I’m punishing him, and myself, for the pain I’ve caused, she knew. Theo doesn’t think I deserve to be happy—I’m making sure he’s right by pushing Flint away. She could reach out to him instead, seek solace in his strong arms and unquestioning devotion. But that felt like one more betrayal to add to her list of sins. Instead, she simply crossed her arms on the tabletop and buried her face in her elbows.
Exhaustion overtook her. Maybe Father was right. I need to regain my strength before Olympus. She couldn’t fathom the idea of climbing a mountain anytime soon. Zeus had said he had months, maybe years, before the fading overtook him. I should try to convince him to wait a bit and think this through, she mused wearily. His plan to rush off to Olympus and break open a mythical pit that might not even exist seemed half-baked at best. If I think he’s being reckless, then he’s really in trouble.
She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until a loud crash ripped her from her nightmares. She rushed toward the bathroom as Flint charged out of the other room in his leg braces.
Zeus lay naked beside the bathtub in a steadily growing pool of blood, the red brilliant against the white tile. One leg lay awkwardly over the tub’s lip, the papery skin of his calf torn open on the sharp rail of the glass door. He wasn’t unconscious, not yet. His eyelids fluttered, and his mouth worked wordlessly. His entire body seized and jerked, sending splatters of blood across Selene’s face as she bent over him.
“Help me,” she gasped to Flint, grabbing a nearby pillowcase and making a quick tourniquet on Zeus’s leg. Flint pressed another piece of linen against the wound. She held her father’s head in both hands so he would stop knocking his skull against the floor.
“It’s okay,” she said uselessly. “You just overdid it by going to the Pantheon. You’re going to be fine. Calm down, calm down, Father,” she begged. But she knew the spasms weren’t under his control. His chest heaved; water droplets ran down the stark tracks of his ribs to pool in his hollow stomach. She couldn’t avoid the sight of his penis—a limp, curled worm, nearly hidden by a nest of gray hair. Proud Zeus, lover of a seemingly infinite array of gods and mortals, now unable even to care for himself. She grabbed the bloodied bath mat and laid it gently over his lap.
Flint fetched a first aid kit from the medicine cabinet. In a matter of seconds, he’d bandaged the wound; Zeus wouldn’t die from blood loss. Yet the seizures didn’t stop.
“Please, Father,” Selene whispered, over and over, until finally, after what felt like an hour, his body stilled and his eyes stayed closed. She could hear his heartbeat from where she sat, but she pressed her ear against his chest anyway, wanting the closeness. “It’s erratic,” she said. “And very faint.”
Flint helped her hoist him into the bed. She dried him as best she could, then tucked an extra coverlet around his frail form. Another image flared to mind: her mother in a hospital bed, an old woman swaddled in a thin blanket like an infant. For all the pain of her mother’s passing, at least Selene hadn’t faced it alone: She had her twin beside her.
What would Apollo do now for our father? she wondered desperately. But then she remembered how he’d comforted her when she found him beside the Lake of Mnemosyne—with melody. Selene had never been much of a singer, even in her days as an immortal. The careful constraints of melody and pitch had been her civilized brother’s domain; she preferred the wild abandon of the dance. But now she reached back for a nearly forgotten hymn and sang.
“I will sing of Zeus, chiefest among the gods and greatest. All-seeing, the lord of all, the fulfiller who whispers words of wisdom—Help!” she begged Flint. “Sing with me.”
The Smith tried, adding his own tuneless, rough voice to hers. Finally, Zeus’s eyes crept open. He stared blankly at the ceiling above him.
She kissed his scarred cheek. “I thought you were gone,” she murmured hoarsely.
He clutched tight at her hand. “I will be,” he said, his voice barely audible.
“Stop it. Don’t say that.”
“I tried …” His face twisted with effort. “I tried to tell you. What little strength I have comes in fits and starts, but I’m dying, daughter. I thought I’d have at least six months, but I was wrong. I dreamed again of my fate—my death comes swiftly. Two days. Mount Olympus … Tartarus … It’s the only way. The only cure that can defeat death.” He slipped once more into unconsciousness.
