Her eyes spit blue fire. She ran him through with her sword.
Bellanca gasped. Athena and Artemis sprang forward, but their father held them off with a firm hand. Zeus grabbed Hera’s wrist and pulled her straight in to him along with the rest of her blade. Lowering his head, he kissed her. Hera’s eyes widened. She reared back, leaving her sword. Her hand flew to her mouth.
“What other surprises do you have in store for me?” Zeus almost sounded eager.
As if in answer, Dionysus lashed out with a knife. Bellanca’s heart slammed up her throat, and she called out a warning, but Zeus didn’t dodge fast enough. The blade sliced through the skin below his ear, and ichor seeped from the gash.
Whirling, he slapped a hand to his neck. Magic cracked in his eyes, and he pulled Dionysus’s tether so tight the god crashed to the ground.
Standing over him, Zeus gave his son a disgusted shake of his head. “What have I done to you? Because, honestly, I don’t know. You frolic and drink and have the time of your life. What could possibly have made you turn on me?”
Dionysus paled. He tried to sit up, and Zeus banded another magical rope around his chest. Struggling against his lightning bonds, the younger god bit out, “No comment on my improved combat skills, father? I just took you by surprise.”
“Should I be proud that you tried to stab me in the back?”
“And almost succeeded,” Dionysus hissed.
“My thoughts were elsewhere.” His gaze swung to Hera and dropped to her lips. “It won’t happen again.”
Hera’s nostrils flared on a sharp breath. Her hand fell away from her mouth.
More cautious now, Zeus tightened all his lightning tethers, immobilizing Hera and Hephaestus, too. Athena kept her spear up and Artemis her bow. Lava started bubbling from Hephaestus’s fingers and Artemis shot him, pinning his hand to his thigh. He growled.
She stared down the shaft of another arrow. “I can pin the other one, too,” she menaced. Hephaestus’s huge, square jaw bulged. Flexing his lava-cracked fingers, he turned away from her, and she shrugged. “I guess that’s a no.”
Hera yanked violently against her shackles, making a little room for herself. Zeus added more lightning chains, sending their anchors firmly into the rock beneath the square. Staring at him, Hera took a calming breath that was anything but calm. Resentment silently screamed from her, and she quivered with rage.
Zeus pulled her sword from his body and dropped it at his feet. He stood in front of Hera, his power visibly swelling, his aura magic-bright, intense, and his lightning-charged eyes nearly blinding. As quiet returned to the temple square, more heads started poking out of the buildings around them. Several people ventured down the stairs to see what was happening, to seegods, carefully picking their way over cracked marble and fragments of fallen boulders. Immense gratitude and fresh devotion whispered from Atlantians all around, feeding Zeus’s strength and magic.
He grew bigger, taller, as if he couldn’t contain himself in his previous shape anymore. Near him, Artemis and Athena benefited, too, power and majesty radiating from them. Hera seemed to shrink and dull in comparison, as did her allies.
“Your play to rival me in power has failed—miserably,” Zeus ground out. “And Dionysus is useless,” he added, throwing a hand toward his son on the ground.
“Useless toyou!” Hera shot back. “Because you never ask him to help, never ask him todoanything. Why do you think he threw his lot in with me?”
Fury poured from Zeus on a rumble of thunder, and Bellanca’s scalp tingled. It tingled even more when light and heat washed over her from behind along with Apollo’s velvety voice, slightly rasping from fatigue and effort.
“Nice of you not to panic on the bank of the Styx and make my work any harder,” the god of healing murmured to his patient.
She whipped around. “Carver…” He sat up with Apollo’s help, the god’s hand on his back.
Her heart shattered with relief as she leaped to his side. She helped steady him, her hands shaking and emotion erupting from her in a shower of sparks. Twin fang marks still dotted his neck, a battle scar to join a dozen others. She shook even harder as the full impact of Apollo’s words sank in. The marks would last but the venom was gone, and Apollo had ripped Carver from the gates of the Underworld.
Carver smiled faintly. “I’ve been there before.” His voice scratched like a rusty rake on gravel, but he was talking,living. Her heart pounded so fiercely her chest would ache for lifetimes. “I knew what to expect.” His eyes found hers, brightening. “And what I wanted to come back for.”
The sob she’d been holding back burst out. Relief couldn’t be held back any more than grief sometimes, and it swelled so fast it overwhelmed the control she’d maintained the whole time she’d guarded over them. She buried her face in Carver’s neck, squeezing her eyes shut as she breathed in his scent, felt his pulsebeat, and reveled in the warmth returning to his skin. Her breath shuddered out, then she inhaled deeply, pushed her tears back down, and looked up.
Apollo squeezed both their shoulders, his beautiful face content but lacking the inner sunlight he’d arrived with. He’d given it to Carver, and she thanked him—aloud, inside,fervently—and her profound gratitude helped healing energy start to shimmer over him again.
Carver thanked him, too, as he gingerly swung his legs to the side and sat on the bloodstained slab of marble. Still unsteady herself, Bellanca pressed in close so that they could lean on each other.
“I’ll never forget this,” she told Apollo, awe and deep appreciation roughening her voice and brightening the god’s aura. “Inanylifetime.” She swallowed.
Smiling, Apollo nodded his thanks back to them for the gift of renewed strength. Then he turned and walked toward the other Olympians.
Carver slid off the altar and leaned heavily against it as Bellanca bent down and encouraged their friends out from under the tabletop. She looked each of them over for damage. Apart from the lasting nightmares already living in their eyes, they seemed well enough, and more relief drained a horrible tension from her body. Suddenly lightheaded, she swayed toward Carver. She needed to touch him, kiss him. She tipped her head up, and the moment their lips met, she could breathe again.
Steadiness returned along with a flutter of magic, and her erratic pulse slowly stabilized. “You look dreadful,” she murmured.
