Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  “There’s a lot of furniture in here.” I ran my fingers over the silk sheets on the bed.

  “Were you expecting… less?” Hermes asked. Some of the amusement had returned to his voice and I could tell how much more at ease he was in his own space.

  “The temple was completely bare.” I turned around and raised my eyebrows. “I expected something more like… this.” I gestured around at the wealth represented here. I knew the hearts of these gods, minimalism wasn’t their style.

  Hermes smiled and his expression turned devilish. “Zeus once said that there is only enough room for our egos in the temple. We have tried furniture in the past, but it has not… lasted long.”

  “It deteriorates?” Ryder guessed.

  “It is destroyed,” Hermes corrected. “When we quarrel.”

  I laughed bitterly. “What am I doing here? How am I supposed to stop gods that act like children and hold the universe in their fingertips?” I plopped down on the edge of the bed and the silk covers were so smooth, I nearly slid off. I caught myself just in time and had the worst urge to cry.

  “Despite how it feels, you are not alone,” Hermes promised. “And we may be capable of great destruction, but you are not a weak flower for us to trample. There is a reason Nix wants you above everything else. There is a reason he could not destroy Orpheus. You must have faith in yourself, Siren. Or all else is lost.”

  I lifted my gaze to meet his. “How will you protect me from him now that he’s here?”

  “I won’t have to protect you. You are an equal on this mountain. He can no sooner possess you than he could Hera.”

  “But before, he said that-”

  Hermes interrupted me before I could relive my lifetime of painful memories. “He told lies to a child that did not know better. He might have taken you to his home in Greece or kept you locked away in your pretty condo and that would have been true. But on this mountain you are goddess of the Nesoi. He must abide by our laws now.”

  “Oh, right.” I could have used that little gem of knowledge at least a year ago. I might not have run for so long.

  Except I didn’t believe it for a second. Nix would find a way to own me. That was the whole reason he’d followed me here. He didn’t believe he was beneath any law, not even the laws of Olympus.

  “We’ll be careful, of course,” Hermes added. “But there are enough of my brothers and sisters on our side that we will be able to protect you.”

  “Can’t I just hide out here?” I asked meekly.

  Hermes frowned. “There is a feast tonight.”

  “How do you know?” Before the airport fiasco, I hadn’t planned to call Hermes or ever follow him here. I knew he had Delphi on his side, but could she see the future that clearly?

  “There’s a feast every night,” Hermes explained. “We’re gods. We don’t eat supper. We feast. That is our way.”

  So maybe everything wasn’t about me.

  Hermes turned for the door. “I’ll summon you when it’s time to depart.” He left before I could ask any more questions.

  As soon as the door clicked closed, strong arms wrapped around my waist and hauled me against an equally strong chest. My hands slid around Ryder’s waist until I clung to him as if my life depended on how desperately I could hug him.

  “We’re going to make it through this,” he whispered into my hair.

  “We’ll be lucky to survive the night.”

  He pulled back and cupped my jaw with his calloused hands. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he swore. “I’ll die first.”

  I looked up in to the swirling depths of his silver eyes and believed him. The problem was that I refused to let him die. I refused to let anything else happen to him.

  “Just stay with me,” I whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t.” He bent down to sweep a kiss over my forehead. I immediately went up on my tip toes hoping for more. I ignored the sinking disappointment when he pulled back. “How do they expect you to kill Nix?” he asked the question I had been wondering about for a year.

  “I don’t know. I have no idea where the god-killer is and as far as I know my mother was the last person to touch it. Maybe Nix has it now?”

  Ryder’s hands moved down my neck and landed on my shoulders. His thumbs trailed back and forth soothingly, calming some of the tension crackling through my bones. “Where do the Fates live? On this mountain or somewhere else?”

  I ignored the hopeful burst of fire burning through my stomach. “On Olympus,” I told him. “At least according to lore. Not near the city of the gods, obviously. But somewhere on this mountain.”

