“He won’t hurt you,” I assure her.
Her gaze, deep-brown eyes almost consumed by the black of her pupils, settles on me. She shakes her head, and I don’t know if she’s rejecting what I said or something else.
“I am here to tell you that we all discussed your proposal.”
I figured. I can also tell by her expression that the answer didn’t swing my way.
A new heaviness joins the weight that’s been slowly growing since the moment I woke up alone this morning.
This weight is different, though—made of guilt, disappointment, and desperation.
“The answer is no?” I ask, and my voice threatens to crack, but I control it.
“That is correct.”
“All of you?” My allies didn’t want to come tell me themselves? I don’t ask about that. It would show weakness.
“Also correct.”
My lungs let go of all their air, and my shoulders round over as my heart shrivels. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
Her back goes ramrod straight. “Zai wanted to deliver this news himself. But I insisted I be the one to tell you. We are saying no…because of me.”
I frown. “You? Why? It’s a good deal for everyone—”
“My blessing from Apollo is the gift…” She says the last word with a dubious burr in her voice. “Of prophecy.”
Wow.
And…okay? “I don’t see how—”
“The problem is, I can’t control the gift. It chooses what to show me.” She makes a face. “This has not been helpful throughout the Labors because my gift shows me the same thing…only one vision…over and over.”
Dread oozes through me like stagnant water through a bog. “What does it show you?”
“Hades as King of the Gods.”
“I know you don’t want that,” I say slowly, “but it’s nothing to fear. He is good—”
“In my vision, he is in a towering rage…and burning down the world.” She says this starkly, with a tremor in her voice that becomes visible in her hands, her face turning pale and sort of green. Her fear is so heightened, she can’t hold it in. “And no one—not mortals, not the Greek gods, not any other gods—can stop him.”
91
Athena’s Labor
“Welcome to your eleventh challenge, champions.”
Athena stands before us, beautiful and yet still martial in a white pantsuit with shoulder pads that the fashionistas of the 1980s would envy. Her smile is more scary than reassuring. Honestly, I find Athena intimidating as fuck. I can’t say that rejoining the Crucible on her round was what I would have picked. Hera’s with the stars-and-constellations thing definitely would have been better.
The other champions watched me warily when I arrived, Samuel included. He’s swaying a bit and ashen, but on his feet. No golden band around his one good wrist that I saw.
I nodded at them all, hoping they’d see that I understood why they couldn’t take me up on my offer. My allies, though… They apologized, and I had to stand there silently sending mental I’m sorrys to Boone even as I reassured my team that I understood.
Which I do. I really do. But now I have to beat them at this labor, because I’m still going to try to win. Which I hope they understand.
They’re standing beside me now, at least, which is something.
“Everyone believes Ares to be the bloodthirsty god,” Athena says.
Then she makes a fist, slamming it down through the air, and a spear appears in her grasp, hitting the stone floor with a ringing, metallic clang. Immediately, her white suit changes to armor, the same that she wore the day the champions had to earn our gifts.
That seems like eons ago. A lifetime lived between then and now.
On her silver breastplate, an olive tree grows with a snake winding up its trunk. Her helm is that of an owl’s head, the horned features forming slashes above her brow, and owl feathers emerge from the top and back in a warrior’s headdress.
Her face is painted in runes and glyphs of glittering white. She holds a simple spear in one hand, and around her neck dangles a pendant. I’m guessing it’s an image of the Gorgoneion for protection. She’s known to wear it.
The goddess of both knowledge and war stands before us.
The four Daemones, positioned in each corner of the platform, immediately drop to one knee, heads bowed, fists over their chests.
“Rise,” she says.
Um…weren’t they supposed to be neutral for the Labors? Judges? I can’t say I love this little byplay. The way the other champions shift on their feet, I’m pretty sure they’re thinking the same thing.
Athena snaps her fingers, and all our gods appear at our sides. Hades puts his hand on my shoulder, and we blink out. When we blink back in, we are no longer standing in Olympus. Before I can take a breath, Hades is gone again.