“If you leave your rooms, I’d take a weapon, if I were you.”
“Is that why you came here?” I couldn’t help but ask. “To warn me about Poseidon?”
“Essentially.”
With a furrowed brow, I edged closer. So close I could feel the power of the threshold curse pulsing against my gown. “I don’t get you, Ares. When I first arrived on this island, you were quick to put your dagger against my back and tell me just how much you wished to see me dead. Shortly after, you were dragging me out of the sea. And now you’re here, warning me to protect myself. So I’ll ask you again. What is it, exactly, that you want from me?”
Ares leaned closer, his eyes alight. His forehead brushed against the curse’s wall, and athrumshook the floor. But instead of pulling back, I could have sworn he embraced it, relishing in the power that radiated between us.
“What makes you think I want anything from you?” he murmured.
“Everywhere I turn, you’re there. You’realwaysthere.”
“And I always will be, as long as you’re on this island. Someone has to keep an eye on you.”
I shook my head, scarcely believing what I was hearing. “Because I’m a Titan?”
His lips curled, revealing his sharp canines. Tension pulsed between us. I held my breath in my throat, my gaze caught on the specks of gold flickering in his eyes. And suddenly, I knew what he would say before he spoke it.
“Because you arewho you are, Selene. The ultimate fleshborn Titan.” With a knowing smile, he pushed away from the doorframe, turned his back on me, and vanished down the corridor. I stood there, my hand clutching the fabric near my heart. Hector’s claws dug deeper into my shoulder, though I barely felt the sting.
If I’d held any lingering doubt before, I didn’t now. Ares kneweverything, and his unspoken threat hovered in front of my heart like the sharpest wooden stake he could find. He would be watching me. And if I gave him any excuse to share the truth with the others, he would. Or he would take care of me himself.
Either way, he had the upper hand in this twisted little game, and he knew it.
Just after dawn, another knock sounded on my door—much quieter, much more timid. I’d lost my battle with insomnia. Despite the luxurious sheets and soothing breeze blowing in from the open balcony doors, sleep eluded me. I couldn’t stop replaying the night’s events over and over and over, recalling the flames that licked the side of Hera’s face and hearing her screams as the life burned out of her.
And so it only took moments for me to crawl from my bed, pad across the floor, and pull the door open.
“Come in, Orpheus.” I stepped aside and motioned him into my rooms.
He shuffled inside. As always, his face was tight, and he clasped his withered hands together. I wondered if they were feeding him here. His eyes darted around the room as he licked his lips. A nervous tick I’d seen him do a million times.
“Something happened last night,” he said urgently. “What was it?”
I sighed and plopped down on the velvet chair beside the desk. Then I patted the free one beside it. “It’s a long story. You’re going to want to sit down.”
Orpheus’s lips went bone white. He sat and tucked his hands into his lap, waiting as I told the story of the very first Olympian monarch death. It took at least half an hour to explain it all, from discovering the blood in the kitchen, to the sacrifice, to the trial where Hera’s life met a brutal end. And then I stopped there. I saw no need to tell him about the subsequent visit from Ares.
When I finished, Orpheus leaned forward and arched his brow. “It was the blood moon that got her? That’s certainly interesting.”
“You seem surprised,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have guessed it. Yes, the vampires of Troy have shown weakness to it, but I assumed the Olympians wouldn’t face the same issue.”
“Because it doesn’t harm me?”
“Precisely. And while Aether cursed the Olympians with sensitivity to sunlight, a blood moon is not a sun. Far from it.” He leaned back in the chair, the wood creaking beneath him. “This isveryinteresting indeed.”
There was a glint in his eye now. His shoulders were high, and his body seemed to hum with energy, where he’d practically been crawling when he’d first come into my rooms. This news had really perked him up.
“Careful, Orpheus. One might start to think you want the Olympians to burn to death.”
An uncharacteristic chuckle escaped from the depths of him. “I can’t say I mourn for High Queen Hera of Arcadia…” He eyed me. “And you certainly don’t look torn up about it, either.”
I scowled. “She’s no better than Zeus. Did you know she farms mortals, just like he does? I’m glad she’s dead.”
And I let it happen.
