Sculptors throughout the ages have really gotten her likeness right, although no inanimate slab of marble could ever truly do her justice. She’s everything I expect and more—the long, straight nose, the intelligent eyes, the tight, reddish-brown curls framing her oval face. She wears her warrior’s helmet, with its proud crest, and carries her spear and shield.
I stare in undisguised awe. She’s not beautiful, but she’s breathtaking and bold.
Ares’s voice tightens with annoyance. “We’re handling this, Athena.”
She slides a chilling look toward the God of War. “I’m sure you are. In your usual fashion.”
“He’s actually been surprisingly tolerable so far,” Persephone says. “I’m sure it won’t last.”
Athena arches one dark eyebrow. “Persephone.” She greets the other Goddess with cool neutrality.
“Athena.” Persephone uses the same tone to greet her back. Not friendly. Not unfriendly. It’s hard to tell where they stand.
Athena turns to us, and I can’t help the explosion of nerves that erupts in my belly. Griffin must be feeling the same thing, only a hundred times stronger. This is his Goddess, the one he worships above all others. He was attached enough to her—or to the idea of her—to haul a marble statue all the way north to Castle Sinta from his own tribal lands in the south and then place it in the main courtyard at the castle entrance. He and his soldiers kiss their fingertips and then touch them to her sandaled feet each time they pass the statue, leaving her toes polished and smooth by their daily devotion.
“Catalia Fisa. You are surprisingly entertaining.” Athena smiles, not exactly warmly, but I’m not sure the Goddess does warmth. “One never knows if you’ll live or die.”
Lovely.
“And you…” Her eyes land on Griffin. They’re large and an odd chestnut color, brown with hints of red and gold. The power in them is immense. She looks him up and down in a rather proprietary manner I don’t like at all, as if she has some claim to him.
Griffin flushes under her blatant perusal, and a hot stab of jealousy pierces my chest.
Athena nods, seeming to approve of what she sees. “You are just how we planned.”
Griffin finally blinks. “Planned?”
I frown. Good question.
“Oh, yes. We had a long talk with the Fates.” Athena keeps looking at Griffin, a secret sort of smile spreading across her face. She leans in, something conspiratorial in her suddenly hush-hush manner. “Some things shouldn’t be left entirely up to chance. The new Origin needed a partner she couldn’t intimidate, dominate, or accidentally kill.” Athena straightens again and then shrugs strong, almost masculine shoulders, her expression still animated by subtle delight. “Otherwise, she’d have walked all over you.”
Griffin’s face goes abruptly blank. He looks shaken.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t like this at all, even though it actually makes a lot of sense. Griffin has given me everything—a family, a kingdom, leadership, his heart, his body. I was the one thing that was his. Made for him. Meant for him. Or that’s what he’s always believed. Now Athena is saying that even this—us—was all about me?
No wonder Griffin has lost his awe-struck expression. He’s not actually looking at anyone anymore. Not at me. Not at Athena. He doesn’t say a word.
“What are you doing here?” Ares demands.
Athena takes another moment to gaze intently at Griffin, as if trying to deconstruct him with her eyes. Then she turns to Ares so quickly that her spear whistles through the air. Ares watches the weapon with a hint of suspicion, widening his stance. Athena eyes him with bored antipathy.
“I figured you’d muck something up and need my help. As it turns out, you only nearly broke the Origin’s heart and sent her baby into hysterics, made her husband choose between staying with his wife and child and sealing a death sentence for his youngest sister, and scared a little girl half out of her wits.” With a sharp downward thrust, Athena plants the blunt end of her spear eight inches into the ground, cracking the hard earth in every direction. She slowly claps, wearing irony like a crown. “Well done.”
Ares’s strong, scarred face mottles with rage. Persephone looks peeved as well, having clearly been included in Athena’s scathing reprimand.
Kaia steps out from Griffin’s shadow. “I’m not a little girl.” There’s a tremor in her voice, but it doesn’t sound like fear. It rings like a bold and fiery fusion of emotion and ferocity.
Athena’s head swivels smoothly on her long neck, reminding me of the owl I thought was her, or at least her emissary, outside the Chaos Wizard’s house by the Frozen Lake. Her odd eye color, much like a raptor’s, heightens the impression.
“My, my, you’re a feisty one.” A small smile plays around the corners of Athena’s mouth, and her suddenly amused expression is both reassuring and utterly frightening at the same time. “You might have done well under Ares’s command.”
“I wasn’t going to throw her into any wars,” Ares grumbles, although he’s looking at Kaia like he almost regrets it. I’m not sure I can blame him. Kaia’s words are the anvil, her spirit the fire. She’s only fifteen, and she’s already in the forge that hammers out legends and heroes. “I was going to give her to Aphrodite as a handmaiden. She would have been fine, living a long, comfortable life with countless males falling in adoration at her feet.”
Kaia’s eyes brighten with obvious interest. She’s naturally curious, experiencing all sorts of new feelings, and as far as I know, she’s never been kissed. Her sharp, imaginative mind is taking her on a wild ride right now. In all honesty, mine is, too.
Griffin tenses beside me, and he was already impossibly rigid to begin with. Leave it to my insanely overprotective, traditional husband to appear more appalled at the idea of his sister ending up in some sort of Olympian love-court than on the battlefield. If the alarmed, almost panicked look on his face is any indication, he’s probably picturing Kaia right now laughing drunkenly with Aphrodite while virile demigods take turns lapping wine from her navel. That’s what I’m seeing, anyway.
I nudge him, and he blinks.
“If you were just going to give Kaia to Aphrodite, then you might as well give Piers to me,” Athena reasons.
It’s my turn to blink. What? Why?
“Good question,” Persephone mutters, as if I’d just said that out loud.
I glance at her sharply, my eyes narrowing. “You are reading my mind! Oh my Gods, do you do that all the time?”
I turn to Ares in horror. “And you?” Heat blasts through me. I’m not often embarrassed, but right now, there’s cause. No one should know even half of what went on in my head between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and especially not him.