she would say. I was a goddess. I was powerful. I’d brought Orion down from the stars. I’d traveled back and forth from Mount Olympus to Earth for months with no one suspecting. I had nursed him back to health. I was a scholar, a hunter, a daydreamer, a soul searcher. I could do this. I had to do this. I had to save Orion.
The question was, where to start.
Slowly I wandered back to my room, my skull still radiating pain. There were billions of people in the world. How was I supposed to know who was single and who wasn’t, which people had found their soul mates and which hadn’t, without being able to read their hearts? Not every soul on Earth was desperate to be in a relationship, not everyone was open to it. Where was I going to find hundreds of souls willing to be paired up? Ready for and open to true love?
Inside my room, I heard a horn bleat a staccato rhythm. Something big and yellow and loud stopped outside my window and hovered there, rumbling. A school bus. I took a step forward and my breath caught as a couple of gangly teenage boys climbed the steps. They both paused to gawk when a pack of girls strolled by, giggling and whispering and glancing over their shoulders. Then the door squealed shut, the brakes released, and the monstrosity rumbled on.
