Tight leather pants despite the heat, boots laced to her knees, a sleeveless shirt that showed the corded muscles of her arms. Selene had chosen the outfit with care.
It wasn’t every day she met her ancient nemesis for the first time in fifteen hundred years.
Normally she preferred clothes that concealed her figure from men’s prying eyes, but she needed to make a statement. She wished she could hide the streak of white in her black hair; she was no fading goddess, resigned to death. She was the Huntress still, modern and fierce. From the hungry look on Flint’s face when she left her bedroom, she might’ve succeeded too well.
His gaze traveled appreciatively up her body to the gold necklace at her throat.
“You do realize this is a wedding—not a fight club?” He wore a summer suit that strained across his biceps and shoulders. She could just make out the lines of his titanium leg braces beneath the fabric of his pants. She’d never seen him in anything so formal. He’d left the collar of his shirt open—it barely fit around his neck anyway.
“This whole wedding is ridiculous. Hera’s already married.”
“Not sure she sees it that way.”
“Oh?” Selene demanded. She didn’t fundamentally care about her stepmother’s fidelity, but she found herself defending her father’s honor nonetheless. “How does Zeus see it?” She couldn’t resist using her father’s real name for emphasis.
Flint shrugged. “I’m sure my mother hasn’t asked. And doesn’t care. But trust me, she will care if you show up to her party wearing that. And don’t protest,” he said, before she could do exactly that. “If she’s offended, she’s liable to throw us out before she answers any of our questions about the Magna Mater. She’s always been touchy.”
You want to see touchy? Selene thought. Try forcing me into a dress. She grabbed a long, gauzy green shawl spangled with mirrored sequins from above the kitchen doorway—one of the apartment manager’s misguided attempts at interior decoration—and draped it around her neck and shoulders. “Better?”
“Yes. But you don’t need to bring your bow,” he said, gesturing to the large bag slung over her arm.
“You clearly don’t remember the Trojan War,” Selene snapped back.
“Oh no, I remember.” A rare glimmer of humor danced in his eyes.
“What’s so funny? You liked watching me get my ass kicked by your mother?”
“I’d always thought you were …” He paused. “Heartless. Invincible. Then I saw you weren’t. That’s all.” He shrugged and turned away, leaving her both curious and annoyed.
Selene’s pique turned to outright rage when they arrived at the steps of the Church of the Most Holy Name of Mary.
“A church? You’re kidding, right? I won’t step foot in there.”
“Where else did you think she’d get married?”
“Since when has your mother gone over to the enemy?”
“Wait here,” Flint said, not bothering to answer. He walked stiffly up the stairs and into the church.
A short time later, the voice of a priest floated through the open doors. Despite her fluent Latin, Selene had a very shaky grasp of modern Italian. She caught something about Christ and God and love, then just tuned the whole thing out. She sat on the steps, staring across the street at Trajan’s Column instead. The ancient monument towered a hundred feet above the sunken plaza on which it stood, dwarfing the surrounding ruins. The plaza hadn’t originally been below street level, of course, but over the centuries, Rome built upward, covering much of its past beneath avenues and piazzas. Selene felt a shiver run up her spine as she realized that even now, on the steps of this church, she sat atop unknown layers of her own history. Perhaps a temple to Diana once stood on this very spot—a fitting site for a church dedicated to another holy virgin in another age.
Man is fickle, she mused, turning from one god to another. Bad enough they abandoned me for Mary. What happens if Saturn gains such power that they abandon Jesus for him? The thought brought her to her feet. The sooner she could speak to Hera, the sooner she could continue her quest to find her father before it was too late.
She moved to the threshold of the church, peering down the main aisle toward the altar. She knew her refusal to enter was a little silly—it was just a building, after all. She wouldn’t melt or burst into flame just because her foot touched sanctified marble. I’m not a vampire, she told herself sternly. She caught sight of the icon of the Virgin Mary hanging in a massive, gold-encrusted frame above the altar and forced herself to meet her replacement’s mild gaze.
Beneath the painting of Mary stood Selene’s stepmother—Hera, Queen of Olympus, Goddess of Marriage and Families. She looked like a middle-aged housewife from the flyover states. Her famous white arms were rounder than before; the hair that had once crowned her head in inky coils now flopped around her ears in a curly gray mop. She wore a calf-length dress of ivory lace, with no waist to speak of. The only hint of her former status as the Queen of the Gods was a curving diadem made of dozens of tiny gold willow leaves. It looked out of place—a tiara for a youthful bride. Hera should’ve stuck with a sensible hat.
