Jennifer Estep Bundle

by Jennifer Estep

  The Valkyrie gave me another dirty look before she slung her purse over her shoulder and stalked out of the dining hall.

  Chapter 9

  The rest of the day dragged by, especially Professor Metis’s myth-history class. I stared out the window again, wondering if Daphne would really show up at my dorm room and help me with Jasmine’s computer or if the Valkyrie would stand me up and rat me out to someone—

  “... given the terrible tragedy and shock that we’ve all experienced, I thought that we would talk about the Bowl of Tears today and its importance in the Chaos War.” Metis’s soft voice cut into my musings.

  My head snapped around to her. Metis was going to talk about the Bowl? The one that had been stolen? This might actually be useful, instead of the usual stuff that she went on and on and on about. All the talk about gods and goddesses and warrior whiz kids that I didn’t quite believe. At least, that I hadn’t quite believed before this week. The jury was still out on that one.

  I wasn’t the only kid who was suddenly showing more interest. Everyone sat up straighter and stared at the professor.

  Metis told us to look at page 379 in our myth-history books. I flipped to the page, and there it was—an illustration of the Bowl of Tears, the same bowl that Nickamedes had shown me in the library. It looked the same as I remembered. Round, brown, dull, plain. It didn’t look like much of anything, certainly not like some powerful artifact that was worth killing over.

  “Loki was always a trickster god, playing pranks on his fellow gods and mortals, but eventually, his mischief turned to evil, and his tricks became cruel. Among his many crimes, Loki was responsible for the death of Balder, the Norse god of light. Loki tricked another god into throwing a mistletoe spear at Balder, which pierced Balder’s heart and killed him,” Metis explained. “As part of his punishment for that and his other crimes, Loki was chained below a giant asp, or snake, which constantly dripped venom onto his face. A very harsh form of torture. Loki was supposed to stay there for all time, locked away so he could never hurt anyone again. But, of course, he eventually tricked Sigyn, his wife, into releasing him, and escaped.”

  “So where does the Bowl come in?” a girl across the room asked.

  Metis smiled. “Patience, Skylar. We’re getting to that. Now, the Bowl you see in your books is the one that Sigyn used to collect the snake venom. Despite his crimes, Sigyn loved Loki very, very much, and she held up the Bowl over his head, catching as much of the venom as she could to keep it from dripping on to her husband and burning him. But by standing there Sigyn also exposed herself to the venom, which severely burned her hands and arms.”

  It sounded to me like Sigyn was kind of ... dumb. Loki was the one who got another god killed, not her. She should have let him be punished for it, not tried to lessen his pain, let him escape, and hurt herself in the process. Or maybe I was just being bloodthirsty since the cops had never caught the drunk driver who’d plowed into my mom’s car. I wouldn’t have minded seeing him, whoever he was, chained up under a giant snake with poison, acid, or whatever dripping all over his face.

  “When the Bowl filled up, Sigyn would have to empty it, which let the venom drip freely onto Loki’s face, causing him unimaginable pain. When Sigyn came back with the empty Bowl, before she would lift it up again, Loki’s tears would drip into it, mixing with the venom. That’s why it’s called the Bowl of Tears,” Professor Metis finished.

  She told us to turn the page. There an illustration showed a giant snake curled around a tree, its head hanging down, its jaws open wide enough to reveal its curved fangs, a drop of fluid hanging off the end of each of them.

  Loki cowered beneath the snake. The pen-and-ink drawing showed the god in utter agony, his mouth open in a silent scream, the muscles in his neck and arms bulging with the strain of trying to break free of the magical chains that bound him. His features were blurred in the drawing, but half his face looked like it was melted off. Because of the venom, I supposed.

  “So, we know why Loki was chained up the first time—his actions resulted in the death of another god. But why was Loki chained up a second time centuries later and why does he remain imprisoned even now?” Professor Metis asked.

  “Because he started the Chaos War,” Carson piped up in front of me.

