The Sky Throne

by Chris Ledbetter

  “Then we are just going to have to find them. What now?” Shade asked, determinedly.

  “I have something that might help.” I held up the scroll.

  “What in Gaia’s name is that?” Hera asked.

  “Interesting you should ask,” I said.

  “Hey, I asked as soon as you hit the door,” Shade argued.

  I raised my forefinger in the air. “But, Hera knows what this is. You, my shady friend, do not.” I spread the scroll on her desk. “This is—” I stopped. “Wait, someone’s missing from the party.”

  “Little Miss Metis,” Hera said, wiggling her head. “Can I slap her already for spearing you? Damn, she irritates me. Told you I had a bad feeling about her.”

  “Hopefully she’ll show up soon,” I said slowly, still unsure of my certainty about Metis.

  “Or maybe she’ll get abducted,” Hera crowed.

  “That was nasty. And unfair,” I said before I could stop myself. Hera inched backwards, studying my face.

  “Look, I don’t hate her. But I definitely don’t like her. Tell you what,” Hera said, disappointment thickening her voice. She leaned so close to me, I could feel her shallow breaths on my cheek. “When she proves herself to me, I’ll let her be. Until then—” She backed up and swept her arms wide.

  As Hera and I explained to Shade how we got the scroll, I remembered Don’s misgivings, overlaid by Meter and Tia’s encouragement. I pictured Atlas’ grasp on Metis’ arm, and her sunken disposition at the wrestling match. By contrast, Hera had proven herself time and again. If anyone would have my back through thick and thin, it would be Hera.

  “But we couldn’t read it. It was blank when we opened it.” Hera continued the rest of the story. Then she turned to me. “So why, again, did you bring us this bloodied up scroll that we can’t read?”

  “Ahhh, there’s the rub.”

  “What?” Shade asked.

  “Look.” I unrolled the scroll again. Hera placed small rocks on the edges to hold them down. It took a few moments, but then the same thing happened. The words appeared; the letters in striking yellow rose against the muddied hue of the blood.

  “I’d spilled some blood on here and the words appeared,” I said. “But to see the entire message, I had to rub more blood on there.”

  “Oh, rub,” Shade mumbled.

  We read the words over and over. Silently. Aloud. And they sunk in.

  “And, Rhea told me something interesting today too about cosmic dust. That it is the essential ingredient in the nectar we drink—”

  “Even I knew that,” Shade said.

  I paused and drove my fingers through my hair. “Let’s get to the Sky Throne.”

  Hera’s eyes widened. “Wait, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Shade clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “But what if Ouranos is up there?”

  “I guess we’ll have to stake it out and slip in once he leaves,” I said. “He can’t stay in there all night, can he?”

  “And what about the warnings to stay off the Throne?” Shade continued.

  Hera and I looked at one another. Our thoughts threaded.

  “Nothing great was ever achieved without risk,” Hera said.

  I grabbed the scroll and rolled it up. “Let’s go. And before we step out of here … think about the happiest moment you had in lower school so that Rhea doesn’t suspect anything.” We headed down the earthen path out of student housing. Once the path turned to white pebbles, we stepped to the side so that our footfalls made less noise. As we did, I noticed Meter’s flowers along the path were wilting in her absence. I swallowed hard.

  The Observatory came into view.

  We climbed the steep steps, and then crept close to the door, which stood slightly ajar. It should not have been. I bit my thumbnail and glanced around to see if anything else was out of place. Ultimately, I poked at the door to open it a little.

  A slice of air escaped as the door swung wide. I cursed myself for not opening it with more control. My muscles tensed as we tiptoed over the threshold. I braced in case someone was there who shouldn’t have been.

  “Absorbed into metal, the bearer calls the tune,” I muttered as I gazed at the metal Hurler posts stacked in the corner. “What do you suppose that means?”

  “It obviously means they’ll turn into some sort of musical instrument,” Shade said. “A lyre maybe? A bell?”

  “I don’t know if it’s that literal. But, I concede I don’t have a better idea.”

