Goddess Page 2

  She reached for him again. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to resist, but he didn’t. He took her hand and pulled her to him as if he couldn’t bring himself to reject her, even when he was angry.

  “Then let’s run away. Leave everything behind. We’ll stop being royalty and become shepherds.”

  “There’s nothing I want more,” she said longingly. “But no matter where we go, I would still be a daughter of Zeus and you a son of Apollo.”

  “And if we had children, they would have the blood of two Olympians,” he said, impatience making his voice harsh. Apparently, he’d heard this argument many times already. “Do you really believe that’s enough to create the Tyrant? The prophecy says something about mixing the blood of four houses that are descended from the gods. Whatever that means.”

  “I don’t understand any of the prophecies, but the people fear any mixing of the blood of the gods,” she said. Her voice dropped suddenly. “They’d chase us to the ends of the Earth.”

  He ran his hands over her belly, cupping it possessively. “You could be pregnant already, you know.”

  She stopped his hands. Her face was sad and—for just a moment—desperate. “That’s the worst thing that could happen to us.”

  “Or the best.”

  “Paris, stop,” Helen said firmly. “It hurts me to even think about it.”

  Paris nodded and touched his forehead to hers. “And what if your foster father, the king of Sparta, tries to marry you to one of those Greek barbarians like Menelaus? How many kings are asking for your hand now? Is it ten or twenty?”

  “I don’t care. I’ll refuse them all,” the other Helen said. Then she cracked a smile. “It’s not like anyone can force me.”

  Paris laughed and stared into her eyes. “No. Although, I’d like to see one or two of them try. I wonder if Greeks smell better after they’ve been struck by lightning. They certainly couldn’t smell worse.”

  “I wouldn’t kill anyone with my lightning,” she said with a chuckle, twining her arms around his neck and molding her body closer to his. “Maybe just singe them a bit.”

  “Oh, then please don’t! Singed Greek sounds like it would smell far worse than fully cooked,” Paris said, his voice growing heavy as he smiled at her. Suddenly, the humor ran out of their shared gaze and sorrow replaced it. “How am I going to sail away without you in the morning?”

  The other Helen had no answer. His lips found hers, and he threaded his fingers through her hair, tilting her head back and taking her weight as she gave herself up to him. Just like Lucas did.

  Helen missed him so much she ached—even in her sleep. It hurt so much she woke up and rolled over, groaning as she accidentally put too much pressure on her healing bones.

  “Helen?” Daphne asked softly, her voice inches away from Helen in the darkness. “Do you need anything?”

  “No,” Helen replied, and let her swollen eyes drift shut again. The dream that greeted her made her wish she’d stayed awake, despite her injuries.

  A terrified woman was struggling against a massive claw that was wrapped around her waist. Enormous wings, fringed with feathers each larger than a person, beat the air as the giant bird hauled her into the night sky. The skyline of New York City flashed past as the woman struggled.

  Helen saw the bird tilt its beaked head to look down at the woman in its talons. For the briefest of moments, the menacing eye of the eagle rounded until it was shaped like a man’s. He had amber eyes. Blue lightning flashed in the black middle of his pupils. The eagle screamed, freezing Helen’s blood and sending shivers through her sleeping body.

  The Empire State Building rose up in front of them, and then Helen saw no more.

  Orion was screaming his brains out.

  Helen shot up at the sound, shoved her mother aside, and started running. She charged down the dark hallway and halfway across the room, Lucas a blur at her side, before the two of them suddenly processed the situation and froze.

  “What the hell?” Hector roared from the foldout bed that was set up next to Orion’s. He flipped on a light.

  Orion was standing on his mattress, wearing a pair of brief shorts, pointing at a tiny, dark figure crouched in the narrow gap between the two beds. It was Cassandra, huddled on the hardwood floor with only a pillow and a thin blanket to sleep on.

  “What are you doing down there?” several voices clamored at Cassandra. Castor, Pallas, and Daphne had come up behind Helen and Lucas in the doorway.

