by Amy Braun
They were alive. But they were with the Council of Clouds.
If anything, they were in more danger than we were.
Fighting monsters was one thing. Fighting gods…?
It would take a miracle to win. And the Olympians rarely traded in miracles.
LIAM
THIS WAS NOT how I wanted to spend my Saturday: standing on temple steps and staring down an angry mob.
The four of us stood together, dressed in shiny new silver armor, looking glamorous and awkward while hundreds of voices shouted at us.
And it was our job to keep these angry people from getting angrier.
The good news? Mason was a good-looking scion with a lot of money and cred. He literally owned the largest power company in Néo Vasíleio. Talking his way into and out of deals must be a cakewalk for him.
The bad? Literally everything else.
Ever since the peaceful Union of Seas festival ended with a brawl between much of the pantheon and Apollo, things became rocky between mortals and gods. Olympians and their subordinates had spent the last three months erasing all evidence of what really happened by destroying video footage and altering minds.
The gods placed sole blame on my brother.
I tried not to think about it. My memory was fuzzy but it didn’t seem like something Derek would do. He’d only killed one person before this, and it ripped him apart, even five years later.
But I couldn’t deny that since becoming the heir of Ares, inheriting two elements instead of one, and taking on this whole insane mission, he had changed. He was still my brother and I still loved him, but things were different now.
And knowing the gods had erased memories filled me with doubt (I didn’t feel different, but would I have known my memories were changed?) but I couldn’t un-see the image in my head: Derek stabbing Poseidon and smashing a stone version of Apollo like they were nothing.
“How can you defend them?” someone shouted.
Mason gripped the podium set up for him and looking slick as hell in a crisp, wine-purple suit that complimented his dark skin and black leather gloves hiding his scarred hands. He let his deep voice carry over the heads of hundreds of angry and terrified people.
“I’m not saying the situation is ideal. It isn’t. But I was there. The Olympians reacted in the best way they could. Apollo went on a rampage. It grieved the gods, but he needed to be hunted.”
“That’s a lie!” cried another voice. “Apollo was always good to me! He healed my son when he was sick!”
I winced. It was hard to argue that point, but one good deed didn’t erase two thousand years worth of assholery. My friend Selena had been a testament to that.
Had been. Until Apollo murdered her.
I remembered watching Apollo plunge his sword into Selena’s chest. Her body too still in such a chaotic fight. That was the one memory I hoped had been altered. The thought of Selena dying at the hands of her centuries old tormentor, in front of my brother… it was too much.
I looked at my feet. Shuffled them, fighting the pain. It would’ve been enough to make Derek snap. We had all loved Selena, but Derek… he worshipped her. The thought of him out there, alone, heartbroken, enraged, and guilty… I worried what he would do to himself or to anyone foolish enough to cross him.
I didn’t understand what happened that night. But I did know I needed to hear it from his lips before I decided to do… whatever I was going to do.
“Apollo’s mind became damaged by a magical item,” Mason said. “The Olympians have forbidden me from––”
“Of course, they forbid you,” someone snapped. “They forbid all of us from doing anything! All we do is worship them while they use us as prisoners and playthings.”
“They broke our minds!” a third voice shouted.
I hung my head in shame. With Apollo dead and his first heir, Darius, slain by the gods, the second heir had gone into hiding soon after. Either they believed their life was at risk or they didn’t want to be involved in Olympian affairs.
Both scenarios seemed likely, but it hadn’t stopped the Olympians from scouring Apollo’s region, seeking the heir, and erasing the minds of anyone who stepped in front of them and demanded answers.
I even heard rumors that the gods went so far as to damage the Sight most light scions were born with.
If those were the lengths they went to keep their hold on civilians, standing in their way didn’t seem wise.
The crowd was too angry to see otherwise.
“We’re not here to talk about the laws,” Mason tried, raising his voice to be heard.
“Why not?” another voice shouted. “I heard they were adding new taxes and reforms to pay for all the damage and to keep us in line. Gods don’t need money, so why are they stealing ours?”
The crowd roared again, louder than ever.
I snuck a glance at Thea. She stood rigid, more statue than human, her turquoise eyes snapping from one face to the next. That look had become familiar to me in the last few months. She worried about losing control of her new, god-tier powers. The last thing we needed to happen right here at this particular event. Even without the Trident of Poseidon in her grip––she had chosen to leave it well-guarded in the Clouds, not trusting herself with it––she carried enormous power. The water scions I could pick out from the crowd glared at her with contempt. She rose to what they saw as power and prestige while they suffered a major attack from a rival Olympian.
I turned to Corey and whispered in his ear. “We might need to leave here fast. Be ready.”
Corey blinked his bright green eyes at me. “You think this will end badly?”
“They’re talking about taxes. Of course, it’s going to end badly.”
Corey bit his lower lip and glanced worriedly at Mason, who stood as the mouthpiece of the gods and the voice the crowd looked eager to silence.
Not going to let that happen. I’d already lost my brother and watched a friend die. I was not going to lose anyone else.
