27
The spectators vanish and the colosseum goes violently still. The world holds its breath.
Everyone still trying to complete the trial is ripped from it, suddenly stumbling onto the sand, including Peng and his beautiful wife. I was worried he may have died in that dark river. No one saw him for so long.
Ulani appears with an older man I assume is his father. Vailea arrives holding an adolescent girl who shares her pretty features, curls, and smile. Over and over again, she and Ulani tell their daughter how much she is loved.
The gods don’t make any of them forfeit the trials. And for several minutes, they don’t take the mortals away like Morrigan had Cillian, they simply make them evanesce.
I pray they will all be sent home.
I wish Morrigan had taken them all.
Athena and Hera herd us into the portal that leads to the temple.
In that enormous hollow chamber, Veronia is the first to speak. “Does anyone have any idea what happened?”
Heads shake.
The word ‘no’ pours from mouths like water gushing from fountains.
“You felt it, though, right?” she demands.
Nods and affirmations strike the ceiling and rain back down.
The group divides itself amid friends and familiarity, everyone desperate for comfort.
“The gods don’t even seem to know. Have you ever seen them so rattled?” Elias questions.
“No,” Koda says gravely. “In all my years, no.”
Elias continues, “Which begs the question: What can scare the gods?”
Our allied team is silent as they ponder the possibilities.
Next to us, Peng describes what happened to him and his new bride.
Push by push, she’d moved her boat to the opposite bank.
He jumped in and swam to her and tried to drag the skiff from the mud, but he wasn’t strong enough to budge it.
If she’d been able to help, using her pole, it might have worked, but she was frozen.
Clinging to the canoe’s side, he told her what stories he could, but the two were veritable strangers. Their marriage had been arranged by their parents just days before he was called to the trials, so he had little to draw upon.
He didn’t know anything about her childhood. They hadn’t even found a permanent home yet. So, he spoke of what they did have in common: their wedding day, and some of the meals they’d shared in the days that followed, as they tried to get to know one another, but it was futile.
“I thought we were dead. That we’d be left behind or eaten.
We wouldn’t have completed the trial.” He braces his hands on his hips.
“I’m not proud of it, but I was thinking about swimming back and abandoning her to that river, when we suddenly appeared in the arena. I didn’t know why. I still don’t.”
“What do we do now?” Sura, Pele’s mortal, asks.
“We clean up,” Torsten says, his lip curling. “We’re covered in ash and filth.”
Sura gestures to the empty hall. “Will there be a feast tonight?”
“Those two better hope so,” the Norseman answers, nodding toward me and August.
He’s right. We’re all coated in gray, but August and I are the only ones who started the trial in white.
Without a celebration, how will we find champions?
Ares has not allowed random gods to prowl the island seeking a mortal to champion.
Deals have only been made at his feasts.
This late in the trials, I doubt any of the divine will break with the rules or traditions dictating their behavior.
“Clean up and meet back at the palaestra to discuss?” Ulani suggests as he takes Vailea’s hand.
Everyone agrees.
I’m relieved to see that Koda doesn’t need help descending the staircases to the shore. I start down the steps after him, Niall, and Elias, who still flank him like they can’t believe his recovery is real. I’m not sure I believe it either, in all fairness. I certainly don’t understand it.
My fingers drift to my new necklace.
August falls into step beside me. “Where’d you get that?”
“Cillian brought it for me.”
He’s quiet for a few strides. “Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the song. I should have when you said you hadn’t heard any of the music I made after Carina died.”
I flick a sideways glance at him. “You knew it was what brought you here.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. Everything here reminded you of what you’ve lost. I didn’t want to add to it.”
I understand his rationale, and to be honest, I’m grateful he didn’t say a word. I’m not sure I could have taken one more thing.
His gaze drops to the necklace. “Did I hurt you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I wish you’d trust me,” he says, his throat working. “You can trust me, Callalie. I know I didn’t tell you about the song, but I swear my intentions were –”
“August.” I point heavenward. “You’re not the one I can’t trust, and I’m not upset about the song, or the fact that you never said anything about it, because it was beautiful and honest and I could feel your heart in every word.”
He clasps my hand and we continue to our oikos in silence.
