The Petros Chronicles Boxset

by Diana Tyler

  When lightning flashed, Chloe could make out a bearded face among the clouds. “Zeus,” she murmured under her breath.

  The army beneath Zeus’ clouds halted as Apollo’s chariot landed near the enemy lines, a spear’s reach from the front-rankers. But instead of advancing toward him, they laid down their weapons and fell to their knees, then lifted their palms in supplication. As if in response to their surrender, an eagle swooped down from the ether and circled overhead, crying out triumphantly in sharp, staccato shrieks.

  Sounds of lament drowned out the eagle’s taunts and the bird perched on Apollo’s shoulder. A thunderbolt crashed behind the chariot’s carriage and dragged itself along the ground, directed by Zeus’ unseen hand. A wide fissure was left in its smoky wake.

  Chloe gasped. She could almost smell the sulfur of the Underworld rising out of it. The defeated foe had no choice but to march toward it.

  Hermes leaned back from the clock. The light, and the war it depicted, faded instantly. “The War of the Titans,” he said, his voice quavering. He looked haggard, as if the clock had aged him fifty years. “Five hundred years after that, it was Zeus who was deposed, and all the Olympians with him.”

  “So that machine is like a live-action history book?” Ethan asked.

  Hermes looked at the space on the tent wall where the grisly scene had been depicted. “One’s own history can be seen through the pýli. Every smile, every moment of ecstasy, every tragedy and tear. It was created by the Cyclopes to preserve the memories of the immortals.”

  Chloe willed herself not to pity him. She had to remember that Hermes had been deceiving people for eons. If his present distress was genuine, it was the least of what he deserved. “What does that have to do with us?” Her cold tone was harsher than she’d intended.

  Hermes stood. “I have a theory that the pýli’s capabilities transcend reflection into the past. Its guardian, Mnemosyne, seemed to indicate as much when I encountered her at Othrys.” He locked eyes with Chloe and planted a hand over his heart. “As surely as I stand before you, she told me she’d been waiting for something, or someone, called the Vessel. She said this after your brother informed her that he was from a future time.”

  “And where is this Mnemosyne person now?” Ethan said, drumming his fingers along the hilt of his sword.

  Chloe was almost positive that Ethan still didn’t know the first thing about sword fighting, but even so, she was still grateful he had it.

  “In Tartarus, I would assume,” Hermes said. “Her abode was close enough to a portal for Apollo, or one of his minions, to hear our conversation.”

  “Sounds like ol’ Lykaios Apollo doesn’t want us to have the film projector,” said Chloe.

  Hermes scrunched his brow. “The what?”

  “That,” Chloe said, gesturing to the clock.

  “Indeed.” Hermes sighed. “He knows the cycle of conquest better than anyone. Each day he’s driven by his maddening fear of subjugation. He also knows the oracle, and has stationed spirits and Pythonians throughout Petros to inform him of any rumors of the Vessel. Should it emerge, and emerge it has, he’ll be ready to act.”

  “Why are you telling us this?” Chloe asked. “Don’t you fear subjugation, too? You’re on his side, remember?”

  Hermes’ cheek twitched as he glanced up at the door.

  If he wants to leave, he’ll have to use it, Chloe thought. Right now Ethan was blocking his way. “Aren’t you on his side?” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  IMMORTAL

  Leto stood in the doorway looking at Hermogenes, who lay on his bed, his chest rising and falling peacefully. It was just the two of them now. For ten years she’d dreamed of becoming Hermes’ bride and eclipsing Persephone’s legend. Now a new prospect burned inside her heart, that of wedding power alone and erasing the immortals from memory. Mania—fury—would supplant Apollo, Hades and Hermes, and Duna in heaven would quake as his renown also drew to an end.

  But one thing stood in her way, something her sleeping son possessed.

  “You forgot to gag me,” said Damian from his shackled spot in the kitchen.

  Leto ignored him. Hermogenes stirred and turned onto his side. What had her own father thought when he watched her sleep? Had he wondered what doma lay dormant in her veins, the way she wondered now as she stood over her own offspring? If her father had survived to see the first storm she ever conjured, what would he have done?