  “Well, I definitely can guess what happens if it absorbs into your flesh,” Hera said. “And I’m going to find out. Who’s coming with me?” She strode toward the stairwell leading to the Throne.

  I loved Hera’s drive. Her ambition. Her fire. Shade and I followed her, stepping over the disturbing debris that Ouranos had not bothered to clean up since his return. As I looked around, it occurred to me that, if Tia had indeed been taken, she had put up quite a fight. I beamed with pride even as I clenched my fists at the thought of someone harming her.

  Hera climbed the stairs upward through the nearly vertical tunnel. Then she stopped abruptly, causing a chain reaction. I slammed into Hera’s back. Not entirely uncomfortable. Shade bumped into the back of me.

  Hera yelled up the tunnel. “What in Tartarus are you doing up there?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The hair rose on my arms as I tried to guess who was up there threatening the Sky Throne and drawing Hera’s ire. Hera climbed until she appeared to be perched in mid-air. My eyes bulged in disbelief. More unbelievable than that though was the sight of Metis standing high above her.

  “Get your ass down from there!” Hera dug into Metis verbally. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I could ask you the same,” Metis replied with an icy demeanor.

  “I knew you were trouble!”

  “You know less than nothing.” Metis raised her hands above her head. “Your entire world is set to crumble upon your head and you can’t even see it.”

  Hera backed up and her voice dropped an octave. “Now, what do you mean?”

  “Yeah, what in the Underworld are you talking about?” Shade called over my shoulder.

  “You’re right,” Metis’ voice rose. She tossed her hands in the air. “You’re right, Ms. Smarty Pants. I was sent here to woo Zeus to transfer to Othrys. To stack up their War Games team.”

  My mouth gaped. And I could barely breathe. It felt like hands squeezed my heart and throat. And both threatened to collapse under the pressure.

  “I knew it! You—” Hera climbed the stairs.

  “Lock it up, girl. You don’t know the half.” Metis glared at Hera. “Kronos heard the prophecy that MO Prep was going to beat Othrys handily, so he decided to take out everyone one by one until he forced Zeus to join him.”

  It was so quiet between heartbeats I could hear the specks of dust drifting through the air. I wanted to yell, but no words formed in my dry throat.

  “You sat there … during the Oracles’ prophecy and said … nothing!” Hera growled through clenched teeth. “My friends’ lives are in danger and you—”

  “Zeus—” Metis cut Hera off in an abrupt change of demeanor. She descended the stairs and approached me, her hands raised in what appeared to be a plea for understanding. Fat chance. “I’m so sorry. A few months ago, I overheard Kronos talking to his team and he told them that he needed to find this prophesied boy the Oracles mentioned. That was probably when you got attacked on Crete.”

  To think, the attack on Crete actually had nothing to do with Tos and me getting back late that morning. Tos’ flaming pyre flashed into my mind. The spears. The heartache. At least I now knew that the attack wasn’t my fault, even if it didn’t do anything to soothe my guilt. Nor my freshly minted anger at Metis.

  Hyperion hadn’t acted alone after all. Kronos had indeed orchestrated the entire operation. I stared at Metis, memories of
Hyperion’s assault flashing in front of my stinging eyes. Metis had known everything even back that far. The entire time. Through all those talks. The near kisses and near misses. The soul meshing. The spirit threading.

  My cheeks and forehead warmed with the unmistakable pricks of humiliation. A gnawing ache that felt a lot like nausea thrummed in my stomach.

  “I can’t believe you!” I started higher up the stairs. “You said you hoped Tia and Ouranos were all right … but you knew! You knew the plan all along. How could you?”

  “Zeus—” she whispered. Her lips parted as tears filled her eyes.

  “I even stuck up for you when Don warned Zeus about you,” Shade said, shaking his head. The conversation outside the bathhouse with Don roared back into my ears. Warnings unheeded.

  “Were the bruises even real?” I asked. “Did Atlas actually hit you?”

