by Lucy Roy
“Most likely.” I crossed my arms across my chest. “Tessa, if I remember correctly, when we spoke previously, you blamed the Olympians for Pandora’s existence, not Epimetheus. Yet here you are, annoyed with a disgraced Titan. Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess because Zeus and the rest of them were still fighting a war?”
“What do you mean?”
She shifted in her seat. “I mean, okay, on Earth, I never thought it was fair to fire rockets from the sky at people who are fighting with guns on the ground, but when you have the better weapons and better ideas, you come out the victor, right? That’s the whole point of war—to win.”
She sighed and shrugged.
“I just have a problem when some jackass’s sex drive overpowers common sense and contributes to mankind’s potential downfall. Zeus may have handed Epimetheus the bomb, but he didn’t detonate it.”
A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth. “That is…quite the oversimplification, but I do agree with you. And please, Tessa, keep your voice down. Calling a Titan a jackass isn’t the type of first impression you want to make.” I glanced at the dais, but it didn’t appear anyone was paying us any attention.
She let out a small huff. “Sorry.”
“You truly don’t feel sympathy for Epimetheus at all?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “Why are they here, anyway? Are you allowed to tell me?”
“There have been rumblings lately of an uprising of sorts. The Titans—most of them, anyway—who are free and have been living peacefully for the last several thousand years want to avoid another war just as much as the Olympians, so a few have been reaching out, trying to rebuild alliances.”
“Who’s still around that can rise up against the Elders, though? And why didn’t John and Analise tell me any of this?”
“All guardians were given explicit instructions to keep quiet about it. This isn’t the kind of news that leaves the Mountain until necessary. As far as who can rise up against Olympus, well, there are still some Titans who haven’t gotten over Zeus’ rebellion, and a number of larger groups who’d be willing to offer their support.”
“Okay…So which ones are still in a tizzy?”
“A few.”
“Ah.” She nodded. She looked around, seeming to feign interest in a nearby table of recruits. When her eyes darted back toward me in a movement that was so infuriatingly female, I couldn’t help but smile.
“Alright. What do you know of the war with the Titans and the time surrounding it?”
She shrugged. “The basics, I guess. Cronus imprisoned his kids to keep them from killing him, Leto hid Zeus so he could set them free, they rose up against Cronus and his allies, kicked their asses at Thessaly, booted most of them to Tartarus, and now the Elders rule Olympus instead. What else is there to know?”
“Well, to start, not many Titans who fought the Olympians are still locked away in Tartarus. As they were the figureheads for the Titans’ side, Cronus and Iapetus—the twins’ father—are the only ones who remain. Zeus released the others, including Menoetius, the twins’ other brother, claiming the time they’d served was sufficient punishment but left Cronus and Iapetus to serve an eternal sentence.” I took another sip of water. “It’s why Prometheus is here and not suffering an eternity of torture chained to a rock.”
“So wait, their father is locked down there with Cronus, and they’re cool with being here to stand with Zeus?” She raised her eyebrows. “You guys seriously trust them?”
“They have other reasons, believe me, but all you need to know is that they recognize the crimes that their father committed and want to take their former places on Zeus’ side. They were always his allies, despite what he may have believed toward the end. They all had the same ideas for what peace across the realms looked like.” I cast a quick glance at the dais and saw Prometheus looking in our general direction. “And for the love of all that’s holy, would you please keep your voice down? You’re going to draw attention to yourself.”
“Sorry,” she muttered.
Tessa’s eyes drifted briefly toward the dais. Following her gaze, I saw that Prometheus was looking directly at her, his brow furrowed.
Wonderful.
I was fairly certain that look had nothing to do with her attire, which meant he’d likely heard her not only question his allegiance but also refer to his brother as a jackass.
Shaking my head, I moved on. “Recently, Ares received word from one of the higher ranking Ischyra on Earth—a man named Cornelius, who’s stationed in Athens—of rumors that some of the more malicious factions on Earth have been gathering. Demons, the Sirens, the empousa, and some others. We believe Menoetius has been attempting to round them up so he can form a coup.”
“Menoetius as in the twins’ brother?”
“Yes, and before you ask, he distanced himself from his siblings long before the war began. He and his brothers have been at odds for millennia.”
Servers arrived just then, so she leaned aside to allow them to put plates of olives, goat cheese, and arugula in front of her. The pitchers on the tables were topped off, and carafes of wine were placed alongside them.
“So is that a legitimate concern?” she asked.
“Ares thought it important enough to bring to the Elders, and they felt it was credible enough to tell the rest of the Ischyra on Earth to keep their ears to the ground, so to speak.”
She opened her mouth to respond but stopped when Eric appeared behind her and leaned down to speak into her ear.
“Can I get my seat back now?”
A look of annoyance crossed her face before she pasted on a smile. “Yup. All yours.” She turned back to me. “Talk soon?”
I nodded, and after she moved back to her regular seat, Eric eyed me speculatively, then returned to the conversation at his own table and I turned back to mine.
