Dread curls in the pit of my stomach. Nothing good ever comes with knowing your own future.

“The predictions of the Fates can cause madness, no matter how trivial they may seem,” Ligeia once warned me.

I square my shoulders and turn to the Moirai. “What if I don’t want to hear said wisdom?”

“What you want is no longer of concern.” They draw closer, legs moving in perfect unison until they are within arm’s reach.

The Fate’s words make my pulse leap. I splay a hand over the Midas Curse between my breasts. “Whatever you tell me, you tell Olympus as well.”

“Our words are meant for your ears alone.” The poppy-haired Fate’s mouth curls slowly into a smile. “Artemis will hear nothing through your golden curse. Not unless we will it.”

A myriad of emotions flutter through me. Relief and fear jostling for dominance.

“Congratulations on your victory,” the youngest says. “Or should we instead offer our condolences?”

The oldest Fate reaches out, her hand stopping just before her fingers can brush my face. “You have experienced our gifts before, Storm of Olympus. Prepare yourself.”

I don’t have even a moment to suck in a breath before her finger touches my brow. Just as with my time with Prometheus, the ground is swept from beneath me. But where his visions were choppy, disjointed, and swiftly moving, I am now pulled slowly, floating on a tide until my feet find steady ground.

I stand in a field of blood, corpses stretching for miles and miles. The winds whip around me, singing a haunting dirge off the walls of a city beyond. The bodies are burdened by armor from all corners of Greece. A blood-splattered Spartan helmet lies at my feet beside a Tenedos axe, and just beyond are Athenian swords and Mycenaean spears.

The youngest Fate steps forward next and takes my hand. Her grip is like an iron manacle, holding me in place despite her small size.

Where my hair whips in the wind, hers is completely still. “I, Lakhesis of the Moirai, impart upon you a warning.”

I want to beg her to stop talking. Before I can, she waves her free arm to the desolate battlefield. “There is a great war on the horizon, like none Greece has ever known. All the kingdoms from every corner of this world will take part and stake their claim. Should you fail in the task assigned to you by the gods, that which you love most will meet its end right here on this battlefield. The Sparta you know will be gone forever more on the bloody fields of Troy.”

“Troy? We will go to war with Troy?”

I spin to see the third and final Fate.

She nods, grinning widely. Her teeth are small, yellow with rot. “Yes, and they will welcome their own destruction with open arms.”

The oldest Fate’s hand now rests on my scarred shoulder. “I, Klotho, ask you to protect Troy, when you inevitably fail to protect your queen.”

“I will not fail,” I bite out, baring my teeth. My hands curl into tight fists. “And I would never betray my kingdom for Troy.”

“That’s what you think now, but betrayal is in your blood,” a lilting voice says with a soft laugh. The third, so like her mother. “I, Atropos the Undeniable, will say this only once. Kingdoms may fall and monarchies may tremble before you, but none more so than the gods. You, kataigída,” she says the name like a hiss, “will be the ruin of Olympus.”

She flips my hand over, revealing the curved scar Nyx left upon me so many moons ago. It glows a brilliant red, brighter and brighter until my eyes water.

“Stop.” I clench my eyes shut. The red pierces my eyelids. My entire arm feels as if it might burst into flame. “Make it stop!”

“Only you can do that,” the Moirai say in unison.

“I said stop!” I rip my hands from theirs so hard I stumble.

The red blinks from behind my eyelids, the world suddenly dark. When I open my eyes again, the Moirai have disappeared, but their words still linger in the cool night air.

The Sparta you know will be gone forever more on the bloody fields of Troy.