“Seek the Wise Virgin,” Selene whispered. She chafed her father’s hands, willing him to wake up, to come back to her. “Not in Athens is her seat, but where the Virgin is tall. There the cure is the spear that can conquer the greatest foe.”
“What are you talking about?” Flint asked.
“It’s the prophecy.” She explained quickly how she and her twin had emerged into classical Delphi in their journey from the Underworld. Flint listened, wide-eyed. “I’d asked how to save an Athanatos from death,” she added. “I thought the oracle was just telling me how to get home, but maybe it actually explained how to save Father. The Wise Virgin holds a cure to conquer the greatest foe—death itself.”
“So then what was your father saying about Tartarus?”
She related Zeus’s plan to open the ancient prison, throw Saturn in, and let the divine pneuma escape to strengthen them all.
Flint grunted. “I thought we knew only sacrifice could return a god’s lost strength.”
“I know, but my father is the King of the Gods. He may know something we don’t. I thought we had more time, but obviously I was wrong. We have to try to save him.”
“But if he’s right about the pneuma from Tartarus, why do you need some wise virgin’s cure?”
“I don’t know! But Apollo told me that when death comes for those I love, I should remember his prophecy. He spoke as the Pythian God, and it was one of the last things he said to me—I can’t ignore the warning. But I didn’t understand Apollo’s prophecy then, and I understand it even less now. Who holds the cure? The Wise Virgin—I assumed the Pythia was talking about me.” She shook her head. “But no,” she answered herself. “I’m not a virgin anymore.”
She saw Flint tense, but she didn’t care anymore who knew her secret.
“The wise virgin.” He growled. “That doesn’t sound like you either.” He shifted away, as if he couldn’t stand to be close to her. “The oracle must’ve meant Athena.”
Selene flinched, surprised that his words could hurt. He was right; wisdom had never been one of her attributes. And yet she couldn’t help feeling he’d just called her stupid. Anger—more at herself than at him—flattened her lips. Since when do I let a man’s opinion of me matter?
Before she could form a retort to Flint’s insult, Zeus moaned in his sleep and began to shake. All Selene’s ministrations could not soothe him. His heart continued to beat unevenly and too slow. No singing or prayers seemed to help. Flint stayed in the room, but he had no words of comfort or advice.
“Maybe you should just leave,” she snapped at him finally, frustrated by his looming presence.
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Then do something.”
His jaw twitched. “Tell me how to help and I will.” He sounded like a man compelled by forces outside his control. But he didn’t leave. Even now, when he knew she’d shared her body with Theo, he stayed beside her, bearing the blows of her anger like a caged bear with a broken spirit. And I’m the cruel mistress with a whip, Selene thought with a stab of guilt. She felt tears prick at the back of her eyes and took a deep breath to center herself. Flint must have seen the shame on her face because he didn’t ask her to apologize. He simply reached for a glass of water on Zeus’s bedside table and passed it to her.
“Drink,” he ordered. “Your body is still recovering.”
She obeyed, then found the strength to say calmly, “If Athena is the only one who can help, then we need to find her.”
She watched his nostrils flare above his pinched lips. Just like Theo, he wants this to be over with. But unlike The
o, he isn’t walking away.
“The problem is,” she continued, “that she’s been in hiding for thousands of years and doesn’t want to be found. I warned my father that we might need her to make the ceremony on Mount Olympus effective—that must be what the oracle meant. She’s the only one who can cure Father. We have the clues to find her. Her seat is where she’s tall. What does that mean?”
“For Athena, I would’ve thought that meant the place with her colossal statue—atop the Acropolis in Athens.”
“Except the Pythia said specifically, ‘Not in Athens is her seat.’”
Flint grunted, clearly frustrated. “Then I have no idea.”
“What about all your fancy technology?”
“She’s the Goddess of Wisdom. If she wants to stay hidden, there’s no way she’s got a damn Twitter presence.”
Selene dropped her head in her hands. “You’re right. If it was that easy, Scooter would’ve found her a long time ago.”
