“Thanos! Help me!” I cry, the heat nearly choking off my words before they can form.
“Help yourself,” he shoots back.
“How?” I shout into the racing wind.
“Spread your wings,” he repeats, growling now.
“I don’t have wings!” It’s bright now. And viciously hot. The buffeting updraft bakes my dried blood right into my skin.
“Haven’t you felt them? In here?” He pops me hard in the chest, driving the air from my lungs. I list backward, trying to suck down a breath and seeing a dizzying slice of clear, blue sky high above me.
Thanos grabs the front of my tunic and tilts me upright again. When he lets go, I lunge for him, but he neatly evades.
Wings? In my chest?Yes, I’ve felt them, but only when Griffin is with me, making me feel other things. They’re not there otherwise, and they’re definitely not there now. “They’reinmy chest, not out!”
Ares’s face darkens. “Then get them out!”
“I don’t know how!”
“Push!” he shouts. “Push with all your might.”
He’s nearly as frightening as the lava bubbling below, so I do as he says. I push, and I have a lot of might.
“Nothing’s happening!” Only panic spasms across my chest.
“You’re not trying!” he bellows.
It’s too hot. I can’t concentrate, and everything hurts. My hair burns my cheeks. My eyes feel scorched. “Thanos!” I beg.
Glaring at me, he rams the flat of his hand into my chest again. A bright light pulses from his palm, and I could swear my heart stops beating. My whole body goes rigid, my back bowing hard. Then pain rips through my shoulder blades, and I throw my head back with a scream. Wings unfurl behind me, catching the wind.
“Now fly,” Ares commands, shadow and light splashing across his scarred features. Sweat beads his brow. The center of the world roars and groans just below, casting us both in a red-hot glow.
Still reeling in shock, I start flapping my arms. My torn skin pulls and burns.
“Your wings,” he snaps, ruthlessly batting my injured arms down and sending me careening off balance.
Instinct rears up and helps me to beat my new wings. Somehow, I start to rise instead of fall. Stabilizing, I glance behind me. White feathers quiver on hot currents of air. The wings are strange and broad and almost as tall as I am.
I hazard a look down into the boiling pit, seeing great, popping orange bubbles letting off steam and heat. My eyes burn just from looking at it. The forge of the Gods, indeed.
“Concentrate!” Ares barks.
My head snaps back up, and I beat hard on the scorching air. I give a bigger push with my wings and shoot upward in a dizzying rush.
Flying is foreign, amazing, and strange. The whoosh of air around me is almost as exhilarating as the surge of relief inside me. Still, as we move farther from the ungodly heat, three thoughts play over and over again in my head: burning house, Mother, Griffin.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins, pounding along with my wings. “Thank you!” I shout to Ares. “How can I ever thank you?”
Floating seamlessly by my side, he shoots me an odd look. “Don’t thank me. Thank Nike.”
What?Now really isn’t the time to be cryptic.
Frowning, I veer toward him by accident and then manage a wobbly rectification—upbeing key. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
Ares looks at me like I’m unhinged. “You’re the ultimate child of the Gods. Unique in all the worlds. There’s no one else like you.”
My eyes widen, although I’m not entirely surprised. Still, to hear it with my own ears… Straight from a God…
