“Alright, alright!” He yelped like a child. “I’ll do it!” Hecate kept laughing, making no effort to rein in her power.
“I’lldoit!” Helios yelled again, the sky flickering like a flame outside the windows. Hecate could hear the increasing screams of the mortals, terrified that the world was ending in the cosmos above them. Cracks had appeared in the walls of the room as rubble and stones fell from the ceiling. The palace was caving under the impacts of two gods, pushing their power at one another. It was a fight that was normally saved for the skies—man-made structure could never withstand it.
“Give me aname,Helios!” Hecate screamed, her voice echoing throughout the heavens in a shockingly deep echo. Helios opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly, the floor gave way beneath their feet, and the gods began to fall.
For a few minutes, there was nothing. There were only stones and wood and thatch in the air around them.
But there was noise.
So much noise.
Hecate couldn’t see anything, the world around her was in shades of black and obscured with dust. She felt a sudden impact and realized that they must have hit the ground. It took a few more seconds for her to blink the dirt from her eyes. They were standing in the rubble of the palace’s northeast wing. The building still stood tall behind them with a corner carved out from it, the gods’ power bringing it down around them.
“Helios!” She turned around and began searching for him, the dogs already sniffing and turning through rubble.
“Easy, witch,” Helios’s voice called out from behind her, stepping out from underneath a pile of bent wooden beams. “It seems that you’ve already shown your beloved’s family a very…interesting brand of attitude. I guess that’s what they get for bringing a necromancer in their home.”
Hecate’s upper lip curled as she stepped over a stone and walked towards him, conjuring the black blade once more. Helios eyed it, and she watched him shiver.
“I’d be very careful if I were you.” She nearly twitched with anger. “We all know that Apollo could do your job.” It was Helios’s turn to go red, flames appearing on his feet and light surging from inside of him.
“Don’t you mention that lyre-playing fraud to me!” he growled, stepping towards the goddess like they were getting ready to go to blows.
Hecate laughed gaily, her voice becoming a light trill. “Who? Apollo? From where I’m standing, you’re so irrelevant that Zeusforgotthere was a Sun God, and he handed it off to thatfraud. So you tell me, who’s more of a phony?”
Helios was in her face immediately, both of their powers pushing against each other in the atmosphere.
“He doesn’t do anything!”
“He’ll be remembered,” Hecate growled, pushing the dagger against Helios’s side. “You will be lost to time, mark my words. The only ones who will speak your name will be the dead spirits that thisnecromancer,”she growled the word back to him, “speaks to!”
Helios sneered but said nothing, both of them staring at one another for a few more perilous moments. Hecate heard a series of voices behind them, and she realized that the palace had been evacuated, and everyone was now watching. She bristled, pulling back some of her magic and letting her faces condense back into one.
“Tell me,” she snapped, exhaling sharply. “And be sure to follow through on the rest of my demands.” She cautioned him, and he knew that she was referring to restoring the memory of Circe to the king and queen.
“That will take time,” he begrudgingly admitted. “If you want the sun to rise today, I’ll have to come back another time.”
“I’ll know if you don’t,” Hecate warned him, applying more pressure to the dagger. Helios winced and nodded, sweat now beading on his brow.
“I’ll do it.”
“And the name?” Helios’s eyes flickered away, looking down at his feet. “Thename.”Hecate repeated herself, jabbing the dagger at him again. Helios let out a coughing sound and twisted away from her. The noise of the crowd was growing louder behind them, and Hecate wanted Helios out of Colchis before Aeëtes saw him. “Now, Helios!”
“Clymene,” he snapped, his eyes flicking back up to Hecate as his face twisted, as if saying it out loud brought him physical pain.
“Where can I find her?”
“You didn’t ask me to tell you that,” Helios growled out and shook his head. Hecate hissed, dropping the knife to his groin.
“I’m asking you now.”
“Hecate—”
“Now, Helios.”
“She’s dead!” Helios yelled, and Hecate released her grip on him in shock. He stepped away from her, cursing as he did so. He let out an angry yelp and kicked at a piece of stone, sending it flying off the hill. Helios spun around and snarled at Hecate. “Are you happy? She’s dead. She gave me Circe and Aeëtes, and we could never be together, and now she’sdead.”
Hecate shook her head, staring at him with a detached indifference. “She lived long enough after she bore you Circe to bring you Aeëtes. Why did you abandon them here?”
