by Liz Meldon
It pained her to close those sweet blue eyes, knowing she would never look into them again. Neither would Hebe’s children. Athena’s bloodied hands tightened into fists. Cowards. Those who had struck her down—filthy dogs with no integrity. Hebe could swing a sword and shoot an arrow, yes, but she was no warrior.
Behind her, the flames grew ever higher within the walls surrounding the palace, painting the starry sky with flashes of orange and plumes of black smoke. Voices cried out—human, voices she recognized as her servants. They were butchering everyone. No one was to escape this realm, Athena included. Teeth gritted, she snatched her daggers and turned toward the palace gates, only to spy Sia limping out. Blood coated his face—not his own, she hoped—and, just as Athena took a few steps toward him, a spear impaled him from behind. Straight through his back and out the front of his chest, the iron tip glinted, the shiny red blood of a god catching the light of the flames just right.
A cry tore from her throat as she surged forward, the sound rattling the courtyard walls and drawing her enemies to her. Fools. Cowards and fools. They poured out after Sia, bold and brash, palace guards and fairy assassins. She cut them down with nothing but her blades, diving and weaving out of the reach of their swords in order to slit their throats and pierce their guts. She hacked and clawed and sliced until the hunting party on Sia’s tail was but a group of groaning bodies on the ground, their life essence watering the grasses. She stood before them, barely breathing any harder than normal, daggers gripped tight in each hand. Not a god among them. Just human soldiers and fairy servants and whatever other cretin lay between her kind and the lesser.
The stable fire raged on through the gate. The bodies of her servants littered the circular courtyard. Her horses appeared to be have been commandeered and dragged from the flames. No one noticed a bloodstained goddess at their gates, assessing the situation, crafting her next move. Should she wish it, every enemy beyond the doors would be dead in a matter of minutes—all by her hand.
But there were more pressing matters.
“Sia!” She hurried to his side, then snapped the spear in half before rolling him onto his back. Eyes clenched shut, her Egyptian hiccupped blood, but Athena wiped it away before it trailed down his cheeks.
“Betrayal,” he hissed in an ancient tongue. Athena nodded, a hand on his forehead to still him. Should she remove the rest of the spear, he would bleed out in a matter of moments. The weapon was cursed by Morrigan; Athena could feel the Phantom Queen’s power pulsing through the sharpened tip. A god could survive much in his lifetime. Battle wounds far graver than any human could ever sustain would heal with proper care—but not with tainted weapons steeped in magic. Morrigan had armed her soldiers to properly hunt the divine.
“Flee, Grey Eyes,” Sia croaked, drawing her attention back to his face. When he tried to lift his hand to her, she grasped it and held it to her heart.
“No.” Screams erupted again from the courtyard, but she held his gaze. “Not without you.”
“I am lost.” Viscous red liquid crept down over the corners of his mouth. They both let it flow freely now. “You will be too. They gutted your Roman in the feasting hall. A spectacle to a-amuse the court. There is n-nothing for you here… Go.”
“Sia—”
“You know this.” Each word grew laboured now. Athena slipped her hand under the base of his skull, raising it. “You know… tactically… you cannot win this. You cannot avenge us. You cannot kill an entire pantheon, my old friend.”
“Not alone,” she agreed, the reality of the situation finally sinking in. She had no companions to gather. If Pan had lain in drunken bliss amidst the hay and horses, he would be long gone now, a victim of the fire. Hebe and Sia… gone. Felix murdered. Her horse stolen. Her heart broken. There were no alternatives. Inhaling deeply, Athena made herself comfortable by Sia’s side. At the sight of his panicked gaze, she squeezed his hand and smiled. “I will go when you’ve returned to the earth.”
He blinked up at her in a quiet acceptance. Time slowed to a crawl as she waited, clutching his hand and watching the life slip away. She had no tools, no medicine to slow the poisonous spread of the Phantom Queen’s venom. Athena was neither Apollo nor Asclepius; while gifted at temporarily healing fallen warriors, humans mostly, she had nothing in her arsenal to save her friend.