Once the plates had been cleared away, I watched the Ischyra recruits as they began to mingle with the other guests, laughing and getting to know the mentors they’d be working with for the rest of their training year.
Tomorrow, they’d each find out what their powers were, and from there, they’d be sent off to their mentors to learn how to use them
They seemed solid enough. Each had their quirks, of course, but I could see that they were all loyal; they would do the job they’d been chosen to do.
Hopefully, once they realized what that job truly entailed, that wouldn’t change.
13
Tessa
“Well that was interesting,” Yana muttered as we walked from the portal field to our dorm. We all had been pretty quiet since we’d left the Agora.
“You mean the part where the twin Titans showed up?” Mary pulled open the door to the girls’ hall and we all filed through behind her. “I’m not sure ‘interesting’ quite covers that.”
Once we entered our hall, most of the girls went off to their own rooms, but Mary, Anette, Yana, and I were all way too amped up to go to bed. After saying goodnight to the others, we settled into the room Yana and I shared to recap the night.
“I don’t know,” Anette said, idly twirling a piece of her white blond hair. “I don’t see why this is such a big deal. I think it is good to forgive crimes, yes?”
“Epimetheus didn’t commit a crime, Anette,” Mary snapped. “He made the most epic fucking blunder of all time when he accepted Pandora from Zeus.”
“Yes, he may have made a mistake, but it’s not as though he sought her out,” Anette pointed out. “Zeus brought Pandora to him, offered her as a gift. It is not the Titan’s fault that Zeus tricked him.”
Yana spoke before Mary could respond. “Mary, do you not consider Zeus’ creation of Pandora an ‘epic fucking blunder’ as well? Why are you not more angry with him?”
With a sigh, I laid down on my bed and pulled a pillow over my face as I waited for the bickering to die down. This type of argument was longstanding; many of our kind felt Zeus was mostly at fault and Epimetheus
was just a victim of his cunning. Others felt Epimetheus should have heeded the advice Prometheus had given him when he told him not to accept gifts from the Olympians. He didn’t, so for some people, he carried the bulk of the blame for humans being plagued with evil.
Despite the amount of blame I placed on him for how things turned out, I often felt sympathy toward Epimetheus. He’d married the woman he loved, only to watch her die the moment they consummated their marriage. I couldn’t imagine that kind of pain, especially considering the events her death set in motion. Malevolent creatures on Earth, previously limited in numbers, multiplied by the thousands, leaving nothing but chaos and destruction in their wake, all thanks to the magic released when she died.
“Of course I’m angry with Zeus!” Mary exclaimed. “What he did—tricking Epimetheus like that—well, it was awful. But he’d just come out of a really big freaking war. He thought he’d been betrayed by his allies, so he retaliated.”
“But Epimetheus did not betray him!” Yana shot back.
“Zeus didn’t know that.”
“Mary, I think you are a smart girl,” Yana said with a shake of her head. “You know as well as I do that the only reason Zeus was able to find forgiveness from humans is because he had more power and opportunity to make amends than any of the Titans.”
“But did Epimetheus try? Tell me, Yana, what exactly did he do over the last three millennia to try and redeem himself? At least Zeus tried to make things right when he created the Ischyra.”
“Ah, so that is where your problem lies!” My roommate threw her hands up. “He didn’t try hard enough to redeem himself. What exactly would you have had him do? He was powerless! And we all know the only reason Zeus created the Ischyra in the first place was because the other Olympians forced him to!”
“Prometheus tried to help,” Mary shot back. I could hear the telltale wobble in her voice that told me she was trying to force calmness into her tone. “He loved humans so much, he risked his life to help them when Zeus allowed all those monsters into our world. He was tortured for years for helping them. All Epimetheus did was run into hiding,” she said bitterly.
Anette held up a hand to stay Yana’s response, then faced Mary.
“So what do you suppose we are to do about it? Refuse to work with the Titans? That is hardly an option. We do not even know why they are here. For all we know, they will be gone tomorrow.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, I’m so sure that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
I jerked the pillow off my face and sat up. “Fires of the fucking Underworld, Mary! Enough! It’s late and I want to go to bed. Please save your sarcastic judgmental bullshit for tomorrow when we actually have some answers.”
The other girls sat in stunned silence. Mary and I glared at each other for a moment before she huffed and turned away.
Yana cleared her throat. “There is no point to arguing whether we think they should be here.” She held up her hands and shrugged. "The Elders would not bring them without cause, so don’t you think we should just wait to see what their reasoning might be?” Mary shot a glare at her, but she ignored it. “Look, Zeus did pretty awful things to those two. I am betting something major has changed to bring them all back together like this.”
Mary huffed. “Well, what do you think that is?”
I contemplated telling them everything Nathaniel had told me, but I was too tired to get into that hornet’s nest. I hadn’t even told Mary; I’d just given her a vague, ‘He said we’ll hear about it at training’ answer after speaking with him.
