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“How can I not tell him? He’s a part of this. He’s in the prophecy. You said so yourself.”
“And he said himself that there are spies watching his every move. An Olympian spy is ever more dangerous than a mortal one. Not even your thoughts are safe. He will know no more about what you’re doing. Especially now that you’re so close.”
“Close? Did you miss what just happened? A guy has to talk to them. They won’t have anything to do with me.”
“No one else will know! Unless you want my prison doors to open on your mother’s corpse, you will do as I say!”
Her shrill, ringing voice faded from my ear, but my hatred didn’t. With every day that passed, I grew more certain—the gods did the right thing.
Selene belonged exactly where she was.
Chapter Ten
Weeks passed, and I had nothing to show for myself. Every day, I went out into the forest and tried to get one of the dryads to talk to me. Every day, I walked out with twigs in my hair and dirt on my face. Didn’t matter how much I begged, pleaded, cajoled, and bribed—all I could get out of them was screeches to go away. They refused to tell me a thing.
With each day that passed, guilt ate me alive. I was so close to Mom, and I couldn’t get to her. It made no sense to me that she had to keep waiting to be rescued because a bunch of tree goddesses were women-haters, but saying that to Selene didn’t make a difference either.
No one could know anything more about her, the prophecy, or that they built an entire academy on top of an ancient, godly prison. She wouldn’t even stand for me to keep pretending the clues and hints came from Ionna. I was on my own to figure this out, and I was failing.
The only thing going right in my life... was Alex.
Gods help me. How was it possible to be so desperately miserable and blissfully happy at the same time? I had no idea, but the blissfully happy part was all thanks to Alex. He was the best boyfriend in any dominion, and I didn’t need to date other guys to know that.
Every morning, I woke up to flowers, chocolates, or other little presents left on my pillow. Easy for him to do since I spent every night with him, rolling around in the sheets and making those contraceptive potions work for it.
During the day, my pocket was constantly warm from my bellcone heating up with another note. Some of the messages were sweet. Most were filthy hot, describing all the things he planned to do to me in the bathroom, the broom closet, the forest, his bedroom—basically wherever he next caught me alone.
He was so incorrigible Daciana couldn’t sit next to me anymore. She said the scent coming off me kept getting her horny, which was doing strange things to our friendship and shaking her certainty in her sexuality.
We laughed our asses off about that, but I was still sitting next to Nitsa these days.
Even with how low, depressed, and sorrowful I wanted to be, Alex could turn my whole day around with one word, one note, one kiss. With each day, I fell harder for him. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to tell the guy that I loved him before he said the words to me. Gods knew I wanted to.
Leaving behind field medicine, my friends and I headed for our final lesson of the day, making for the southern field.
A stretch of freshly cut green grass went as far back as I could see. It’d be a beautiful place to picnic under the open air, enjoying the breeze and sunshine while working on assignments with friends. But of course, the academy put it to more practical use.
Platforms of the same type, but much smaller than the one in the stadium, were scattered about the lawn. A row of stands stretched in a neat line alongside them, and among them all—waiting for us—was Commander Vasili.
“Titans, find your groups. Sisypheans, find a seat.”
Groaning, our group broke apart into two. The commander made us sit on the stands, rays beating down on us while we watched the Titans train, practice, and form battle strategies with other children of the same god. He wouldn’t even let uswork on assignments for other classes. I knew because one girl tried, and he confiscated it and made her do a lap around the castle.
OnlyafterVasili was satisfied that the Titans had put in a good day of training did he turn his attention to us. It wasn’t that he short-changed us. I was learning how to do things my noodle arms and flabby butt never thought they could do. I couldn’t lift my practice sword when I first started. The day before, I used the same sword to cleave a lamia dummy’s head from its neck.
No, he wasn’t a bad or even unfair teacher. The plain fact was his priority was to get the Titans ready for the front lines. All of us who couldn’t aspire to do more than dig latrines could wait.
“I still don’t get why we can’t practice with them too,” I said. “They keep saying we fight together and we die together. It’s impossible for them to predict that we’ll all only have nonfighting roles. If you are called to battle a manticore or protect your village from a lamia, you need to know what to do, so why have you sitting on your butts?”
“I hate to say it, but I’m not sure we would be much use off this bench,” Theron said. “My powers are violent and unpredictable. There’s no measuring the scale of my destruction like there’s no hating something a little or halfway. I could take out half the green and for what purpose? In battle, of course I won’t hesitate, but when we’re just practicing...”
I inclined my head. “True, but, Ionna, Nitsa, and Tycho, you could—”
They were all shaking their heads.
“If my gift of prophecy were more focused—more accurate—Commander Vasili would pair me with the other children of Apollo. Otherwise, who wants me out there confusing them, shouting out the dozens of possible futures I see with no idea which one is right or if they’re all wrong?”
“Nothing for me to do either,” Tycho said. “Unless someone dies.”