  She already knew the answer. He would have used it to carry out his mission. Within an hour, he would have decimated the temple in Eirene and murdered its priests in cold blood, just as he’d intended before Iris thwarted him. Not a single soldier would have been mobilized, for Leto’s doma was more powerful than a hundred armies combined. Together, as mortal counterparts to Zeus and Athena, Hermes and Leto would have ruled the world.

  This fantasy is what most consumed Leto’s thoughts when sleep eluded her, which it did almost nightly, ever since the oracle had been given. She dreamed of a palace all her own, and lavish banquets with the finest meats and delicacies. She pined for festivals devoted solely to her and her father, of standing within a chariot in the midst of a grand parade. She longed to hear the people chant her name and adore her as the women of old adored Demeter.

  But more than the wealth, the tributes and adulation, Leto wanted reunion with her father, whose spirit, thanks to Iris’s fire, was now adrift in some hazy vale of the Underworld. The instant she became queen of all, she would free him and put Hermes in his place. Hermogenes would understand. His father had never loved them. Even the crude plan arising in her mind was for her son’s own good, and if he was wise he would realize it one day.

  “Just so you know,” said Damian, “my sister is one of the smartest girls in school. I’m pretty sure she knows you’re using me as bait.”

  Leto turned and strode to the kitchen. “Is that supposed to concern me?”

  “I’m just saying, you could be waiting a long time if you think she’s coming here to find me.”

  “And what’s her alternative?” She sat down at the table and crossed her legs comfortably. “She’s your sister. Do you mean to tell me she’ll leave you here to suffer my cruelty?”

  Damian popped both thumbs and gazed off toward the stone dolphins.

  “Your reticence tells me you think she would leave you here.” Leto poured a cup of wine and sipped it slowly.

  Damian’s eyes jerked back to hers. “No. She’s not like me.”

  Leto set down her cup and leaned forward, chin resting in her hands. “Ah, how terribly fascinating.” She smiled and waved at him. “Go on, I love a good story. Especially a tragedy.”

  He knitted his brow and leaned against the hearth beside him. He felt like a mouse trapped beneath her cat’s paw; he had no choice but to let her toy with him. “She was kidnapped and taken to Hades, which at the time I thought was just a made-up place meant to scare little kids into following the rules.”

  Leto laughed. “I once thought the same, until Hermes emerged from its depths. I’ve never had the privilege of visiting the realm of the dead, but I would wager that he represents it rather well.”

  Damian’s eyes shifted to the mountains, their peaks washed white by the moon and stars. “It was a miracle she made it out of there. No one helped her.” His eyes fell to his tattered shoes. “Including me. And with my doma, I could have.”

  “So,” said Leto, taking a long, satisfied drink of wine, “even in the future, mankind is as heartless and selfish as it is today.” Damian turned away from her the same way that Hermes did whenever her conversations with him went sour. “I don’t say this to condemn you. I state only an objective truth, namely that the nature of man will remain unevolved till the end of time.”

  “People are not always selfish,” Damian said.

  “Of course not. Feeding my child is unselfish, as was my choice not to stop Hermes’ heart with a lightning bolt this afternoon. But when our lives are at stak
e, or our most sacred desires, our strongest impulse tends to supersede all virtue. And that impulse is pride, of honoring, favoring and preserving ourselves above all.”

  Panther wagged his tail and curled up next to Damian’s hip. The dog always lay next to Leto on chilly nights. Whenever there was noise, even the faintest rustling of leaves outside the courtyard walls, he barked and burst from the door to seek out signs of trespassing. She’d lost count of the number of times he’d tempted Hermes’ wand by snarling at him at midnight, daring him to come one inch closer toward his mistress.

  Panther was perhaps the only selfless creature Leto had ever known. His sole purpose and favorite pleasure was keeping her safe. She’d done nothing to earn his loyalty or protection, and yet he behaved as though he owed her his life.

  “I don’t understand,” said Damian. “You talk about selfishness like it’s a plague or something, and yet everything you do is selfish.”

  Leto rose, accidentally stepping on Panther’s tail. The dog yelped and ducked under the table. As she knelt in front of her prisoner, an owl, Athena’s most beloved bird, hooted from atop the dolphin fountain.