  “Yes,” Metis sighed. “He’s as much an animal as you think he is.” Her voice trailed off. She looked toward the horizon and inched higher on the stairs toward the Throne.

  “You probably lied about your parents and your siblings too, didn’t you?” I asked.

  Hera started to descend the stairs to console me, but I shrugged her off.

  I turned toward Metis. My voice cracked. “How could you?” The words choked out of my quivering throat, if they even made it out of my mouth at all. But Metis clearly had seen the pain on my face. As she stepped down two additional stairs, her face breaking and fathoms of sadness in her gaze, Hera blocked her advance.

  Pressure built in my brain as memories of my brief time with Metis flashed by. Of our insane connection. The kiss in my bungalow. And, as if in a windstorm, each memory flattened out, sticking briefly to my face, searing into my skin, branding itself upon me before flying away. I stumbled and collapsed onto the side of the tunnel, almost knocking Shade back down the stairs.

  Hera approached me. Metis took a step, but Hera swept a frigid glare in her direction. “Don’t. You. Move.”

  Metis stood still as a statue, crying, shaking her hands. The concern on Hera’s face as she moved near me and placed her palm on my cheek warmed and filled me.

  “Zeus, I am sorry,” Metis called from above. “It’s why I’m here right now. It’s why I didn’t come to the meeting at Hera’s cabin. I felt like if I ended it all the voices would stop. The pain would stop.”

  “You were gonna jump?” Shade asked.

  “Atlas caught me cheating on him with Pallas. Pallas liked me and showed me a viable alternative. It was a moment of weakness. Sometimes Atlas can be such a boor.”

  “You think?” Hera chimed.

  “Wait, I thought you didn’t cheat?” I whispered because I couldn’t speak any louder. “That day … by my bungalow … you said—”

  “I know what I said,” Metis continued in a hushed tone with downcast eyes. Her head shook back and forth as she continued. “It was just a kiss. And so to ruin me for Pallas, Atlas threatened to tell the entire school what a whore I was if I didn’t—” Her voice choked in her throat and sobs heaved her chest. “If I didn’t make out with Money while he forced Pallas to watch … to prove what a whore I was, to prove to Pallas that I wasn’t worth pursuing. I spat in his face and he beat me up pretty badly. He said Money wouldn’t want a bruised whore so we’d have to wait till the bruises healed to make good on my end of the bargain.”

  Silence fell like a hammer. Or perhaps I simply heard nothing save the ringing in my own ears.

  “Damn,” Hera uttered with downturned lips.

  At that moment, I wanted so badly to strangle Atlas that I could feel my fingers tightening around his neck, my thumbs digging into his windpipe.

  Metis wiped her eyes. “He said that in the mean time I could perform this little mission Kronos had planned … to come and get you to switch schools.”

  I straightened my posture and an arctic shiver of anger raked through me. “Why would Atlas want me there? He’s done nothing to insinuate that he wants me at his school, much less within any close vicinity.”

  “Because, he’s Kronos’ little puppet. He can’t think for himself. He does whatever Kronos wants him to. He’s utterly under his thumb. All brawn, no brains. He’ll only ever rise as high as Kronos allows him. He would have tolerated you being there to once and for all prove his worth to Kronos. It’s sad.”

  She wiped her eyes and cheeks. “I’m here on this ledge because in my mission to woo you, I got wooed. And I can neither live with what I was supposed to do, nor with what I’ve done. And I can’t go back empty handed. I just can’t. They’ll crush me. But I can’t hurt you either, Zeus. That’s why I’m up here tonight. To end all of this.”

  Hera sat up and turned her head slowly toward Metis. “What?” She looked up into the sky in exasperation. “Gaia have mercy. I don’t believe what I’m hearing. See Zeus, that—” She pointed to Metis. “Is the face of a traito—”

  I placed a finger to Hera’s lips and moved past her on the stairs. I climbed to the highest stair I could actually see.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Metis warned. “I have a splitting headache right now that threatens to cleave me in two. I’m just waiting for my nerve to build and give me the strength to do what I must. You weren’t supposed to find me up here.”

