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I studied her as she moved a pile of books off her desk, then perched against it. She was quite pretty. Thick, dark hair cut short above her shoulders in a cut as severe as her sharp cheekbones. Should’ve made her seem severe, but she was softened by large, fawn-brown eyes and a tiny little coin of a mouth. I put her in her early thirties.
“Pass them up.”
There was shuffling and murmuring as everyone passed up their summary of the first chapter in our textbook,History of Olympia.
“Let us jump right in it,” Remis announced. “Did you learn anything that surprised you?”
“I learned my village teacher lied to us,” said Kristopher Aetos, a Titan. “She said Olympia was formed because monsterswere attracted to the divine in our blood. We came here to fight and defend each other.”
“She was right and wrong,” Remis replied. “Some monsters can sense the god or goddess within our souls because they’re descendants of gods themselves. But as for the rest—the cursed—they see a human and only a human. No, the creatures that sensed the divinity in our blood and made life impossible for us... were the vampires.”
A sharp crack turned my head. A snarl peeled back Daciana’s lips as she tossed away her now broken writing reed.
The surprise of her reaction was the only thing that saved me blurting out, “Vampires?! They exist too?!”
“Vampires smell blood,” Remis continued, blowing my mind. “One sniff and they knew instantly that we were special. Human blood has an amazing restorative and drug-like effect on them, but demigod blood...” She whistled low. “It was like eating bread and water your whole life and then discovering a world of cakes, sweets, meats, and wine. They couldn’t get enough, so everywhere in the world we lived, whole covens hunted down demigods.”
She paced the length of the aisle, meeting my gaze, then flicking away as she passed. “Divine blood runs in families, not neighborhoods. Back then, you could be the only demigod family for a hundred miles. Who would come to help you when the vampires came?”
We were quiet mulling over that horrible thought. Just a family. Mother, father, and child—safe in their beds one night when bloodsucking beasts burst through the door.
Were vampires loose in the mortal dominion? For eighteen years, I walked around with veins full of vampire fine wine and had no idea. Walking around the city at night with a paper cut could’ve been the end of me.
No wonder Mom always wanted me inside before dark.
“Everywhere our people were dying and the gods were dying with us,” Remis said. “The vampires were bringing an end to what the humans started. The end of the Olympian gods. The end of everything.”
“Why would that have been the end?” asked a girl sitting in front of me. “The essence would just leave our bodies, right? Find a new person.”
Remis was shaking her head before she was done. “There’s a reason the choice to scatter was made in a last desperate attempt after they lost the war with the Christian god. Your heart is a part of you. If it’s removed from your chest, it dies and you die. It’s the same for the godly essence. It dies with us.”
“So, what did they do?” Sirena asked. “How did they overcome the vampires to found Olympia?”
“Children of Hermes.” Remis ended her stroll before her desk. “Those with the power sent messages far and wide to the demigods of the world to come together and fight. Thus began the first Vampire-Demigod War.”
“A war?” Sirena cried. “An entire war we never heard about?”
Remis inclined her head. “A war fought in the land that became the Americas. The destruction of that battle remains to this day. Nothing but a massive crater that goes on for miles and miles. How much kinder it would’ve been on the mundane population if this was the last cross-species battle.
“But there was another in the southern region of the Americas. Two in Europe.Threein Africa, and then two more devastating wars in Asia.”
We sat quiet and spellbound. This was definitely a time to listen.
“Two wars in, demigods formed alliances with the vampires’ natural enemies: the werewolves.”
Kristopher snorted. “So you dogs can be useful.” He twisted around to smirk vilely at Daciana. “You should follow in your ancestors’tracks. Fight some monsters or get the fuck out.”
My retort was hot on my lips. “Shut—”
“Kristopher Aetos,” Remis snapped. “You will keep a civil tongue in your head, or I will remove it!”
“Yes, ma’am,” was his mumbled reply.
Yikes. I was in a different world. Teachers weren’t allowed to threaten they’d rip out tongues in the schools I went to.
I checked on Daciana, but it didn’t appear that she heard the exchange at all. She was shaking—her head down and fists balled tight on the desk. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer or look up.
