“Accept me as a member of the Thirteen Crowns and stop plotting my demise.” I held up a hand to stop any argument. “Don’t protest. We both know you figured out a way to get rid of me without breaking the treaty. Those things you keep saying about my family…well, I need you to leave it be.”
Silence stretched between us, the crash of the waves against the shore growing louder with every moment Ares refrained from speaking. I knew what he was thinking. He still wanted me out of the way so Hestia could take the crown. My kingdom bordered his, and they could rule in peace side by side. No more Titans. No more threat of Gaia worship.
It took him so long to answer that I started to believe he never would. He’d risk sailing the boat alone, damn the consequences.
He truly hated me that much.
But then he motioned me forward with the flick of his steel-encased hand. “I accept you as a member of the Thirteen Crowns.”
“And you won’t use my family against me so that Hestia can take my crown,” I repeated, just to ensure we were clear.
“Hestia refuses to take the crown, even if you’re dead, so that’s an easy thing to agree to,” he answered.
I frowned. It still felt like he was dancing around the issue. “Say it more clearly than that, or I’m not getting on that damn boat.”
He grunted. “I won’t kill you so that Hestia can take your crown. All right? Is that good enough for you now?”
There was something about it I still didn’t like. I squinted at him, debating if I should continue to press. But the truth of the matter was, Ares could parrot whatever I wanted him to say, but I still wouldn’t believe he saw me as anything but an antagonist.
Besides, he wasn’t the reason I was doing this.
I was here for Hestia’s safety. And I was here to make sure Ares returned on time, so that Nekros continued as it should. If I didn’t go with him, both those things would be at risk.
And so, despite the hectic thrumming of my heart, I climbed into the boat and shook the armored hand of my enemy, sealing our deal. For now, we were fully allies.
For now, we would work together.
But I knew better than to believe anything he’d said. I hadn’t forgotten what the Fates had once told me. One day, Ares would come for me again.
30
SELENE
Growing up, my city sat along the coastline of Troy. Dense mists hunkered above the sea for miles, thickening the air and sucking all the color from the world. The winds were barely more than a faint breeze now and again. To that end, sailboats that thrived on wind were a rarity. Fishermen and traders chose to power their ships with the shadows Medea conjured for them.
But my mother had seen occasion to find a human sailor to teach me the basics. She’d told me I might one day find need of it. Of course, I’d scoffed—only inwardly. Those lessons out on the sea, past the wall of Medea’s mists, were one of the few times I got to experience the world beyond the city walls. Any excuse I got, I gladly took.
The mortal, a genteel man named Alexios with kind brown eyes, had beamed every time I’d learned something new. And when he’d informed my mother of how quickly I’d taken to the task, he’d looked so proud. The last time I’d seen him, his hair had turned gray at his temples, and lines around his eyes had deepened. He’d come to me not long before I’d embarked on my journey to the Isle of Aiaia. And when he’d grasped my hands and begged me to protect the mortals of Troy, I’d sworn to him, on the memory of my mother, that I would.
And for him, I would. He was a reflection of everything I loved about Troy, about the people in it. My mother had relieved him of his blood payments for two years in exchange for him teaching me about sailboats, but I’d never gotten the feeling that he’d done it for that. He’d enjoyed the work.
I couldn’t let someone like Alexios end up trapped in a cage, bone thin and crawling through mud.
“You seem lost in thought,” Ares said from beside me, where he held the tiller.
It had been a fairly straightforward journey so far, with the winds pushing us in the right direction. Hestia was still asleep beneath the shelter, while Ares occasionally shot orders my way. Just ahead, a tiny island awaited, just large enough for a copse of trees and an estate with a single tower. We’d be there before the sun dipped behind it.
I nodded, the wind tossing my loose hair around my face. “Being on a boat like this, it reminds me of Troy.”
“I didn’t think you did much true sailing in Troy, what will all that mist. I heard…well, I heard strange things about a witch named Medea and her magic,” he said.
I didn’t elaborate for him. The less the Olympians knew about Medea’s strange powers, the better.
Instead, I said, “You can sail once you’re out past the mists. A mortal man taught me how.”
“Of course he was a mortal.”
I cut him a sharp look. “I don’t see why you should say it like that. They’repeople, Ares. Same as me and you.”
