in my palm, the leather straps crisscrossed around the hilt worn soft and perfect for my grip, acting as a balm for my lingering frustration.
Still, when Eris thrusts her sword forward, the vibrations jolt up to my shoulder. I wince but fall into a parry, then stab forward.
She blocks, our weapons rasping against each other. Baring her teeth in a grin, she jabs for my open right side. There’s a split second to react.
But I’m prepared since she chides me each training session for leaving that side open.
So when her sword comes closer, closer, closer, I pivot to the other side. She overbalances, then corrects her stance, but not fast enough. The point of my sword presses into her side.
I press the dull point in. Her leather tunic creaks. The scent of musky leather mixes with dirt, clay, and sweat. Panting in the quiet, I ignore the sweat drying on my spine and how my skin itches in relentless pulses of sensation. My eyes stay trained on my sword against her side.
I won?
I won.
How did I win?
Even with the memory of my movements and the sight of my win in front of me, I don’t quite believe it.
Eris’ hand slaps down on my shoulder. “Good job.”
“I won,” I breathe.
She chuckles, pushing me upright with the hand heavy on my shoulder. Her sword arm drops to her side, the point dragging in the dirt. “You did. We’re equals at this, now.”
“How?” I ask, blinking down at my lowering sword.
“You’ve practiced hard and learned to put those new muscles to good use,” she says. “Besides, your mind is sharp.”
“Sharp?”
She nods. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you you’re smart?”
I shrug. Am I smart? Eris says it so sure and I want to believe her, but my aunts’ jabs ring in my head: stupid girl.
She sighs. “Well, gods know you brought frustration to our sparring. Who angered you?”
I bite at my bottom lip.
With a roll of her eyes, she shifts on the balls of her feet, one hip thrust out. “It wasn’t Thanatos, was it?”
“No. Why would it be him?”
“He has a habit of pestering people he likes.”
“He likes me?” I ask.
As the god of death, he’s one of the most powerful gods in the realms. One of the only ones, besides the god-king Zeus, who can strip immortality away. And here I am with my dull sword and too-pale skin, all weaknesses.
She runs a hand over her sweat-slicked hair. “From what I can tell. We never were very close growing up, but I know him enough to know his type—muscular and intelligent. Well, what’s bothering you?”
Maybe it’s my imagination, but I breathe easier without her hand on my shoulder.
I pass a hand over my face. “My aunts. They can be difficult.”
She snorts. “I can imagine. What’d they do? Get into one of their spats?”
She remembers from her time transporting us on the Styx’s boat. For a moment, with her affable grin and kind words, I forgot she acted as the villain weeks ago.
I feared her, once. Not anymore. A level of wariness remains, but I’m never scared.
“Yes.” I clear my throat, eyes darting around the circular field full of weaponry and the awful red clay-dirt forever clogging my lungs.
“Come on.” She walks past, gesturing to one of the sturdy benches ringing the area.
She sits, adjusting her loose linen pants. I sit beside her, the bench edge digging into my thighs. One knee jumps in place, my heel striking the ground.
The quiet isn’t awkward, but not comfortable either, instead toeing the fine line between the two. The back of my neck prickles with unease. I run a hand over it, nudging where Stam and Atia join the skin beneath my hair.
They don’t move, sound asleep. They’ll remain that way for a while yet. Last night, Stam woke me up five times, each more playful than the last. Atia tried to quell her energy with cuddles, then outright glaring, but nothing worked. Stam sensed my frustration as she always does, and I paid the price.
“What were they arguing about?” Eris asks, sliding a thin golden coin from her boot. She methodically tumbles it across her knuckles with a graceful play of her fingers.
“I don’t know. Something about hair? Or their lack of it, I guess.”
She hums, gold flashing across both hands now. “And that frustrated you.”
“I just—I asked them some questions and they couldn’t give me an answer. Not one.”
“Why’s that?”
“All they care about is fabric and dresses and gold.”
“And what do you care about?”
I slouch, elbows leaned against my knees, and hunch my shoulders. Somehow, when we’re not looking at each other, I can speak honestly.
“I care about the truth. Why is Erebus sleeping? Where is Nyx? Why doesn’t she trust her own son?” More questions rush out, each quicker than the last. “And why do I have to ask everyone else besides her? Shouldn’t she tell me the truth? We have a bargain.”
Eris remains silent for a moment, the coin flipping through her hands. “She’ll tell you when she feels you need to know. That’s how she works.”
“Even with you?”
“Even with me. She’s my queen first, mother second.”
I swallow around a dry throat. Nyx used Eris as bait, as someone for Erebus to consume, all in the name of punishment.
“Do you wish it was the other way around?”
The coin pauses, teetering on the edge of a knuckle. “Sometimes. She wasn’t always so cruel—when we were young, she never punished us at all.”
“What happened?”
“Erebus. Before she put him to sleep with Hypnos’ aid, he broke something in her. Her kindness, maybe, or compassion.”
I’m tempted to ask how. The image of Eris, bruised and torn nearly apart by his shadows, flashes across my eyelids when I blink.
My aunts hit me and throw sharp words my way. So many nights after my mother died, I wondered when I would break for good, when I’d stop my minor rebellions and stand, meek and shattered, in wait of the next punishment. It became a game—would tomorrow be that day? The next?
There’re different ways to break, Nyx just chose the one that sees our world changed.
“I’m sorry,” I say. For her loss of the mother she knew, for her father stealing that from her.
