Hermes’ Caduceus (Halfling Academy #6)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Breathing heavy, I spin in a roundhouse kick.

Raven jumps back at the last second and drops her shield. “What is wrong with you?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“That shield is like titanium. My brothers have all broken their hands at least once trying to punch me while it’s up and instead of training with magic, you try to kick me?” she says.

“I guess I wasn’t thinking, okay? It’s been days since Hermes told us about his caduceus going missing and Alpheus’ warnings and we still don’t have any clues. Not to mention the three unconscious demigods in the fucking dungeon,” I say.

“You need to practice your new magic and I’m the only one who can effectively shield against you other than Jayden. You need to try to use your magic against me and stop being scared.” She folds her arms.

“Who said I’m scared?” I ask, feigning bravery.

“Seriously? You’re scared you’re too strong and you’re going to hurt me or break through my armor. You’re not. This is crazy. Hit me with your magic or I’m leaving and I won’t train with you anymore,” Raven says.

“Fine,” I say and pool my magic in my palm.

The lightning crackles against my skin as I crouch into a fighting stance and Raven readies herself, shielding against my magic. She gets in her own stance and before I can attack, she transports behind me. I spin, lobbing my magic at her.

The magic hits her, throwing her back on her ass, and I race over to her. She’s laughing hysterically as I plant my hands on my hips and stare her down.

“When did you learn that?” I ask.

“I didn’t. That’s the first time I’ve ever transported myself.” She grips my offered hand and I pull her up. “See? You didn’t hurt me. It’s all good.”

“That’s a relief that you can shield like that now and we have one more person who can transport in battle. This is a good development.” I roll my shoulders back.

“Shut up, traitor,” someone yells.

We both spin to find a Hermes girl facing off with a daughter of Athena. What the fuck are they doing? We’ve already been over all this. The only traitors are the ones that left to side with their godly parents even though they are still trying to kill us all.

“What is going on here?” I ask.

Draven rushes forward at the same time his sister launches a ball of magic at the daughter of Athena. It hits Draven square in the chest.

“Stop it,” I scream.

Draven flies back ten feet and lands in a heap in the grass. Kira screams as she rushes to Draven and cradles his head in her lap.

“What is wrong with you all?” Kira glares at them.

“Draven needs the healer,” I tell her.

Dax crouches next to Kira and places a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, let’s get him to the healers so we can get him patched up.”

Kira stares the girls down as she nods to Dax. He lifts Draven in his arms like he weighs nothing at all and the two of them race off to the academic wing. I round on the Hermes girl. I’m a terrible person because I can’t remember her name and I’m sure we’ve spoken to each other before.

“What in Hades is going on here?”

“Nothing,” the Hermes girl spits. “It doesn’t concern you.”

“It does concern me if you’re still bullying people,” I say.

“Whatever. You were the one who told us that they were against us, but then you let them stay and just spy on us for their parents. It’s disgraceful.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

“They aren’t… Oh my gods, are you all fucking dense? Your brother just took a shot of your magic because he was trying to break this up before you did something you couldn’t come back from.”

“Draven agrees with me that they need to go. He was protecting me, not her.” The Hermes girl flips her hair over her shoulder.

“You really are delusional, aren’t you?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Thad, can you take her to Chiron, please? He needs to be aware of what’s going on here.”

“What? You’re going to tell on me?” she scoffs. “You’re supposed to be the one leading us, but you’re going to lead us to ruin if you don’t realize they are all against us.”

I step forward into her space and glare at her.

“Have you been in a battle? Do you know what it’s like to almost die or fear for a friend’s life?

I do. I have gone into battle over and over for you and everyone else on Earth and you just want more.

The enemy just keeps regrouping. You have no fucking idea the horrors I have gone through. ”

She takes a small step back, probably scanning the area for an escape, but I’m not done yet.

“Until you have seen the shit that I have or felt the things I did when nearly losing everyone and everything I care about, you don’t get to judge me.

Ever. Maybe next time the world is spiraling, I’ll send you to fix it and sit here at the academy where it’s safe.

” My tone is deadly calm and that’s the scariest thing of all.

“Um, B? Maybe we should just calm down. The world really will end this time if we send Bethany to save it.” Raven grips my biceps, pulling me away from the girl.

