I never thought I’d have this. Laughing with friends. It feels…amazing. Better than I imagined.
I wish we had more time. Maybe we should have come back here sooner.
We use the next few minutes to catch up. They’ve all been staying in Olympus. Apparently, the gods have been arguing for days about the winner, and the champions still aren’t sure who it will be. Though, like me, they all assume it will be Diego. I’m tempted to ask Jackie if she ever saw that weird net-like veil over Zeus’ face, thanks to her ability to see through enchantments. But now’s not the time to solve that mystery.
“Champions.” Zeles and Nike enter the room. “It’s time to join your patrons.”
Each of us is led off through a different walkway. I’m last, as always, and find myself in a small room with Hades. One with massive double doors.
“When they open those,” Hades says as he tucks my hand around his arm, “we’ll go out onto a stage. There will be a dais. Zeles will present us, and then we’ll sit.”
“Okay.”
I can hear cheering and the muffled sound of Zeles’ voice on the other side. It doesn’t take too long before Nike appears suddenly and shoots me raised eyebrows. Her version of a smile. I smile back. Those days in jail with the Daemones netted me a few more friends, I think.
A chorus of trumpets sounds from outside.
Nike swings the doors open wide.
We step out into a roar of crowds. All the Olympic gods, demigods, and non-homicidal creatures are gathered in an amphitheater that extends into the skies, like a stairway to the clouds. We make our way to the center of the floor, as we were instructed to do. But before we can turn to take our seats on the dais, Zeles’ voice rings out. “Before we begin, I have been asked to announce the winner of this century’s Crucible.”
I look over my shoulder and search for my friends’ faces among those seated on the dais behind us.
Zeles waits for the buzz from the crowd to settle. “The winner is…Lyra Keres, the only Survival virtue in the Crucible, champion of Hades, god of death!”
I stumble, and only the fact that Hades goes still as a stone, pinning my hand in the crook of his arm, keeps me from falling flat on my face.
Wait.
I won the Crucible?
I look around wildly.
I won.
“Fuck me.” The words just pop out unbidden.
The crowds in the seats, already murmuring in shock, chuckle, but I’m not paying any attention to them. I turn stunned eyes to Hades.
Zeles raises his voice over the din. “The Daemones unanimously voted that Lyra was still mortal when she crossed the finish line, was killed by something unrelated to the Labor, and, as the winner of the challenge, was also allowed to be healed, even to the point of bringing her back from death. With Zeus’ addition of three wins added to her earlier win of Apollo’s Labor, Lyra has the most points. Congratulations!”
“Like you said, my star,” Hades murmurs. Then smiles in a way that lights up his eyes and flashes his dimples. “Fuck me.”
Then he shocks even me, taking my face in his hands and kissing me in front of everyone.
He lifts his head and laughs. “And your virtue isn’t Survival, my star. It’s Loyalty.”
Hades kisses me again, and the vague sound of the crowd’s gasps disappears under the feel of his lips against mine.
Not fast and hard. Not soft and swift. He takes his time. He kisses me over and over until I sigh under his touch, until I forget the entire world exists as I lean into him. And he still doesn’t stop. Not until he’s damned good and ready.
By then, I’m wrapped in his arms.
He slows our kisses, sipping at my lips in softer and softer caresses until he reluctantly lifts his head, smiling down into my dazed eyes. “We can fix it all now,” he whispers.
No convincing the other gods. No negotiating. No subterfuge or deals.
I blink. “Boone?” Then frown. “You’d have to give up a crown to make him a god, and you don’t hold both crowns anymore.”
His eyes twinkle at me. “But as winner of the Crucible, you get a boon. And you can ask for him to be made a god.”
My heart swells, then ebbs a little. “Persephone?”
He shakes his head. “Even your prize can’t reach her in Tartarus. But now that I’ll be king, I have a way.”
Sheer happiness bubbles in my veins.
Everything fixed. Boone. Persephone. And, if I have my way, which I know he’ll let me, we’re going to do away with the fucking Crucible forever.
A new ruler is just what Olympus needs.
He rights me and, as if none of that just happened with all of the immortal world watching with bated breath, takes me by the arm and leads me to stand before the empty throne, where Zeles waits.
Who might as well be tapping a foot in impatience.
I look stonily past the mostly dour-faced Olympian gods and goddesses seated around the throne in their own chairs in a semicircle, dressed to the nines. Their champions, my friends, are at their sides.
They cheer for me.