“There is no validity to those rumors,” Mason shouted over the angry crowd. “I am here to explain what happened on Pacific Beach three months ago, nothing more, nothing less––”
“What happened is some war scion went crazy and killed two gods!”
Mason hesitated at the podium. The rest of us went still. I felt Thea’s and Corey’s eyes dart to me.
It sounded surreal whenever I heard it. That Derek, who jumped at the chance to protect people and not kill them, murdered not one, but two Olympians. We still could barely comprehend that he had the power to do so. He’d always been powerful, even before his aether manifested. Now he seemed limitless.
What the hell were you thinking, Derek?
“Why haven’t you caught him yet?” someone shouted.
“Why are we being punished for what he did?” came another cry.
“The gods need to leave California.”
I winced. Oh boy. I leaned over to Corey again when another voice yelled.
“And take her with you!”
I whipped my head back to the crowd. The woman pointed at Thea.
“She’s one of them now! What the hell will she demand from us?”
“I heard she was in the Cetea Clan and she turned on them!”
“A criminal and a traitor,” barked a voice that boomed louder than the rest. A voice I knew.
My eyes followed it.
There stood a middle-aged man wearing a leather jacket and dark jeans. He sported graying red hair and hateful green eyes.
Thea sucked in a breath beside me.
Kallis Faidon. Her former foster father. The man who watched his children die and blamed us for it.
“How?” Corey gasped.
Exactly what the fuck I wanted to know.
A cruel smile curled his lips. “Sounds like she’ll fit in with the Olympians after all.”
Thea sucked in a breath. Her fingers started shaking, and she quickly balled them into fists. I could still see the fr
ost of her water magic peeking out from her skin.
I tenderly wrapped my fingers around her wrist. She jumped at my touch and looked at me. Her black hair was styled to spill down her shoulders. Brilliant turquoise eyes met mine. She looked scared, and not because of what the crowd was saying.
“Breathe, Thea,” I whispered to her. “Just take a breath.”
She tried. She really was trying. I rubbed my thumb in gentle circles along her wrist. Her skin was ice cold from her magic, her aura pulsing outwardly so heavily that I would be breathing out frost soon. But I didn’t let go of her hand, didn’t stop whispering meaningless words to calm her down, didn’t––
“And that kid is related to Thomas Areios,” Kallis cried out. “He looks just like him.”
The crowd murmured louder. Shit.
Both meant bad news for me.
I turned again. “Corey––”
“Your father was a murderer,” he shouted. “Your brother is the Godslayer. You stand with the traitor who did nothing while my children were slaughtered.” Genuine pain filled his voice.
I could’ve let this go. I knew when words were words.
But his presence and accusation were the scissors that cut Thea’s control.
Cold frost snaked out of her hands and up her arms. Her aura pulsed in a violent wind. It stabbed into my hand and I reflexively backed away. Mason and Corey took ten steps. The crowd began backing away as Thea’s cold, godly energy pushed toward them. Nervous cries echoed from the crowd. People at the edges of began to disperse and scatter across the street.
Thea squeezed her eyes shut, trying to contain it, to draw the magic back into herself and calm down. I Adapted and warmed my body, then took a step forward––
An arrow of frost shot toward us, fired by Kallis. Instinct kicked in. I grabbed Thea’s icy wrist and yanked her away. Another frosty bolt zipped through her hair, grazing her ear. Thea’s eyes snapped open.
Fury flared in her turquoise eyes.
Thea wrenched from my grip and whirled on the crowd.
“No!” But she didn’t hear my scream.
Thea raised her hands. Frosty magic spiraled up from her palms and melted into flowing tendrils of water—doubling, tripling in size, growing taller than her. Thea whipped her hands, sending the tendrils out into the crowd. The magical water smashed into the first people she saw.
The water hit at least a dozen people and knocked them to their knees. They scrambled away, but the whips lashed around their ankles, torsos, arms before hurling them into the air. The crowd broke into a panic and started to run, jostling and shoving to get away from the goddess.
Thea acted on their confusion.
She twisted her wrists, and the tendrils of water hardened into giant shards of ice. A blustery wind of frost and snow pulled from Thea’s fingertips. She manipulated her element without actually touching it. Not even Derek could do that.
But Thea isn’t just a scion anymore.
The giant shards creaked, and with a burst of power, the edges exploded, sending thousands of shards and thin spikes shooting out from the sides.
The alarmed cries became screams of fear.
I launched myself at Thea. She saw me coming and whipped a hand at me. I ducked and my eyes grew wide at the bolt of ice that skimmed the air above my head. I kept running, watching Mason run for her back. We could catch her in the middle.
Thea was too quick for that.
She kicked Mason in the stomach and stopped him dead in his tracks. She raised her fist, another spike of ice formed in it while I hooked her arm and yanked it behind her back. Thea screamed with rage, thrashing wildly. I wrapped one arm around Thea’s middle, clamping her arms to her sides, and coiled the other around her neck.
“Thea, stop!”
She snarled and snapped her head back. I Adapted my skin and hardened it just as her skull cracked against my face. The hit dazed me slightly, but I kept my grip.
