Chapter 25
Circe
“The perimeter is set. We’re ready for you.
” Antigone isn’t happy with my disappearing act last night, but she’s controlled enough not to say as much in front of an audience.
I calculated that timing carefully this morning, slipping back into the university between shifts and catching a little sleep before it was time to conduct Artemis’s trial.
It’s an argument Antigone and I have had countless times over the years, but there are nights when I need my freedom to escape the strangling tension of lies and plotting.
It was more than worth it last night. I don’t know exactly what I was looking for in searching Atalanta out, but the entire interaction surprised me.
How Hecate kept her hands off that delight of a woman is a mystery not even I can tease out.
I saw Atalanta’s performance in the Ares tournament, and there was our intense fight a few days ago, but I still wasn’t prepared for being in bed with her.
Or for how vulnerable she allowed herself to be, apparently despite her best efforts. It makes me want…
“Circe.”
“Just thinking,” I murmur. Among the other things Antigone isn’t happy about, conducting this trial in full view of both sides of the River Styx is toward the top of the list. We’re safe enough from the lower city; only small objects attached to a human with an invitation can pass through the barrier.
Bullets don’t apply. I know, because we tried it early on against the external barrier in a field test before sending Minos to Olympus. “Let’s get started.”
Demeter smooths her hands down her coat, her expression distant. “There’s no going back now.”
“There never was.” I regret how Eros’s death rattled this seemingly unassailable woman.
She didn’t blink at the thought of betraying her city in the service of her people.
In fact, she was an active partner in getting my people into the countryside to infiltrate the civilian camp there.
It was a key component to turning the tide of public opinion in my favor.
In hindsight, threatening Hera was a mistake.
If she wasn’t pregnant, none of that mess would have been necessary, but this will all be for nothing if the Kasios line continues.
Maybe Hera would raise her child to be something other than a monster intent on preying on the weak, but in a generation or two, Olympus would be right back where it started.
I felt it necessary at the time, but it was the first crack in Demeter’s loyalty.
Nerissa walks up and hands Antigone a microphone.
We hauled in speakers for this. It would have been easier to continue to hold these trials in the auditorium, which was already set up for lectures and the like, but a leader must go to where the people are—and it’s vitally important that those hiding in the lower city understand their circumstances.
I accept the microphone from Antigone and hold it down, away from my face. “Thanks.” I turn to Demeter. “Are you ready?”
She smiles tightly. “Yes.”
I hold up my hands and the crowd quiets almost immediately.
They’re not still—I don’t think this many people could be still—but the general murmur of conversation dies down.
I speak into the microphone as I walk behind the kneeling figure of Artemis, a bag over her head.
“Thank you for your patience while we’ve gathered another perpetrator of your pain. ” I pull the bag off. “Artemis.”
A murmur goes through the crowd almost like a hiss.
I keep my expression even, no smile this time as I know how they feel about this particular person.
Peitho was an easy pitch because she actively removed so many people who she viewed as a threat and then went on to attempt to kill Psyche Dimitriou, who many people were fans of.
Artemis is more of a challenge. She’s smart enough to keep her sins in the dark, and her loyalty to her family is sometimes seen as a positive, instead of the truth: She doesn’t give a shit about anyone else and wouldn’t lift a finger to save them.
If not for sheer luck, she would have allowed Atalanta to die at Minos’s party.
Artemis took her there with the intent to sacrifice her to political games, to use her death as mutually assured destruction.
The fact bothered me when I thought Atalanta was just a normal soldier, doing her best to survive.
Now that I have an idea of what scars she holds, it incenses me.
But I can’t show that emotion. Not here, not now.
I hold up my free hand. “Please, friends. I do nothing without reason, and that includes bringing Artemis to you. Before we list her crimes, however, Demeter would like to say a few words.” She should be able to quell the simmering unease I’m seeing on far too many faces.
“Thank you.” Demeter accepts the microphone from me and hesitates. It’s the tiniest pause, but from her it might as well be a scream.
I frown. “Demeter?”
Ignoring my low question, she steps forward.
“You know me.” Her history of public speaking is on full display, the words carrying even without the technical assistance, her presence commanding the attention of everyone present.
Even me. I watch, rooted to the spot, as she swishes forward.
“I will not pretend that every action I’ve taken in my life is above reproach; we all know better.
There are all those rumors about the pigs, after all.
” There’s a spattering of laughter that she allows to fade before she continues.
“But I’ve done my best to make Olympus a better place for its people.
Regardless of my ambition and my endless plans, under my time as Demeter, I have diversified our crops and navigated several near-disasters in harvest seasons that would have resulted in people starving. ”
I share a glance with Antigone. Where is she going with this? She said she wanted to speak on the corruption within Olympus, to truly drive home what we’re doing here.
“But in the end, it wasn’t me who did those things.
It was you. The people. There would be no food in this city if there weren’t workers planting, tending, and harvesting.
If there weren’t drivers and distributors to transport it.
If there weren’t grocers and small businesses that put that food into people’s hands.
The best parts of Olympus have always been the people.
” Demeter takes a deep breath. “Not the Thirteen.”
“There we go,” I murmur. The crowd seems to agree, whispers rising in a wave and then falling to anticipated silence almost as quickly.
“Every one of us is aware of the ways the Thirteen have used their power for selfish gains—including me.” She lifts her chin.
