by Nicole Thorn
“Devil man,” I laughed, throwing a leg around his waist.
Someone knocked on the door.
I huffed. “They can’t wait for us to get going before they interrupt?”
Zander snorted, getting off me. “I think that would hurt worse.”
“Yeah, but then I’d be within my rights to scream that they have to go away and come back in five or ten minutes. Now, I have to get out of bed, stuff my sexual frustration into a nice little vault, and pretend like I’m not annoyed. That’s a lot to ask a girl this early in the morning.”
“It’s almost ten.”
“Shut up.”
Zander tried the door and found that it would open. I trusted that meant we wouldn’t get in trouble for talking to whoever had interrupted us. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me to find Heracles standing on the other side, looking as bored as he had when he’d been in our house. “Ready?” he asked, his arms crossing over his chest.
“For what?”
He cocked an eyebrow, looking at Zander like he was a moron. “For the first trial.”
I squeaked. “Zander goes first?”
Heracles sighed. “I don’t know. Come on.”
We followed him out into the hall. He knocked on the other two doors and got my siblings and their demigods. Then he brought us to an elevator that… didn’t belong in the hotel they’d put us up in. The inside of the elevator had bright gold etchings and deep red colors, with just a hint of black. I got the distinct feeling that we were in a magic elevator, and that was awesome.
“So, you’re not going to tell us anything about what they have in store for us?” I asked Heracles when it became apparent that the elevator ride would last longer than a normal one would’ve.
“Not allowed,” he said. “You need to go into your trials without any forewarning or preparation.”
“Well, okay,” I said. “But don’t they usually give their heroes some warning, like in the stories and stuff.”
Heracles smiled and turned to look at me with eyes that didn’t match his expression. “Being a hero is overrated,” he said. “And if they give you information, be very cautious about taking it. The gods like to play games.”
“But they need us,” Zander said.
Heracles nodded. “They need you. They need you to be stronger than you are now, and you should always keep in mind that the gods will do whatever they think is necessary to achieve that. Literally anything.”
The elevator dinged. I blinked, coming back to reality. The doors opened, and I gaped.
We stepped out onto a stage. Not like in a theater, but a production stage, like one would find on a game show. The floors were white, the walls were white, the lights were blue. A crowd sat in stands directly across from the elevators, filled with people that I had never seen before in my life. Those people cheered, jumping up and down when we stepped onto the stage.
Oh, I did know two faces in the crowd. Aster sat in the front row with Micha, neither of them looking particularly happy to be there.
And then there was…
“Callie?” I asked.
She turned around to look at me, a bright smile on her face. Her orange hair had been straightened and pinned to her head in a tight bun that showed off her face and freckles. She had on makeup that made her skin look smoother, almost like a porcelain doll. The red vest and black pants she wore only drove home why she stood on this stage with us.
The microphone she lifted to her lips confirmed my suspicion. “And there they are,” she said. “The seers and their demigods.”
I looked up to see our faces staring back at us from a big screen. “This. Is. Awesome,” I said.
“I hate everything about my life right now,” Jasper muttered.
Kizzy nodded, grabbing his hand. I didn’t know, but I thought she squeezed the life out of it. Zander looked around as well, rubbing the back of his head. “Are the gods really… televising this?”
Callie came scurrying over to us, while Juniper buried herself against Verin, who said he felt sorry for all the people who would be ashamed of themselves after they saw what he was capable of. When Callie reached us, she panted, “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” I asked, jumping forward to give my friend a hug.
She returned it without hesitation, much to the crowd’s pleasure. They clapped and stomped their feet. Poor Aster and Micha looked even more baffled than they had before.
“I would have warned you if I had known what was happening myself,” Callie said, then huffed. “But no one tells me anything. You would think that the gods would treat me better, but no. I didn’t even get a chance to pack. One second, I was sitting on the kitchen table with my legs wrapped around Aster, and the next, I land butt first on this stage. They told me that I have to announce this, and then they wouldn’t tell me what the hell that meant, and then all the gods started talking at once, and ugh!” She threw her head back. “It’s been a day.”
“I hear that,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.
Zander cleared his throat. “So… you’re really announcing the trials, like a game show host?”
“Yes.”
“And they’re actually televising it?”
“Yes.”
“To who?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Everyone that’s in Olympus and their demigod children they think deserve to know. That’s who’s in the stands. Zeus’ kids.”
I glanced at the stands, which had a hundred or so people. I resisted the urge to ask where the rest of them were, thinking that Zeus probably wouldn’t appreciate it and I didn’t want to come off as bitchy on Olympian TV. That didn’t feel like a good sentence. Nope, not at all.
“One minute!” someone called. I looked over to see someone standing by a camera with a clipboard. I didn’t know what to think about that, or anything happening around us.
However, I felt pumped for the trials. I jumped up and down, grinning. “Let me go first. I know that I can nail this thing and set the tone for the rest of the trials. It’ll be perfect. I’ll be perfect. You’ve never seen anything so perfect.”
“How about you don’t go first,” Zander said. “I’ll go first so we’ll know what kind of trials we’re talking about. If they’re combat or if they’re mental. You know so that we don’t have to worry.”
