AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A full nod from him this time—except his head’s notably weaving in my vision. I squint in wonder, trying to determine if he’s playing one of those marble-in-the-hole games, only along the grooves of his brain.
“It actually turned out to be a good thing. Okay, not a good thing, because that termagant is one giant handful of strange venom, but—”
I jerk back despite dictating myself not to. “There’s a but in here?”
Maximus calms me with the steady force of his deep blues. “But during the five minutes I forced Meg to tell me what’s going on, instead of everything Hera’s not going to let me do about it, I got every confirmation I needed from her.”
“Confirmation?” Kell cuts in. “For or about what?”
“More like anaccount of,” Maximus clarifies. “In the form of a screenplay I just reread.”
I startle again. “One of Gramps’s scripts?”
Maximus’s stare intensifies. The cobalt gains new depths, like direct sunlight in Caribbean tidepools. I know—and adore—this shade. But I haven’t seen it for a couple of days, since we waved goodbye to Gramps at the mansion.
“Once again, your grandfather has given us all the details we need. They’re there, poured out in one of his old screenplays. It was probably something he’d overheard, simply playing the part of the nonchalant writer wallflower in hell, but he turned it into a story, and it’s becoming a full-fledged prophecy.”
I spend a long moment in jaw-dropped silence. The same look crosses Kell’s pale features. Jaden’s the one breaking the mold, already leaning forward with elbows on his knees and keen gold glints in his gaze.
“A prophecy…about a war,” he murmurs, getting a fast answer in the form of Maximus’s next nod.
“A war declared by a Titan who was then turned into a goddess, only to be slowly and steadily neglected through the years. A goddess who witnessed the same fate befalling all of Olympus and quietly vowed to do something about it. But in order to do that, she needed a special plan. And to make that plan happen, she needed a special weapon.”
“Holy. Shit.”
Jaden rolls back to his feet. He moves around the room with energy I haven’t seen since he was a teenager landing his first movie part.
“Kara,” my brother blurts, his gaze twice as scattershot as before. “She’sthe weapon. A blend of three races and of all their powers…”
“The races that Hecate needs to unite,” Maximus states, “in order to take back Olympus from the king and queen who’ve messed it all up with their bickering and backstabbing.”
Jaden stops, hands on his hips. “She wouldn’t be wrong.”
“But she’s not totallyright.” Kell surges up from her chair too. “Fixing Olympus isn’t going to happen by ravaging three of the four other realms, even by grooming a chosen one as their figurehead like this.”
“Okay, stop.” I stand to face off with them. “Groomed? How did some encouragement and enlightenment get translated intogroomed?” I sweep a hand down, showcasing the smudged leggings and dirty tank that I’ve been wearing since this morning’s exercises in the meadow. “And what about any of this looksgroomedto you?”
Jaden rocks back on one heel. “Sorry, ashram girl, but your fellow diamonds have gone and rearranged stars to make your story happen. All of this—you, Maximus, all these revelations and adventures—it’s part of an altered narrative now. A world order that Hecate’s orchestrated down to the inch.”
I throw my hands up. “But it’s insanity. Doesn’t she see that? Chosen ones are a fictional trope for a good reason. Because they can’t bereality. True change won’t take a revolution. It’ll takegenerations. A shift throughouta lotof time. Hecate needs so much more than me for this!”
I’m ready with more, so much more, but my rant peters out beneath the force of my siblings’ stares. Theirscrutiny. Looks that penetrate beyond the normal sisterly side-eye or brotherly frown. I feel…examined. Studied in ways that make me step back and clutch hands to my opposite shoulders.
“What?” I finally spit. “Come on. You two are freaking me out.What is it?”
I don’t know why I’m thankful that Kell speaks up first.
“Generations,” she echoes with slow, soft care.
“Bingo.” Jaden’s tone, while more decisive, is no less creepy for my nerves. “I should’ve realized…that sound I heard right after we first got here… Oh,Kara.”
“And now I can’t smell anything else,” Kell rasps. “It’s just not a combination I get to experience every day.”
It’s the sheen in her big browns that finally makes me tremble from head to toe.Tears. Kellneverlets herself well up like this.What. The…
I don’t realize it has stammered out of me until my brother and sister stop me from completing the phrase, gripping me on each side with strength that borders on possessive.
“The sound I heard earlier was a heartbeat,” Jaden states. “And it wasn’t mine, yours, or Kell’s.”
