Page 28 of A Crown of Hopes and Sorrows

He blinked several times, hesitating like he might speak, but then he gave his head another shake. “Of course.”

We crunched forward over dry leaves, but Valerian sighed, and I turned towards him. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing. Let’s hunt.”

I gripped his arm. “It’s going to be all right.”

He studied me, the emerald color of his irises sparkling against the shadows of the woods. “Here I’d thought you hated me.”

I rolled my eyes. “If I hated you, I wouldn’t waste my time on you. If I tell you how it really is, you can know I care about you.”

“With that in mind, I’m feeling deeply cared for.”

I huffed a laugh. “Good. Now, could we hunt?”

He nodded, and we pushed farther into the forest. We returned with several rabbits, but misery still hung on Valerian like a coat. That entire night as we ate dinner, Epiphany spoke with me but never even shifted her gaze in his direction, despite many sad glances he sent her way.

It prickled at me so much that the next morning, as Epiphany and I trotted alongside each other, I brought it up. “Valerian is pitiful.”

Epiphany looked out from under her long lashes at me, her lip pursed in a pout. “Are you taking his side now?”

I groaned. “I don’t like there being sides.”

“I can’t just go on pretending,” she said, swaying along with her horse. “I’ve spent years—gods—a decade doing that. It’s too… awkward… to keep faking it. I’m in love with him.” Her eyes welled with tears. “But all he sees me as is a princess.” Her voice took a hard turn. “That’s all anyone sees me as.”

“Not me.”

She offered me a small, sad smile. “That’s true. And you’ve made me realize that I’m more than what everyone else tells me I should be. Even my family doesn’t see me. Having the last couple of days to think about it, I’ve realized that the only person who knows who I am is me. Maybe they’ve known me since birth and share the same blood as me. But that doesn’t make them the ultimate authority on me. Only I can define who I am. You know?”

I remained silent for a moment, allowing the clip of the horses’ hooves to fill the silence. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks took on a touch of color. “I didn’t mean that about you.”

“No, but you made a good point. We get to pick what we do with our lives. You’re right.”

She nodded. “Anyway, I would have liked for something to come of me and Val, but if he can’t see me as anything more than a princess, then so be it. I’ll define my own life. I can figure out happiness on my own as well. But I’m never going to let who I was born as hold me back from being true to myself again.”

“That makes sense,” I said, and then we fell into another silence that allowed my thoughts to weave their way through me. Well, Epiphany made some valid points. Maybe finding out who my father was didn’t define who I was. Clouds swept across the sky, cloaking the road in shadows for a moment before whisking away again. I swallowed. My father wasn’t just a standard issue person, though. He was a god. So, perhaps that was different. After all, my connection to him already brought the wrath of Hera upon my head.

Uneasy thoughts clattered around within me as we continued forward. Valerian kept shifting his gaze towards Epiphany. She never even looked his way.

12

Apollo

Snow fluttered through the air, catching in my hair and melting against my cheeks. I would tell Hyacinth what news Ares had brought as soon as we left the Palace of the Four Winds. I didn’t want to distract him before then. Some part of me liked how he could see past the surface of me, though. No one had ever known me like that before. It warmed me even more than the sun fizzling through my veins, lighting me up.

And then the feeling crashed back down.

Because I remembered.

What I needed to tell him.

I’d have to leave him by spring.

Less than six months.

I suppose I could still visit him… some. Much of that depended on how this war may go, anyhow. Who knew what could happen to all the gods under Zeus’ power if we defeated my father? Myself included. If Jupiter took the spark of Olympus, he could kill us all and might exercise that. And it wouldn’t matter if Zeus found out our treachery and killed us both, anyway. The future stretched out so uncertain and fragile; it was as though we grasped at a rope that frayed with each passing second.