“Or, and hear me out, you let me go first and stop worrying.”
Zander frowned at me.
Callie smiled. “You don’t get to decide who goes first.”
My shoulders slumped. “Aw.”
Zander sighed in relief.
Callie patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll all do fine, and everything will be okay. Let’s just focus on this trial and we can worry about why the gods are such lame-o’s later.”
“Ten seconds!” the producer looking person called.
Callie turned back to the crowd, putting the microphone up to her mouth. I had about two seconds to prepare myself for everything about to happen, and then, “Welcome back!” Callie said, beaming at the crowd. “We’re starting our first of twelve trials today. The gods have picked the order, they’ve picked the trials, and the first person up is…” Callie took a breath, rolling her eyes at us in clear exasperation. “Kezia Dovetree-Nelson!”
Kizzy’s eyes widened, and she turned to look at Jasper.
He glared at the crowd when they started to cheer. This, naturally, did nothing to make them stop cheering. Kizzy continued to look petrified, even as Jasper turned to her. He cupped her face in his hands. “It’ll be fine. So, there are more people watching than we thought there would be. You can do this.”
She still looked petrified.
Then magic slammed into us. I stumbled back into Zander, who grunted when it hit him as well. He whipped around to stand in front of me so that he could block the magic that battered against his back. His teeth ground together, bared against the brunt of it.
“What are you doing?” I growled.
&
nbsp; “Move guys,” Callie hissed. “They’re trying to get you off the stage. In the rudest way possible, I might add.”
I took Zander’s stupid arm and pulled him forward. The magic pushed the five of us into a little corner room, isolated from the rest of the stage. A door closed, blocking us off from the crowd and Kizzy. Jasper looked nervous for the first time.
One of the walls lit up, becoming a television screen through which, we could watch Kizzy. She had taken two steps toward the door we had vanished through.
“Kizzy,” Callie said, holding her hand out. Kizzy took it and the two of them stood on the stage together, both looking worried. Callie paused for a second, then swallowed. “Are you ready?”
Kizzy looked back at the room, then nodded. “Yeah, okay. Ready.”
A door opened up behind Kizzy and Callie, one that led to a large field, filled with people. It looked like a park.
Jasper closed his eyes.
I shifted around, uncomfortable. I wanted to rush through the door and stop the entire event before Kizzy had to do something that would hurt her. Next to me, Zander tensed, also ready to jump to his sister’s defense. And none of us could really do a goddamned thing, because we had been locked in a tiny cell.
Callie swallowed. “Kizzy, you have to go into that field and find a flower. This flower used to be one of Zeus’ lovers. Hera turned her into a flower so that Zeus could never lay with her again.” Callie frowned, shifting her feet. “This park is about to be converted into something more industrial. It is your job to find the flower and save her before she is destroyed. You have one hour.”
Kizzy had her arms wrapped around herself.
Callie nudged her and whispered something off mic that we couldn’t hear. “That doesn’t sound too hard,” I said. “How hard could it be for Kizzy to find a flower that used to be a person? She just has to go up to the flower that feels different. Hardly a test.”
Jasper shook his head. “They’re not testing her ability to find a flower with magic in it.”
“Then what?” I asked.
Kizzy walked through the doorway that led to the field. The ‘camera’ followed her, never shaking, getting too close, or too far away. Thus, proving that it wasn’t a real camera. Almost the second Kizzy stepped through, someone looked over at her; interest filling the woman’s eyes.
“Shit,” Zander said, shifting around.
“Oh,” I said, a frown creasing my face. Kizzy didn’t like being around people. She’d been abused by one of her foster mothers in the worst way that a person could be abused. It had left its scars, and the gods decided to poke a stick right into it to see if the wound would re-open.
Kizzy walked away from the woman, keeping her head down and trying to avoid looking anyone in the eye. I couldn’t imagine what went through her head as she found a secluded tree to kneel by. She pushed her hand against the ground, closing her eyes. She didn’t notice the boy coming up behind her. He couldn’t have been much older than Kizzy herself, and he plastered a smile onto his face.
He spoke in a language I couldn’t understand, but I assumed he had said hello. Kizzy jumped up. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
The boy frowned, a line appearing between his brows. He spoke again, slower, as if assuming that she was stupid or something.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Kizzy told him, backing away. She didn’t notice the little girl spinning in circles behind her. My sister-in-law ran right into that little girl, who fell over and started to wail.
Kizzy whipped around to help, but the little girl’s mother came rushing over. An angry spate of words spilled from her mouth, in the same language as the boy had spoken. She glared at Kizzy, gesturing for her to get away.
“C’mon,” I whispered. “You can recover. It’s fine.”
Jasper had a grim look on his face. I thought that if the gods had stood right in front of him, he would have punched them in the face for what they had done to his wife. “She’ll figure it out,” he said, in a tone matching his face.
Zander began to pace. “She’s not going to figure it out. They should have let me go with her. I could’ve kept her safe.”
“That’s the point of us staying here,” Jasper said.
