7
My hair is still damp when I step outside into the warm salt air.
The sun paints the sea orange on either side of my island, and far beyond it.
All the way to the horizon, the ocean gleams. I cross the narrow path and watch for kelpies, or any other monster that might like to take a bite of me or drag me into the depths.
Grains of sand are once again stuck and grating in the joint of my prosthesis. Even gentle Daedalus might swear if he heard the gritting noise. Luckily, they grind to dust on the marble steps leading to the temple.
My dress has a corset top cinched over an accordioned skirt with a bold slit to my hip that will show my prosthesis.
Some would argue that this metal and wood isn’t part of my body, but it’s become a part by extension.
I know how far the joint will bend in every direction, how it stiffens and sounds when it needs care, and how many times it’s held me upright when I should have fallen.
And all the times I did fall, it allowed me to get back up and keep going.
If my days are numbered, I want to honor this prosthesis and all it’s done. I regret not doing more with it in the time I had. I let my fear bind me even as this leg granted me mobility and freedom. It didn’t deserve that.
Several of the other contestants are climbing the staircases ahead of me. Niall is among them. He crests the marble mountain in a suit so dark it swallows all light as he disappears over the stone summit.
He’s the only one not wearing white.
Niall Kelly – the first mortal championed. And by Morrigan, no less. If bets are being taken, I’ll wager no one saw that coming.
If he survives the trials, he’ll make it to the games. He’s one step ahead of the rest of us.
I reach the landing in the middle of the staircases and start across it when someone with a large stride emerges from behind me.
“Callalie,” August greets as I start climbing the next set of steps.
“August.”
August Aymes is in white clothing from head-to-toe, too. His button-down shirt is wrinkled, tucked into a matching pair of pale slacks. At his neck, the buttons are undone; his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. Even his shoes are ivory leather.
We push to the top landing where the temple sits, looming beautifully and ominously overhead, blocking the last rays of sun.
August’s hair is tousled. Dark at the root, golden at the ends. His blue eyes smile even when his mouth is still. It’s unsettling how charming he is, given our current circumstances.
Niall lingers in the middle of the terrace. His peridot eyes find me, then slide to August beside me. He turns away, slips beneath a delicate swath of fabric, and enters the temple alone.
“Your friend is the only one not wearing white,” August says. “Does he already have a champion?”
“Morrigan.”
August’s mouth gapes open a little. “She chose him?”
“She did,” I reply, taking a deep breath.
“Over you?” he clarifies.
I nod. “Yep.”
We stand beside the same swath of fabric Niall ducked behind. The wind gusts and the bone-colored cloth billows and falls against our backs. We’re suddenly in a temple that crackles with power and is teeming with gods who want us dead but won’t kill us outright.
Hera and Athena are front and center, conspiring and discussing the contenders who’ve already arrived. Both females are draped in blue, but while Hera’s is the regal hue of a sapphire, Athena’s is paler, like a morning sky, or the lips of someone who died in the snow.
Musicians play in the center of the space.
Zeus takes Hera’s hand and rakishly pulls her into a dance.
For a long moment, everyone in the room watches.
The couple’s movements are so natural. So beautifully instinctual.
They’ve had millennia to practice and teach each other, and they have conquered this art, like they conquered the Greek pantheon, and the many others who defer to them now.
He leads and she follows, and they flow effortlessly.
Yet it doesn’t feel genuine.
Morrigan’s presence fills the space. The goddess stands beside Niall with her wild, dark curly hair, obsidian dusted over her eyelids, and a black dress that at first glance seems simple, but at second, could devour entire galaxies and not leave a trace of light.
She nods to me. An acknowledgement and dismissal. Find a champion, she’d advised me, and meant every word.
A young god with copper skin, clad in a solid gold, ankle-length shendyt knotted fashionably at the side of his toned waist approaches.
His broad collar necklace is strung with lapis lazuli beads that play off his topaz eyes.
His head is clean-shaven; his nose beak-like.
He may not be as broadly built as some of the other divine males, but his body is a lean, honed weapon.
But it’s hardly the sharpest part of him, I realize as his stare clashes with mine.
There’s only one other who can decipher and know all the things you’d never divulge to a soul with a single, swift glance. Who stares through you rather than at you. I thought the goddess Athena was alone in that ability, but this god shares the affinity.
