A minute passed without another sound, and Sonah resumed removing her clothes. As she settled in the bath, another thud sounded. Gripping the sides of the tub, Sonah’s eyes widened. She strained to hear. Behind her, a scraping noise reached her and Sonah scrambled out of the tub, sloshing water onto the marble floor. Cursing as she slipped, Sonah grabbed onto the edge of the tub and snatched at the stack of towels beside it. Shaking one out and wrapping it quickly around her body, Sonah tiptoed out of the bathing room and into the bedchamber.
“There you are!”
Sonah’s mouth dropped open, and she thought she might faint. The man standing before her had shorter hair than when she’d last seen him.
“Isher?”
Sonah’s squeak made the smile disappear from the prince’s face. She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth and took a step closer.
“No, Sonah,” the prince said with a sad smile. “I’m Lerek.”
CHAPTER 47
“So. King of Olympus, huh?”
Hermes didn’t so much as flinch when Terena stopped at his side.
“It seemed wrong not to seize such a perfect opportunity to thumb my nose at my father.”
Terena smirked. Leaning over the stone wall, her gaze ran across the Strait of Olympus to the land she’d known her whole life. The view from the battlements took her breath away. Everywhere she looked, the landscape shimmered as if covered in layers upon layers of diamonds. Terena shivered, pulling the furs they had given her after Fell River tighter around her body.
Hermes, standing in a plain white cotton tunic and leather pants, didn’t seem to notice the cold. He folded his large arms across his chest and frowned.
“You’ve much to catch up on. Which is why I’m here.”
“How are you even here? You were all banished.”
Hermes gave her a weird look. “I’m a realm walker.”
Still not understanding, Terena shook her head.
“I’m the messenger god. I can pass between realms,” he drawled, asif to a young—stupid—child. “I am immune to the banishment the Titans decreed.”
“But why?”
Instead of answering, he glanced back over the horizon at the pure white of Olympia below them and waved his hand lazily. “I cannot believe how much it’s changed. This is no longer Greece.”
Terena eyed him for a moment before shrugging. “You’ve been gone a long time.”
He nodded absently. “Before the war, this was all ours. We created it. All of what you see here and more you cannot. And when we were banished, we recreated it in the new world. All of it, as it used to be here. Better, even, because we learned from our mistakes. Of course, part of our punishment was that we could no longer leave Mount Olympus. But Zeus found a way around that. We could join the humans, but only in animal form. It made us even more creative in how we interfere in the humans’ lives.”
“And you all want to come back? To this?”
Hermes smiled in a way that made her uncomfortable.
“We have plenty of time to discuss that later,” Hermes said. “You asked me many questions earlier. Do you wish me to answer?”
Terena straightened, staring up at him.
“When we lost the war, Zeus agreed to banishment only if there was a way to come back. So he went to the Fates. They told him we’d return when the heir of Ares rises. Which is why you and Sonah are so important to us. Your destiny is tied to our return.”
“Pytho told me something a little different,” Terena said, looking at him askance. “She said ‘False death betrays love, forging Athena’s Weapon. From the ashes of gods, the Heir of War rises, leading the gods to glory. The fate of man is for the Weapon.’”
“Fucking Fates,” Hermes said under his breath. He looked out over the Strait, his mouth pinched. Terena turned to the snow covered landscape as well.
Somewhere out there, Sonah was on her way back to Sparta.
With Daris.
