8
Not a single deity dances with me. None approach or even speak to me, though Thoth meets my eyes before leaving the temple with Isis.
He’s no longer willing to champion me.
From across the room, Ares watches me wait alone, a satisfied smirk playing on his lips.
When a girl wearing white garners the courage to approach him and gestures toward those lining up to waltz, inviting him to join her, trying to convince the Greek god of war to champion her, he denies her.
But he stands up straighter as she trails away, because she wanted him. I bet he thinks we all do.
And maybe he’s right. Every mortal still unclaimed eyes him as they waltz across marble that might be splashed with their blood tomorrow. Not only do mortals watch him, several of the gathered divine do, too. Their stares are vastly different from the desperate ones of the contestants, however.
The gods are competitive. Prideful. They’re always vying for something to set them apart from their equals. Something to raise them onto a higher pedestal, even if only for a breath.
Could I do that for one of them?
If I win the first trial. If I conquer it, surely one of them will find me worthy of championship. They won’t be able to resist beating Ares at his own game. And if I secure a powerful enough champion, I can beg them to extend their protection to Cillian and Abuela.
They’re vulnerable in the desert between realms.
My heart thunders with new resolve. I must win the first trial and beat my sister’s murderer at his own game. What poetic justice that would deliver.
Dancing and laughing like tomorrow is nothing to fear, the other contestants are already playing. They intend to win, too. Only time will tell which of us will.
The musicians pause to take a drink and rest their hands. The contestants and divine part, most looking for someone new, someone different. Another chance, another option.
August Aymes notices me from a few paces away and walks over. “Hey,” he greets in the gravelly voice Carina and I swooned over, undoing another button of his shirt.
If I didn’t know who he was, I would assume he’s an athlete with those shoulders and tapered waist.
But that voice…
I focus on the other contenders. All of them are competition.
I need to learn their strengths and overcome them, know their weaknesses so I can exploit them.
Distractions, however attractive, won’t help me survive tomorrow.
And August Aymes is a beautiful distraction. Maybe that’s why he was brought here.
“You should find another partner before they’re all taken,” I encourage, nodding to the number of divine that keeps shrinking as mortals invite them to the next waltz. The musicians take their seats again.
“I was hoping you’d do me the honor,” he says, flashing a hopeful smile.
Is he genuinely this nice or is he playing the game better than I am already?
Shrugging, I playfully inform him, “Alas, I’m not eligible to champion you.”
“Please?” He holds out a hand, waiting patiently for me to decide whether to take it.
“Why?” I ask, eyes narrowing.
He quirks a dark brow. “Because it’ll be fun.”
I shake my head. “None of the other contestants are dancing with one another. They’re all seeking a champion. Why aren’t you playing their little game instead of making up your own rules?”
“Maybe I want to do something unexpected to draw the gods’ eyes.”
“Maybe?” I ask with a teasing smile.
He grins and comes closer. “Or maybe I’d rather enjoy the rest of the moments I have left – whether they are few or plenty – instead of letting the ones who want me dead dictate how they’re spent. Maybe we can be dance partners, and partners in these trials. I think we’d work well together.”
“You want to be allies?”
He nods. “Allies and friends.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Except that I’m a headcase who can’t bear the sight of my sister’s face – or mine. That I’d rather stay outside with the monsters guarding the waters than face my past. Can he tell that the present moment is always too close to the future for my liking?
Carina believed in the future she saw for us. And though she won’t be here for it, I can forge one with much of what she hoped we’d one day have. I want to make it happen – for her.
That I want something at all surprises me. I’ve been numb for months. Almost a year.
He wiggles his fingers, asking me to dance again.
“I’ll dance with you if you answer three questions truthfully.” I stand straighter and cross my arms.
August easily agrees. “Deal.”
“You’re not going to negotiate and make me answer three in return?”
He grins. “To answer your first question…”
I inwardly groan, having stepped right into that one.
“No, I won’t require three truths.” He shrugs. “You can volunteer what you like or keep your secrets. Your choice.” He whispers conspiratorially, “While I’ll gladly stand here and answer, I’d much rather be dancing with you as we talk. Less chance for others to overhear.”
He has a point.
I walk onto the dance floor with him as the musicians begin to play.
He clasps my right hand and settles his left on my waist. I grip his bicep as he begins to lead us in a slow, elegant waltz.
He’s more than a head taller than me, but we easily move together, keeping time and rhythm, and I can’t help but wonder what my sister would say if she could see me dancing with him.
I imagine her excited squeal and can almost see her bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, hands clasped over her mouth, a delighted, feral gleam in her eyes.
“Question one?” he prompts, graciously forgiving my earlier blunder.
I need to know why he wants to live. “Who would mourn you if you don’t survive?”
His brows arch. “You go straight for the throat. Good to know.” He’s quiet for a few steps. “My parents and two younger brothers. Question two?”
“What will happen to them if you don’t win?”
His blue eyes meet mine and hold, and his steps remain smooth and confident. “Happen to them? Are you asking why I deserve to live?”
“Maybe.”
“Why do you?” August patiently waits for my decision to answer. He needs to know up front that if we become allies, it’ll only be for a time. I will fight for my family, even if it eventually means fighting him.
“Without my commission from Morrigan, my family would starve. My grandmother has a home with a tiny garden in the desert sand. It produces joy and little else. My brother is apprenticed. Until he can earn a true wage as a stone mason, he won’t be able to provide even the basics.
