And that was why he hated Elpis more than any other goddess on Olympus. Because she hid her true purpose behind the guise of lies and treachery. She wasn’t there to comfort. She was there to punish and to prolong the torment of man.
No more. Urian was done with her.
Helios glared atthe Daimons and Apollites around him. “You were supposed to kill the children of Apollo. Not let them go.”
“He’s a Daimon, my lord. He can’t have children.”
Helios sent a god-bolt through him that splintered him into pieces. Then he glared at the others. “Anyone else want to voice a stupid opinion?”
They quickly backed down.
Feeling the fire ripple up his arms and over his skin, he turned his blazing gaze toward each of them in turn. “When next I give an order, you will do as I say, without question or fail. I want the death of Apollo’s children and grandchildren. Bring me their hearts or I will have yours in their stead!”
He was through with this game, and tired of watching Zeus and the other Olympian upstarts feeding him table scraps.
War had been declared and he intended to win it.
June 30, 9501 BC
“You know what today is.”
Urian flinched at his father’s question as he came into the study where he’d been summoned. “Of course I know.”
“Did you talk to her like I asked?”
“I tried. She wouldn’t listen.”
“Did you get her children to talk to her?”
Urian arched a brow at that question. “Didn’t you?”
“Of course I did!” His father paced back and forth. And then he saw it. The tears that glistened in his father’s swirling silver eyes as he choked on the sobs he was doing his best to hold back. “She’s going to die, Urimou.”
He barely heard those words and the nickname his father hadn’t used for him since he was a child.
“My precious girl. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I even tried to trick her. To bespell her. Damn her for her stubbornness!”
Choking on his own grief, he went to his father and pulled him into his arms. “I’m sorry.”
Urian was unprepared for the ferocity of his father’s hug. While he’d known his father was a powerful man, he hadn’t realized just how much until those arms wrapped around him with the strength of a Titan. Burying his face in the crook of his neck, his father wept with soul-racking sobs the likes of which Urian would never have imagined him capable of making. They made the ones he’d shed for his brother pale in comparison. He fisted his hands in Urian’s chalmys and held him there as if terrified of letting him go.
He had no idea what to say or how to comfort him. So he merely stood there, holding his father and rubbing his back while his own tears fell.
When his father finally pulled back, he buried his hand in Urian’s hair in each side of his face and glared at him. “A father isn’t supposed to bury his children. We live to protect them, and we die first so that we can be there to welcome them on the other side. This is so wrong, Uri.”
“I know, Baba. I know.”
His lips trembling, his father wiped at the tears on Urian’s face, then kissed his cheeks. “I love you,pido.” With a ragged breath, he released him and headed for the door. “Let me go and sit with your sister.”
Urian couldn’t move as he heard him walking away. He was paralyzed by his own grief and anger. This was so wrong. And he felt horrible for his father. Furious for his sister who had to leave her own children.
And madder than hell that he would be forced to watch her agony on this day.
Not like they all hadn’t seen it before.
Countless times.
They even had a term for it. The Thanatogori—deathwatch, or day-long vigil—whenever one of their species turned twenty-seven and decided not to turn Daimon.