“And even if you could find her,” Flint said defensively. “You wouldn’t convince her to come. You remember Athena never liked you, or me, or any of the other Athanatoi—especially your father. She won’t listen to us.”
Flint was right. As a virgin like Artemis, Athena had nothing but disdain for the male gods of the pantheon. Her relationship with their father, Zeus, had been strained to say the least. And she was equally competitive with most of the goddesses. It was the battle of egos between Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena that had started the Trojan War. But there was one group to whom Athena had always shown favor: men like Odysseus and Perseus. The great Greek heroes who relied on the Gray-Eyed Goddess to help them in their epic quests, to lend them her cunning, her strength of arms, her indomitable will. All those men had shared the same title: Makarites. Blessed One.
Selene groaned aloud. Theo doesn’t want to help, she knew. And I certainly don’t want to ask him.
But it looks like neither of us has a choice.
Chapter 33
PARTHENONA SOPHEN
It wasn’t hard to find Theo in the Rome airport. Selene went straight to the bookshop closest to the gate for his Athens flight. He wasn’t in the history section—she suspected he was tired of dwelling on the past. Instead, she found him tucked in the corner beside the single shelf dedicated to English-language science fiction novels.
She stood silently for a moment, watching him read. His glasses slipped down his nose; he pushed them back up. She’d seen that gesture a hundred times. Never before had it made her want to cry.
This is a terrible idea, she thought, taking a wary step back. I should never have come. But she thought of her father, so close to death, and cleared her throat. “Looking for a little escapism?”
Theo jumped.
“Christ, Selene! You scared the crap out of me.” He slammed his book closed, wincing at the movement. The arrow wound in his arm, she remembered guiltily. That’s not going to help my case.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. Then his anger swiftly dissolved into desperate misery. “Please don’t tell me you’re on my flight.”
“No,” she said, pretending his expression hadn’t felt like a stab from Mars’s spear. “I’m not meeting Scooter at the base of Olympus for another two days. No point in getting there earlier—it’ll take him that long to help Father assemble the other gods. So I’m not going to Athens yet. It’s the only place I know I don’t need to search.”
He glared at her suspiciously. “Search for what?”
“More like for whom.” She didn’t elaborate. This was a bear better lured with bait than trapped with force.
She watched the conflict play out over Theo’s face. Finally, he shoved his book back onto the shelf and crossed his arms. “All right. For whom?”
“The Gray-Eyed Goddess.”
“I thought Athena couldn’t be found.”
“Has that ever stopped us before?” she asked calmly.
“Us? You’re kidding, right? Why would I possibly help you?”
“Because my father’s life hangs in the balance.” She described Zeus’s worsening health. When she’d left the apartment that morning, his heart had slowed even further, and his skin was icy cold.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” he said, and from the softening of his gaze, she knew he spoke the truth. “I’m trying to help—I’m going to Olympus so a mortal can witness the Gathering, remember? But I don’t see how Athena can do more than the rest of us.”
“I know she can. Because the Delphic Oracle told me so.”
“What? When?”
“After we defeated Aion and the Torchbearers, Apollo and I passed through classical Delphi.”
Theo’s eyes grew huge. “You time traveled to classical Delphi and you didn’t tell me?” He threw up his hands. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bury the lede, Selene?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me,” she said a bit sullenly.
“I didn’t. But …” He groaned loudly, his customary loquacity finally surrendering to wordless frustration.
“Come on, Theo,” Selene urged. “Help me find Athena. Don’t you want to meet her? I thought she was your favorite goddess.”
“I’ve learned that even favorite goddesses can disappoint you,” he snapped.
I deserved that, Selene knew, biting back a retort. “At least help me figure out where to look. The Pythia said, ‘Seek the Wise Virgin. Not in Athens is her seat, but where the Virgin is tall. There the cure is the spear that can conquer the greatest foe.’ But if she’s not in Athens, then where? Where else would Athena be tall?”
Theo’s lips pressed together, and she could sense his resistance. He still didn’t want to get dragged back into her problems. But some combination of his sympathy for Zeus and his usual insatiable curiosity got the better of him. “You received the prophecy in Delphi, so it was in Ancient Greek, right, not English? Tell me the Greek version.”