” I lay the truth bare. “My commission barely does that.”
August nods. “I understand.”
We turn and turn as I wait for his reply.
And he finally, quietly gives it. “My family wouldn’t starve, Callalie.
But I love them more than anything. I have to try to win so I can go home to them.
Especially to Aliver, my youngest brother.
The healers have worked miracles for him, but suffice it to say that he won’t understand if I just disappear. ”
I only have a few memories of my father. Carina, as the oldest, had far more. Cillian doesn’t remember him at all. But I would imagine death would be as difficult for a child to understand as a mother’s deliberate abandonment. That I remember well, though I have never grasped the reason for it.
“I’m afraid for our families,” he confides, talking in a low tone. “I don’t want them to be harmed for something I did.”
“I am, too.” But I can’t help wondering what August did to earn a nomination. That, I’ll glean later.
I don’t trust any of the gods not to draw our families into this fiasco. Even the benevolent ones can’t be trusted. Some of them will try to bolster their reputations by making the games memorable.
“Do you know any of the other competitors?” I ask my third and final question.
“I don’t,” he emphasizes.
I sigh. “Niall and I served as kern in Morrigan’s army together.”
His brows twitch. “Kern?”
“Infantry,” I clarify.
“So, the two of you weren’t handfasted when Ares started the war with Morrigan?” he questions. “That was just a rumor?”
That’s what the newscasters reported after that fateful moment on the battlefield – all the newscasters except my sister – who walked the sharp blade of a knife to tell the world the truth of that day, knowing full well it would cut her.
“Are they spreading that lie again?” I grouse.
August glances away. “No. I mean, I don’t know. I just remember the newscasts from back then.”
I take some solace that the information, false as it was, came from memory.
“I tore the telecaster out of Abuela’s house after my sister’s murder, so I wouldn’t know what they said about us.
But Niall and I were never handfasted. We had talked about having a life together after we served our terms in Morrigan’s army, but that didn’t happen. ”
He wants to know what came between Niall and me since we both lived. He probably thinks it was Ares. But the truth is that war revealed who Niall really was and when it did, I didn’t want a life with him anymore.
The silence stretching between us as we move across the floor isn’t awkward, but more of a simple acknowledgement of what happened, that it didn’t have to, and that it never should have.
Nothing a mortal could do or has ever done could make them deserve something so awful, no matter what the gods say.
A change of subject is necessary, and besides, August might be onto something. There is strength in numbers, and a small but determined group could help each other through the trials to the games, where we’ll be forced to part ways and fight for ourselves.
Other alliances must already be forming. “We need more on our team.”
“Would you recommend Niall?” August asks.
Because I know him, my instinct is to say yes. To protect him so he can go home. I know his Mum and Da. His sister. I thought I loved the boy at one time. I thought they would become my family one day, too.
But this is bigger than any residual loyalty I might feel. One misstep could lead to death. And even though he tried to apologize and has been kind since we came here, I know he would sacrifice me to get ahead. “No. I don’t recommend him.”
Reaching inwardly to make sure my answer doesn’t stretch from the bitterness I feel for him, I find nothing but truth and resolve. My gut is right about this, even if it feels wrong.
Niall is not a good ally. He never was.
Our steps fade with the last notes of the song. August watches me as we glide to a stop. He doesn’t release my hand or waist, and I don’t step away from him, either. I wonder how he earned my respect so fast.
August’s muscles tense under my fingertips as he raises his head and glances from one side of the temple to the other. We’re surrounded by divine and mortal alike, all of them watching us and whispering. I expected some to notice us, but not everyone. And not all at once.
“You succeeded,” I tell August under my breath.
His brows knit.
“You have their attention.”
Morrigan and Niall stare at us from the room’s edge. Niall’s countenance is as gloomy as a storm cloud. But Morrigan’s? There’s only approval on her face.
I pull away from August and thank him for offering the dance.
Whether he realizes it or not, he just did me a huge favor.
Despite the sad state of my prosthesis, everyone has seen that I’m capable.
I can dance. I can walk and run and climb the thousand marble steps to their temple.
And tomorrow I’ll show them I can win their trials, and then their games, and walk away from all this to live out the rest of my mortal life in peace with my family.
Hermes’s winged sandals carry him into the space above our heads where he hovers, pushing waves of hair from his bronze face.
“Forgive me, friends. In my exuberance to relay the rules of competition, I neglected to tell you that the winner of the games will receive from the divine, a prize worthy of a god.”
August and I glance at one another.
“The prize will be revealed before the first game begins, but it is something most mortals would kill for.”
Interesting choice of words…
He takes us all in. “A few more deals have been struck. Well done. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” His judgmental eyes rake over those of us still wearing white.
We still have plenty of time to find a champion. We can prove our worth at their trials and negotiate at their parties. I’m more hopeful now than I was walking into this ball. There was interest and sheer hunger in the eyes of the divine who paused their maneuvering to watch August and me dance.
There are thirty of us and many more gods who want to have a stake in all this – one way or another. None of us will go unchampioned for long. I won’t be crawling to Ares like he wants.
As the dances resume, I note the divine who wait in the wings and how their attention follows me as I walk past them.
I hope Ares knows it’s only a matter of time before one strikes a bargain with me.