by Meg Xuemei X
“So, you’re Hephaestus,” I said. “You’re hard to find, dude.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, Cass,” he said. “What took you so long?”
I blinked. I’d expected anything but this. I’d mapped out the whole plan to trick or force him to make the weapon for us.
“Uh?” I said. “It’s not that long, is it? And how do you know me?”
“Every god is talking about you,” Hephaestus grunted. “You’re the shiniest new toy right now. Besides, your mum is in Mount Olympus, campaigning against you.”
“That cunt!” I said, rage drumming in my veins.
Hephaestus blinked at me, not at my anger but at my curse.
“I have no mother,” I hissed.
“Neither do I,” he said. “I’ll call Hera ‘cunt’ next time and can’t wait to see the look on her face.”
His bitch queen of a mother flung baby Hephaestus from the mountain and exiled him, but I winced at the picture of old, ugly Hephaestus calling anyone cunt.
Hephaestus ran a large hand through his oily hair, and again I tried not to grimace. Why was I so vain? He might look revolting, but he was useful.
“The woman who gave you birth said you’re a little monster, the destroyer of this world and all worlds,” the God of Blacksmiths said with an appreciative smirk.
According to legend, Hephaestus had never hurt a thing directly, but he loved destruction so he created weapons for others to run around and do the damage, and he got to watch with a big stupid grin on his face.
And he was clearly a gossiping type.
“A good number of my peers agreed that you’re quite a little monster.” He nodded at me, a vicious gratitude sparkling in his eyes. “You traumatized Phobos and beheaded his bastard brother. Ares is shutting himself in now. For an eon, no one could rile him up so.” He threw his head back and roared belly laughter. “The ‘great’ God of War failed to contain a little goddess. His humiliation has already been recorded in the Olympian histories.” He wiped a large tear from the corner of his age-lined eyes. “The fucker didn’t see this coming!”
Hephaestus reached a hand down, trying to pat my shoulder to congratulate me.
“Don’t touch my mate,” Alaric warned sharply, and Hephaestus withdrew his hand as if he’d been burned.
“You’re waiting for us, right, Hephaestus?” I asked. “So you know why we came.”
“I’ve been in this volcano cave for two days, preparing to meet you,” he said.
My mates each shot me a concerned glance before staring hard at Hephaestus again. They were wondering what else I hadn’t told them.
“So you think you can forge this blade for me?” I asked, putting on a serious face so he’d take me seriously.
“I designed Hermes’s winged helmet, Achilles’s armor, Heracles’s clappers, Helios’s chariot, and my ex-wife’s famed girdle, among other art pieces. I also created all thrones in the Palace of Olympus. I’m the God of Metalwork. I can make anything. Only in my work do I forget the pain of the black, bleak world.”
“Fine,” I said, waving a hand up toward his face. “Your resume is impressive, so I’d like to commission you to make a sword for me.”
He rubbed his large hands in excitement. “I’m more than happy to design the Blade of Five Elements for the new goddess and be remembered as the one who forged such a weapon in Olympus history, if we still have a history after you wield the sword.”
So he had known what the Blade of Five Elements could do, and he wanted the destruction, revenge, chaos, and the end of the world that it could bring. That I could bring.
As I’d said, every god was a psychopath, me probably included.
I clasped my hands. “Awesome! Let’s get you started!” I looked around. “Uh, where’s your workstation? And where do we sit while you’re working?”
I didn’t expect him to be civilized enough to bring us tea and cakes while we waited for him to forge the blade.
He glanced at me, then at Alaric. “I don’t work for free, even though I really like Cass, unlike other gods. They’ve been having meetings and meetings discussing how to deal with the newest, most dangerous member in their rank. Of course, the gods never agree on anything. They’re divided right down the middle. But, in the end, if they can’t assimilate her, they’ll have to kill her. Zeus will soon put a bounty on her little head. By the way, some rogue gods are already out hunting her. They plan to strike her mates first, and that would be you guys.”
He swept his big hand toward the four of my mates.