After we each shower away the ash and grime and my prosthesis has been scoured and is fully dry, I sit on the bed and roll my sheath over my limb. August sits next to me, watching my careful movements. “Hey,” he softly says. “You just winced.”
“I’m fine.”
He holds my stare. “Please stop saying that when you don’t mean it.”
I groan. “My leg hurts, okay? When I killed Daedalus, the magic he poured into my prosthesis died, too.”
August’s mouth falls open. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
A shrug. “What good would it do?”
He folds his lean body forward, placing his elbows on his knees and sits like that for several minutes. I can only imagine the thoughts racing through his head, because a thousand of them are tearing through mine, none of them good.
I attach my prosthesis and look over at him. “Are you ready?”
He nods and offers me a hand as I stand, waiting until my thigh fully settles into the device. He keeps hold of my hand as we cross the room, the strip of sand, and the shore, all the way to the palaestra.
All our allies are there. Swimming, talking about the trial, and the strange thing that happened near the end of it.
I remove my prosthesis and slip into the pool. The saltwater is a balm. Warm and soothing. My tight muscles begin to unravel.
I’m wearing a tank top and shorts, as well as Abuela’s necklace. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it behind. If anyone stole it, she’d be devastated.
August enters the water.
Ulani waves us over. He and Vailea look like our king and queen, holding court in this beautiful, steaming pool.
The sun winks between drifting, billowy clouds. The insects sing. Butterflies and bees drink the wildflowers growing here and there. And you can’t go anywhere on this island without hearing the roar of the sea.
In any other situation, this would be paradise.
Elias swims past, more eel than man. Koda and Niall are chatting on the bench built into the side of the pool. Hazi and Tae have drifted farther into the pool, into deeper water, to have a conversation that’s just theirs. He brushes a piece of hair out of her eyes.
All our friends wear the colors of their pantheons.
Ulani silently consults his wife, who gives him an encouraging nod.
“We’ve all reached out to our champions to see if any deity they know will sponsor you.
We examined the rules. None of them state that a pantheon can’t champion more than two mortals.
While some bloodlines would be restricted from helping you, there are many other options. ”
“Thank you,” August rasps. “It means a lot that you’d ask.”
Vailea notices my necklace, tilting her head to better examine it. “That’s beautiful and unique. And new?”
I look down at the stone and metalwork. “It’s my grandmother’s. She sent it for me to wear.”
“Jade?”
I nod.
“It’s stunning,” she says.
“Thanks.”
Elias pops up beside me. “Since we’re all asking questions, why did Torsten help you today? That seems very strange to me. Some might call it suspicious.”
“Some might ask why you’re here, too. Allying with Callalie after trying to kill her in the first trial.” August’s words hit home.
Elias raises his hands in supplication but waits for an answer.
I sigh. “Torsten got sucked into the mud on the bank. It was swallowing him and I helped him get out. He didn’t assist us because he felt grateful, though.
He was going to run for the portal. His mom saw Aster and made him jump into the river to help get him out.
” I raise my chin, waiting for his reply to August’s question.
Everyone quietly watches our Greek friend.
“I’m here because I want to win. I could lie and say it’s because you stopped me on the troll bridge, or because of your stirring speech in the rain about how we’re all on the same team and it’s ‘us’ versus ‘them’, but I’m only here because this group is winning and I have too much to lose.”
A truth we all share.
“That,” Elias shrugs, “and I gods damn hate Torsten. For now, being part of an alliance is beneficial, and I’ll even take you over him.”
I can’t help but laugh, because at least he’s being honest. The second we’re pitted against each other, he’ll come at me with everything he has.
If the tides shift and the other group seems like they’ll get ahead faster than us, he’ll leave us for them.
Assuming they’ll take him back. It may come down to numbers at some point.
Niall speaks after quietly watching us all. “Morrigan says that what we’ve faced in the trials is just a warm-up for something far worse. We’ll need allies to get through them.”
“Until we’re forced to fight against each other,” Elias notes.
That will happen as the games end.
I can’t imagine turning on these people. I’ve seen their loved ones. Learned their hearts. Fought alongside them.
On the field of war, we never considered the people we faced. The world was reduced to our next move and a selfish desperation to live. I never knew Elias’s name when I thrust my blade into him and left him in the grass to fight someone else. There was no time to learn his face.