17
Only a few minutes pass before Hermes flies down from the divine box and lands in the middle of us. Draped in blue, holding the winner’s crown in his hand, he’s smiling.
“Ulani!” he chirps. “You discerned the nature of the trial before any other mortal, then led your team into the dark belly of the labyrinth. And since you were the first to return to the arena, you’re the winner!”
Ulani doesn’t move forward to be crowned. The sunlight on his bronze leathers makes him look more statue than man.
Hermes jovially waves. “Come and accept the laurel!”
Ulani refuses. “I did no more than Vailea. And Elias. And August. And Callalie. And Koda. I did no more than Akira.”
Everyone’s eyes flare when he mentions her, and at the vitriol in his tone.
Niall shifts uncomfortably beside Koda. Ulani did not mention him in his praise.
Ulani crosses his muscled arms. “Why should their heads go unadorned?”
Vailea sticks a sharp elbow into his ribs and flashes a look of warning.
Hermes’s smile thins before sharpening. “You refuse our kindness?”
Ulani matches his expression with a venomous grin. “Of course not. I only seek to recognize my allies.”
Another jab from his wife and Kanaloa’s championed moves forward to let Hermes lay the golden wreath on his head. I breathe easier when it’s done.
“This evening, we will host a feast in your honor,” Hermes informs everyone, glancing from Ulani to each survivor in turn.
How dare he say that while Akira’s body is still cooling on the sand, shrouded in crimson and pale blue!
If Taeniset had the power to harness the sun like Apollo, she would burn Hermes into ash on the spot.
The crowd keeps silent as Hermes flies back to his box.
Ulani rips the golden laurel from his head. His eyes soften on the face of his lovely wife before he walks over and places it on mine. “We know who truly won today, and what it cost you.”
I press my thanks against the aching place in my chest. My throat swells with the tears I choke back.
The audience roars. They chant my name. Wave white flags in my honor. And I wonder if my brother is here, and if Abuela is watching from home, and Carina…
Does Carina know her sister wears the laurel and that to get it, she had to kill an innocent friend? Would she be proud or pity me?
“What have you done, Ulani?” Vailea whispers harshly, her voice trembling. “You’ve angered the gods.”
I can’t bring myself to look at the divine’s box.
“I did what was right,” he says, before slamming the end of his trident into the sand. “And my very existence angers them. As does yours. Or else we’d be home living our lives instead of fighting for our next breaths. Right is all we have left now. I won’t let them take that from me.”
Vailea shoots a worried glance in my direction, one that seems to say… if Ulani thinks it can’t get any worse than this, he’s wrong.
Torsten bares his teeth at the laurel on my head. The feathers in Freyja’s cape ruffle as he moves to the portal that empties into the temple, still holding the sword he somehow procured. His allies trail him, swilling like blood down a drain.
The unchampioned leave together as a large group. Some of them help the ones too distraught to walk steadily.
None of the portals glow. The people left behind are dead.
I look at Akira’s prone body and the girl still crying over her.
Elias and Niall hold onto Koda. He gives me a sad smile and a parting nod. He heard what happened in the darkness. He’ll probably never look at me the same way.
They assist him down the steps, his red clothing as stark as Akira’s blood on Taeniset’s armor.
Ulani and Vailea leave together.
I walk to Isis’s mortal and try to help her up. “Come on.” She shoves me away. “You can’t stay here.”
She scowls. “I can’t just leave her! Who would do that? I can’t just…”
And I can’t leave her here. I point to the staircase yawning from the sand floor. “Do you think the gods will just leave that portal open for you to use when you’re ready?” I hold her angry stare. “They can lock you out. They didn’t care about her, and they don’t care about you.”
Taeniset stares at the divine box. Most of the deities have left, but a few are still up there, laughing and sipping wine together.
Akira’s death. Daedalus’s death… They served as entertainment for them and nothing more.
They likely thought more of us would fall to the man they made a minotaur. How terribly anticlimactic for them.
And what about the craftsman’s performance? Was Daedalus the obedient beast they wanted?
Something tells me his conscience valiantly fought their will.
That because they made a monster out of a good man, something in his mortal character and mind lingered longer than the divine who tried to carve it out would have liked.
It felt like he remembered for a second that we were human and that he had been, too.
He’d hesitated by the inner wall when he must’ve smelled us. Heard us. I think he sensed his magic in my prosthesis. He didn’t change until I started toward him, desperate to help.
