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I STUMBLE, FALLING to my knees beside him. “Cosmas?”
He nods. A thick layer of blood crusts his nostrils. His nose has a bump not there before. A badly healed break.
“Why are you here?” He leans forward, chains clinking. “Leave, Agathe. Please leave.”
Zeus laughs, drawing my attention. “You know this mortal?”
Nodding, I croak a response. “Yes. He lived near—” I pause. “Near my home.”
He hums, head tilted.
“Husband, I didn’t bring this man to your attention for you to kill him,” Hera hisses, leaning into his space. Her hand grips his in a white-knuckled hold.
She told Zeus about Cosmas—why? How? But she sent guards to question towns. Sent them to ask about me and who I’m connected to, all in the name of tearing me apart. I’m the reason Cosmas was brought here on charges of treason. My whole body shakes.
He shakes her loose with a sigh, patting her pale hand. “Not now.”
“You must—”
“No, Hera. This man will be executed.”
Her face flames red. “How dare you—”
“I am king!” he bellows, shoulders impossibly broader. “And I expect to be spoken to as such.”
She leans back as if slapped. The room quiets, filled only with her gasping breaths. “I’m not one of your whores. I am your queen.”
“My queen. Mine because I chose you to be. You could have remained one of my whores just as easily. Remember yourself, wife.”
He pats her cheek. I half hope she’ll bite one of his fingers off. She remains still, eerily so, while Zeus turns back to the court.
“I’m bored with arguing,” he says.
“So I’ll put this in another’s hands. Mortal girl.” He points at me, a grin stretching his mouth. “Choose a life. The unborn child or this man.”
My muscles stiffen to the point of searing pain. Breaths become gasps. My stare darts everywhere and nowhere at once. Finally, I look at Cosmas.
He stares back with his dark eyes, face pale and resigned. “Do what you must.”
Lifting my head, I throw back my shoulders. “Both. I choose both.”
Zeus snorts. “Choose one and only one.”
My throat clogs. Words become croaks. “Or what?”
But I already know the answer.
“Neither will live.”
Hera’s sharp inhale is the only sound in the massive room.
I try to put Cosmas’ face from my mind. Try to forget Eudora’s corpse settled among a kelp forest. Try to forget my mother, her kind face and last words.
Carry on, her voice a lullaby in my thoughts. Can I carry on knowing I’ve doomed Cosmas to death? Knowing I’ve killed a child not yet born?
There’s no choice. The moment Zeus posed his question, I knew my answer, no matter how I don’t want to face its reality.
I open my mouth. A croak leaves. I close it, swallow, and try again. “I choose the child. Spare the child.”
If Cosmas wept or panicked, raged or screamed, maybe the gaping hole in my chest wouldn’t stretch wide as the night sky. Maybe I wouldn’t be numb. Maybe I would save him after all.
But he doesn’t grimace or weep. He doesn’t do anything but nod and turn his gaze to the thrones. He leans forward, the back of his neck bared in a length of tanned skin, and presses his forehead to the cold floor. The chains rattle once, then settle.
I place a shaking hand on his back. “I’m sorry.”
His whisper is firm. “I know.”
And I wish he’d say I did the right thing. That I made the right choice. But he doesn’t. There isn’t a right choice, no matter how hard I wish, and he won’t lie.
A clatter of boots against stone. Guards strut closer, door closing behind them. They stop at the base of Zeus’ throne.
Cosmas closes his eyes. Waits.
A guard steps from the line of four, spear replaced with a sword against one hip. Cosmas doesn’t flinch at the rasp of steel freeing from a leather scabbard.
Another guard steps out of the line, stopping at Cosmas’ backside. He plants a boot into Cosmas’ spine, pushing him closer to the floor, then waves the other guard closer.
They’re going to behead him.
All of Zeus’ power, all the ways he could make this a peaceful death, and he’s beheading Cosmas in the middle of his pristine throne room.
Hands grip each of my upper arms, tugging me back with rough pulls. The other two guards. I grit my teeth and jab my elbows back. They hit hardened leather, bouncing off with a bone-rattling sound. I bite my cheek to contain a grunt of pain. Blood fills my mouth; I’ve bitten too deep.
“Go on, move her away,” Zeus says. “We have an execution to get on with.”
His voice is so nonchalant, so careless. My vision turns red as the blood I want to spit at the base of his ivory throne.
The guards drag me backward. My feet scrabble against the slick floor. Not a single lip or bump to find purchase against. I bare my teeth, song a weapon coiled to strike.
