Gentle hands pry me from the floor. I recognize Demeter’s mint and fruit scent without having to open my eyes. Black coats the inside of my eyelids.
A rumble grows beyond me and my eyes flutter open. There’s a slash in my bicep that beads with blood. It runs in rivulets down my arm, dripping on the floor. My limb starts to go numb, but my focus is dragged inexorably away.
Apollo crouches above me. If looks could kill, his would blast the gods from the earth.
“Touch her again,” he growls, “and I’ll rip out your throat.”
“You dare threaten me?” Hera steps within my line of sight. Her dress is torn, her hair ripped from its braid.
Behind Hera, Glaukopis twitches, still pinned to a column. His eyes are blank as black blood drips to the floor.
I ignore the sound he makes and turn to a heaving Poseidon. There are slashes down his cheeks, blackened ichor matching the dying owl. The handiwork of Athena no doubt.
“Why would you help the Achaeans?” I step forward, unflinching despite the power radiating from the god.
He looks down at me with stormy eyes and says simply, “Because they worship me more than the Trojans.”
Fury courses through me like a typhoon waiting to be unleashed. My teeth gnash. “Are you truly so proud that you would be willing to watch the city fall, despite knowing that your downfall is behind those very gates?”
Every god turns to me fully now. Artemis coughs, and Demeter takes a step away from me. Apollo looks me over, aghast.
Slowly, as if weighing each word, Zeus asks, “What are you implying?”
Thunder rumbles overhead.
“I know why Apollo spilled his own blood into the walls of Troy. What you seek to hide there.” Zeus’s face whips toward his son and I raise a fist. “Don’t look at him. He told me nothing. It was just another secret that you forced him to keep from me. Just like my parentage.”
Poseidon takes a deliberate step forward. “Watch your tone, mortal.”
Athena cradles Glaukopis’s body to her chest. Her hands glow with an eerie blue light. Her voice strangled and raw, she asks, “Who told you what those walls protect?”
“Who do you think?” Hera sneers. “Hermes manipulated her against us.”
Doubt flickers in my mind, but I force my face into a stubborn frown. “Hermes didn’t have to do anything. Your callous behavior—all of yours—did that.”
“So you admit that you’re against us?” Poseidon’s voice has dropped to a lethal quiet and calm. The slow drawing back of a wave before it threatens to wipe a city from the earth.
“The only ones I’m against are those who wish my queen harm.” I flick my gaze from Poseidon to Zeus. “I’m not fighting this war for you any longer, or your mad family. I’m fighting it for Helen of Sparta.”
“Always fighting for someone new.” The look Hera bestows upon me is nothing short of complete disdain. Her lips curl back from her teeth. “When will you learn that your loyalty means nothing if not for the right people?”
“Better to fight for a queen who actually loves her people,” I say, raising my chin, “than for a goddess who abuses them.”
A lavender sheen begins to glow on her skin. Her hair rises, a dark cloud stretching wide.
I don’t give her the satisfaction of my fear.
“Are you going to hurt me?” I cock my head and ignore the itch in my fingers to reach for my sword. A sword that isn’t there anymore.
“Hera will take a seat.” Demeter’s hand lands on my shoulder, her fingers warm but firm. “There’s been enough violence.”
Hera cocks her head. “What is the loss of one more useless girl?”
“If you strike her,” Artemis says, taking a stand on my other side, “it will be the end of this pantheon.”
The cosmic energy of gods swirls behind me, great and glorious. I can feel their presence, warm and electric. Without turning, I recognize Persephone’s joyous warmth and the calm reserve of her love, Hades.
“Her blood may not be Olympian, but the ichor is still there. No matter what you all fear.” Persephone steps forward, placing me firmly behind her. “The same laws that rule the pantheon apply to her. She cannot be punished for Ares’s death.”
Hera’s face contorts, eyes blackening. “He was my son, and I will take my vengeance.”
“You owe Daphne your life,” Apollo says, words like the lash of a whip.
Only a god can kill a god,” Hera says. “You all know this. We will not bend our own laws to her. Do not let your hearts turn mortal for this fool.”
“She is not mortal, though.” Hades’s voice makes everyone jump. “And we must stop pretending such. Although not a god, either, she is bound to our laws, which she, albeit unintentionally, upheld by killing Ares. He was a traitor to Olympus and the foundations of our rule.”
A click echoes through my head. My mouth drops open.
Shock fills me. “If not mortal, then what am I?”
All the gods turn to me. None of them reply, making me more furious than ever before.
“Damn ungrateful Olympians and their egos the size of the sea.” A splitting pain forms in my temple, but I ignore it. “Tell me! If I’m not a god, and I’m not a mortal, what am I?”
The answer is all over their pale, horrified faces. Sweat forms at Poseidon’s temples. Hades shifts uneasily and his wife reaches a hand for him, to either steady him or herself.
“You fear my father?” My hands curl into fists. “That’s why you won’t tell me who he is? Because you fear him?”
Demeter gives me a long, sad look. “We do not fear your father. We fear what he is.”
“What does that fear have to do with why you won’t tell me his name?”
“We fear nothing because we are gods!” Aphrodite strides forward to plant herself between our two sides. “You all squabble like pathetic mortals. Send her back to Troy. Living will be punishment enough.”
Her smile, painted with cruelty and promises, will live in my nightmares forever.