Sia passed from existence with one last rattling breath. When his eyes lost their sense of open curiosity and bright intelligence, Athena closed them and finally withdrew the spear. The wound in his chest wept openly, mirroring the silent flow of tears down her own blood-splattered cheeks.
With a heavy heart, Athena carried Sia’s battered body to the oak tree, where she arranged him beside Hebe. His injuries were far more personal than hers. Besides the gaping hole in her gut, Hebe’s body appeared remarkably untouched. Someone had taken the time to pummel Sia, though the scraps a flesh under his nails suggested he had not gone willingly into oblivion.
A surge of Morrigan’s magic washed over her like a tidal wave, knocking her off the balls of her feet and onto the grass. Scowling, Athena noted the battalion of armed soldiers surging through the gates, torches in one hand and swords in the other. They meant to find her. By now, the mess she had left outside of her chambers would have been discovered.
Slowly, quietly, she grabbed the bag cradling her beloved Nocta, the only body she might be able to successfully escape the realm with. Hebe and Sia should be honoured, their ashes spread in their homelands, but she couldn’t carry them both—not in her owl form, and certainly not while simultaneously fending off attackers on two legs.
“Forgive me,” she whispered, touching her fingers to both of their slightly parted lips in earnest. “I will bring you home.”
One way or another. She snatched a lock of hair from each, knowing Hecate could summon the bodies from great distances with it, whether they were intact at the time or not. A grim thought, but one she had to consider.
Teeth gritted, she crept toward the trees, hunched and silent, until an arrow whizzed by her ear. She ducked into the tall grasses, daggers in hand and bag slung across her body.
“To the forest!” came the rallying cry in the distance. Someone had spied her, and Athena decided right then and there to make herself known. She stood, sneering, and twisted her body to avoid another magic-tipped arrow. Let them see her. Let them hunt her.
She stalked backward, chin lifted in defiance as more arrows rained down upon her. Distant torches bounced and flickered with the squadron’s charge.
Athena slipped into the shadows of the whispering wood. None who entered after her would ever leave it.
* * *
The forest went silent when Athena let the last body fall. She stood, soaked in blood, breath even, and listened for the crackling of underbrush or the subtle inhalation of an exhausted pursuer. And why shouldn’t he be? She had kept her attackers at bay for the better part of the night, losing them between the trees. Most had had their throats slit, one of the goddess’s hands shooting out from the darkness to muffle the scream while the other sliced the blade across tender flesh.
While they had made Hebe and Sia suffer, Athena saw no need to torture these soldiers. She just needed to lose them. Get rid of the hounds on her heels before she made her final escape across the lake. There was no telling what might await her there, but she had to try.
Stepping over the human dead at her feet, she moved through the forest like the wind, boots long abandoned in order to feel the dirt beneath her toes—to detect the faint vibration of an approaching attacker, to feel the realm’s sorrow for all that had transpired. For nature felt it—this callous act. The creatures of the forest had long stopped skittering about. The wind howled beyond the shelter of the thick trunks. Thunder clapped with no sign of rain. It all rebelled against Morrigan for tainting such sacred lands.
At least something was on her side.
When the trees started to thin and the lake came in
to view, Athena quickened her pace—that is, until someone whispered her name.
She whirled back and saw, her blade’s tip digging into his throat, the face of the last man she wanted to see.
“Be gone, Lugh,” she ordered, her words surprisingly steady. He was still dressed in his feasting attire; the only addition she noticed was a sword hanging around his hip.
Lugh raised his hands in surrender, yet didn’t retreat when she pressed her dagger harder against his throat—not even when a dribble of blood rolled down his alabaster skin.
“I’m only here to help.”
“Help?” Her brow lifted, accompanied by a bark of laughter. “Haven’t you done enough helping already?”
“Athena, I swear to you, none of this was by my hand,” Lugh hissed with a slight shake of his head. “I promise! I had no idea any of this was to happen tonight—”
“You expect me to believe a man so integral to Dagda’s court would have no knowledge of his betrayal?” She eased back, her blade still raised between them. “I find that difficult to believe.”
