Chapter 1 #2
The Wolf Prince abandoned his stone lion and launched himself into the air, using the falling debris as stepping stones. He moved with suicidally reckless speed, flashing around Athena, his daggers creating a web of steel.
Athena swatted at him, annoyed, forced to raise her shield to deflect a strike aimed at her eyes.
Elias raised his hands. He didn't throw fire; he pulled a thread of magic.
High above, the massive hanging gardens, acres of floating stone and silver vines, groaned. The supporting pillar cracked.
With a sound like the world ending, the gardens fell.
They didn't fall on us. They fell between us and Athena, a cascade of stone, water, and vegetation crashing down to create a chaotic wall of debris. Dust billowed out, blinding and thick.
"Go!" Kaelen roared.
Thane scooped me up, charging through the dust. We sprinted for the palace doors, Kaelen and Elias flanking us. Flynn dropped from the sky, landing in a roll and springing up to run alongside.
"That won't hold her for long," Flynn panted, checking behind us. The dust cloud was already glowing with angry white light.
"It doesn't have to," I said, eyeing the golden doors. They were fifty feet high, embossed with the history of the gods. "It just has to give us a second to knock."
We skidded to a halt in front of the doors before tugging on the handles. Only to discover that they were locked tight.
"Thane?" I asked.
The Bear Prince slammed his shoulder into the gold. It boomed, but didn't budge. "Barred from the inside. Magically sealed."
"Kaelen?"
The Dragon Prince stepped forward, his hands glowing white-hot. He placed them on the metal. "I can melt it, but it will take minutes. This is divine alloy."
"We don't have minutes," Elias said, looking back at the dust cloud. A spear of light punched through the debris, vaporizing a chunk of the ruin. Athena was digging herself out.
I looked at the doors. I looked at the lock mechanism, a complicated relief of the Olympians radiating from a central sun.
A thought occurred to me. I wasn't a Keeper anymore; locking things up was the old me. Now, I didn't keep things out; I let them in.
I stepped up to the doors, nudging Kaelen aside.
"Aria, you can't force this," Kaelen warned.
"I'm not forcing it," I murmured. I placed my hand on the central sun that made up the lock.
It was warm and hummed with a specific resonance. One I recognized. It was the same resonance I had felt in the Skal, the same I had felt in the Titan bone. The resonance of order as a concept.
I took the chaos inside me, the swirling, messy, beautiful storm of four demigods and one mortal woman, and I pushed it into the lock.
Open, I commanded. Not with a key, but with an idea. I pushed the concept of wild into the mechanism of law.
The gold metal of the lock turned grey, rippling and losing its cohesion. The lock didn't click. It rotted, rusting a thousand years in a second.
The doors groaned, the seal failing under the assault of chaos.
"Push!" I yelled.
Thane and Kaelen slammed into the doors together. With a shriek of tortured metal, the massive gates swung inward.
We spilled into the High Seat of Olympus.
It was cavernous, a space designed to make even giants feel small, so I felt minuscule. Floors of polished obsidian reflected a ceiling painted with living constellations. Rows of thrones lined the walls, empty and silent.
And at the far end, sitting on a high dais, bathed in the sickly light of the storm raging outside the windows, sat the Queen.
Hera.
She perched on a throne of white peacock feathers, looking smaller than I expected in the immense chair. But the shadow she cast was enormous, stretching across the floor to touch our boots.
She looked up as we entered. Her eyes were solid white.
"You are persistent," Hera’s voice echoed, layered and terrible. "I suppose my daughter failed to teach you manners."
Behind us, outside the doors, Athena landed with a heavy thud.
"Mother," Athena called out, walking into the hall, shaking dust from her helmet. "They are slippery. Shall I skin them for you?"
We were trapped. Athena behind us. Hera in front of us. And the building shook as the nothingness ate the world outside.
"No," Hera said, standing up. The air shimmered, and I saw the true goddess, towering and radiant, before her light dimmed slightly once more. "They have brought the anomaly to me. It saves me the trouble of digging her out of the rocks."
She descended the dais steps.
"Welcome to Olympus, Aria," she said, opening her arms. "I have a special place prepared for you. You will be comfortable and have everything you could possibly want."
I drew the sword Hades had given me, a blade of shadow and starlight.
"I respectfully decline," I said.
Hera laughed, and the windows blew out, showering the hall with glass and the sound of the end of the world. "Decline, hm?" Hera mused. "If that's the case, then let us see if you break as easily as your mother did. It only took a few whispers from me before she lost her mind."
Kaelen stepped to my right, sword flaming. Flynn to my left, daggers ready. Thane and Elias flanked the rear, turning to face Athena.
"Five against two," Flynn grinned, though sweat beaded on his forehead. "I like those odds."
"Five constructs against two goddesses?" Athena corrected. "You're right, those are good odds, though I'm worried I'll get bored."
"Just don't kill the girl. We need her, remember?" Hera's voice rang out just as Athena lunged and brought her spear to Elias's throat.