Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
When we meet Amalthea at the temple, she seems annoyed that we weren’t there sooner. Apparently, today is supposed to be a special day, and it needs to be spotless.
“What’s the event?” I ask.
“The Council of Elders will be here to honor our gods,” she answers. “They’re holding a grand ceremony that all the wealthiest families will attend.”
The Council of Elders? I wonder if Gelasius is coming. Maybe I can get a little progress on that side quest while I’m here.
“Where do you want us to start?” Cait asks, keeping us on task.
“Block the entrances to the temple and polish the floors,” Amalthea tells her. “I don’t want anyone coming in here messing anything up.”
I bet the newbie players are going to hate that. Whatever. They can find something else to do today.
Cait doesn’t even respond. She walks over to a group of people milling around the Zeus statue. “Shoo!” she says to them, waving her hands like she’s trying to get rid of a housefly.
“What’s your problem?” one man, an elf by the look of him, asks. “We have as much right as you to be here.”
“We’re cleaning up for a grand ceremony, and we don’t need your muddy shoes messing things up,” she tells them.
The elf rolls his eyes. “You can clean around us, little girl. No one orders fighters of Zeus around.”
I’ve seen Cait mad, even go berserker in battle. I’ve never seen her like this, though. Her eye twitches, but that’s the only thing on her face that’s moving. The rest of her features seem carved in stone.
Normally, she gets really loud when she’s upset, but her voice is low now. “Did you just call me a little girl?”
The man doesn’t even answer. He laughs and pats her head. I hope he already fucking prayed to Zeus because he’s going to need all the divine intervention he can get.
Cait grabs his hand from the top of her head and bends it unnaturally.
There’s a crack, and the elf screams as he falls to his knees.
One of his friends lunges forward. I don’t know whether he wanted to take on Cait or help his friend because he doesn’t get far.
Cait turns her steely gaze on him and grabs his hair with her free hand.
“I. Said. SHOO!” she growls in his face.
God, why is growling so sexy to me?
I once again remind myself I’m with Guy, and I don’t want to stir up drama in our group.
The man can’t hide the panic in his eyes as he says, “C-can I get my f-friend first?”
Cait lets go of the first man’s hand. “Get him and go,” she says. “I never want to see your stupid faces again, newbs!”
After helping their friend up from the floor, they all scurry away. Then Cait scans the others in the temple. They’re all looking at her in horror after witnessing what she just did.
“Anyone else want to be next?” she asks them. “Or do you want to leave the temple while you still can?”
No other prompting is needed. Other than myself and Amalthea, every single person in the temple flees as fast as possible.
“Your friend is scary,” Amalthea whispers to me.
I chuckle. “You should see her when a harpy is attacking.”
Amalthea’s eyes widen. “Harpy?”
“Lauren, go put up some chairs at the entrances!” Cait calls out. “I’ll make sure no one takes them down while you polish the floors.”
As frustrated as I was with Cait at the camp this morning, I’m really glad she’s my friend right now. Without her, this quest would have been a pain in the ass. I would have had to keep cleaning up everyone’s footprints.
Because the temple has to house so many colossal statues, it has a lot of floor to polish. However, I get it done in a couple of hours. To my relief, that’s all that Amalthea wants from me, and I can see that this part of the side quest is checked off in my menu. Now for the hard part.
“Um…why don’t we go get some lunch?”
Amalthea squints at me like I’m the dumbest person she’s ever met. “The Council of Elders will be here any minute! Now’s not the time to leave the temple.”
“Just trust me on this,” I plead.
“Why would I do that?” Amalthea asks.
Cait sighs. “Lauren is a Cleric of Aphrodite. The Goddess of Love wants you and one of the street food vendors to fall in love and make babies or something.”
Amalthea laughs. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I’m a priestess! I take care of the gods, not consort with street food vendors.”
“At least meet him,” I say. “What’s the harm?”
She rolls her eyes but then those same eyes land on Zeus, and her pain is obvious. To love a god and not be loved back must hurt like hell. Settling for a street food vendor is almost an insult when she made love to someone so powerful.
I can’t help but compare Amalthea to Mom. Like the priestess, my mother fell hard for a man who abandoned her and was never able to move on to a new relationship again. This left me as her only close relationship, which means that now she’s got no one to visit her.
“Aphrodite told you I should be with him?” she asks.
I nod. “I talked to the guy yesterday. He’s got a giant heart.”
