Theros stopped howling. He moaned weakly as he slowly sat up, still twitching in the sand.
“Great job, you’re doing it,” Patro said as he rubbed my back. “Just like that, good girl. I’m so proud of you.”
I leaned into his touch.
“She—she—she was...” Theros stammered as he crawled away from me. Foam still dripped out the side of his mouth.
I glared at him and bared my teeth.
He yelped.
“Don’t worry about him, he doesn’t matter,” Patro said soothingly. “Focus on me—focus on taking deep breaths until the pain in yourchest is fully gone. Just like that. You’re doing so well. Unlike Olympians, our power is in our heart.”
What power?
I nodded shakily and kept breathing slowly as I leaned against him, even though I didn’t understand.
“She... she... she,” Theros shouted between coughs as he pointed at me. “Her eyes were bloody—she’s one of them—she was killing me—arrest her—she’s a monster—she was?—”
“SILENCE,” a hair-raising voice bellowed.
The coliseum went dead silent, and the men stopped fighting around us.
You could hear a pin drop.
“What—is the meaning of this?” Hades enunciated each word with painstaking slowness as he walked across the sand toward us. Inky fog trailed around his feet like smoke.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Midnight-black eyes flashed with warning. “Someone better explainright now—what I just saw.”
Patro swallowed thickly, then stood up in front of me. His body blocked mine from Hades’ line of sight.
“Our mentee, Alexis Hert,” Patro stated loudly, voice ringing with confidence, “disappeared last night with my sister, Helen Aphrodite, in the chaos of the Initiation Ball... they both arrived here this morning.”
Theros gasped with surprise at Helen’s surname, then whimpered in pain. Everyone whispered.
Good, I hope he realizes how dead he is. They won’t let him get away with hurting her.
Patro continued, “My sister is in shock and struggling to recover, but from what she’s told me, this man attacked them.” He pointed at Theros, eyes full of blood. “And Alexis sacrificed herself to save my sister, then leaped both of them to safety.”
The whispers increased.
Patro cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “What we saw here was Alexis confronting my sister’s attacker, and during the altercation, her eyes filled with blood. She activated Chthonic powers she didn’t know she had, and from what I saw... I believe her bloodisher power—she can cause others pain with it.”
What?
Patro looked back at me with a pleading expression, like he was begging me to understand something unsaid.
The whispers turned into outright shouts.
Zeus recoiled like he’d been struck, electricity sparking frantically around him.
“She’s a powerful Chthonic heiress—and she saved Helen!” Patro shouted proudly, then raised his fist into the air. “She’s a hero!” Achilles stood up and did the same.
The shouts turned into a roar as all of Sparta lost their minds.