My mates and all the warriors snarled, not at Hephaestus, but at the gods wanting my head on a plate. I wasn’t afraid of my death that much anymore, but my blood froze in icy fear at the gods’ unholy move toward my mates.
“They can try,” Lorcan hissed.
Reys slung an arm around my shoulder, gifting me his warmth and unconditional love.
Alaric stared at Hephaestus, cold menace and killing light swirling in his honey-brown eyes. The demigod only showed warmth and affection toward me.
“Chill, demigod,” Hephaestus said. “I won’t betray your mate. I want her to strike them, harder than anyone else can ever deliver. And I’ll drink to their misery and do a belly dance on their graves.”
I really didn’t want to picture Hephaestus’s belly dance.
“Don’t you worry we’ll kill you, too?” Alaric asked.
“No, my bastard brother,” Hephaestus said. “Even though I’ve just met Cass, I know she’s a monster with a heart. As long as I’m on her side, she won’t harm me. Besides, I always have my contingency plan, a failsafe.”
“What’s your failsafe?” Pyrder demanded.
Hephaestus tilted his head and grinned like a huge, hideous cat. “If I tell you, then it won’t be one.”
“Let’s get it going, God of Blacksmiths and Fire,” Lorcan said. “We’ve brought bags of gold and the rarest jewelry on Earth for you.”
The High Lord of Night would empty his treasure vault from the Court of Blood and Void to forge this sword. He wasn’t always good at bargaining. In the past, I’d often gotten the upper hand. I needed to watch his back and save some of his gold.
I cleared my throat and put my hands back on my hips. “On second thoughts—”
“I want no gold, no diamonds, and no jewelry,” Hephaestus said.
I threw a thumb at him with an approving grin. “Good man!”
But Alaric narrowed his eyes.
Hephaestus trained on my demigod mate. “I want your flaming sword as the payment. It’s one of the finest, and only, metal-craft artifacts that’s not made by me, and it’s the blade that decapitated Ares’s son.”
I cried out. “Have I just wasted my breath calling you a good man, Hephaestus? Ares treats you like a pussy, and we killed his son for you. That should be payment enough!”
Something dark flashed by Hephaestus’s eyes. “They say you’re a foul-mouthed brat who has no respect toward anyone, Cass!”
“That’s fucking slander!” I shouted. “There’s no truth in it!”
“I won’t take your insult personally.” He sniggered. “Business is business. I must have the demigod’s flaming sword, or I won’t forge the blade for you.” He folded his trunk-like arms over his chest to indicate he meant business.
I bit my lip, glaring at him, my mind running through a hundred ideas to counter him.
“Done,” Alaric said. “I’ll give you my sword when you deliver the blade forged in the hottest fire on Earth.”
“Which is right there.” Hephaestus’s shaking finger pointed at the split entry of the volcano cone. “What about the required runes on the finished blade?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” Alaric said, menace rolling off him. “I’ll take care of the runes.”
My mates would never give final control to anyone outside our tight circle, and they didn’t trust the God of Blacksmiths and Fire, either, no matter how he’d sworn he was on our side.
“Of course, you’re the expert in all runes and spells,” Hephaestus said, pulling his deformed lips up in a sneer. Then he turned on his heel, stalking back toward the gap in the volcano crater.
No one followed him immediately.
The God of Blacksmiths glanced at me over his shoulder. “Aren’t you coming, Cass Saélihn?”
“Must we enter the volcano cave?” I asked. “I’m sweating here already.”
It wouldn’t be that exciting to watch how he inserted the raw steel into the burning lava and pounded it into shape with his famous hammer.
He arched both bushy eyebrows but didn’t do it the right way. He could learn a trick or two from Pyrder. When the fae prince did it, it was beyond sexy. Maybe that could be the payment for Hephaestus to forge the blade? All I needed was to persuade him. I was good at persuasion when I put my mind to it.
“They say you’re difficult,” Hephaestus said. “I can see that. But fearless?” He shook his big head in disappointment.
My mates growled in warning.
“Who are they?” I demanded, but I was already heading toward the cave mouth after the smith god. “They talk shit anyway, for all I care.”