After a moment of studying Zeus, Amalthea says, “Fine, I’ll meet him just to appease Aphrodite.” Then she looks at Cait. “Don’t let anyone in. I’ll take care of receiving the elders when I get back, because I am not going to suddenly fall in love with some street food vendor.”
“You got it,” Cait says.
I lead Amalthea out of the temple and across the street where Phemie’s son is busy selling his roasted chicken on sticks. When he spots me, his face lights up. I have a moment of panic. Yesterday, he made it clear that he thought I was hot stuff.
Then his gaze shifts from me to Amalthea, and his mouth opens in awe. He looks like he might melt onto the pavement.
“This is Amalthea,” I tell him. “She’s a priestess. Amalthea, this is…” I realize I never got his name.
“Hektor,” he says in a breathy voice. He’s full-on blushing now. I can practically feel the heat coming off his cheeks.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Amalthea says. She’s timid, but I can tell she’s enjoying the attention. After years of being ignored by the last dude she slept with, this must be a pleasant change.
“Why don’t you two get to know each other after the grand ceremony is—”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” Hektor says.
Amalthea giggles and twirls her dark hair around her index finger. “Oh, you don’t mean that.”
“I swear on my life,” he says. “Are you sure you’re a priestess and not a goddess?”
“You’re making me blush!” Amalthea doesn’t even sound like herself now. She’s not the stern priestess bossing people around.
Hektor gets on one knee and takes her hand in his. “Would you let a humble man such as myself kiss your knuckles? Such a blessing would likely bring me happiness for years to come.”
“Um…I see some rich-looking folks heading to the temp—” I begin.
“You may,” Amalthea tells Hektor as she flutters her eyelashes.
“The Council of Elders is waiting to be let into the temple!” I shout.
Amalthea’s eyes don’t even leave Hektor’s as he lays his lips tenderly on her knuckles. Still not looking at me, she waves dismissively in my direction with her other hand. “I’m sure you’ve got this. You’re a Cleric of Aphrodite, after all.”
A notification pings, but it’s amended, too. Goddamn it! I’ve got to help the Council of Elders with their fucking ceremony now. I don’t know how to do that! Cait’s going to murder me!
“I only let you out of my sight for two minutes, and you still screw it up,” Cait says in a seething whisper.
“I swear all I did was introduce them!” I say. “It’s like all I have to do is stand near an NPC, and everything breaks.”
Cait sighs and pats my shoulder. “Okay, well, what’s done is done. Let’s just get this over with.”
“But I have no idea what I’m doing!”
“Neither do I, but does it matter?” she asks. “Does it say we have to do a good job or that there’s stuff we have to achieve in the ceremony?”
I shake my head. “It just says to help the Council of Elders.”
“Okay, so if they tell us to do something, we do it and nothing else,” Cait says. “Then we go back to camp.” She leans closer and locks my eyes with her serious ones. “And you think about what you’ve done.”
I decide not to debate with Cait any further about how I’m not at fault. She’s already barely tolerating me as it is.
We let the Council of Elders in, and they all look pissed as hell. It’s not just them, of course; they’ve all come with their own entourages, and there are attendants waiting behind them. Because of my quest with Amalthea, everything is running late.
Gelasius is one of the many funneling into the temple. I wonder if I can find a moment to talk to him before he leaves. I dismiss that idea when I consider it might make his side quest go sideways as well.
Then I see Phemie and her children and grandchildren come in with the common citizens. The only one of her family that isn’t there is Hektor. I assume he’s off eloping with Amalthea or something. I take a moment to go over and greet her.
“Lauren!” Phemie says with a big smile. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see a Cleric of Aphrodite here!”
Phemie’s youngest daughter, Ione, gasps. “She’s a Cleric of Aphrodite? I thought she was just delivering packages.”
“Seems Aphrodite tasked her with a divine message,” Phemie tells her daughter with a wink. “She’s here to help us all learn about love.”
This catches Dolius’s attention now. “Learn what about love?” he asks.
But I have no time to answer because one elder clears his throat, and the whole temple silences in response.
Phemie and her family hustle to their seats. The elder who brought order to chaos without even saying one word glares at me. I assume he wants me by his side, and I make my way to him. However, the moment I’m there, I realize how wrong I was.
“Sit down,” he hisses.
“I-I’m supposed to be helping you,” I say.
“Then, you’re doing an awful job of it,” he whispers.