“He would say the same about your mother’s actions. When she agreed to join the Thirteen, she vowed to abandon all worship of Gaia. Somehow, Zeus discovered she was still doing it in secret. We must be thankful he doesn’t know most of Troy does, or else he would invade.”
“That’s what Ares was talking about? He thought my mother’s worship of Gaia was some kind of plot against the Olympians? That is ludicrous, Orpheus.”
“And yet I’m afraid it’s in the treaty,” he said quietly. “It’s considered treason.”
With a frustrated sigh, I turned away. “I can’t believe you, of all people, are happy to continue on as if nothing has happened.”
“I amnot.” His grip tightened on my hand. “Tell me this, Selene. Why did your mother take you to Olympia? What was she trying to tell you about Zeus?” He paused. “Put your emotions aside. What is your duty? ”
My eyes burned. “To protect Troy.”
“And how do we do that?”
I gazed at the looming shapes beyond the docks, barely visible through the mist. All those buildings. All those people. “Put my head down and fall in line. Go to the island. Perform the sacrifice and show Zeus that I am no threat to him.”
The tension around my hand loosened. Orpheus heaved a sigh and stepped back. “That’s right.”
And now I understood what my mother must have always suspected, why she’d spent so many hours educating me on the workings of the kingdom, showing me the secrets in the tunnels beneath the city, and quizzing me on the names and faces of every important person scattered throughout the thirteen realms. Most of them I’d never met. Most of them didn’t even know I existed…although I supposed they did now. And yet, I knew so much about all of them.
Deep down, my mother had always known they’d come for her eventually. And then I would be the only one left standing between the people of Troy and Zeus.
I couldn’t let this kingdom fall into his hands. The mortals needed me to do whatever it took to protect them. If that meant shoving aside my own vicious desires—to stab a stake into the depths of Zeus’s blackened heart—then so be it. For now.
I would do my fucking duty.
Until I found a way to kill him.
5
SELENE
Less than three months later, I was on the boat to the Isle of Aiaia. Orpheus had remained by my side, day and night, preparing me for the fortnight I’d spend with the Olympians. And now, as the bow cut through the rocky waters, he instructed me to feed on the human who had volunteered to come. For Troy, he would sacrifice his life. But even though it was his choice, I wished there was another way.
Sighing, I sank my teeth into his neck, hating that I enjoyed it. There was no greater delicacy in this brutal world than blood. I drank it deeply, the sweetness coating my tongue. The monstrous urge formore, more, moreclenched my stomach, but the cool, salt-soaked air stung my face, keeping me grounded. Calling upon every ounce of self-control, I relinquished my tight grip on the human, my hands trembling from the effort.
My advisor, Orpheus, led the man away. The mortal’s limp feet scraped across the boat’s deck, and droplets of blood trailed after him, staining the wood. Sweat glossed his pale cheeks, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. But he’d be fine. I never took more than my fair share, even when hunger urged me to rip into their necks.
I wiped a droplet from my chin and shifted my gaze toward the looming fortress ahead. Its dull gray stones matched the color of the winter sky. Legend spoke of a time when this part of the world had baked beneath a dry southern sun, but it was nothing like that now. An eerie chill swept across the sea, and bulbous gray clouds misted everything.
“Your Majesty, you forgot your hat.” Orpheus bustled over with a black wide-brimmed hat clutched in his delicately pale hands. He himself was fully cloaked, hiding from the pale sunlight filtering through the dense clouds.
“I’m fine, Orpheus,” I said.
I said that a lot.
He pressed his red lips together, then said, “Your Majesty, you will only antagonize the Olympians by showing off your resistance to the sun. These clouds do protect them, but only for a brief time, and—”
“Bah.” I waved him away, rustling the crimson velvet gown that covered every inch of my body, save for my face. “The sun is setting, and it will be dark soon. Besides, we’re still far from shore. They can’t see me.”
“Selene,” Orpheus said, dropping my title. The skin between his brow pinched into three distinct lines. “I must insist. This trip is your chance to demonstrate your loyalty to the Thirteen Crowns and smooth things over after…what happened. Troy cannot afford to lose you. You’ve only just taken the throne and have yet to have an heir.”
“All right. You have made your point.” Sighing, I took the hat and perched it on my head, careful not to muss my tamed ginger hair. This would be the first time I’d meet most of the monarchs, and I must look my best. The only way I could fix things for Troy was if they took me seriously. Olympian vampires scented weakness in their rivals as surely as they scented fresh blood.
Orpheus smiled triumphantly and bustled back into the desk’s small cabin, where the crew and the human sacrifice waited. Orpheus had expected me to spend the entirety of the journey cramped inside those quarters, too.
But I would never turn down an opportunity to gaze upon the southern seas. Even beneath a gray sky, the water was so intensely blue that it almost hurt to look at it for too long. And the small island trapped in the middle of it all was a land of legend, a place I’d known about for as long as I could remember.
Of course, I hadn’t come here for sightseeing. I would not dip my toes in those waters, and I would not hike along the mountain paths of the distant mainland to find the grandest view. Instead, the boat steered onward toward Aiaia, the ominous island in the middle of the sea, a hideous vampiric scar in the midst of all that blue.
