Chapter 28 Softly it Begins
SOFTLY IT BEGINS
ALEXIS
Augustus pulled me to my feet and Kharon finger-combed dust out of my hair as he straightened my crown. Nyx slithered, wrapping herself around my leg.
“No protectors allowed for the ceremony,” Vorex said as the animals walked forward with us.
I stared down at Fluffy Jr.’s sleeping form.
“He’ll be okay,” Kharon said quietly.
I straightened and held my head high. “I know.” I glared at Augustus, daring him to argue.
He didn’t.
Deep inside my chest, my protector bond strummed, warm and alive. Everyone else might underestimate Fluffy Jr., but I wouldn’t.
Augustus placed his hand on my lower back as he escorted me out of the room and Kharon trailed behind us, his fingers resting possessively on the top of my spine.
My skin tingled from where they touched.
In the dimly lit tunnel, Kharon moved so he flanked my other side, his thumb caressing the priceless necklace.
Four guards marched at our front, electric batons sizzling in their hands.
I glanced back. One, two, three … Eight Olympians marched behind us.
It wasn’t a fair fight—they should have brought more guards.
Vorex wasn’t the only one I recognized. Alessander, Titus’s crony from the crucible, also marched beside him in a matching blue suit embroidered with the House of Poseidon symbol.
Alessander’s gaze flicked to mine. His weapon lowered as he opened his mouth like he wanted to say something to me. Vorex shot him a glare and he pursed his lips shut.
Alessander was shorter than I remembered. How was I ever afraid of him?
Augustus’s nails dug into my lower back as his fingers tensed. “Are you okay?” he asked in my ear as he followed my gaze. His eyes flashed with recognition.
“Yes,” I said, feeling the truth of the word in my bones.
Alessander was no threat to me.
Kharon’s calloused thumb stroked the back of my neck soothingly.
My husbands pressed closer to me as we were escorted up through the maze of tunnels, out of the torchlight, into the orange rays of the setting sun.
This time we didn’t climb the steps—we were led out onto the sand.
Four Chthonic flags waved in the breeze where they were planted in the middle of the arena. The corresponding leaders stood in front of them, spiky crowns glinting atop their heads.
A long white marble altar sat to the left of the flags. Standing unobtrusively, the block of stone looked distinctly out of place.
People screamed down at us, the coliseum much louder than during the massacre. The siren section was now packed with hundreds, as were the other creature sections. They sat too far away to make out individual people.
The sheer magnitude of the crowd was overwhelming.
It was easy to forget that Sparta was made up of thousands of creatures because of the constant Chthonic versus Olympian politics.
Sharp feedback rang in my left ear, and I swallowed a wince.
Augustus grabbed the side of his head, and he glanced down at me with recognition.
He felt my pain.
I looked away from his too-knowing eyes and studied the packed stadium, where eight Olympian House flags waved in the wind, fluttering with bright colors.
“Non desistas, non exieris … non desistas, non exieris …” chanted loudly through the air.
Never give up, never surrender.
Dusk painted everything in a muted radiance, and the ancient civilization didn’t seem real.
The sun slowly lowered behind the mountain peaks.
The dead bodies had been removed, but the sand was still splattered in blood, the scent of copper lingering in the air.
As we approached the Chthonic flags, my breath caught.
Hades’s eyes were bloodred—a menacing scowl contorted his features. For the first time since I’d known him, he looked like he was seconds away from losing control. Inky fog pulsed violently around him.
He scanned the sand, and his back straightened as his gaze landed on me.
I gave him a small reassuring smile.
His fog stopped pulsing, tendrils slowly wrapping around his feet as he visibly relaxed.
Behind him in the stadium, Persephone sat next to Charlie and Helen in the front row. She waved to me and shouted something, but I couldn’t hear it.
“Never give up, never surrender.” The chant increased in decibel as we were escorted toward the center of the arena.
Augustus and Kharon pressed closer.
To our right, Patro and Achilles stalked forward with three guards standing a distance away from them like they were afraid to get too close.
Achilles looked at me, then turned away.
Patro grimaced.
To the left, Agatha blew kisses at the guards. Behind them, Drex was once again looking sickly as he stumbled forward.
“Form a line!” Vorex shouted over the clamor, as he gestured with his sparking baton to a perpendicular strip of empty sand that faced the altar and half of the stadium.
Kharon and Augustus stopped walking, their fingers curling where they rested against my skin, and scowled at him.
“Uh … please,” Vorex amended with a wince as he looked down, unable to meet their gaze.
“Watch your fucking self,” Kharon warned Vorex as he pulled me closer to his side.
The three of us lined up next to the others.
Hades, Artemis, Ares, and Aphrodite stepped away from the flags and joined the end of our line.
Sparta chanted all around.
There was a thud as a cloaked figure jumped over the edge of the stands and landed in the arena.
Erebus stood to his towering height, a sinister white bone mask obscuring his features. He straightened his tattered cloak, shadows clinging to him as he stalked across the sand.