“How should I know? I just got here,” Yana shot back. “But we all know our own Elders are the ones who created Pandora in the hopes that she would royally screw up the human world.”
“Yeah, well, I bet if Prometheus, the god of freaking forethought, had told them it was a bad idea, they might’ve listened,” Mary grumbled.
“What is the point of being pissed about all of it now?” Yana asked. “It is done. They all did shitty things that led to us being here today. Period.”
“Okay!” I raised my voice to cut the argument off where it was. “Again, I’m exhausted, and I think Yana is, too, so how about we all get some sleep?”
Mary looked like she wanted to argue, but she settled on shooting a death glare in my direction before following Anette out.
After we said our goodnights and got ready for bed, Yana and I sat in silence for a few moments.
“Did you have fun tonight?” I asked.
I couldn’t come up with anything more creative, but I wanted to steer the conversation far away from Elders and Titans. Her pursed expression when the girls had left made it seem like she was still irritated.
She sighed and punched at her pillow to fluff it up. “I did. I met quite a few interesting people that I’m excited to work with. You?”
“Yeah, it was cool. I talked to this one guy—Christopher, I think his name was—who’s an Elemental, a Tempest. I always thought I wanted to have an affinity for fire, but the stuff he was telling me he could do with wind—tornadoes to clear your enemies off a field, that kind of thing—sounded kind of awesome.”
“Oh, that does sound interesting! I used to always think affinities involving wind were…weak or something, you know? This just reminds me how much I have to learn.”
“Agreed. So do you have an idea of what kind of affinity you want? Is there something that’s always fascinated you?”
She considered for a moment before answering. “Well, when I was younger, my guardians introduced me to a woman who was an Electrokinetic. I watched her shoot lightning from her fingers and hit a spot three meters away.” She sounded a bit awestruck. “Could you imagine how useful that would be if you were in a battle?”
I laughed. “Could you imagine how useful that would be anywhere?”
She was silent for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet. “Are you nervous for tomorrow?”
“I am.” I picked at a thread on the pale gray comforter that covered my legs. “I mean, it’s amazing, right? We’re about to become superheroes. It’s kind of weird that I’m still so nervous.”
She let out a small laugh. “Yes, I would say amazing is accurate. Did your guardians ever explain the ceremony to you?”
“Yeah, a few years back. You?”
“Only recently. They told me our powers will be…pulled from our minds? Is that correct?”
“More or less. They’re already there, they just need to be awakened.”
“By a Mentalist, correct?” she asked.
“A Coercer, from what I understand.”
“Do you know if it will be the man who spoke tonight?”
I shrugged. “Rudolfo? Most likely. There aren’t many and he has to be pushing fifteen hundred years.”
I stood to pull some pjs out of my top drawer and thought back to my own experience with a Coercer. The vision I’d seen when Nathaniel had immersed himself into my mind had nearly shattered me. I shuddered to think what the reaction would be if that happened in front of a hundred other Ischyra and gods. The last thing I needed was for the Elders to see me buckle under that kind of mental pressure.
“Tessa?”
Yana’s voice snapped me from my thoughts.
“Yeah? Sorry.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, I promise, I’m just tired.” I looked over at her and gave her a half smile. “I think I just need to go to bed.”
My roommate looked dubious, but she didn’t press further. “Of course. We should probably get some sleep. I hear having someone poke around in your mind can be quite an ordeal, so I’d like to be rested.”
That’s putting it mildly, I thought.
As we lay in silence, with only the light of the pale moon outside, I contemplated if or when I’d be able to share my nightmares with her. I knew there was almost no chance I’d be able to keep them from her if they started up again, but I also couldn�
��t see myself feeling comfortable talking to someone I barely knew about the horrific things I’d seen with Nathaniel.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, I snuggled down in my bed and began replaying the events of the day in my head. So much had happened. I’d said goodbye to my guardians and old life and arrived at Olympus. I’d met other Ischyra and my fellow recruits. I caught my first glimpse of all the Elders in one place, traveled through not one but two portals, and discovered that our arrival was apparently timed perfectly with a brewing rebellion.
And tomorrow I’d travel to the Agora, and my powers would be awakened.
It was almost too much to wrap my mind around. I began to feel a trickle of panic stir within me, and I struggled to force it back down. After a few moments, I rolled over on my back and slowly fell into my old routine of counting backward from five hundred. It was a trick Analise had taught me and was always a surefire way to help clear my mind.
After a while, my brain finally slowed down enough for a deep sleep.
14
Tessa
I awoke the next day to the pale blue light of morning streaming through my window and birds chirping quietly in the trees out back. The clock on my nightstand told me it was half past seven; fifteen minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I groaned, hoping that I’d eventually be allowed to sleep in on a regular basis. At least until nine. Or ten.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the smooth white ceiling as I went over what the rest of the day might bring.
Today, I would find out what my affinity was. In just a couple of hours, I would be immortal. I would know what my powers were and who would teach me to use them.
“Are you awake?” Yana’s sleepy voice sounded muffled under the comforter covering her face.