  “We’ll find out tonight,” he decided. “Bring it up casually, but before we leave the feast, we need to know where to find Ava.”

  I didn’t know how to feel. Over the past few days I had started to really worry about my mother and then when Della confirmed that the Fates would use her for something truly nefarious, I had started to feel a sharp pain in my chest whenever I thought about her.

  “It would be suicide to cross the Fates,” I whispered, in case they could hear me from whatever demonic pit they’d crawled into.

  “It’s suicide to go up against Nix without a plan. Either we try to rescue your mom or we wait until tomorrow morning when Nix has figured out a way to get around the rules. We’re in a no-win situation. We have to start thinking outside the box if we want to stand a chance.”

  I didn’t tell him that the god-killer might not be enough or that saving Ava would only add to our problems. The Fates would snip our strings before we ever stepped foot onto their property and my mother might not have any idea where the sword disappeared to.

  I kept all of those thoughts to myself and hugged him tightly. “Okay. Figure out where the Fates are and try not to get killed. Sounds like dinner will be exciting tonight.”

  “With you, Red, it always is.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The feast was everything Hermes promised it would be. Ryder and I had spent the afternoon in our room, devising plans and making a mental list of priorities. We needed to kill Nix, but first we needed the god-killer and in order to get that, we needed to find my mom. So, priority number one was finding someone that would spill about the Fates.

  I should have asked Delphi before we left her; but honestly, I hadn’t thought I would need it until now. Which might have been stupid, but meeting Nix face to face again had never been part of my life plan.

  If we had it though… if we could find it… then maybe ending Nix wouldn’t be the most impossible thing asked of man, woman or god.

  Hermes came to collect us once the sun started to set. He’d made sure we were dressed and ready and then one-touched us into the temple. When I opened my mouth to question him, he’d shrugged one shoulder and said, “You’re going to eat supper with him. What would be the point in skulking around now?”

  He had a point.

  We’d popped into the temple to find tables covered in the richest foods and finest delicacies. Gods and goddesses lounged around on individual couches. Each place had a three-legged table sitting in front of it heavy with food.

  The collected gods and goddesses shouted across the room at each other while gorging on food and drink. Pitchers of wine were passed around, sloshing onto the floor and their consumers, but they never stopped moving around the room. And I never saw them go empty.

  It was shocking to see these people behave like this. They had always been so poised when I saw them before, so classy and refined.

  Here they acted like animals. Their raucous laughter was nearly deafening and their lips were tinged purple from the wine.

  I immediately wanted to run back to Hermes’ palace. This felt depraved and immoral and nothing unseemly had happened yet.

  The noise stopped as soon as they noticed Ryder and me standing in the center of the entryway. We shifted awkwardly, not really knowing what our role was here.

  Sometimes I was called a goddess and
sometimes I was called a child. Ryder had never been called a god and even if his mother was Calliope, she wasn’t a goddess anyway.

  These were the pillars of the Greek Pantheon. I could see Aphrodite laughing with Athena. Hades and Ares were there, but they were engaged with Demeter, goddess of agriculture, and Artemis, goddess of the hunt.

  There weren’t just gods and goddesses at the feast either. Muses, nymphs and demigods were in attendance. The entire gamut of Greek mythology crowded together in this one place. I had been nervous before, but now I was also sickened. I felt their depravity like a palpable charge on my skin. This was evil incarnate.

  This was the bowels of hell thrown up into human form.

  Hermes walked forward with clipped steps, nodding at us to hurry. Servants rushed out from some unseen place to set up couches for us to sit on and tables to set our insane amount of food.

  “Don’t drink the wine,” I whispered to Ryder. “Or eat any fruit.”

  He gave me a sarcastic thumbs up. “No problem.”

  After all of the prophesying over the last few days, I thought that both of us might be immune to the effects of ambrosia, but I didn’t want to risk it. Either it would drive us insane with addiction, if our humanity had a stronger pull, or we would end up three sheets to the wind and completely vulnerable to whatever plans Nix had for us.