I sigh. “I was just making a point, Raven. I’m not going to leave the fate of the world in her incapable hands.”

“Good. I thought you had lost the plot there for a second.” Raven chuckles.

“Hey, I’m not that bad,” Bethany shouts.

“Thad, get her out of here before I show her how woefully unqualified she is to fuck with me.” I wave a hand dismissively.

Thad grips her arm and marches her to the academic building. Jayden grabs my hand, squeezing it in support as I turn to the Athena girl.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I was sparring with my brother. He’s the only one other than the Ares guys who can give me a challenge. She interrupted our sparring session and got hit accidentally as she was trying to flirt with him. It was seriously pathetic.” She shrugs.

“What hit her? She didn’t appear injured,” I say.

“I think the only thing wounded is her pride. I was in the middle of a combo move when she stepped between us at the exact same time I swept my leg out to take Dawson’s legs out from beneath him but got her instead.”

“What happened next?” I ask, trying my hardest not to laugh.

That shit is funny, especially after the vitriol she was spitting at me a few minutes ago. Everyone at this academy should know better than to just waltz up to someone in the middle of a sparring session. What the fuck was she thinking?

“She got up and started screaming at me, calling me names. It was the same typical bullshit we have been getting for weeks.” She shakes her head. “I’m over it.”

“Yeah, all this hatred has blown up way more than I ever anticipated.” I sigh. “We all fought together in the battle for the academy. We’ve almost been taken out by them five times now and they can’t understand why you all wouldn’t want to side with your parents? That makes zero sense to me.”

“I don’t understand it either and you didn’t even see the half of it, honestly. When you went to save Artemis… well, let’s just say it was bad.” Her shoulders slump.

“How bad are we talking? We’ve been back for days and no one thought to tell us?” I ask.

“It was really bad. They decided to make it as unbearable as possible so we would want to leave. They stopped when you came back because everyone is scared of you. Or they’re scared you’ll just decide we aren’t worth saving and just walk away. I’m not sure which. Probably both.”

“I’m going to start beating people up if they don’t stop this bullshit. There are no more traitors here. Mia is in custody and the students that were brainwashed were just that. Someone has control of their minds. We will fix them.” I roll my shoulders back, clenching my hands at my sides.

“You can’t just go around beating people, baby.” Jayden rubs my shoulder.

“Why not? If they’re acting like idiots, they get treated like idiots, right?”

“I wish that were the case, but if you do that, you become the bully, and I know you don’t want that,” Jayden says.

“Why do you have to be all logical and shit? I just want to beat some sense into a bunch of assholes.” I hang my head.

“You would have to beat up more than half the school,” the Athena girl says. “I’m not completely against that, but it seems impractical when we are training for war.”

“You too? Are you all going to gang up on me?” I ask.

Raven threads her arm through mine in a show of solidarity. “We can go beat on my brothers if you want. Will that make you feel better?”

“No.” I sigh. “They’re right. It’s not logical or practical to beat up my own army in training.”

“I’m sure they have done something to deserve a beating.” Raven squeezes my arm.

“Maybe later. We need to go talk to Chiron about this. If they have time to harass each other, they aren’t training hard enough. This war is coming sooner than any of us are ready for and they aren’t even trying.”

“They’re not. The week you guys were gone, a good chunk of students took the week off from training like some kind of vacation.” The Athena girl rolls her eyes.

“Motherfucker, do I need to make training mandatory? This is a joke, right? Do they not realize after all the changes we’ve made, how serious this is?” I ask.

“They are college idiots. You can’t expect them to take anything seriously, B,” Raven says.

“Well, they are really going to hate me after this.” I grin. “Thank you, um, I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

She giggles. “It’s Sara. Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to automatically know my name. That wouldn’t be logical as we have never interacted before.”

“Thank you, Sara, and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.” I shake my head.

“Don’t worry about it. We need more training. If we could get some team building exercises in there too, it might help.” Sara takes a step back.

“That’s a great idea, thanks.” I nod and pull Raven to the admin building.

Jayden jogs up on my other side. As we make the trek to Chiron’s office, I run over in my head what needs to be done.

“You think it’s too harsh since we said not everyone has to fight?” I chew my lip.