Interlude I Hermes
Interlude I
Hermes
“This is a problem.”
I lower the binoculars and sigh. “Problems are nothing new. Every step of this has gotten more complicated for no damned reason. We’ll deal with it.
” I almost interfered with Zeus’s cute little coup’s attempt to sink our enemy’s small fleet, but ultimately the ships were another problem that needed to be taken care of.
Olympus has done nothing but hurt those it’s meant to care for, and evacuating the civilians to the countryside—even though Demeter had the foresight to purchase land specifically for this purpose from one of my many shell companies—will put pressure on our food supply sooner rather than later. We needed that blockade gone.
Of course, now no one knows where our enemy is—not even me—and that is a larger problem.
Atalanta shifts next to me and bumps her shoulder against mine. “Normally me pointing out problems has you giddy with the opportunity to fix them.”
“It keeps life interesting,” I say absently.
She smells good—really good—like coconut or something tropical that makes my mouth water.
Unfortunately, pressing my nose to her skin or, gods forbid, tasting her is out of the question.
She’s the only true friend and ally I have left in Olympus, so I’d be a damn fool to complicate things by crossing that line.
It’s something we’ve both mutually—silently—agreed to talk about after.
After this plan that’s been years in the making either fails spectacularly or, more likely, gets pulled off even more spectacularly.
Yes, there have been hiccups. Atalanta had a better than stellar shot at the Ares title, and if she’d won the competition, it would have made everything so much simpler.
But no one could have anticipated Minos—or the news he brought with him to Olympus.
That Circe is alive and well and bent on revenge.
Circe.
I shiver. No use thinking about her. Not now. Not ever. “You should get going. Athena will be looking for you.”
“Not for a bit.” Atalanta shrugs, her gaze distant. “Since they didn’t find her, I’m about to be up to my eyeballs in a wild-goose chase. I don’t suppose you have any information about where she is so I can just cut her throat and be done with it?”
We’re perched on the roof near the shipyard, watching Poseidon return without hostages—or Icarus. At least one person in Olympus can be trusted to act true to form. He’s honorable to a fault, and sending Icarus away buttons up a loose end that someone would have taken advantage of.
None of that explains where Circe is.
“I don’t know everything, darling.” It’s the truth.
If it wasn’t… I want to believe I’d hand that information to Atalanta willingly.
If we knew where Circe is, Atalanta would have a better than average chance of killing her.
She’s very good at what she does, and she has no messy, complicated emotions when it comes to Circe. Not like I do.
It’s a good thing I don’t know where Circe is, because I can’t say for certain I would give the information to Atalanta. And then I’d have to face some feelings I’ve been purposely avoiding.
“Shocking,” she murmurs, her brows drawing together into a beautiful frown. “Would you tell me if you did know where she is?”
I know the proper response. Press my hand to my chest and swear with all apparent sincerity that, of course, I would convey Circe’s location to Atalanta and, naturally, I want her dead as much as the rest of the Thirteen.
It should be the truth. I might be enacting a plan that hatched many, many years ago with Circe herself, but our methods vary wildly.
We are not in alignment. Not anymore. Never again.
“Hermes.” Atalanta grips my shoulder, her strong fingers anchoring me in place even as her dark-brown eyes see far too much. “I know better than anyone the kind of history you have with her…”
History. It’s such a trite way of putting it.
There was a season in my life when my sun rose and set on Circe’s smile.
A simpler time, yes, but all the crueler for it.
Olympus has never been the utopia the Thirteen and legacy families pretend.
Someone has to pay the price for their ambitions, and it falls to the civilians who might as well be nameless as far as those in power are concerned.
For the first third of my life, I lived in the countryside and worked in one of the farms that feeds the city, Circe by my side.
And we dreamed of a better world. One that was fair.
Ironic, that. Nothing in life is fair. If it was, Zeus never would have seen Circe on her trip into the city to buy me a gift with her hard-earned money. He never would have taken her, married her, and murdered her on their honeymoon.
To find that he didn’t murder her…
I clear my throat. “Yes, we have history. Ancient history.” Losing Circe broke something in me that will never be repaired.
It was only finding Atalanta and having her there to pick up the pieces that saved me.
Saved, but never healed. Not fully. Even if Circe isn’t dead like I believed for damn near twenty years.
I attempt a smile, though it falls flat. “It’s a nonissue.”
Atalanta snorts. “You can lie to everyone else with aplomb. Don’t lie to me. I know better. It’s an issue.”
Damn it, I hate when she perceives me. I sit back and kick my feet out over the drop to the street.
“It won’t be an issue in the way you mean.
It will hurt to see her again, but you and I have been working for damn near fifteen years to give Olympus a chance to fix itself.