  “Yes and no, Carson,” Professor Metis replied. “Loki was chained up because he was Chaos. Each of the gods has his own place in the natural order of things. Loki was a mischief god. But Loki wanted more than to just pull pranks—he wanted to rule over the other gods. Over everyone and everything, gods, mortals, and all the creatures in between. Loki was smart and very, very clever. He knew that he couldn’t overthrow the other gods by himself. He didn’t have the power for that. So he started talking to others—gods, mortals, and all the creatures in between—whispering of how things would be different, of how things would be so much better, if he was in charge. He went from being a mischief god to sowing discord, to turning people against each other, to making them lust for power and do anything to get it—even kill each other.”

  I got the sense that it was a little more complicated than all that, that perhaps Metis was dumbing it down for our teenage minds, but I got the gist of things. Loki: bad. Other gods: good.

  “Eventually, Loki convinced others to follow him, and he created his own army of gods, creatures, and mortal warriors. He called them the Reapers of Chaos. And when he had enough followers, when he’d amassed enough power, Loki came out of hiding, rose up with his army, and challenged the other gods, who banded together with their own warriors and creatures to form the Pantheon,” Professor Metis continued. “So the Reapers fought the members of the Pantheon, and the world was plunged into the Chaos War. Brother turned against brother, sister against sister; families were torn apart, slaughtered, or worse. It went on for the better part of a century, and Loki was on the cusp of victory when one god dared to challenge him to single combat. And who was that god?”

  Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Somehow, I knew the answer even before Metis said the words.

  “Nike, the Greek goddess of victory,” she finished. “Loki laughed, but he agreed to Nike’s request, that the winner of the battle would also win the war. Which meant that the Chaos War would either stop or consume the entire world.”

  By this point, we were all on the edges of our seats, even me, Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who didn’t really believe any of this. We all wanted to hear how it ended, how Loki was defeated when all hope was lost. Even if it wasn’t true, it was still a great story, as good as any of the comic books that I had stashed in my dorm room.

  “Of course, Loki thought he would win,” Metis said. “He had grown impossibly strong by that point, and no one god, warrior, or creature could stand up against him. But he forgot one small thing—that Nike was the goddess of victory.”

  “So what?” a Viking guy asked behind me. “What did it matter if she was the goddess of victory if Loki had all this power?”

  That was pretty much the same thing that I was thinking. But instead of being upset by his question, Professor Metis gave him a triumphant smile.

  “Because Nike is much more than just the goddess of victory—she is the very embodiment of it, the very spirit of it. Just the way that every god is the essence of something. Nike is victory herself, and thus, she can never be defeated.”

  Metis paused, letting us all try to wrap our minds around that odd statement. Nike, a kick-ass warrior goddess. Got it. Like Xena, but cooler.

  “But Nike wasn’t without help. She took her great sword of victory into battle, along with a special shield given to her by one of the Spartan kings. And there were other artifacts that the members of the Pantheon used to overcome the Reapers. With Nike at all times was a single warrior, a personal guard who killed all those in the goddess’s path so that she could reach Loki unscathed. Loki, of course, being the trickster that he was, tried to have Nike assassinated before she could reach him for their battle, but Nike’s guard
kept that from happening.”

  Metis paused a moment to catch her breath. A rosy flush painted her bronze cheeks, and her green eyes glinted behind her silver glasses. This was the most excited and animated I’d ever seen the professor. She must really enjoy talking about this particular battle. She was certainly making it come alive for me.

  “So Loki and Nike fought a great battle. And it wasn’t just them alone, fighting. All of their followers were there as well. Reapers and members of the Pantheon. Some historians claim that the battle lasted for days; others say it was weeks. But when she finally got close enough to strike, Nike did what no other god could do—she defeated Loki.”

  We flipped over to the next page in our textbooks, and there was a pen-and-ink drawing of Nike.

  The goddess towered over a man on the ground beneath her. Her sandaled foot rested on his chest, her sword against his throat. A round shield hung down by her side. She looked proud, strong, and somehow serious all at the same time. Even though it was just a drawing, there was a cold, hard, terrible sort of beauty to her.