Hephaestus laughed.
Reys and Lorcan waved for their warrior team to spread out and guard the perimeter of the volcanic mountain. Alaric and Pyrder beat me to it and followed Hephaestus into the cave, where a pillar of steam and fire rose into the sky from the peak of the cone.
They would never allow me to enter a trap first.
“By the way,” Hephaestus said casually as I strode into the cave after my mates. “This is also the third Gate of Hell, the back entrance to Hades’s Underworld.”
21
“Have you lost your mind, Hephaestus?” I glared at the God of Blacksmiths. “What if Hades happens to come out to his backyard for a stroll with his hellhound?”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Hephaestus insisted. “The blade must be forged in the boiling lava at the Hell Gate. This is the only location that has the right temperature and magical elements.”
Alaric snarled. “I won’t put my mate at risk.”
“Your little mate brought all of you here for a reason,” Hephaestus said. “She found me, didn’t she?”
“Let’s get her out of here,” Pyrder hissed.
My mates closed in on me, about to whisk me out of the cave.
“Stop!” Hephaestus called.
Alaric wheeled, the tip of his flaming sword pointing at the God of Blacksmiths.
Hephaestus shrugged. “Hades hasn’t used this gate ever since he kidnapped Persephone from the Field of Flowers in Sicily and carried her through this cleft to his netherworld. The gate is abandoned. We’re safer in this forgotten land than in any other place at the moment. Olympians won’t come looking for your mate here, either.”
“I’ll gut you if you put my girl in jeopardy,” Alaric said.
Hephaestus’s jaw clenched. “I’m not afraid of you, bastard son of my father. But I won’t hurt Cass. She and I come from the same dark place. We are swaths of the same fabric.” He tossed his tools to the hot, rocky ground. “Is it too much to ask for a little faith?”
When no one answered him, he grumbled and treaded toward a furnace with burning lava inside, the end of a long steel rod protruding from the opening of the boiler.
“I have work to do!” he declared.
He was right. We’d come here to forge the blade, and we’d get the job done. And it wasn’t a good time to piss off the God of Fire. I didn’t want him to make a half-assed blade because he was in a foul mood.
I scurried after him. “Hephaestus, let’s get the blade made.”
Alaric and Pyrder flanked me. Lorcan positioned himself on a strategic spot between the entry of the cave and the wide bank, keeping guard. Reys moved stealthily to the perimeter to scout.
The interior of the volcano cave was surprisingly spacious, though the smell of sulfur filled the air and our lungs. A river of torrid lava rushed past, occasionally surmounting the stone blocks and spewing onto the bank.
Hephaestus put on a pair of special-made gloves and grabbed the end of the steel. He pulled it out to take a quick look, then shoved it back into the depth of the lava.
I peeked into the furnace.
Light of maroon—Hephaestus’s signature magic—hovered over the steel.
“The steel of the gods has gone through the transformation in the blend of iron, sand, lava, and my magical ingredients,” Hephaestus said, lifting the lid of the furnace to let me have a better look before he slammed it down. He did take pride in his work. “It’s forming. The blade has been in my furnace for two days now.”
“What are the magical ingredients?” Alaric inquired.
Hephaestus sent Alaric a displeased, sidelong glance. “You think I should just reveal my trade secrets to you?”
“I asked it on behalf of my mate,” Alaric said. “Cass would want to know.”
My sly demigod thought Hephaestus had a soft spot for me. He was wrong. If the God of Blacksmiths was that sweet on me, he wouldn’t have demanded to have Alaric’s sword as his payment. But then, we might still get out of the deal and give Hephaestus half a bag of the golden coins.
“In that case, I’ll first explain to Cass some of my technique,” Hephaestus said. “At the first stage, the steel is called a billet. It must be heated above two-thousand degrees and then hammered thin before being placed back into hotter fire.” My eyes glazed over as he droned on, gesturing at the forming steel and unseen magical ingredients like he was a damn good instructor. I believed I missed a few paragraphs already when he got to the part: “... clay the spine of the sword and heat it again in the lava. Shita... must be repeated eighteen times over.”