  “Tell me,” she said, “what did you feel that day you chose to leave your sister in Hades?”

  Damian shrugged. “I don’t know. Anger, fear…”

  “And a modicum of guilt, I’m sure,” Leto added. “But your innate sense of self-preservation prevailed, as it always does. It does no good to fight it.”

  She stood and tilted her head toward the twinkling stars, which seemed to be peering down at her like a thousand inquisitive eyes. “The way I see it, Damian, those with the strongest wills are those to whom life is kindest. I was created to be an outcast, as were you, but I, and I alone, create my destiny. If that’s selfish, then so be it.”

  “And is it your most sacred desire, to use your phrasing, to become better than the gods?”

  Hearing the edge of amusement in Damian’s tone, Leto pointed at the gray owl, which was still watching from a distance. “The owl is Athena’s bird. It symbolizes her wisdom because of its talent to see clearly in the black of night.” With a yell, she reached toward the heavens and pulled together myriad clusters of clouds. “But even this goddess, for all her valor and sagacity, is not invincible.”

  The newly formed thunderhead crackled and groaned as light began to flicker within it. In the next breath, a red streak of lightning ripped from its belly and struck the owl at the first flap of its wings. The bird dropped to the ground, a tousled heap of feathers on the paving stones.

  “That owl didn’t do anything to you,” said Damian. “You didn’t have to kill it to make a point.”

  Leto divided the storm cloud into harmless wisps and sent them floating over the mountains. “Did you not hear what I said? The owl belongs to Athena. And I will tolerate no creature, no matter how virtuous or lovely, whom the gods have claimed.”

  “You can play god all your life, Leto, but what happens when you die?”

  She smiled, the sting of her doma still pulsing in her fingertips. She’d been waiting for him to ask her that.

  “You’ll die and go to the Underworld,” continued Damian, “just like everyone else who doesn’t believe that Duna is the All-Powerful.”

  Leto went to the table and snapped her fingers in front of Panther’s face. The hound sprang up, eager to hear her command. “Take the owl, Panther,” she said, pointing at the dead bird. “Go!”

  The dog dashed into the courtyard and happily carried away his supper.

  “The answer to your question is simple,” she said, stirring her wine with a ladle. “Ambrosia.”

  “Ambrosia? The stuff the gods eat?”

  “Precisely. It’s their lifeblood. And my way to immortality.”

  A look of bafflement crossed Damian’s face as he stared down at his shackles.

  Leto reached forward and grasped his arm, feeling his muscles tense beneath her hand as he leaned away. “Your sister is going to help me get it.”

  “She won’t help you. No matter what you say to try and convince her.”

  “Oh, but I think she will.” Leto reached for the knife hidden in her girdle and pressed its blade to Damian’s throat. “As you said before, she isn’t like you. She won’t leave you to die.” She trailed the blade lightly around his neck, laughing when he flinched and shut his eyes. “At least you’d better pray she doesn’t.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  FREEDOM

  There were few things Chloe missed from her time, but one of them was definitely a cup of hot coffee. The sunrise, although beautiful with its peaceful shades of peach and lavender, was hardly enjoyable when seen through stinging, sleep-starved eyes. The music of the morning birds might as well have been clanging cymbals or violins played by toddlers; each note exacerbated the splitting headache that had been going strong since midnight, the hour Hermes, Ethan and the others had finally gone to bed.

  I wonder if Hermes’ wand can make coffee? Such were Chloe’s thoughts as she gazed into the cirrus clouds, imagining them as froth on the top of a mouthwatering cappuccino.

  “Tea?”

  Chloe jumped. Iris sat down next to her on the hillside, a stone’s throw from the breakfast bonfires now starting to flicker.

  Chloe looked down at the nondescript cup of tea. It smelled like dirt. “I was just daydreaming about having a cup of coffee.”

  “What’s coffee?” Iris set the tea between them.

  Chloe’s mouth twisted. How did one describe coffee? “It’s like tea. But better. A thousand times better.” She rubbed her head. “It’s especially good when you’re sleep deprived and feel like crap.”