The groom clasping her hands stood a full head shorter than she—not surprising, considering the goddess retained much of her divine height—and looked half his bride’s age. Handsome, stylish, his narrow jaw shadowed with stubble. He wore a neat white suit with an overlarge lotus bud in his lapel, and he stared up at his bride with all the adoration of an acolyte at a shrine. She looked down at him with equal fervor, her cow eyes large and dark and full of love.
Selene grimaced and stepped back from the entrance.
It wasn’t long before the bride and groom appeared on the church steps—Hera holding a water lily bouquet in one hand and her young husband in the other. Selene moved forward to intercept them, but three dozen grinning Italians in rainbow hues blocked her way. Flint emerged next, a dark cloud floating in their wake.
“What are you scowling about?” Selene asked him as the couple pulled away in their waiting limousine and headed toward the reception site. “This was your idea.”
He glared at her from beneath his grizzled brows, and she was taken aback by the anger she saw there. I should’ve remembered that weddings would put him in a foul mood. His own marriage to Aphrodite, Goddess of Erotic Love, had soured early on. She remembered the wedding only vaguely. Even then, the bride had eyes only for Hephaestus’s handsome brother Mars, God of War.
As they followed the crowd down the street toward the reception, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So your mother clearly thinks she’s free of her first husband. Do you still consider yourself married?”
“Hephaestus is still married to the Goddess of Love,” he said. “That’s what the stories say, and nothing I do can change that. But as for Flint … no.”
“That’s a bizarre way to look at it.”
“It’s the only way I know how.”
“But Hephaestus …” She paused. One did not bring up a god’s fading, or speak his real name aloud, without good reason. “He doesn’t really exist anymore, does he? I mean,” she said quickly, “Artemis feels very far away to me.”
Flint said nothing at first, and a sudden tension thickened between them. She watched his powerful hands clench when he finally spoke. “I see her every time I look at you.”
He means more than the fact that Artemis and I share the same face, the same body, Selene knew. He’s always managed to see the divine in me—and the human, too. It was a rare gift. One she wasn’t sure she deserved … or even wanted.
In the reception hall, an accordion and a mandolin played American seventies pop standards. The dance floor already brimmed with frolicking guests by the time Selene and Flint arrived. A large placard in curling letters read, “Tanti Auguri a June e Maurizio!”
The bride herself came to greet them at the door, throwing her arms around her son. He hugged her back a little gingerly. And I thought my relationship with my mother was complicated, Selene thought. Hera was the only parent he’d ever had, and she’d risked Zeus’s wrath to bring Hephaestus into the world. In return, he’d always shown her loyalty, even though she’d rarely returned the favor.
When the woman turned to her, Selene stiffened, expecting her to be as arrogant and hateful as always. Hera had chased Artemis’s pregnant mother across the world, full of jealous rage and determined to prevent her husband’s latest consort from giving birth. Years later, she’d met Artemis on the fields of Troy and smacked her into submission like she would a recalcitrant child. Yet when the bride reached to take Selene’s hand, she no longer appeared as jealous Hera, nor her Roman incarnation, imperious Juno. She was just June. A woman with a broad Midwestern accent and a smile to match.
“My niece! Thank you for coming, dear.”
Niece? Selene thought. True, Hera was Zeus’s sister (and, in the usual incestuous morass of Olympian genealogy, his wife), but she’d never been much of an aunt to Artemis, Apollo, or any of Zeus’s many other out-of-wedlock children.
“We’re not here for the party,” Selene insisted, taking June’s hand cautiously. “We came to ask questions. Did Flint tell you—”
“Plenty of time for that!” June laughed and brushed a lavender fingernail against Selene’s necklace before turning back to her son. “I see you finally worked up the courage to give it to her. Now you two get out there on the dance floor!”
“I don’t dance, Mother.” Flint’s cheeks flushed above his beard.
June swatted him playfully on one of his bulging biceps. “Don’t be absurd. This isn’t the nineteenth century, hon. You don’t have to waltz! Just get up there and sway. It would do you both good.”
“June—” Selene began.
“Aunt June, please. Although don’t say it too loud—the family relationships are a bit hard to explain, aren’t they? And I don’t want to hear another word. If you want to talk to me, you’ll have to wait. I’m a little busy!”
At that, her handsome husband appeared, his arm around the shoulders of an even younger man with the same narrow jaw—probably his brother. Without preamble, Maurizio grabbed Flint’s face and pressed a hearty kiss on each cheek. The God of Volcanoes looked about to erupt.
“This is Flint Hamernik, an old family friend,” June explained in English to her groom.
She hasn’t told Maurizio she’s an Olympian, Selene realized. Otherwise, she’d introduce Flint as her son. With his graying hair and furrowed face, the Smith looked nearly the same age as his own mother, something June couldn’t justify without a complicated lie—or the even more complicated truth.