What a cruel trigger they designed.
“She’s right,” August gently tells Taeniset, grinding the end of my spear into the sand. “We should go back while we can.”
Her shoulders quake as she cries, but a moment later, she takes August’s hand and rises to her feet.
I hear my brother’s shouts as we turn to leave with her. August hears him too, and glances at me. I shake my head. I can’t face him after what he just saw me do.
“Callalie!” Cillian yells again into cupped hands.
He waves wildly from my periphery, waiting on the arena’s bottom row like he did last time.
And all I can think is that he needs to go home and stop watching them torture us.
I wish he could stay with Abuela and avoid Olympus entirely. He’s not safe here. No one is.
They could make him the next monster.
“Cal!” He leaps onto the sand and starts running toward me.
I hurry down the steps to the portal with Taeniset and August. She angrily swipes tears from her cheeks, thanking us before heading westward.
When she reaches a panel of the delicate ivory fabric hanging from the roof, peacefully billowing in the warm breeze, she wipes her armor clean with it, leaving Akira’s blood behind for divine and mortal alike to see.
I take the laurel off my head and imagine hurling the circlet across the floor, casting it into the sea, breaking off every leaf and twig until its beauty is spent and it means nothing.
“Keep it. Wear it tonight,” August suggests.
My brows furrow. “Do I have to?” I don’t remember whether the winner of the first trial wore it to the banquet.
He studies the golden band. “The gods are limitless. They’ll be worshipped, and revered, and loved, for an eternity, but it’s not enough for them.
They want us dead because for a fleeting moment, another mortal admired our talent, or bravery, or strength…
” He struggles with a wave of emotion, or maybe to find the right words, toying with the spear.
“I think the more mortals who make flags for us and chant our names, the better. If we ruin their fun, maybe they won’t put anyone else into games like these. ”
My lashes flutter. Shoulders sink. I’m not sure it will be that easy.
He offers a half-hearted smile, looking at me like he’s gauging my reaction.
All I can think of is the girl I might have been if I hadn’t been conscripted. And while I don’t know everything about that version of me, I think she would want to hug this man right now. Hard.
I push my worry and insecurity aside and do just that, almost knocking him over, but he steadies us both, laughing with surprise. He drops the spear to catch me. The gold weapon clatters to the stone as his strong arms fold around me, then tighten, not painfully, but perfectly.
It feels so good.
So good to be held – by him.
I wonder if that girl would’ve fallen in love with someone like Aymes. Someone good and kind, brave and loyal. Because August is all those things. I’m not sure how I got so lucky to get the privilege of knowing him, but I’m grateful.
One of his hands cradles the back of my head.
“Thanks,” he whispers into my hair. “I needed that.”
I needed it, too. I lift my head from where it rests over his heart. “I’m glad we’re allies.”
“Heroes,” he corrects with a gentle wink, then flicks a laurel leaf. It lets out a ping in delight.
I smile. “Heroes.”
We part slowly. And I’m already wondering if I’ll get to hug him again, and when.
He grabs the spear and offers it to me, and this time, despite Daedalus’s dried blood on the tip, I take it.
We emerge into bright afternoon sun, so opposite the dark trial we just suffered.
Sparrows chirp, perched in the trees and shrubs, their constant movement reminding me of home.
I pinch one of my quetzal feathers and twirl it between thumb and forefinger as we skirt the temple.
I hope Cillian isn’t mad that I ignored him, and that Abuela doesn’t think less of me after watching what I did to Daedalus.
“Some of the people in the stands were wearing feathers in their hair,” August tells me as we start to climb the stairs.
“They were?”
“Yep,” he confirms. “Your name was on many a white flag, too.”
“As was yours, I’m sure.”
He gives a nonchalant shrug, but he fights a pleased grin. I smile with him, somehow.
Maybe I’m a new creature again, galvanized and even more capable of withstanding unimaginable things.
The girl I was before I first felt the horrors of war, died every time she raised her sword. Ares murdered the girl who defended herself and the boy she loved.
The girl who saw her sister die? She was buried in the burnt earth with her.
And today when I killed my friend, another part of me perished.
In these games, they make us slaughter the best parts of ourselves again and again until what’s left is akin to the terrible gods who host them. What happens if we become something far worse than they expect?
“We should go to the palaestra pool – after you hide that,” he says, nodding to the spear.