  Her regal figure was in stark contrast to the man at her feet—Loki. He looked the same as he had in the other illustration. His mouth open in an angry scream, his eyes narrowed to snakelike slits, his melted features twisted into something dark, dangerous, and ugly.

  For a moment, the image flickered in front of me, the figures moving back and forth as though they were real, as though I was actually there watching the battle with my own eyes. I could smell the blood, feel the thick smoke clogging my lungs, hear Loki’s vicious curses ringing in my ears—

  I blinked. The feelings vanished, and I was once again looking at a simple illustration. That was a little creepy. I leaned back away from the book. Okay, a lot creepy.

  “After the battle, Nike and her followers chained Loki once more, sealing him away from this world, the mortal realm, with the help of the artifacts that they and the Reapers had created. To this day, Loki remains imprisoned. But he still has his followers, his Reapers, people, gods, and creatures who want to free him and plunge the world into a second Chaos War. Which is why all of you are here.”

  Metis’s bright green gaze went from student to student, face to face, until she’d looked at everyone in the room, including me. “You are all the descendants of the Pantheon’s finest warriors, here to learn how to control and harness your magic and fighting skills so you can protect the world from Reapers and keep them from freeing Loki and plunging us all into a second Chaos War—”

  The bell rang, cutting off the rest of Metis’s lecture, but she’d captivated the entire class with her talk. Several students blinked, shaking off the spell of her words, before reaching for their bags. I did the same.

  I got to my feet and had started to head to the door with the others when Metis waved at me.

  “Gwen,” she said. “Stay a minute, please.”

  I did as she asked, sinking back down into my seat. A few of the other kids, including Carson, looked at me, thinking that I was in some kind of trouble. I wondered if Metis knew that I’d broken into Jasmine’s dorm room and swiped her laptop. That was the only thing I’d done that could get me into major trouble. But how could Metis know about that? There was just no way she could, unless Daphne Cruz had ratted me out to her.

  Professor Metis straightened a few papers on her wooden podium, then walked over and perched on a desk in front of me. “We didn’t get a chance to talk yesterday, but I wanted to ask how you were doing, Gwen. I know that what happened in the library ... that finding Jasmine’s body was a great shock to you.”

  So she didn’t know that I’d broken into the Valkyrie’s room after all. I tried not to let my relief show. “I’m okay, I guess. Just trying to ... deal with it, in my own way.”

  I didn’t tell her that my own way involved breaking, entering, and blackmail. So far. The day wasn’t over yet.

  Professor Metis stared at me, her green eyes soft and kind. “Well, if you want to talk about it, or anything else, anything at all, please know that I’m always here for you, Gwen.”

  For a moment, I wondered why she was so concerned about me. Yeah, I had sort of witnessed a murder, and I supposed that Metis was just a nice person that way. But I’d never seen the professor until the day that she’d shown up at my grandma’s house and announced that I was going to Mythos. Now, it seemed like she was taking a special interest in everything I said and did—in and outside of class.

  “Um, okay. So can I go now?” I asked, shifting in my seat. “I have an, um, appointment.”

  Metis smiled. “Of course. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. I know coming to Mythos this year has been a bit of an adjustment for you, Gwen.”

  I let out a soft snort. She had no idea. None at all.

  Metis went back up to the podium. I got to my feet, picked up my bag, and started to leave. But then I thought about something that Metis had said during her lecture. Something that had been bothering me ever since I’d come to the academy two months ago.

  “Professor?”

  “Yes, Gwen?” she said, turning to look at me.

  “So if everything you said was true about all the kids at Mythos being the descendants of all these great warriors, then why am I here? I’m not a Valkyrie or an Amazon or a Spartan or a Viking. I’m not anything like that at all. I’m just a Gypsy. There are no great warriors in my family, at least not that I know of.”

  Some emotion flashed in Metis’s eyes, but I couldn’t quite see what it was through her thick glasses. The professor stared at me for several seconds before she spoke again.