Maurizio made for Selene next, but she held out a hand to stop him. He grabbed it and pressed a wet kiss on the back. The young man at his side, clearly more attuned to her obvious discomfort, merely gave her a courtly bow. His black hair drifted across his forehead in a Superman curl.
“E questa bella donna?” the brother asked.
“Flint’s date,” said June quickly. Selene didn’t miss the wink she threw in her son’s direction, nor the answering glower he sent back.
The band began an old Italian folk song, one not nearly old enough for Selene to remember. With a joyous cry, the guests made for the dance floor.
“Come!” Maurizio declared in English. “You will join!” He took June by the hand, and the couple jogged off toward the center of the room.
With a brilliant white smile, the groom’s brother reached for Selene. She was about to wrench away when she caught the look on Flint’s face. He was jealous of this young, handsome Italian. Good, Selene decided. Let this remind him that he has no hold over me. She placed her hand in the young man’s.
As they made their way to the dance floor, he patted his chest. “Stefano,” he said by way of introduction. He was easily ten years younger than Theo, and had ten times his fashion sense, but something about his guileless smile reminded her of the man she’d loved.
I hope you’re somewhere dancing today, she prayed. Then she realized she didn’t even know if Theo liked to dance. She’d never gotten the chance to find out. Stefano, however, was clearly enjoying himself. His shining eyes locked on hers as he led her through the unfamiliar steps.
The guests around her clapped and shouted, encouraging the stranger in their midst. If anyone minded her leather pants, they certainly didn’t say so. Normally a paragon of grace, Selene found herself discomfited by her own awkwardness as she tried to match the rhythm.
“Relax,” Stefano said, his hand warm in her own. “Enjoy, yes?” He beamed at her and, for once, she listened to a mortal’s advice.
Millennia ago, her worshipers had named her She Who Leads the Dance. She hadn’t had much use for the epithet in recent centuries. Dancing involved people and music and crowds—all things she studiously avoided. But in a different age, her feet had pounded out the rhythm that her twin, Apollo, coaxed from the strings of his lyre. The girls who worshiped at her ancient sanctuary at Brauron had followed her lead, the youngest children dressed as bear cubs, covered in robes of yellow fur. The teenagers had shed their clothes entirely and danced with wild abandon among the sacred groves, reveling in their last days of freedom before returning to Athens for marriage and motherhood.
Selene closed her eyes and let herself fall back into that ancient rhythm, not so different from the one currently filling the hall. She released Stefano’s hand and found herself in the center of the circle. She pulled the green shawl from around her neck and danced with it as she would a partner, twining it around her hands, her body, letting it swing through the air. The crowd around her stopped to watch. They stamped their feet, urging her on. Stefano stood with parted lips, panting softly with exertion—or perhaps desire.
Sweat pricked her temples and the hollow between her breasts; the band picked up speed and spurred her feet to fly. She now wished she hadn’t worn her boots. She longed to feel earth between her toes, moonlight on her upturned face, the cypress-scented wind on her bare skin. She barely noticed the faces around her, but if she had, she would’ve seen their delight transform to something akin to awe.
Unaware of her own body, she felt the music course through her like a rushing brook. Leaping now, twisting in midair, then landing to trace intricate patterns on the floor while her hands spun the shawl into ever more fantastical shapes. She danced not for joy—but for release. All the emotions she’d kept bottled up since she’d left New York poured forth: fear for her father, rage against Saturn, longing for Theo. But most of all, she danced for Apollo, whose death had ripped the music from her life. She danced to honor her twin, to bring his melody back to the world, to prove to his shade that she had not forgotten the lessons he’d taught her: how to dance, how to love.
The music crescendoed, slowed, stopped. The guests broke into wild applause. Panting, Selene closed her eyes, clinging to the image of her twin, his fingers dancing across his lyre, his honeyed voice wrapping her sacred grove in its warmth.
After a beat, the band launched into a cheesy popular love ballad, dragging Selene back to the present, where the soaring cypress trees were merely plaster pillars and the soft earth thin parquet.
The sweating guests paired off. She felt someone approaching and knew Stefano would ask her to dance again. She could smell his cologne, too strong for her liking, but not entirely unpleasant. How would it feel to have a man’s arms around her?
But Flint got to her first.
“What are you doing?” she murmured as he swept her away from the young mortal and into his embrace.