  “You bit me!” Orion howled, still dancing on the bed, freaking out. Noel, Kate, and Claire, running at a human pace, arrived shortly and filled the room.

  “I’m sorry!” Cassandra wailed. “But you stepped on me!”

  “I thought you were a cat until I . . . I nearly took your head off! I could have killed you!” Orion raged back at her, oblivious to the large audience. “Don’t ever sneak up on me!”

  Orion suddenly clutched his chest and bent double with pain. Hector jumped up to grab him before he fell down—but not before everyone saw. Orion had two fresh wounds on his chest and stomach from his fight with Automedon. They were an angry red, but healing fast and in a few days they would disappear completely and leave him unmarked. But what caught everyone’s attention wasn’t the new wounds, it was the long scars that marred his otherwise perfect physique.

  One cut across his chest, and another was on his left thigh. As he slumped against Hector, his strength spent, they all saw the worst one on his back. Helen stared at the ghastly bone-white seam that ran parallel to his spine. It looked like someone had tried to hack him in two from the top down. She felt Lucas take her hand and she clung to it, squeezing back.

  “Everyone out!” Hector barked when he noticed the shocked silence and the stares. Tilting his shoulders, he tried to hide Orion with his body. “You too, little pest,” he said softly to Cassandra, still crouched on the floor.

  “No,” she protested. The thick, black braid that snaked down her back was coming undone in wild ruffles, and her face was a stubborn mask of alabaster skin, wild eyes, and bright red lips. “I’m staying here. He might need me.”

  Hector nodded, giving Cassandra his reluctant assent, and folded Orion’s fainting body back into bed. “Get out,” he said over his shoulder to the rest of them, quietly this time. Everyone turned at once.

  Passing through the doorway, Helen and Lucas leaned toward each other, both of them feeling their injuries again and needing support now that the adrenaline rush had passed. But instead of letting the two of them help each other, Pallas caught Lucas, and Daphne propped up Helen, pulling them apart.

  “Did you know about those?” Lucas asked before they were led away in opposite directions.

  “No. I’ve never seen him without his clothes on,” she answered, too shocked to be anything but blunt. She had seen Morpheus as Orion half-naked, she reminded herself, but not Orion himself. Lucas nodded, his face shadowed with concern.

  “Back to bed, Helen,” her mother said sternly, and urged her to turn.

  Helen let her mother lay her down next to Ariadne’s slack form. As she shut her eyes and tried to fall back asleep, she heard Noel and Castor speaking to each other in the next room. For a moment, Helen tried to block it out and give them some privacy, but the urgency of their voices wouldn’t allow even a mortal with normal hearing to ignore them.

  “How did he get those scars, Caz?” Noel asked, her voice trembling. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen plenty.”

  “The only way for a Scion to scar like that is for it to happen before he or she comes of age,” Castor said, trying to keep his voice down.

  “But our boys fought all the time when they were little. Remember Jason’s javelin pinning Lucas to the ceiling that time? They don’t have one scar between the three of them,” Noel snapped, too upset to take Castor’s cue to be quiet.

  “Our boys always had plenty of food and a clean place to heal after they beat each other up.”

 
“And Orion didn’t? Is that what you’re saying?” Noel’s voice broke.

  “No. He probably didn’t.”

  Helen heard the sound of rustling fabric, followed by deep sighs, like Castor was pulling Noel close against his chest.

  “Those scars mean that Orion was very young when that was done to him. And afterward, he must have starved through his heal without anything to eat or drink or anyone to care for him. You’ve never seen those scars on a Scion before because most wouldn’t survive what it takes to get them.”

  Helen gritted her teeth and turned her face into her pillow, knowing everyone on the top floor had heard the exchange between Noel and Castor. Her face got hot as she thought about how they were all probably judging Orion—pitying the abused and abandoned little boy that he once was.

  He deserved better than that. He deserved love, not pity. Helen also knew that her mother was watching her while she tried, and failed, not to weep with pity for that little boy herself. She pulled the covers over her head.