  “Not everyone at Mythos will turn out to be a great warrior,” Metis finally said. “Some will be healers, scholars, or teachers. There are many ways to fight Reapers, and not all of them involve using a sword. You have your own gifts, Gwen. You’re special in your own way. You’re here at Mythos so we can teach you how to take full advantage of your powers, of your psychometry. It’s quite a rare gift, you know, touch magic.”

  Touch magic? I wondered what Metis meant by that, since I’d never heard my psychometry called that before. And no, I didn’t know how rare it was because no one had ever told me. It was just something that I could do, something that made me a Gypsy, whatever that really was. Everyone seemed to know but me.

  Metis turned back to the papers on her podium, and I realized that she wasn’t going to give me any more of an answer than that. At least, not today.

  So I slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and left the classroom, once again with far more questions than answers about who I was, what I could do, and why I was stuck here at Mythos Academy—a place where I so obviously didn’t belong.

  Chapter 10

  After class, I walked over to Styx Hall to wait for Daphne Cruz to show up and help me crack Jasmine Ashton’s password like she’d promised. To my surprise, the blond Valkyrie was already sitting on the front steps of the dorm when I got there.

  “You actually came,” I said, walking up to where she was sitting.

  She shrugged. “You didn’t exactly give me a choice, did you, Gwen? So let’s get this over with.”

  I swiped my ID card through the scanner, opened the door, and gestured for Daphne to follow me inside. “Come on in. My room’s on the third floor.”

  I led Daphne up the stairs to my room in the turret. I went inside, threw my bag on the bed, and sat down on my desk chair, right underneath my framed Wonder Woman poster.

  Daphne stood in the doorway, her black eyes scanning over everything just the way that I’d done in Jasmine’s room last night. For a moment, I looked at my things, seeing them with a new eye. My bed with its purple and gray comforter and plump pillows. The crystal snowflake ornaments in the windows throwing out tiny rainbows of color. The bookcases crammed full of fantasy titles. The stacks and stacks of comic books and graphic novels on my desk. The superhero posters plastered on the walls. The half-eaten pack of gummi bears on my nightstand that I’d noshed on last night befor
e going to bed.

  I cringed. Shit. I’d forgotten what a total geek nest my room was. Daphne was the only other person who’d been in here besides me and Grandma Frost, when she’d helped me move in two months ago. The Valkyrie was going to think that I was even more of a loser than she did already. Great.

  After a minute of staring, Daphne stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

  “Where’s Jasmine’s computer?” she asked.

  I showed her where I’d set it up on my desk. “Right here.”

  I got up so Daphne could sit in my chair and have easier access to the laptop. I perched on the bed while she opened up the computer and turned it on. When the system had booted up, the Valkyrie looked at the password screen for a few seconds before starting to type.

  “All right, baby,” Daphne crooned. “Talk to Mama and tell me all your secrets... .”

  Okay, that was a little weird. I didn’t want to break her concentration, so I didn’t point out the fact that the Valkyrie was talking to a machine. Instead, I leaned back on the bed, grabbed the bag of gummi bears, and prepared myself for a long wait.

  Three minutes later, Daphne hit a final key and pumped her fist. “Hah! Gotcha!”

  I sat up. “You cracked it already?”

  “Of course I cracked it already,” she said in a smug voice. “It was just a simple password protection screen. It wasn’t like Jasmine had any kind of real security on her computer.”

  “Well then,” I said, moving to stand behind Daphne. “Let’s see what’s on it.”

  For the next ten minutes Daphne surfed through all the files on the laptop. Most of them were totally boring. History reports, essays, and all the other homework that Mythos students had to do. Lots of music and high-end shopping sites in Jasmine’s Web-browsing history. She even had a database that was solely dedicated to cataloging and organizing all of her designer clothes, shoes, and handbags. Apparently, the Valkyrie liked to keep track of how many times she wore each one of her outfits—never more than once a month. Must be nice. All I had was a different-colored hoodie for every day of the week.