“By my honour—”
“The honour of this house means very little to me now, Lugh,” she spat, eyes flashing indignantly. “You’ll have to do better.”
He opened and closed his mouth for a moment, then sighed. “There is nothing more I can say. Surely my actions can speak for themselves. Athena, I… You…” He licked his lips, hands falling to his sides. When he lifted his eyes to hers, she saw what some might perceive as pain. Right now, however, she wasn’t so sure. “Athena, I would never condone this. This is madness.”
“Is it?” she whispered. There was a brief prickling sensation in her nose, as though she were about to cry, but she banished it with a sniff. “Is it madness? Or is it madness that I allowed you to distract me, to woo me, to keep me from my purpose… Perhaps at Dagda and Morrigan’s very request—”
“Don’t be absurd, Athena, I—”
He leapt out of the way when she swung at him, both blades coming within a breath of his face. Eyes wide, Lugh walked a few very purposeful, practiced steps back, only off-balance for a moment.
“An accomplishment,” she sneered, hating the way her emotions fueled her words, “that you are the only man to have ensnared me so.”
“Athena.” His sword clanged against both her daggers when she attacked again; the vibration of metal on metal coursed through her hands and up her arms. Lugh frowned, more so in disbelief than anger—or so it would appear. “Don’t do this—”
“But rest assured,” she pressed, shoving him back and taking another swipe, which he blocked, “that you have still taught me a valuable lesson.”
She stumbled forward, only slightly, when he jumped back. Each thrust he blocked, each step he countered. At no point in their duel did he try to strike her—only block and defend. Athena was so seldom the aggressor.
“Never open my heart,” she finished. Her vision blurred for a moment before she blinked away her tears. “Never entrust what I covet so dearly to a man again. You’ve taught me that. Here. And now.”
“Athena, please!” She managed to swipe at the muscles of his exposed thigh, but fell back into a tree when he shoved at her harder than before, continuing. “You know I carry the sword Fragarach… You know it cannot lose a fight, and it will…” He dodged her blades, and then, with a speed she hadn’t expected, knocked her feet out from under her. Athena fell hard, landing on her back. She raised her chin when he held his prized sword to her throat, daring him to finish what the Phantom Queen had started. Yet he trembled slightly, and with a long breath, his shoulders slumped somewhat, said, “And Fragarach will make you speak your truth.”
“I am aware of the Answerer’s power,” she snapped, eyeing the enchanted blade holding her in place. “I have spoken my truth from the moment we reunited on the shores of this wretched place. Can you say the same?”
The sword lingered at her throat for a few breaths longer, until finally it fell to the forest floor, replaced by Lugh’s outstretched hand.
“Yes,” he said firmly, waiting for her to accept it. Athena hesitated, then rolled onto her side and pushed herself up and away from him, eyeing the god warily. “Athena, you must believe me.”
“I must do nothing.”
“Then it appears I must prove my loyalty,” he insisted, snatching his weapon up and holding it out to her, handle first. “Take it. Use it on me as you will. Demand answers of me. Draw blood from me. I care not what you choose. For I see no other way to prove not only my devotion, but my love.”
Athena inhaled softly at that word, hoping he wouldn’t hear—hating that she made such an awful, pathetic gasp in the first place. Her gaze dropped to the sword, contemplating his offer for the briefest of moments. For Lugh to hand over a weapon, his only weapon, to her now as she fumed, after she’d genuinely tried to wound him—it spoke volumes. Hoping that her trust was not misplaced, yet still not entirely sure, Athena batted the sword away with a slight shake of her head.
“No. I don’t want it.”
Lugh released a soft exhale, then slid the Answerer back in the leather scabbard at his side.
“Right,” he said with a firm nod. “I have something else that will serve you better. Wait here…”
Then, just as quickly as he had appeared, Lugh vanished into the shadows of the wood. Leaving her there with her thoughts, her racing mind—a mind that told her to flee, that this was a trap, that he would return with hordes of new guards, or even Morrigan herself. But her heart preached patience. And for once, Athena listened, allowing the beating, bloody organ, fueled by useless passion, its last chance to steer her right.