The poster hanging in Helen’s room failed to capture his terrifying aura.
Erebus came to a stop at the end of our line and Aphrodite leaned up to whisper something in his ear. His masked face snapped down to hers, posture sharp.
Fear sank its teeth into my spine.
If the leaders were unnerved, then I needed to preemptively exit left (die).
Hades leaned forward in the line. “It will be okay,” he mouthed silently as he stared at me. “Don’t be afraid, daughter. You are the best of both of us.”
I wasn’t so sure of that.
“Welcome, Chthonics.” Zeus’s voice projected as he walked out onto the sand, electricity jumping across his skin.
The crowd went wild.
Fate walked beside him with a clipboard in her hand—rage filled me—Why did you deliver Charlie to that toxic trailer?
She glanced my way, and a small knowing smile curled her lips.
I let her see my hatred. Someday, you’ll pay.
She smiled wider.
The roars from the crowd increased tenfold as the seven other Olympian leaders walked out behind Zeus, oversized laurel wreaths heavy on their heads.
“Never give up!” the crowd chanted with growing excitement. “Never surrender!”
Stomp.
Clap.
Stomp.
Sand vibrated, and as the Olympian leaders neared, their crests identified them.
Hera walked behind Zeus in a shiny silver toga. Tall and willowy, the severe bun at the base of her neck gave her a waspish look.
Hermes stood out beside her, short and skinny, his lime-green suit studded with diamonds.
Athena followed behind them in a glittery purple toga—she was shorter than Hera but much more muscular. Her dark bronze skin shone like she’d rubbed herself in shimmering oil, and her wavy brown hair fell down her back in a glorious wave.
Two men flanked her.
Poseidon walked to her left, extremely tall and muscular, in a navy suit. He had long white hair and a matching beard, clear green eyes, and tan skin—from his fierce scowl and size, he looked more like a Chthonic than an Olympian.
On her left was a man in a yellow suit: Apollo.
The rumors of his attractiveness didn’t begin to do him justice.
It was hard to look at Apollo—his bronze skin and long curly blond hair were both so bright, he practically gleamed. As he neared, his eyes were a light shade of golden brown that I’d never seen before.
He sneered as our gazes met. Rude.
At the back of the procession Demeter and Dionysus walked together.
Demeter was a short woman with curly blond hair and icy gray eyes. Her pale skin was covered in freckles, matching the rhinestones that dotted her brown toga. She was beautiful in a familiar, ethereal way. Persephone’s mother. She looked more like her sister.
Her head snapped and she scowled at me, her expression severe.
Grandma?
Something told me she would not like it if I called her meemaw or gammy.
Demeter’s gaze traveled across the Chthonics and landed on Hades. The death glare she shot him was sharp enough to kill. Slowly, she drew a threatening finger across her neck.
I was intrigued.
I’d always wanted to be involved in family drama, and this seemed extremely promising.
Dionysus walked beside my meemaw. He was a brawny Black man with long wavy purple hair that matched his suit.
He turned his head to look at us and his eyes were a shocking shade of white.
I swallowed a gasp.
Is he also secretly blind?
The Olympian House leaders positioned themselves in a line across from us on the other side of the long altar.
Thirteen of us.
Eight of them.
There was a heavy aura surrounding the leaders on both sides.
Power tingled across my tongue.
No one looked physically old, but they all felt ancient—it was something I couldn’t put my finger on—a sixth sense was screaming at me to run for my life. It was an innate terror.
These were the leviathans of this dark age.
The Olympian leaders focused on Kharon, their eyebrows rising. Athena leaned up to Poseidon and I read her lips, “He really did give her his ear. How … romantic.”
Poseidon scowled down at her. “It’s deranged.”
He’s not wrong.
Athena shook her head in disagreement.
Kharon reached up and rested his hand once again on the back of my neck, his thumb shifting my necklace so the blue diamonds caught the light.
Territorial and overly possessive, the action would have been demeaning coming from any other man, but there was something about Kharon—an animalistic energy that matched his hellhounds—that was intrinsic to his being.
I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into his touch.
Demeter’s scowl deepened.
Meemaw’s not happy. I fought the urge to wave at her.
Hostility radiated between the two groups.
Suddenly, I wasn’t sure the great war of Sparta had ever ended—it felt like we were standing in the middle of a ceasefire, both sides waiting for the other to take the first shot.
There was no love lost, no empathy, no … anything.
Just open hatred, and barely concealed violence.
Tension stretched, energy mounting, as Chthonic and Olympian House leaders sized each other up, waiting for someone to make the first move, so they could slaughter each other freely.
“Never give up, never surrender.” The stadium clapped and stomped, clumps of dried bloody sand shaking.
Zeus walked up to the altar—he raised both his hands up in the air, electricity sizzling on his skin—the stadium fell dead silent.
No one moved.
“Let us begin.” Zeus made eye contact with me, sparks leaping from his gaze.
The scar on my sternum prickled.
Fate smiled.
It didn’t take the power of premonition to know that things were about to get extremely unpleasant, for me.