I pressed my hand to the back of her neck and pushed a sleeping spell into her. Thea growled and struggled but started going limp. Powerful as she was, she remained human enough for my magic to take effect. She slumped in my grip as I quickly Adapted my strength to scoop her into my arms.
I glanced at Mason. “You okay?”
He rubbed his stomach and nodded. “Just give my lungs a second to rearrange,” he wheezed.
I turned to Corey. “Get us out of here.”
At that moment, I didn’t care about the crowds, the press, or anyone else around us. Our PR campaign had been royally fucked and we needed a fast exit.
Corey’s specialty.
Body becoming a blur, he zipped over to us. A lean arm wrapped around my back and gripped Thea. His free hand closed around Mason’s. The world tilted, condensed, and then we were gone.
Staying in the Clouds offered some cold comforts. A notable perk was Corey gaining permission from his forefather, Hermes, to teleport us in and out of the Clouds with next to no hassle. The gods would instantly be aware of our return, but it was impossible to break into the Clouds’ wards and barriers without permission.
Didn’t keep us safe from the gods, though.
We landed on pristine white marble. I stumbled, my head spinning from the teleportation and Thea’s weight heavy in my arms. I glanced around the corridor. The Clouds, sometimes called the Council of Clouds and referred to as the new home of the Olympians, was a palace with hundreds of rooms and thousands of corridors. Many of these corridors had lounging areas or marble benches to rest on.
Corey had shifted us to a seating area in a vast space filled with white marble pillars. So vast, I literally could not see the walls or the ceiling. It was just a pale gray space that spanned the length of the sky. The only furniture was a small gray daybed.
I set Thea down on it and placed my hand on her head. Her eyelids fluttered at my magic, and she took a breath before opening her eyes again. They’d turned back to their regular sea-green and white. I offered a tentative smile.
“Hey.”
She looked at me for a long second. Gods, she was beautiful—
I pushed away from her, heat filling my cheeks.
Then she gazed at her surroundings and reality crashed back into her. She pressed her head into the cushions and covered her eyes. “Shit.”
“We’re safe,” I soothed. “It’s all right.”
“It’s not,” she muttered. “You fucking know it’s not.”
“So, it’s true,” Corey said anxiously. “He got free.”
We’d all heard rumors that Kallis escaped shortly after the water scions came to transport him to prison. This was the first time he’d made a public move.
“He knows everything about me, about you, and your brother, and soon he’ll know everything about Mason and Corey, too.” Thea turned her sharp, bright eyes to us. “Trust me when I say he’ll spread all those secrets like wildfire.”
I huffed and shoved a hand through my hair. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. A revenge-crazed mobster was going to start telling everyone that I was the son of a murdering psychopath who tried to end the world and that my older brother was a man who killed gods. Maybe Kallis would even whisper that I ate kittens for breakfast and puppies for lunch.
“We can put out a search party for him,” Mason offered. “The Olympians will want him stopped.”
“He knows how to ghost,” Thea disagreed. “If he doesn’t want to be found, he won’t be.” Another sigh heaved out of her as she stood up. “I’ll meet you guys later. I need some time alone.” Her eyes slipped down to mine. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just…”
I waved my hand like her silence hadn’t mattered. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”
She frowned, not believing me, and swiftly left down the hall.
Thea had been learning to control her new powers with help from the gods. Heirs were the result of two Olympians sleeping together, and one bloodline becoming more prominent in the resulting child. Thea’s bloodline belonged to Pose
idon and Amphitrite, and since she was the only surviving member of her family, she had been selected to replace Poseidon after his death.
But heirs were never supposed to be needed. After defeating and locking away the Titans two thousand years ago, the Olympians had exhausted their powers and fell into a slumber. They awoke again just over thirty years ago to a world that no longer believed in them. All that lack of belief had weakened them, so they created contingencies: heirs.
Along with the Olympians and ancient beasts rising to power in the Re-Emergence, anyone descended from a god or goddess found themselves capable of elemental magic. Heirs were among the most powerful of all. And now that an heir was about to take the place of a god… the Olympians were a little conflicted.
The gods, ever paranoid, did not want to give more power than she needed. Hell, they hadn’t even selected an heir to take Apollo’s place yet. They were the last of their generation, and they were not ready to accept someone new into their ranks.
So, Thea contended with wild powers alone. I could calm her, but it didn’t always work. We were running out of options on how to help her.
“Well,” Mason exhaled, breaking the silence, “here’s hoping we’re off the table for more damage control. Clearly, I’ve lost my touch.”
He tried to make light of the situation, and I appreciated it, but we weren’t fooled. The Olympians used humans as tools, whether for a specific purpose or as a way to pass the time.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “can’t say it was fun.” I dropped onto the chaise Thea had abandoned. “Wonder what’s next.”
Corey and Mason didn’t offer suggestions. They didn’t want answers any more than I did.
I wanted to find Derek. He could handle himself in a fight, but without me or Selena or our friends to ground him, he might slip.
What worried me was that the Olympians hadn’t asked for me to find him yet. They’d barely mentioned him, but Artemis’s cold, furious stare assured me that my big brother was still very much on their minds.