“I don’t give a shit what the point is!” Zander snapped at him, glaring. “She needs me, and I’m stuck in here.”
Jasper sighed, turning back to the screen. “She’ll figure it out. Just watch.”
Zander shook his head, still pacing.
I didn’t know why he had such little faith in Kizzy to do what she needed to do. But if Jasper thought that she’d manage it, then I had to think that she would. Jasper knew her better than anyone in this room, Zander included. Though he would never admit that to anyone.
Kizzy, still trying to get away from the angry mother, ran into another man. He seemed much kinder than the others since he gave her a grand smile and said something in that same language. Kizzy disentangled herself from him and ran away, to another tree that could shelter her. She knelt down, breathing heavily, her eyes closed. After a moment, it looked like she gathered herself.
Several people in the park watched her, and I wanted to smack them down. I didn’t like how they stared. Had they never seen a girl breakdown before? It happened all the fucking time where I came from.
Kizzy pushed her hands against the ground again. This time, when someone approached her, she glared at them and barked the same words that the mother had yelled at her. The person put their hands up and walked away, looking stung. In all fairness, just because Kizzy looked pretty didn’t mean people had the right to bother her. She should’ve been able to go to a crowded park without getting hassled.
“How much time has passed?” Zander asked, still pacing and refusing to look at the screen.
I tugged on his hand, bringing him to a stop. “It’s been twenty minutes. She’s got enough time to find the flower and save it. Calm down, Zander. She’s got this.”
He shook his head.
Kizzy’s eyes opened, and she jumped up, jogging through the field. People turned to stare at her but looked away when she glared at them. Kizzy came to a stop by a little copse of wildflowers. One of them, a bright red flower that had pink tipped petals, stood out amongst the others. Kizzy knelt down next to it, and her magic started to get to work. Callie’s voice filled the room. “She found it!” she announced. “Kezia Dovetree-Nelson has found the flower. She’s extracting it from the ground, roots and all!” She sounded so excited that I smiled.
Kizzy stood up; the flower clutched to her chest. She looked around, clearly waiting for someone to bring her back.
The TV went black. I turned around to see Kizzy standing in the middle of the stage, the flower still clutched to her chest while two big men pushed a pot toward her. She set the flower down in the soil and worked a little magic so that it would be safely encased in the dirt.
Then she turned to us while the crowd cheered. She ran to Jasper.
Zander still hadn’t relaxed. If he was going to be like this for all of the trials, I didn’t know how we would survive them.
Zander
“A nd how do you feel, Kizzy?” Callie asked, thrusting a mic in front of my sister’s face. She stood there expectantly as we all sat in a lounge with more food than fifteen demigods would have been able to eat. Kizzy sat on a gold sofa with her husband, trying not to twitch or look at the camera.
“I’m glad the flower is okay,” Kizzy timidly answered, her eyes darting from Callie to the camera and back.
Jasper took Kizzy’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Callie smiled in their direction before a sort of sick look came over her, and she turned back to the camera. “Aww, so sweet. And there you have our first competitor and winner of these trials of Olympus. I know all you folks at home are excited for our young heroes here in their adventures.”
Jasmine stood beside me and behind the camera, loading up a plate of goodies. I wasn’t hungry, so I
didn’t bother partaking in the food that looked too indulgent even for me. I didn’t especially like the bottles of alcohol in the corner, but Jasmine hadn’t even looked their way, too distracted with the food. She turned my way, offering a sandwich I wanted nothing to do with.
“And how do you feel right now, Jasper?” Callie asked, holding the mic to him. She shot a look at the camera. “Because we couldn’t possibly imagine, so we need it spelled out for us apparently.”
I smirked to myself, before Jasper said, “I’m also glad the flower is okay.”
Callie walked over to Juniper and Verin on a loveseat, making herself smile at the camera. “And to everyone at home, are the two of you looking forward to your trials?”
Juniper said nothing, glaring at the camera. Verin leaned forward to the mic, grinning wide. “I, for one, am perfectly confident in my and my family’s abilities to decimate each and every one of these trials with little effort. Throw anything at me and see what I can do.”
Again, Callie had been smiling for the most part. Her eyes went distant for half a moment before she rolled them. Halfheartedly, she turned back to Jasper and Kizzy. “And can we get a kiss from the happy couple?”
“No,” Kizzy said flatly.
Callie laughed sharply, giving a nod to Kizzy before she addressed the camera. “And there you have it. Keep tuning in to watch our first victor and our upcoming exclusive interview with our next contestant. You don’t wanna miss it!”
Callie sighed when her broadcast ended, tossing her mic down before she took a seat beside Jasper. “Sorry. I feel gross.”
Verin reached over to pat her knee. “It’s all right. We don’t blame you.”
“I just wanna go home.”
The door to the green room opened and a girl walked inside. She had a tray of drinks with her, bright pink and bubbling. I already didn’t like it, but she held them out to us. “A gift from the gods,” she said.
“Is it alcoholic?” I asked when Jasmine grabbed one with her free hand.
“Not at all,” the girl said. “This is Olympus water with a light strain of ambrosia in it. A small boost as a reward for Mrs. Nelson’s victory.”