“We wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t the truth.
You deserve better than to be ruled by people who aren’t elected by the citizens, are not representing the population, and have no accountability to the city.
And that applies whether there are thirteen leaders… ” Her gaze slides to me. “Or one.”
I realize a beat too late what she’s doing. “Stop her. Now!”
Antigone rushes forward, but the other woman keeps speaking. “You deserve a new form of government that represents you. One that won’t kill on a personal vendetta and—”
Antigone punches Demeter in the stomach and yanks the microphone out of her hand. It’s too late. The damage has been done. The crowd shifts restlessly, people starting to shout.
“Let her speak!”
“She’s right!”
“We deserve better!”
On the other side of the space we’ve cleared, one of the three speakers we set up explodes in a brilliant flash of sparks.
Shot, my brain supplies, even as I crouch down, hands instinctively going over my head.
The second speaker dies a bare moment later, quickly followed by the third.
Someone just eliminated our ability to speak over the crowd; any attempts to calm their growing rage will be unsuccessful. Shit.
Next to me, Artemis laughs. “You dumb bitch. She played us. You thought she wasn’t going to play you, too?”
“Shut up,” Antigone snaps. She pulls the gun from her holster and shoots Artemis twice in the chest.
I freeze as the woman’s body slumps next to me. “What are you doing?”
“The pomp and circumstance isn’t working. This is faster.” She turns the gun on Demeter. “You fucked us.”
The crowd surges forward as one, violence in every shriek and surge.
I marched on the city—well, drove on the city—with the citizens.
I gathered them on the university campus and spun their anger into purpose.
Part of me always knew there was a possibility that they could turn on me, but I didn’t expect it like this.
In a single heartbeat, I’m back in the ocean again, Zeus’s hands around my throat as he holds me under the surface until he shoves me out into deeper water, letting the currents take my limp body away from him. Helpless. Terrified.
Noe disappears in the first wave. I have no idea if she goes down or if she is simply pulled into the mob to become part of it. All I can focus on is Antigone pulling me to my feet and shoving me behind her. I find myself next to Demeter as we back toward the barrier in the middle of the bridge.
A barrier that will most certainly not allow me entry.
My people try to form a line to keep the crowd back. They’re mostly successful, but it won’t last indefinitely. The feel of violence in the air grows with every frantic beat of my heart. I can taste it in the air. “No.”
Antigone keeps a vise grip around my bicep as she drags me behind her further onto the bridge. “Are you fucking happy?” Antigone yells at Demeter, her voice breaking. “You’ve killed us all.”
My back bumps against the barrier, and I have to swallow down a pained sound. It feels like a thousand bees stinging, but if there was any give at all, I would willingly take my chances. There isn’t. It’s a wall of pain I’ll be pinned against if we don’t figure out a plan, and fast.
For the first time in longer than I can remember, I don’t know what to do.
“Some sacrifices are worth it. There’s no going back now. You’ve lost.” Demeter pulls a tiny gun from her pocket—tiny but just as capable of killing as any other—and aims it at me. “This ends now.”
Somehow, I still have the space to admire how well she played me.
I don’t know if this was her plan all along.
Surely not? She’s shown herself to be changeable time and time again over the course of her duration as Demeter.
If I hadn’t made several key mistakes, she would still be at my side, would still be using her influence and words to guide the citizens of Olympus to my preferred conclusion.
Instead, she’s killed me, even if she doesn’t manage to get a shot off. I shake my head…or maybe it’s my whole body shaking. I hold up my hands. “Don’t do this.”
I courted Demeter for the very reason that the mob listens to her.
For all her faults, she did do better for her portion of Olympus.
And everyone present knows it. If I can just find the right words, maybe I can turn the worst of the tide.
Surely there’s some angle to take, some solution that my frantically circling brain just hasn’t landed on.
“I was never going to kill Callisto or Persephone.”
“Yes, you were. But you won’t get a chance to touch any of my daughters now.” Demeter smiles grimly. “All your plans are finished. Or they will be.” She shifts, angling her body away from the people starting to press insistently against the line my people have formed. “Goodbye, Circe.”
I feel Antigone tense and have a moment to scream, “Don’t!” before she shoots Demeter. The bullet takes the woman between the eyes. She’s dead before her body hits the ground, taking with her any chance of salvaging this. “Godsdamn it.”
Everything goes still. The mob actually pauses for several beats as if they’re shocked by what just happened.
As if, like me, they can hardly believe that a personality as big as Demeter’s could be cut down so quickly, so violently.
And then, as one, the people roar. I feel the sound down to my very bones, written in my nerve endings.
It was bad before. There’s no surviving what comes next.
One of my people screams as the mob courses over her, more force of nature than individual people.
And all that unspeakable rage is pointed directly at me.
I was never naive enough to think my death would come easily, not from Zeus and not from whatever finally removed me from this earth.
But being torn apart by a mob is a nightmarish scenario by any standard. I can’t stop shaking.
Antigone hauls me to the side of the bridge. “You’re going to have to jump.”
The water. Again. “No.” I clutch at her arms. “Antigone, no. I’ll die.”
“You’ll die if you stay here.” The mob is almost to us. She pulls me into a tight hug that I have no chance to process and grabs my shoulders. “Live, Circe. For all of us.” And then she shoves me over the edge of the bridge.
I fall.