“Listening to my mother.” He moved without grace, swaying just a beat behind the music. The callouses on his hand tickled her palm. His barrel chest brushed against her own as they moved. He wore no cologne, but the odor of sweat and embers washed over her. He stood only an inch shorter than she; she had to turn her face to avoid his simmering gaze. He’d never once held her like this. On any other day, she wouldn’t have allowed it. But Apollo had told her to open herself to love. She’d spent months keeping Flint at a distance, and he’d spent months respecting her wishes. Now, with her heart still pounding from the dance, and the memory of Apollo’s music still thrumming through her heart, she wasn’t yet ready to return to her life of solitude.
Months before, lying wounded in Ruth Willever’s apartment, Flint had kissed her. She still remembered the taste—smoke and sparks.
His hand tightened just a bit on her waist, as if he, too, remembered that kiss. His fingers splayed wider, feeling more of her body through the fabric of her shirt. His scent changed, too, so subtly only the Huntress would notice. She stiffened in response.
“You can’t own me,” she said next to his ear.
“I’m not trying to own you,” he rumbled back. “I just like the …” He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t need to.
I like it too, Selene admitted silently, surprising herself, although she wasn’t ready to say the words aloud. For once, it was Flint who kept talking.
“That day on the battlefields of Troy, when you faced my mother—”
“Are you going to make me relive that?”
“Shh,” he chided. “Let me finish for once.” His breath was hot in her ear as he continued. “I watched as Mother grabbed your wrists and called you a hussy and ripped the bow from your grasp. And you ran in tears.”
Selene snorted in annoyance but allowed him to go on.
“I’d never seen you brought low. I took your bow from my mother and sought you out.”
“But you were fighting for the opposite side. I defended the Trojans—you and your mother protected the Greeks.”
“I went to you anyway.” He paused for a moment. “Do you remember?”
“It’s not in the epics …”
“It’s okay. I didn’t think you would.” But she felt his shoulder tense beneath her hand and knew he was hurt. “You were hiding in the forest beyond the city. Sitting by a pond, watching the ducks. I handed you your bow. I thought you’d shoot one of the birds, but instead you just looked at me and said, ‘I’ve seen enough blood today.’ And there was such … softness in you. I hadn’t known you cared for the fates of the thanatoi. I’d thought that, like all our kin, you fought only for your own pride, while I alone, who saw my imperfections reflected in the faces of mortal men, truly felt their pain.”
Did I really care? Selene couldn’t help wondering. The Trojan War was a distant, half-formed memory to her now, the only clear moments those recorded by Homer or Virgil, but she knew the goddess she’d been. She may have wearied of war, but that didn’t mean she empathized with those who fought it. Yet the Selene she’d become did care about the mortal world. She’d risked her own life many times to protect it. Perhaps in that moment outside Troy, Hephaestus saw me not as I was, but as I would be. He knew me better than I knew myself.
“I wanted to take you in my arms and wipe away your tears,” Flint went on quietly. “But you wiped them away yourself and disappeared into the woods. You ran too fast for me to follow.” He took a breath before he said, “I’ve been chasing you ever since.”
His hand moved from her waist, his fingers brushing her ribs with the same delicacy he showed toward one of his intricate inventions. He pulled away, just far enough to meet her eyes. He stopped dancing. The song, Selene realized belatedly, had ended long before.
He looked at her expectantly, his lips tight, defensive, but his dark eyes hopeful. You would’ve smiled at me, Theo, she couldn’t help thinking. But I’ll never see you again. I made sure of that. So why can’t I let Flint into my heart instead?
She stared at him, roiled with uncertainty, her right hand still clasped in his left as if they might start dancing again at any moment. He pulled it gently between them and laid it on his chest. She felt the swell of his muscle, the pounding rhythm of his heart, fast and urgent as he waited for her reply.
I’m not ready, she wanted to say. I know you’ve already waited for millennia, and I know you don’t have millennia left to wait. His hair was more gray than brown, the lines beside his eyes scored deep. Athanatoi weakened in proportion to mankind’s disdain for their names and attributes. No one worshiped blacksmithing or fire anymore. Another fifty years, a hundred perhaps, and Hephaestus the Smith would fade away entirely. But she couldn’t give him what he wanted. Not yet. She opened her mouth to tell him so when June trotted into view, her gold diadem bouncing.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” she called cheerily. “But if you want to chat, let’s do it before I have to cut the cake.”
Flint turned to glare at her. “This isn’t a good time.”
“Oh, I think it is.” June looped her arm through Selene’s and walked her quickly off the dance floor. In the sudden tightening of her grip, Selene felt a reminder of the goddess’s old strength. June leaned close and whispered in her ear, “My son is the best thing that ever happened to you. I may look like a weak old woman to you, niece, but if you play with his heart, I’ll find a way to kick your ass one more time. Understand?”
Before Selene could respond, June gave her a motherly pat on the cheek and pulled away, a bride’s ecstatic smile plastered once more across her face.