“Not now,” Cosmas says, voice hard.
Then, like a prayer. “Elpis.”
One breath. Another. More. The red fades. I’m me again, not a creature born of rage and blood. Thoughts trickle in.
My mother’s name—why does he know my mother’s name?
When I saw her in Nekros, she spoke of the man who sired me. The man who loved her once. The man who still loves her now, bowed before the court with a sword to his neck.
Cosmas is my father. His dark eyes, the wave to his hair, and effervescent curiosity—why didn’t I notice sooner?
I could bargain for his life. I could call for Nyx. None of it would help. A bargain with Zeus now would mean myself a slave to the court or worse. And Nyx? There’s no place for her in this room of sunlight.
Zeus waves a hand, a thin line of electricity jumping between his fingertips.
The guard with the sword jolts, hands spasming around the hilt. He doesn’t make a noise. His eyes remain empty.
Whatever Zeus does to his guards, there’s no soul left in them.
Time slows. The gathered court, opulent in their fine fabrics and ethereal beauty. The false sun above, filtering no warmth into the chilled room. Hera, her knuckles white against her throne.
The sword lifts.
In a sweeping arch of glinting steel, it plummets down.
Time hurtles forward. A spray of blood. Droplets land on Hera’s peach dress and Zeus’ toes. The floor is smothered in a tidal wave of red.
I stumble back, pulling the guards with me. Gasp for air. Not enough. I’m drowning.
A hand rests against my back, rubbing slow circles. The creeping black ebbs from my sight. One heave at a time, I breathe again.
His vacant eyes and ashen skin—
I shiver, tears a sharp ache at the back of my throat.
“Be calm,” a slurred voice says. Dionysus. “Be still. Show no weakness.”
In seconds, I’m surrounded by servants, each of them bearing a platter of food. They’re dressed in the same color as Dionysus’ tunic. His servants, coming forward from where they lingered on the room outskirts.
One always lingers, offering Dionysus something off their platter, before moving on only after another takes their place. Always one blocking me from the thrones and Cosmas’ body in front of it.
“No weakness,” Dionysus whispers. Then he leans back, his warm hand gone.
The guards let go of my aching arms. They stride away. The weakness they saw—I doubt they’ll report it to Zeus. There’s nothing to them except following his orders.
Focusing on my thudding heart, I close my eyes. I imagine siphoning cold from the floor beneath me.
When I open them again, I’m sure they’re blank.
The last of Dionysus’ servants moves on. The rush of blood, turning red-brown, is back in view. Cosmas’ head is settled near Zeus’ right foot. A guard leans forward and picks it up by the dark hair. Another lifts his body over one shoulder.
Vomit builds in my throat. I swallow once, twice. Force myself still when Zeus’ stare slides my way.
His voice booms, stabbing against my ears. “The child will live to prove its potential.”
He stands, skirting around the blood, and follows the guards from the room without a glance back.
Hera jerks to standing and trails after him. She says nothing.
The doors swing on invisible hinges. The blood is a dull shine beneath the open sky.
The court sighs all at once.
I shuffle onto Dionysus’ couch, his toes pressing against my hip, and glance around. I expect glares for my choice. Instead, I’m met with bold stares from the languid gods spread across the room.
Standing, I mumble a terse excuse me. I don’t breathe until the room and Cosmas’ blood are three turns away. I stop in an offshoot from the main hall, a narrow passage barely lit and meant for servants.
I entered the Olympian court for the first time.
No, I survived the Olympian court for the first time.
When I return to my room, the pitter-patter of droplets against water fills the space. The scent of flowers creeps from beneath the closed bathroom door.
Desma emerges, freshly bathed, minutes later. She glances at me once, then again.
Her brows furrow low. “What happened?”
I tell her. Not just of Cosmas’ death. I tell her of Nyx’s clue and the necklace frigid against my neck. I tell her of my mother’s name on his lips. Of how both my parents are dead, lost to the tide of death bearing down on us even now.
What else can I do? I need to tell someone who might understand. Someone who had a taste of loss and lived anyway. Her mother died years ago, long enough I can’t remember how, and still she’s carrying on.
Can I say the same? I’ve been so busy. Chasing my mother into death. Chasing immortality. Always something to strive for. Always a new distraction.
When I’m done, her face has gone pale. She leans against me, pulling my head onto her shoulder. One hand rests against my back, still but warm. Whether we’re silent for minutes or hours, I can’t say.
Finally, she breaks the quiet. “What now?”
Carry on.
“Now we find an unmarked door.”