“I know.” She trains her eyes on the coin, traveling back and forth in a flash of gold. “What of your mother? Medusa, right?”
“A man, one of Zeus’ spawn, murdered her.”
For a moment, I’m almost proud of the detached cadence of my voice. Then tears flood my eyes. I blink them away, covering it by leaning back in my seat, the practice sword dragging across my calf.
“Do you miss her?”
“Every day,” I croak, dashing a hand across my eyes.
If she sees the tears, she doesn’t comment on them. She leans closer, her side a line of heat against mine.
“Killing Zeus will be worth all of this.” She gestures at the dirty armor and weapons, the grime stuck to our shoes, and herself.
I inhale, holding the air in. One, two, three, four. Exhale. “Yes.” I slant her a look, smirking with confidence I don’t feel. “It better be after all you’ve put me through.”
She grins, leaning her shoulder against mine. “Still mad about me capturing you?”
“Oh, always.” My grin softens into a smile. “But I was talking about having to put up with your smell.”
She grunts in surprise, head whipping around. A scowl transforms her face into someone older. “You ass!”
I break into laughter, clutching my stomach while my chest heaves. “The look on your face—” My voice falters, overcome by bellowing laughs.
She opens her mouth, eyes dancing with mirth, then snaps it closed, glancing over her shoulder. Leaning back, she shifts to put space between us.
The coin vanishes back into her boot. “My mother will be here in a moment.”
My laughter dies with a croak. I run a hand through my disheveled hair. “How—?”
She quirks a humorless smile. “The same way you sense your aunts before they arrive. Fear is a powerful tool, Chloe.”
Shadows appear at the other end of the training area, whipping through the air in a slow circle. The color deepens from gray to pure black. Then the shadows unfurl, falling open like the blossoming flower, and Nyx steps from their depths.
She waves away a cloud of dirt raised from the moving shadows, silver eyes finding us sitting on the bench, and she ambles over. The train of her densely embroidered dress drags in the dirt. The underside of the fabric glimmers with a moving night sky, each actual constellation represented alongside ones I’ve never seen.
“Darlings,” she says. “Why aren’t you training?”
Eris stands, then falls to one knee with her head bowed. “Chloe bested me in a spar.”
Nyx tilts her head, stopping a hand’s breadth from Eris. She pats her daughter’s head once. “I see.”
Eris leans into the touch.
Nyx removes her hand, grimacing at the sweat coating her palm. “You’re dismissed.”
Without another word, Eris stands and walks toward the crystalline palace. She doesn’t look back.
Nyx takes her place on the bench, lowering herself with effortless grace, her dress layers swung to one side. “What were you talking about?”
Nerves clog my throat. I can’t tell her we spoke of her past. “My mother.”
She hums. “You’ll have your revenge for her murder soon, dearest. Don’t fret.”
“Soon?”
The weeks spent training in Tartarus’ barren fields by day and sleeping in a plush bed by night passed so fast. With how old Nyx must be, born of Chaos before the other gods, weeks must be nothing in the grand scheme.
My shoulders slump. There’re weeks more to prepare, then I’ll be in the dangerous tangle of the Olympian court. A tremble starts in my hands, spreading to a buzzing in my mind. I hide my hands, folding them in my loose tunic.
“You have three days,” she says.
My heart leaps, thumping erratically in my chest, throat, and ears. I force a steady breath. Exhale slow and strong. Nyx won’t appreciate a show of weakness. Might not tolerate it, either.
“Chloe?” She turns her head, silver eyes shining like two pale moons.
“Sorry, I was just thinking.” I force a bright smile. “Three days is plenty of time to finish preparations.”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you sure?”
A spider poking at a struggling insect trapped in its web.
“Quite sure!” My voice squeaks, but I play it off as excitement by grinning. A flush burns along my cheeks.
Her mouth curves into a smile. “Such excitement! You’ll do well with that attitude.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. I don’t bargain with fools or cowards, dear.”
Coward. I’m a coward, cowering from my aunts, hiding tears in my pillow—how hasn’t she seen so? But maybe her ignorance is a gift, a chance to become someone else. Someone brave, someone eager to kill.
I stuff overwhelm deep down, letting determination take its place. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her head snaps forward, then to the other side. She stares into the flat distance of Tartarus.
Erebus coils low to the dirt, oozing along in a cloud of darkness. He skims closer, heading toward us at a slow pace.
Nyx bares her teeth. “Never fall in love.”
Glancing between them, I can’t hold in a grimace. She loved him once?
She shakes her head, ebony hair whipping against my cheek. “Never mind. Back to your task. Thanatos will shadow you during your time in the palace. You’ll need him to remove Zeus’ immortality.”
“I remember,” I say.
“And when you kill him, you must be quick. Thanatos will remove his immortality, but it’s temporary—only Zeus knows the method of making ambrosia able to obliterate it.”
Ambrosia, the immortality-giving drink made by the gods. The storybooks say the Titans created it for their faithful mortal subjects as a reward for dedicated service.
And after Zeus and his court defeated the Titans, they vanished, leaving only ancient laws still upheld and the recipe for ambrosia locked firmly in Zeus’ mind.
My mother was mortal. If not for my godly parentage through Poseidon, I would be mortal, too.
With a sigh, I shake away thoughts of ambrosia and immortality. It doesn’t matter.
All that matters is Poseidon dead beneath my sword. He’s immortal, but maybe, if I can convince Thanatos of my plan, he won’t be for long.