“Callalie Ryan,” he says, and even though I’ve never learned the Egyptian tongue, I understand him when he adds, “I’ve been watching for you to arrive.”
“Thank you,” I reply, hoping he’ll supply his name.
“We’ve never met, but of course I know who you are,” he explains. “I am Thoth.”
Thoth.
Of all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, I didn’t expect him to be here, let alone seek me out.
Master of language and time. Blessed by the moon herself. His broad hands hang at his sides, and I wonder how many hearts he’s held and weighed for Osiris, god of their dead.
For mortals who carry the blood of multiple pantheons, their souls have a choice when they die.
I’ve already chosen and made my wishes known.
When I leave this world and body behind, Morrigan will cross the sea and take me to the rocky outcrop Tech Duinn – to Donn, the Irish god of the dead, who will shepherd it for eternity in his rolling, green meadows.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I tell Thoth, wondering if he’s interested in championing me or merely gawking as people do the victims of accidents and tragedies.
Some gods seek out mortals with the intention of trying to understand the feeling of being so vulnerable… so finite and human. I hope he’s not one of them.
“I was hoping to speak with you,” he says, his impenetrable gaze never wavering. “If you’re open to it.”
“Of course.”
A female deity extricates herself from the group she’s conversing with and glides up to Thoth, straight dark hair spilling over her shoulders. She drapes an arm around him and the jeweled wings on the back of her dress flutter with the movement.
At a closer glance, I see the wings aren’t part of her ensemble but are part of her body. The delicate feathers are sapphire, silver, and ruby. Her gown and skin share the same warm, golden hue.
With bronze eyes and full lips, high cheekbones and a flawless complexion, she’s easily the most beautiful goddess I’ve ever seen. Her silhouette graces beauty tonics and salves sold throughout the realms, but none of those images come close to the reality of how striking she is up close.
I nod to her. “Isis.”
The goddess smiles, pleased. “Hello, Callalie.” She beams at Thoth. “Excuse the interruption. I want you to meet someone.”
“I’m busy,” he tells her, flashing an uncomfortable if not sheepish smile in my direction.
“I’m afraid it can’t wait,” she sharply urges, her eyes and hands tugging him away. I don’t miss the apology in his stare as he relents to her insistence.
The deities whisper as they leave me. Even though I can’t hear their words, I know in my gut that after her intervention, Thoth won’t approach me again.
But his attention gives me hope. I never dreamed I’d be sought out by one of the divine.
I thought each of us would have to beg and bargain with the gods.
I scan those in attendance.
August is laughing nearby with a middle-aged male contender with gray hair, a soft belly, and eyeglasses so thick they make his eyes look owlish. The man’s disposition is positively sunny, despite the dread building in the pit of my stomach.
Walking in the opposite direction, I skirt the room, trailing my fingers over the silken swaths billowing in the night breeze and letting moonlight peek in.
Over the course of the next hour, we’re served small portions of fine food – fried calamari, stuffed grape leaves called dolmades, lamb meatballs, and glasses of water and wine.
There is music and dancing, like any ball might have.
But underneath the rhythm and melodies, beyond the twirling steps, tense undercurrents flow.
One crawls with the derision of gods who detest any mortal who thinks they may be on an even footing with them. The other churns from every mortal sequestered here who never asked for such esteem but are being punished for it anyway.
Smiles are flashed. Small talk is made. Divine and mortal work to charm one another.
Everyone pretends. Everyone lies.
How difficult it is to enchant a god who wants you to succeed, but only for a time, and to an extent, before you die.
I envy those fortunate enough to quickly adapt in desperate situations. I’m not one of them.
Since Carina’s death, I’ve tried not only to stay out of the limelight, but to sequester myself from it – and in doing so, I’ve isolated myself from far more.
I’ve wasted so much time hiding from Ares, hoping he’d forget I existed, when I should have known he wouldn’t.
I should’ve known my days were numbered and spent them more carefully.
I wish I would have lived more loudly.
Morrigan saved me from the god of war the day I faced him. But he’s spared my life every day since for this opportunity: to teach me, and everyone like me, any mortal who would dare stand up in defiance, a lesson that had been learned and forgotten through the ages a thousand times over.