  I felt each of my movements echo through the room. Everyone stared at us, waiting for someone to explain our presence.

  Or maybe they were expecting me to start a war.

  I felt Nix’s attention on me the second we walked in and it hadn’t wavered once.

  “My guests,” Hermes gestured toward us when it was clear nobody was in a hurry to return to their meal. “The supreme goddess of the Nesoi and Orpheus, firstborn son of Calliope.”

  A murmur swept through the crowd, carrying the tones of aggression that everyone expected from me.

  Nix stood up with the feral grace I had always expected from him. “And my protégé,” he told the crowd. “Isn’t she lovely?”

  Most of the men clapped enthusiastically. I felt Hades’ leer more than any other. I wanted to say something snotty to Nix or at least contrary, but I couldn’t think of anything under the full attention of the room.

  “Come, Ivy, sit by me,” Nix coaxed. Servants immediately started to rearrange my things.

  My mouth went dry and my blood started to boil. “I’ve already accepted Hermes’ invitation,” I told him.

  “Oh, he doesn’t mind” Nix boomed and several of his brothers snickered along with him. “We used to share everything.”

  “That was a millennia ago, brother,” Hermes countered. “We haven’t shared anything significant since you murdered my wife.” Tension spiked in the atmosphere until Hermes ended with, “Or one of them at least.”

  The room erupted with laughter. Hermes smiled too, but his shoulders never relaxed and his fists stayed clenched at his sides.

  “Sit, Messenger,” Ares shouted. “You’re keeping us from our food!”

  “And our drink!” someone else finished.

  Hermes lead the way, finding tables at the other end near Hera and, unfortunately, near Nix. I wondered if he had sat by Hera on purpose. I felt his presence slither over my skin.

  I waited for him to jump up and start strangling me, but he didn’t bother to leave his place. I still couldn’t shake my nerves with him this close, so I picked at the food and tried to ignore him.

  Ryder did the same thing. Even if Nix hadn’t been here, I would have found it hard to eat while everyone stared at me and judged each of my insignificant movements.

  I felt like they were waiting for something to happen or waiting on me to cut off Nix’s head.

  After a while of awkward silence, Nix slid forward on his couch and dropped his feet to the ground. They clattered loudly on the polished floor. His hands slid over his knees with purpose until his elbows rested on his thighs and he met me at eye level. “I would have brought you here,” he told me diplomatically. “You didn’t need to hitch a ride on our magic carpet.” When I didn’t respond, he explained, “We call him that because he’s a doormat. It’s an inside joke that you might not understand.”

  “You were going to bring me here?” I met Nix’s black gaze and dared him to be truthful.

  “I was,” he smiled patiently at me.

  “I’m sure you would have treated me with this amount of respect,” I gestured to Hermes. “I’m sure you would have let me know I was free to come and go as I pleased.”

  Nix’s jaw ticked with irritation. “Is that what he’s told you? That you’re free?” The word came out of his mouth like a curse. He hated that word as much as I loved it. His voice was taunting when he said, “Try to leave now, then. If Hermes has promised you freedom, feel free to use it. Go back home to where you’re more… comfortable.”

  I shook my head. “So you can chase me?” I ignored the pit in my stomach that warned Hermes was as bad as Nix. Had I walked straight into captivity? Same story, different day.

  “Yes,” Nix growled, excitement danced in his eyes. “That’s my favorite part.”

  “Enough, Sea Creature,” Aether called from down the line. “Or I shall be forced to keep the peace.” Gods and goddesses groaned all around me, clearly annoyed with his idea of peace keeping.

  “When will you banish him, Sister?” Athena groaned. “Your consort is a terrible bore.”

  “With my husband gone, I do not have the patience for all of your incessant bickering. You will listen to him until Zeus returns, otherwise you will drive me insane and I shall banish you all from my mountain.” Hera’s eyes flashed with lightning and I could tell that her patience was growing thin again.