“Um …” She took a second to retranslate. “Zetete ten Parthenona Sophen. Ou de en Athenais to hedos, alla Hagne pou eukteanos, ekei to akos to akontion hoi ho megistos enantios nikethesetai.”
“To akos to akontion,” Theo mused. “The cure is the spear.”
“Yes. When we find the Virgin, her cure will be the spear we use to conquer death—the greatest foe.”
“So you’re taking ‘spear’ and ‘foe’ metaphorically.”
“Of course. The Delphic oracle should never be taken literally—you know that.”
Theo raised a skeptical brow. “More like you should never trust your first interpretation. Apollo spoke the prophecy in ancient Delphi, after all his immortality had been restored—why would death be his greatest foe? The Olympians’ traditional enemy wasn’t dying; it was the giants.”
“The ones we locked away in Tartarus after the Gigantomachy.” Selene sucked in a breath as she imagined what could happen on the summit of Olympus when the gods gathered to reopen the ancient prison.
Theo echoed her thought. “I’ve been standing here for the last hour, waiting for my plane, trying to distract myself from what we’re about to do in Greece. Because the more I think about opening Tartarus, the more I think Zeus might not have thought carefully enough about what comes out.”
“Father thinks a whisper of pneuma will escape from the chasm, but along with it—”
“Comes a whole army of hundred-armed giants.” He looked grim. “I think your prophecy is telling us all how to survive. Athena was called the Giant Killer. That’s why we need her. And her spear, too. Because there’s not much point if the pneuma comes whooshing out and Zeus is miraculously healed, but then we all die at the hands of your ancient enemies anyway.”
“True. But whether the spear is metaphorical or literal—whether she defends us with her weapon or heals Father with a cure—we still need to find her hiding place. Think.”
Theo raised a brow at her impatience. “I’m working on it.” He rubbed the dimple on his chin. “The Parthenona in t
he prophecy definitely refers to the virgin Athena—that much we agree on. She’s the one with the Parthenon and the spear, after all. But I’m not so sure about ‘alla Hagne pou eukteanos.’ You translated that as ‘where the Virgin is tall.’”
“Because that’s what it means,” Selene said quickly, annoyed that he might accuse her of messing up her mother tongue.
“Sort of. But Hagne is more like ‘Chaste One.’ Pure, holy, inviolable. Any woman who hasn’t had sex—even just a young woman—can be a parthenona. Only one actively resisting sex is a hagne. That’s why Hagne is more commonly used as an epithet for—”
“Me,” Selene finished for him. She could almost see the scene playing across his memory—all those nights he spent in her bed, abiding by her strict rules, until she finally tossed them away one frozen, moonlit night by the banks of the Hudson. Before the thought could derail him—or her—she pushed on. “So Athena can be found where the Chaste One—Artemis—is tall? Where the hell would that be?”
“Eukteanos… Tall like a tree,” Theo began, his eyes roaming the shelves of the bookstore. “Something tells me I’m not going to find an Ancient Greek lexicon hiding amid the Italian paperback thrillers, but I want to look up the definition. I feel like Aeschylus uses the same word to mean—”
“Wealthy,” Selene interrupted with a groan. “Styx. Not ‘where Artemis is tall,’ but ‘where Artemis is wealthy.’ When we were in Delphi, I wasn’t thinking about dual translations,” she admitted. “It felt perfectly natural to me to just assume I understood the prophecy in English, too. But Ancient Greek is full of words with multiple meanings.”
The corner of Theo’s mouth quirked. “Like I said, never assume you understand the Delphic oracle.”
“True,” she agreed. “Like when King Croesus asked whether to invade—” She stopped in mid-thought. “King Croesus,” she repeated slowly.
Theo’s eyes lit up. “You mean ‘rich as Croesus’? That King Croesus?”
She nodded, finally slotting the pieces together. “The legendarily wealthy king who built one of the biggest temples in the history of the world to honor the Chaste One.”
Olympus Bound Page 26
