“I’d like to see you try,” hissed a fury-filled voice above them.
Hera landed on the high wall like a hammer, cracking the stone. Carver’s heart slammed against his ribs. Bel sucked in a breath, tensing beside him. A collective gasp went through the crowd, then suddenly, utter silence blanketed the square like a shroud.
Then the shadows fell.
Bel’s head snapped up at the same time as his. Dozens ofmetal harpies flew over the temple square. They each held huge boulders in their claws. Carver’s eyes widened as a set of talons opened, and a first stone hurtled toward the ground.
“Take cover!” Bel shouted.
The boulder smashed into the roof of Zeus’s temple, rolling off it to hit the Atlantians on the stairs.
The sickening crack of stone and bones echoed inside Carver. “What are you doing?” he shouted at Hera.
The goddess shrugged. “If I can’t have Atlantis, no one will. It’s over here. You saw to that yourselves.”
Horror filled him as Atlantians tried to run—to the temples, out of the square—but there were too many people, all pressing and shoving, and they barely moved. Another automaton loosed a huge rock right over the center of the crowd, and Bel threw her hands up and sun flared it until only dust and stone bits rained down.
She whirled on Hera, fury blazing from her. “You have no friends, no allies, so you create a brainless, emotionless army and send it to kill innocent people? What iswrongwith you?” she snarled.
Another, far bigger boulder plunged toward the square, and Bel hit it hard with her magic, the strain draining her of color and power as her sun flare shattered it into smaller pieces that still fell into the crowd. Atlantians screamed and dove for whatever cover they could find. Howls of pain rang out, and panicked people stampeded toward the temples. The strong started making it to the buildings with their rooms and sanctuaries underneath the thick, sturdy marble, but the older, the weaker, the smaller… They barely made any progress.
Carver’s stomach plummeted as all the metal harpies converged over the square, and suddenly, it wasn’t just one stone at a time, it was dozens falling everywhere.
“Find shelter!” he cried as Bel let out a wide burst of white-hot magic, breaking up most of the boulders that could crush dozens at a time. Smaller rocks showered down. Carver narrowly avoided one, then glanced fearfully toward the altar. Lilika, Dimitri, Spiro, and Theophania had already crammed themselves underneath the marble tabletop and huddled together, rocks falling around them.
Hera stalked toward Bel, and Carver took off at a sprint. Bel’s focus was on the sky as she broke up boulder after boulder before they could utterly crush and destroy. Bel knew Hera was coming for her, but she was choosing to save as many Atlantians as she could as they fled the square. So Carver would save Bel. He jumped between her and the vengeful goddess.
Hera slowed, eyeing him. “Are you too stupid to fear?”
He lifted his sword, despite suspecting that his words could do a lot more damage to Hera than his steel blade. “Are you too bitter to realize you’re hurting people your verynamepromises to protect?Hera. It means ‘protectress’ in the old language. Where’sthatgoddess?” he growled.
“I’ll do my duty to humanity better without Zeus in the way.”
“You haven’t done your duty at all lately,” he bit out accusingly. “Who have you protected? The women of Atlantis? The children?”
Staring straight ahead, her expression abruptly empty, she ground out, “I’ve killed many for less than your insults.”
Carver cocked his head, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, and she didn’t seem to detect the difference. Was something wrong with her vision? Seeming suddenly wary, Hera stood oddly still, her icy gaze still on him but not quite focused, and he remembered how she’d missed her first grab at the amulet after he and Bel had violently forsaken her. Reminding Hera of who shereally was—or was supposed to be—didweaken her. And not only that, but it damaged her eyesight.
He darted a look at Bel to see if she noticed, but she had her back to them and both her arms up as she sun flared without cease. Boulders dropped like meteorites, and she shattered them mid-fall. Chunks of rock plummeted to the square, endangering anyone who still struggled to leave. Stragglers tried to reach Apollo’s temple. There were healers there. There was a roof and shelter from the barrage.
There was Dex with the amulet.
Carver cursed. Bel would need that soon. Continuous magic always took its toll on her. She had immense power and huge reserves, not to mention the determination of twenty, but she was one person against anarmy. Already, her magic didn’t reach as high or burn as hot, and bigger chunks of rock crashed down, further shattering the broken paving of the square, hitting roofs hard, and shearing corners off temples.
A stone Bel missed smashed down just steps from him, shaking the ground, and Carver swung back to Hera, his heart in his throat. She smiled harshly, her cold, hard stare as sharp as blades again. Reminding her of her sacred duty had slowed her down for mere seconds. And hadn’t stopped the automatons at all.
“This shouldn’t be your battleground.” The tattoo prickled his skin, maybe the reverberation of intense magic all around. “Go have your war with Zeus but leave humans out of it.”
“Humansdetermineit.”
“And you’ve lost Atlantis! Can’t you see?” He swept his free hand out. Far too many bodies lay in the square, limbs at odd angles and stone dust and blood mixing into pasty smears. Almost everyone else had cleared out, many limping and dragging others who couldn’t walk, and the automatons bombardedthe temples now, especially Zeus’s and Apollo’s. “Who will love you after this? Who will worship you and be grateful now?”
“No one here will love Zeus, either. This is just the beginning, and with Atlantis gone and its people dead, there’ll only be Thalyria left as a battleground. My cult is strong there.”
Ice slid through Carver’s veins. “This is an entire kingdom. You’d killeveryone?”
Hera didn’t even pale beneath her anger-flushed skin. Her gaze darted over her destruction, staying focused this time as she lifted her chin. “You will not sway me, human.”