  More grumbling rippled down the line of immortals and Hera sat back with a pleased smile on her face. Order officially restored.

  As much as I wanted to chain Nix to the bottom of the ocean, I had to get answers about my mother. I looked up at him from under my thick, overly done eyelashes and asked, “Is it true that you gave my mother to the Fates.”

  A slow smile spread across his perfect face. “It’s true,” he answered. “Although, they got the better of the deal between us. I paid them to watch over you. A lot of good that did me.”

  “So why not kill them for betraying you?” I felt myself slide forward too, anxious for his answers.

  I didn’t expect him to answer, but not ten seconds passed before he said, “Because they would kill me first. I’m smart, not suicidal.”

  I nodded. That was definitely true about him.

  “It’s good that you’re here, Ivy. I thought you might flee back to that island of yours.” Nix’s lingering gaze touched every inch of exposed skin on my body. I felt the food I’d picked at churn in my stomach.

  “You knew where I was?”

  “There are places on this planet where not even the god of the sea can go,” Hera explained snidely. “Not for lack of trying, of course.”

  Nix leaned back, a small smile playing on his lips. “Not even you would go to that island, Sister.”

  Hera visibly bristled. “You think that I’m scared of a child? A sea witch? Why do my brothers keep accusing me of foolishness? You forget who slaughtered the ketea.”

  Something hot and angry seared through me. I had no idea what or who the ketea were, but I hated the idea that they had been slaughtered.

  Ryder’s hand squeezed mine. His nearness calmed some of the primal anger welling inside me.

  “Look, Sister, you’ve angered her,” Hermes grinned. I instinctively glanced around for a pitcher of water.

  “I’m not angry,” I said calmly. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  They shared a look. “I suppose they were before your time,” Hera sighed. “They were slithering sea monsters. They were a menace.”

  “They were harmless,” Hermes sighed. “The islanders used to use them for transportation.”

  “They might have been ha
rmless,” Nix put in. “But Hera’s right. They were hideous. They needed to be put out of their misery.”

  I had nothing to add, so I kept the conversation moving. It was weird to sit here with Nix and have a conversation as though he didn’t want to murder me. I didn’t trust him. This seemed like a ploy to lure me into a false sense of security.

  Although he was a different person here. Hermes was too. The mountain tamed some of their harsh edges and softened their arrogance. They weren’t more likeable, but their sibling bickering made them more amusing.

  “I don’t see the Fates,” I commented.

  “You wouldn’t see them here,” Hera hissed. “You think I would invite those old hags to my temple? Hardly.”

  My heartbeat picked up as I tried to keep my tone neutral. “But I thought they lived on Olympus? Are they in the village?”

  Nix caught on right away. “Miss them? Nostalgic for some one-on-one time?”

  I swallowed around a prickly lump in my throat. “I’m just curious.”

  “Why don’t you ask your host these questions,” Hera dared. “Hermes is practically their neighbor.” When Hermes didn’t take her bait, she shook her head and offered more. “They aren’t allowed in Olympus proper,” Hera explained, already bored with the conversation. “Every time they’ve been here before they start planning my demise. I’m less than enthusiastic to let them visit the temple. They start rearranging furniture and picking out drapes. It’s obnoxious.”

  “Why don’t they just cut your thread?” Ryder asked. His expression remained innocent, but I could see the challenge twinkling in his eyes.

  Hera didn’t bite. “Because I would come back from the Underworld and rip their haggard heads from their wrinkled bodies.” She looked around at her wide-eyed brothers and sisters. “What?” she smirked. “I would do the same thing to any of you should I find myself on the other side of the River Styx. It’s better that you remember that now than test my conviction later.” Her tone remained casual, but her lethal glare swung to Nix and I wondered if his knees knocked together like mine.

  I might not have figured out where the Fates were holed up, but I did learn that Hera was a complete sociopath.