  Daphne let her cry herself back into a deep sleep.

  Helen saw her other self getting kicked down a dusty street by an angry mob.

  The other Helen’s dress was torn, covered in dirt, and smeared with stains from the rotten food that had been thrown at her. Blood leaked from a huge gash on her head, from her mouth, and from the heels of her hands where she had scuffed them on the ground as she fell repeatedly. The mob gathered around her, picking up stones from the side of the road as they closed in.

  A blond man, twice her age and more than twice her size, ran forward to beat her with his fists—as if his anger needed a more immediate outlet than just hurling a stone. It seemed he had to use his own body to hurt her in order to feel satisfied.

  “I loved you more than anyone! Your foster father gave you to me!” he screamed, half out of his mind as he hit her. His eyes bulged and spittle flew from his mouth in a white spray. “I will beat the child out of you and love you still!”

  Helen could hear the mob murmuring, “Kill her, Menelaus!” and “She may carry the Tyrant! You must not try to spare her!”

  The other Helen did not fight back or use her lightning to defend herself against Menelaus. Helen watched her other self get knocked down so many times she lost count, but each time the other Helen got back to her feet again. Helen could hear the thumping of his fists against her back and hear the man grunting with exertion, but the other Helen did not cry out or plead for him to stop. She made no sound at all, except for the huffing of her breath as it was knocked out of her lungs by the blows he dealt.

  Helen knew what those fists felt like, she even knew what Menelaus smelled like as he beat her. She remembered it.

  Finally, Menelaus fell to his knees, unable to beat her any longer. The other Helen was simply too strong to die by his hand, though it was clear to Helen that dying was what the other Helen had intended to do all along.

  When the first stone struck her, she did not cower or try to cover herself. More stones followed, battering her from all sides, until the mob ran out of stones to throw. But still the other Helen did not die. Frightened now, the mob began to back away.

  A sickened hush fell over the crowd as they watched the gruesome spectacle they had created. Still alive, the other Helen twitched and flailed amid the piled-up stones, her skin pulpy and ragged over her broken bones. She started humming softly to herself—a groaning tune sung in desperation to keep her mind off the unbearable pain she was in. She rocked back and forth, unsteady as a drunk. She was unable to find relief in any position, but she swayed as she hummed to comfort herself as best she could. Helen remembered the pain. She wished she didn’t.

  The crowd began to whisper, “Behead her. It’s the only way. She won’t die unless we behead her.”

  “Yes, get a sword,” the other Helen called out weakly, the words garbled in her ruined mouth. “I beg you.”

  “Someone have mercy and kill her!” a woman shouted desperately, and the mob took up the cry. “A sword! We need a sword!”

  A young man, hardly more than a boy, strode out of the crowd, tears streaming down his pale face at the sight of the other Helen. He unsheathed his sword, swung it high over his head, and brought it down on the gory mess at his feet.

  A slender arm knocked the blade out of the way before it could strike.

  A woman appeared, bathed in golden light, her shape changing repeatedly. She was young and old, fat and thin, dark skinned and fair. In an instant, she was every woman in the world, and all of them were beautiful. By choice, it seemed, her shape settled on one that looked very similar to Helen’s.

  “My sister!” she screamed pathetically, scooping the injured girl up out of the rubble. Sobbing, Aphrodite cradled the other Helen in her arms, wiping blood from her face with her shimmering veil.

  The crowd shrank back as the goddess wept, their emotions captured by her magic. Helen could see their faces turning into masks of sorrow as their hearts broke along with Aphrodite’s.

  “Let me go,” the other Helen begged the goddess.

  “Never,” Aphrodite vowed. “I would rather see a city burn to the ground than lose you.” The other Helen tried to argue, but Aphrodite quieted her and stood up, cradling her close, as she would a baby.

  The goddess of love faced the mob, glaring at them. Her eyes and mouth glowed as she cursed them all in a thunderous voice:

  “I abandon this place. No man shall feel desire, and no woman shall bear fruit. You will all die unloved and childless.”

