Chapter 2

I tore a strip from my robe and pressed it hard against Oktos's wound, jaw tight.

"Aphrodite. Wounding Olympian blood is a capital offence — even for you."

Ares waved a lazy hand.

"Olympian blood. Thena, your performance is embarrassingly thin."

Aphrodite lifted her chin like a goddess who has just rendered a great service and took Apollo's arm with both hands, leaning into him with practiced ease.

From across the space between us, I held Apollo's gaze.

Steady. Unblinking.

After a long moment, he spoke, face empty of expression.

"Thena. You've learned to lie."

He had almost believed me.

Aphrodite pressed her lips together and arranged her face into something wounded and uncertain.

"Sister is having children impersonate Olympian blood. If word of this reaches Father Zeus, it will bring ruin down on all of us. She still hates me."

Both Apollo and Ares frowned.

"Don't be afraid. I'm here." Apollo pulled her close and pressed his lips to her brow.

Ares, however, let his fury burn through what little reason he had left.

"Eight years and you still haven't learned your place! What exactly do you want, Thena? Aphrodite is the true daughter — you are the counterfeit! What right do you have to compete with her? What right do you have to resent her?"

Each word landed like a blade finding a gap in armor.

Then something warm closed around my cold fingers.

"You used to have it very hard," Harmonia said quietly.

I pulled a smile from somewhere and gave it to her, then turned back and gathered myself.

"Wait one quarter-hour. Then you'll know whether I was lying."

One quarter-hour — the time every day when the children's guardians came to collect them. The time when, on ordinary days, I would dust myself off and walk home unencumbered.

"You've stalled long enough!"

Ares's fury was at its peak.

Aphrodite stepped forward quickly, playing peacemaker.

"Father's house can certainly afford eight children. If Sister truly insists on sparing their lives… then let them live."

Apollo's expression flickered, faintly displeased, but he gave a reluctant nod, his eyes already softening again as they found Aphrodite.

"Whatever Aphrodite wants, I'll go along with it."

Ares relented as well.

My arms tightened around Oktos until my fingertips went white.

"To the outside world, they can be called lost strays," Aphrodite said pleasantly. "But Sister is returning to Olympus. She cannot remain entangled with these children — not even by a thread."

She drifted closer, eyes full of something that wasn't quite a smile.

"To make sure Sister remembers clearly — for every life we spare, we mark it on Sister's body. One cut per child."

The moment the words left her mouth, all eight children surged around me.

"How dare you — all three of you!"

"Athena is brilliant — even my royal father has praised her wisdom before all of Olympus! How dare you treat her this way! I'll tell him at once and bring her home with me. She won't suffer another moment of your cruelty!"

"My mother is waiting for Thena to teach her to play the lyre. You are not allowed to hurt her!"

"If you have any courage at all, wait your quarter-hour! Using us as threats against her — you're cowards! When Poseidon arrives, I'd like to see who among you dares lay a hand on her!"

Within moments, all of them were seized — gagged, bound, forced to their knees in the dirt.

But the quarter-hour was up.

"Lady Athena!"

Diomedes wrenched his horse to a halt, vaulted from the saddle, and put himself between us with wide, furious eyes.

"Stand down! Who are you people?"

I looked past him. No one else.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

"You came alone?"

Diomedes's jaw was tight, voice rough and low.

"A wave of chaos spirits surged at the eastern border — origin unknown. Lord Poseidon led the others to drive them back. They haven't returned."

Border unrest. The escort the twin realms sent for Castor and Pollux would be blocked as well.

"Stop playing games."

Apollo's expression was complicated, something shifting beneath the surface of it. When he spoke again, his voice had roughened almost imperceptibly.

"Thena. Are these children truly worth this much to you? Worth your life? You'd go to every length to save them?"