In Lugh’s absence, she wrung her dress out in silence, blood dribbling onto the forest floor. When she heard his footfalls return, Athena straightened and waited there with an arched eyebrow, but only until she realized what he had brought.
“Lugh—”
“Take Enbarr,” he insisted, presenting his pure white stallion with the reins held out to her. “He can cross water, land, and air as though he belonged to Helios’s chariot—”
“I need no beast to escape this place.” She recoiled when the horse tossed his head toward her, as if in recognition—excitement, perhaps, if she read his body language correctly. He remembered her and their jaunt across the lake.
“Athena, you—”
“Nor do I need you to solve my problems,” she continued forcefully, backing away when Lugh strode toward her, “like I haven’t a brain in my head. I realize I have made mistakes since arriving in the Otherworld, but I am not an incompetent—”
“I know that,” Lugh interjected softly. He let the reins, well-worn and of soft hide, fall from his hand. His horse moved toward her as as if his mind had already been made. When the beast was but a fist’s width from her face, Athena huffed and stroked his nose with her bloodstained hand.
“I will fly home myself.” She sounded like a child, a fact that only spurred her temper. Her gaze hardened. “Lugh, I can—”
“You are battle weary,” he argued, “and you have suffered a terrible loss. Let Enbarr carry your burdens until the weight isn’t so heavy. Please. Athena. He is all I can give you.”
He is all I can take from you. She swallowed hard, then looked sharply in the direction of familiar cries. It seemed a new hunting party had begun their search, with torchlights flickering between the trees. The distance between them was still great, but Athena had left a trail of bodies behind her; surely that was how Lugh had discovered her.
“Be gone,” Lugh whispered, ducking low as they hurried forth and steered Enbarr between the trees and over the gnarled roots, one moving on each side of him. “I will return the bodies to you in Rome.” Athena’s eyes narrowed at him beneath the stallion’s great head, and Lugh cleared his throat. “The Egyptian and the cupbearer. I will bring them back to you, personally or otherwise. They will be kept safe.”
“And my Roma
n,” she ordered. Such a loss. Felix had been so faithful.
Lugh nodded. “And your Roman. All of them. I promise.”
She wouldn’t hold him to it. She couldn’t. Athena would find her own way to return her fallen companions to their rightful resting places, but for now, she offered quiet thanks and carried on.
They came to the edge of the lake far from the beach, for she would need the tree cover to get a head start. Just beyond the shoreline, a wooden craft manned by two soldiers slid slowly across the water—perhaps toward the island, perhaps as a means to search the water, Athena couldn’t say just yet. Dumping one dagger into her bag, she gripped Enbarr’s luscious mane and hauled herself onto his back. The beast protested slightly, stomping his front legs and swaying back and forth, but Lugh calmed him with soothing words Athena hadn’t the capacity for at that moment.
“Wait,” Lugh hissed, catching her leg before she kicked sharply at Enbarr’s side.
“What?”
“Strike me first.” He stepped back and gestured to his face. “I will tell them you overpowered me before I drew my weapon. Then I may remain in court unsuspected.”
Athena blinked down at him. From the look on his face, it seemed he expected her to protest. She wouldn’t. Without a word, Athena slashed at his face with her blade, using his openness and unpreparedness to make the injury appear real. And it certainly did. She cut him from beneath the left eye down and across to the right curve of his chin, narrowly missing those beautiful lips. Lugh stumbled back with a harsh breath, a hand hovering over his face. The wound wasn’t deep. It might not even scar.
Her mouth opened. She even went so far as to inhale softly again—but then thought better of parting words. She’d made enough of a fool of herself recently. Instead, she urged Enbarr on, hoping her faith in Lugh hadn’t been wholly misplaced.
As the horse thundered across the near-black lake, rippling starlight reflecting back at her, her vision blurred once more. Scowling, Athena brushed the back of her hand under each eye. Pathetic. No man should make her shed this many tears. Not now. Not ever.