  Our eyes connected across the space. She stepped higher on the invisible stairs, but her eyes looked like they were getting closer to me.

  I found my voice. “No, Metis. Stop.”

  “What? Zeus, let her jump!” Hera said. “She was getting ready to feed you to the wolves anyway. She already stabbed you in the back. She—”

  “Hush … ” I whispered. The voices in my head were loud enough without adding hers. I glanced down at Hera. In many ways, we were cut from the same tunic. But, I couldn’t let Metis go out like that. No matter what her mission had been, she’d abandoned it now.

  After all she’d done, all her deceit, I should’ve thrown her off the stairs myself. But I couldn’t. I looked at Metis and I just … couldn’t.

  “So tell me this, why hasn’t Kronos just killed me himself when he had the chance?”

  “A couple of reasons.” Metis sniffled. “One, you can never truly know what the Oracles intend. They speak in triple meanings. So to kill you outright is foolish. The Khaos Council would punish him severely for that. And two, he probably thought he could outsmart the Oracles. Keep your friends close. Your enemies closer.”

  Kronos’ offer ran through my mind.

  “You want to be all powerful don’t you? I can give it to you.”

  “Join my school. My team. You and Atlas can fight it out for team captain. To the victor, the spoils.”

  “Consider my offer, boy. I’ll not make it again.”

  Bastard.

  I reached a hand upward. “Metis come down here.”

  She didn’t move. We stared at one another for a painful moment. She looked wistfully into the distance and inched higher on the stairs.

  “Don’t make me come after you.” My tone had a sliver of bite to it.

  “Great.” Hera sighed.

  “Are you sure you want her with us now?” Shade asked. “There are only three of us left in this mess. We can’t afford to have untrustworthy people in our camp.”

  “Besides, you’ll never go up there after her. Heights, remember?” Hera folded her arms, leaning all her weight on one leg. “Zeus, please—”

  I turned back to Hera. Hurt and disappointment shaded her eyes. She would never have said it, but I know she felt my desire to save Metis was a betrayal of sorts. One thing was certain, though. I couldn’t leave Metis up there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I reached my hand out again. “Metis, I promise no one will take your head off. Come on down.”

  Hera groaned. “I’m not making that promise—”

  “Hera, please … ”

  After a few moments, Metis inched her way down the stairs. The clos
er she drew, I saw how overrun with tears her eyes had become. Her eyes were the color of storm clouds and bottomless sorrow. It broke my heart. She fell into my arms and I embraced her.

  The skin-on-skin contact ushered transference of energy that was undeniable. At that moment, I knew I still had to protect her. I also knew that Hera was watching, but it was the right thing to do. Metis needed me. And we apparently needed her for her knowledge of our adversaries.

  She trembled as she returned my embrace. A leaf on a tree threatening to fall to the earth. A stiff gust could’ve ended it all. But inside her, I saw a stronger spirit.

  We all climbed back down to the Observatory. The infinite lights of the night sky, the moon, and the stars shone upon us. I sat on the ground while Hera paced like a caged animal. No one spoke.

  Shade broke the silence. “Well, that was intense. I need something to drink that’s a little stronger than nectar.”

  Hera inhaled deeply, and then sighed. “I suppose we should go ahead and do what we came up here for, before we got … sidetracked. I’m going up to see if I can absorb some cosmic dust into my skin. You know, just to see what happens.” The grumble in Hera’s voice pained me.

  “What’s this about?” Metis asked.

  Hera cut her eyes at Metis, and then continued toward the stairs.

  “You’ll see,” Shade said. “If it works.”

  We all climbed upward again. I reached out for Hera when she arrived at the top of the stairs, missing her tunic by less than an inch. She kept climbing out over nothing, those peculiar invisible steps. I hated them. Who would make invisible steps anyway? Especially ones that jutted over a deep gorge.

  She climbed high enough that against the night sky, I could actually see the iridescent specks drifting past her. They glowed against the darkened sky. She stretched her arms wide. The dust washed over her. Several specks stuck to her skin.