Having my ex show up to blow the place to smithereens is not the distraction you think it will be. ”
“Yeah. Sure. I’ll believe it when I see it.
” Atalanta sighs and hefts herself to her feet.
She looks particularly fetching in her black fatigues.
I never thought I’d have a thing for pseudo military types, but who wouldn’t have a thing for Atalanta?
She’s gorgeous with her medium-brown skin, her curls styled back into a mohawk, her scars cutting through the lines of her face in a way that feels like staring into a mirror sometimes.
She gives me a severe look. “We can’t afford to drop the ball now. They’re scrambling, but not enough.”
“I know.” I don’t lift the binoculars again. There’s nothing new to see. Circe might have offered the perfect distraction, but her arrival also gave the Thirteen a chance to unite for the first time ever.
They didn’t, of course. Instead they bickered and backstabbed and talked and talked and talked.
But they could have. Zeus being wicked enough to unite the three legacy titles and engage in a coup—even a limited one—wasn’t on my radar, either.
He normally plays things by the book, and it’s a testament to everyone’s desperation that formerly steady people are acting wildly out of character.
Which is good. I want them desperate. What I don’t want is for any alliance to stand strong.
Now Atalanta and I have to ensure it doesn’t happen.
“You have Athena’s ear.” In hindsight, we should have placed her with Athena from the start; Atalanta’s skill sets certainly fit there better.
But we needed eyes on Artemis—and Hephaestus, by extension—because those two were reckless and selfish and unpredictable.
Athena, on the other hand, will always be one step behind Zeus, will always be steadfastly serving Olympus in the best way she can. There are no surprises on that front.
“No shit. I’m charming and logical.” She grins.
“I’ve already started poisoning the well between her and Zeus.
He helped loads when he orchestrated that cute little coup without discussing it with her first. She’s one minor inconvenience away from dropping a building on his head and taking her chances with…
Well, I guess it would be Helen who would claim the Zeus title as the next eldest Kasios?
Which leaves the Ares title hanging, and no one has time to put together another tournament to get a new person in there. So, yeah, it’s going swimmingly.”
I want to pretend I don’t have a conscience, but it tends to rear its goofy little head at the most inopportune of times.
Like now, contemplating Zeus’s death. It was a lot easier to do with the last one.
He was evil, and murdering him was a blessing for everyone in the city.
His son, our current Zeus, is still in his fledgling monster stage.
It’s possible someone could pull him out of it…
“I’m worried about Hera,” Atalanta says abruptly. “She’s got too many connections. She might be able to pull them out of this death spiral.”
I shake my head. “She hates the Thirteen. She’s more likely to set them on fire than lend a helping hand.”
“Hermes.” Atalanta puts an emphasis on my title. I am one of the Thirteen, too, after all. “Hera is daughter of Demeter, married to Zeus, and sister-in-law to Hades. Not to mention she’s got connections to Eros through Psyche, and he’s one scary motherfucker.”
“He’s a pussycat.” I wave that away and keep going before she can snap at me. “We’re not threatening Psyche, so he won’t bother with us. Easy-peasy.”
“We have different definitions of easy-peasy.”
I laugh. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll keep an eye on Hera—and Zeus—to ensure they don’t make any more progress trying to bring the gang together.”
“That does make me feel better, actually.” Atalanta leans down and presses a light kiss to my forehead. She’s gone before I have a chance to react, the little asshole, striding away to the edge of the roof. A few seconds later the ladder on the other side creaks as she climbs down.
As the warmth of her presence leaves me, I can’t help wilting a little.
It’s so much easier to keep up appearances when feeding off the energy of others.
We’re close to realizing the goals we’ve been working toward since the moment I met Atalanta and realized we were in alignment.
The goals that started even before then, with Circe.
The Thirteen have to fall. I would prefer not to line them up and put a bullet in each of their brains, one after another.
Better—smoother—if they can be convinced to step down.
Then we can move forward with the plan to bring true democracy to this shit show, nominating and voting three delegates from the three main parts of Olympus: lower city, upper city, and countryside.
The people will decide. More than that, if the leaders the population chooses fuck up and don’t represent their interests, there will be checks in place to force them to step down.
I’m not a fool. I understand that there aren’t any known governments in the world right now that are fully free of corruption. That doesn’t mean we can’t strive for something better. And that something better is not a dark queen to take the place of thirteen corrupt assholes—myself included.
Exhaustion weighs heavy on my shoulders.
It’s been so long… But with the finish line in sight, I can’t afford to flag.
There’s still plenty of work to be done.
First step being trying to talk some sense into Zeus now that the stakes are clear.
He won’t be happy to see me, but people rarely are these days.
I heft myself to my feet and head toward the ladder leading down to the street.
Olympus has to fall, and I still have some key support beams to kick out to make it happen. Time to get to work.