  Iris tapped the rim of the cup. “So is this. Try it.”

  Chloe held the cup in both hands and tried not to inhale. She would rather suffer her headache than drink liquid dirt, but she didn’t want to be rude. “What is it?”

  “Ironwort.” Iris said the word as if it were the most poetic in the universe. “It’s one of Petros’s most healing herbs.”

  “No wonder it smells so bad.” Quickly, before she could talk herself out of it, Chloe took a sip, immediately fighting the reflex to spit it out. The bitter concoction slid like slime down her throat. “Ironwort’s a good name for it.”

  “It isn’t pleasant to drink, but it’s good for you.”

  Chloe fought down another swallow. “I have a feeling you mean that metaphorically.”

  Iris smiled and leaned back onto her hands. “Perhaps I’m speaking of Hermes, too. I can imagine that forgiving him, let alone trusting him, is not an easy drink to swallow.”

  Chloe thought back to just hours before, when Ethan had given the pýli contraption a whirl. She hadn’t been there in the Folóï Forest when Hermes had appeared to the Rosses and Damian. Five seconds into viewing the encounter, the mystified messenger had melted to the floor and alternated between covering his eyes and groaning as he watched, like a nosy pedestrian gawking at a car crash, his future betrayal play out. Within minutes, he had been virtually apoplectic.

  The second the scene showed Hermes handing Ethan the seeds that guaranteed the mortals’ safety, he let out a terrified cry and pulled Ethan back from the machine. Once he regained his composure, Hermes sheepishly admitted that Damian had been right; Hermes’ fate was to help the Ashers.

  “You should have seen Hermes when he foresaw the future,” Chloe told Iris. “I’ve never seen a man look so afraid.”

  “Becoming an enemy of Apollo is no small thing,” Iris said.

  Her blue eyes dimmed, and Chloe couldn’t help but wonder what memories were flashing behind them.

  “Not to mention,” Iris added, “until he trusts Duna to light his path, he’s wandering aimlessly through a self-made darkness, with neither a purpose to fulfill nor a home to return to.”

  Chloe shuddered as Hermes’ impish face flickered and grinned in her mind’s eye. “He’s the one responsible for the literal hell I’ve been through. How can I trust so
meone whose purpose up to now has been to destroy me and my family?”

  “Don’t trust him.”

  Chloe drew up at Iris’s words. “What? Really?”

  “Forgive him. Only then will you be able to see him clearly for who he is.”

  “But he didn’t even ask me to forgive him.” Chloe spilled a splash of tea as she set it on the grass. “He probably doesn’t even know what ‘apology’ means.”

  Iris sighed, then reached out and touched the jasper stone that hung from Chloe’s neck. “My mission in life, after I received my doma, was to avenge my brother. Day and night, the only thing I could think about was killing the man who ordered Jasper’s execution. It was my purpose, or so I was convinced, to assassinate every last Alpha and Pythonian who had brought such pain and sorrow to my people. I felt I was doing what Duna had neglected to do. I thought I was being just.”

  Chloe’s breath caught in her throat. She reached again for the tea. “And what were you really being?”

  “I’ve had many years to ponder that same question, and there are many answers that suffice.” Iris reached into a small satchel attached to her belt. “Ethan told me about the cave your father was exploring before he died.”

  “Ethan said my dad found seven jars in there that had something to do with the Moonbow.”

  Iris nodded and closed her fist around the object she’d pulled from the pouch. “The jars are now with Gennadius in Limén.”

  “And Aspasia?”

  Iris froze. “Aspasia died six months ago. Did I tell you about them?”

  “I met them when I traveled back in time,” Chloe said, “before we came here and stayed at their house. Charis was just a little girl.” She smiled and placed a hand on Iris’s shoulder. “You and Tycho gave me some great advice then. You’re good at that.”

  Iris smiled and lightly touched Chloe’s hand. “They took me in when I was like Hermes, wandering, searching…running from Duna.” She plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between her fingers. “The dried calendula flower Aspasia gave me has a sacred jar all its own. Its orange petals represent healing, and the hot desert sun that would expose my need for it.”