  Helen heard the pleas of the crowd beneath her as she felt herself soaring up into the air along with the goddess. They were tentative, confused at first. Soon the pleas turned into wailing, as the crowd understood how dark their futures had become with a few words from an angry goddess. Aphrodite flew out over the water with her beloved sister in her arms, leaving the cursed place behind.

  Far out on the horizon was the mast of a great ship—a Trojan ship, Helen remembered. The goddess flew straight to it, carrying both of the Helens with her.

  Matt looked out at the dark horizon. The wind off the water was cold, and the sky was so full of stars that it looked like a city dangling upside down in midair. He’d just survived the longest two days of his life, but Matt wasn’t tired. Not physically, anyway. His muscles didn’t ache, and his legs didn’t drag. In fact, he’d never felt better in his life.

  Matt looked down at the ancient dagger in his hand. It was made of bronze, and even though it was mind-bogglingly old, it was still razor sharp and balanced perfectly from tang to hilt. Matt held the pretty thing across his palm and watched it settle into the muscles of his hand like one was made for the other. But which for which, he thought bitterly.

  Zach’s blood had been washed off the edges, but Matt still imagined he could see it. Someone Matt had known his whole life had died with this dagger in his heart before bequeathing it to Matt. But long ago it had belonged to another, much more famous master.

  The Greeks believed that a hero’s soul was in his armor. The Iliad and The Odyssey told of warriors who had fought to the death over armor. Some had even dishonored themselves to get their hands on the swords and breastplates of the greatest heroes in order to absorb that hero’s soul and skill. Ajax the Greater, one of the most revered fighters on the Greek side of the Trojan War, had gone on a rampage to possess Hector’s armor. When Ajax woke from his madness, he was so horrified with how he’d tarnished his good name that he fell on his own sword and killed himself. Matt had always puzzled over that part in The Iliad. He would never have fought over armor, not even if it meant he could become the greatest warrior the world had ever known. He wasn’t interested in glory.

  Matt tossed the dagger as far out into the churning water as he could. It flew, end over end, for a very long time. He watched it moving away from him impossibly far and fast. Many seconds later, Matt could hear the faint splashing noise the dagger made when it hit the water, despite the roar of the surf.

  It was
humanly impossible to throw anything that far, and doubly so to hear it splash down. Matt had always relied on logic to solve his problems, and logic was telling him something so unbelievable that logic no longer applied.

  He had secretly wished for this. But not like this. Not if this was the role he was meant to play. Matt didn’t even understand. . . . Why him? He’d learned to fight because he wanted to help his friends, not because he wanted to hurt anyone. Matt had only ever wanted to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves. He was not a killer. He was nothing like the first man to ever own the dagger.

  A wave turned over at Matt’s feet, leaving something bright and glittery behind on the sand. He didn’t have to pick it up to know what it was. Three times he had tossed the dagger out into the ocean, and three times it had returned to him impossibly fast.

  The Fates had their eyes on him now, and there was nowhere for Matt to hide.

  The ship had square, white sails. Above them, snapping in the wind and hanging from the tallest mast, was a red triangular pennant embossed with a golden sun. Row after row of oars stuck out from the sides of the ship. Even from the air, Helen could hear the rhythmic thumping of a kettledrum, sounding out the tempo of the strokes.

  The water was not the brooding navy blue of the Atlantic but a clear, startling blue—the same jewel-blue as Lucas’s eyes. Azure, Helen thought. Still clinging to consciousness, the other Helen moaned in Aphrodite’s arms as the goddess brought her down to the ship’s deck.

  As Aphrodite landed, frightened voices cried out. From the place of command behind the tiller, a large man stepped forward. Helen knew him instantly.

  Hector. He looked exactly the same, except for his hair and the style of dress. This Hector kept his hair longer than the one Helen knew in Nantucket, and he wore a brief linen garment tied around his waist with a leather belt. Leather straps were wrapped around his hands, and a thick, gold ornament encircled his neck. Even half-naked he looked like royalty.