My eyes widened a little. “Shit must be repeated eighteen times?”
Alaric chuckled loudly.
Hephaestus sent him an annoyed look. “I’ve drawn hundreds of diagrams for the Blade of Five Elements, ever since the vision was revealed to me alone.”
He’d said that intentionally to get our attention.
I didn’t even bother to ask him who had sent him the vision. Gaea, my manipulative goddess grandmother, had been meddling in all matters, but Pyrder couldn’t suppress his curiosity and popped the question.
“I can’t just tell you my dreams and vision, panther,” Hephaestus snapped. “What kind of person am I if I betray such a sacred trust?”
I rolled my eyes.
The God of Blacksmiths was also a prick, and I wouldn’t blame it all on an unhappy childhood.
But the scroll indicated that only the God of Blacksmiths and Fire could forge the blade for us, so we had to put up with him.
While he bragged, I felt a chill that I’d never felt before slithering up my spine. I felt an ominous power unlike any other seal the mountain.
Cold sweat formed under my armpits though the cave was hotter than an oven with all the lava, fire, and steam.
My eyes darted around, searching for the source of my dread, searching for the Gate of Hell. In my mind, it had a dark iron door with inscriptions marking the entrance to Hell.
“You can’t see it,” Hephaestus said. “The portal is hidden.”
“This place doesn’t feel right all of a sudden,” I said. “I think someone is coming. Let’s just stay quiet, can we? No one wants to attract Hell’s attention.”
Hephaestus, the only one who was having fun here, chuckled. “Not so eager to meet Daddy?”
“I have no daddy,” I hissed. “Never had. Never will.”
“Then we shall correct it, shall we, Daughter?” A deep bass voice boomed as a vast black gate materialized and swung open from the middle across the river of lava, and a giant male with dark wavy hair down to his chin strode through.
My heart leapt to my throat.
Hades, the God of Death, had just come out of his Underworld.
I hadn’t been wrong when I’d had the bad feelings crawli
ng over my skin. I’d sensed his immense power before his appearance.
He looked even more gorgeous and glorious than the God of War, yet in a very dark way. Of course, death and darkness were his essence.
He had pale skin, the palest I’d seen. My face was also pale, but it was creamy like porcelain. His eyes were darker than the blackest sea and the darkest space. Dark light glinted in them, which could swallow all the stars.
My eyes, however, were violent and golden like living fire.
I had once thanked the fates that I did not resemble Jezebel. Now I thanked the fates again that I didn’t take after Hades, either, except for the curly hair. But then mine was tri-colored—shades of blue and red weaving through the stark silver.
Our gazes held, and he smiled. I blinked, not expecting Death’s smile would be so striking and enticing. So otherworldly, like something beyond the universe.
My mates had all gathered, surrounding me in a protective half-ring.
I bent my knees slightly in a defensive pose. A lick of black fire twirled up my arms and into my hair, hissing at Hades.
He laughed. “I like it, Cass. The fire has your spirit, but it comes from me. I can teach you so much more about the death fire and your other powers, as you’re the heir of the Underworld.”
He’d come to play daddy. Yet instinctively I knew how deceitful and deadly he was.
Hades was rumored to be the cruelest, most power-hungry god.
Phobos’s mocking rang in my ear. “He’ll take your power and cage you. The God of Death doesn’t show mercy, even to his own blood.”
I swallowed as I fought to keep my fear at bay.
“I’m doing fine myself,” I said in a clipped tone. “And we’re very busy now. I think you should come to visit another time.”
“My daughter is shrewd,” Hades said, his grin widening. “That trait comes from me, too.”
I nearly rolled my eyes, but acidic anxiety pounded in my stomach. Hades was too lethal, and now with the Hell Gate open, a horde of demons could emerge at any time. We must get the blade and retreat as soon as possible.
I stole a quick glance at Hephaestus. The blade was still buried inside the furnace, unmade. I needed to know how soon it’d be done and how long I needed to stall Hades.
