Chapter 3

The smile froze on Aphrodite's face.

She gripped Apollo's hand tight beneath the folds of her golden robe.

He didn't react.

She cut a sharp glance at me, then turned to Diomedes with a gasp, one hand flying to her mouth.

"Diomedes — aren't you dead? No wonder Sister refuses to leave with us!"

Apollo's gaze went dark and unreadable. Cold in a way that made the air feel thinner.

"Don't stay here," I said to Diomedes. "Find Poseidon. Or Heracles. Bring them back."

Both figures were legendary — bearers of divine honors directly given by Zeus, never to be set aside. Apollo would know them on sight.

Diomedes startled, then immediately moved to remount.

Apollo moved without warning.

Before anyone could react, he was across the ground, silver arrows loosed, knocking Diomedes off his horse — the shafts aimed at his heart.

"Apollo, stop — he is a guardian of the mortal realm!"

The words tore out of me.

The god didn't listen.

Diomedes twisted, dodging the killing shots — but he was one against many. Apollo's guards drove their blades in. One. Then another.

Blood hit my face. I stood there with my mouth open, mind blank.

"Don't hurt him. He doesn't deserve this!"

No one listened.

They pulled their blades free. Diomedes knelt on one knee in the dirt, bleeding from a dozen wounds, still trying to hold himself upright.

Aphrodite's guard stepped on the back of his neck and drove his forehead into the ground.

Apollo stepped back with an expression of pure distaste.

"Sister, that was no guardian. He drew arms against Zeus's chosen heir. He's an assassin."

Aphrodite's smile grew brighter by the moment.

Beside me, a blade rose, pale and cold in the light.

"Sister should think carefully. These eight children — are you saving them or not?"

"I'm saving them."

Eight cuts won't kill me.

These eight years, their families had looked after me in ways that had no name for it.

Four cuts came down. The iron smell of blood thickened in the air until it was hard to breathe through.

Ares grabbed the blade from the nearest guard, the vein at his temple pulsing.

"Thena! You would still save them?!"

Somewhere behind me, a child was crying, small and broken.

Cold sweat soaked through my clothes. Each breath came in pieces.

"I'll save them. And I'm not going back to Father Zeus's house."

Fury cracked through Ares like a thunderbolt.

He drove four more cuts across my body, voice like hammered iron.

"Whether you go back is not your decision. What you owe Aphrodite — what you owe this family — you haven't finished paying it."

I swallowed the sound that tried to come out. Both hands found the ground. I pressed myself up, slowly, until my back was straight.

Aphrodite watched my desperate, ragged breathing and looked genuinely pleased.

"Ares, look — Sister is bleeding so much below. Is she… is she with child? We shouldn't force her back to Olympus in this condition, I shouldn't have pushed her—"

I looked down, dazed.

It was Oktos's blood.

Apollo turned sharply, jaw set. Two words, barely audible through his clenched teeth.

"Get rid of it."

The guards obeyed immediately. They seized my arms and wrenched them back.

Forced my abdomen bare.

Fists came in. I could only make sounds I didn't choose to make, feeling like everything inside me had been displaced. I couldn't form a single word.

"Nonsense — Lady Athena is pure. There is no child!"

Diomedes's mouth was full of blood.

He held on, and he held his ground.

Aphrodite laid one hand across the throat of the nearest child, fingers curling slowly.

"Nonsense?" She glanced at Diomedes's sudden tension. "If they aren't Sister's children, why do you care so much what happens to them?"