“Where?” Skyla asked.
Maelea closed her eyes, focused on the darkness she’d felt when Orpheus had come down the stairs. It had left the colony with him, she now knew. She loosened her mind and the tendrils of awareness she so often kept locked tight.
She opened her eyes when she located it. “In the hills outside Litochoro, Greece.”
“The City of Gods.” Determination settled hard in Skyla’s eyes, turning them to intense shards of colored glass. “Thank you.”
Skyla was out the door before Maelea could think to answer. Before the queen of Argolea could stop her. Footfalls echoed from the hall, and then the great room felt ten times too small as it was suddenly flooded with too many men. Big, brawny, intimidating men.
The Argonauts.
Maelea shrank back into the shadows as quickly as she could.
The queen looked toward the dark-haired Argonaut, the one with eyes like the dead of night.
“Where?” he asked.
“Litochoro. At the base of Mount Olympus in northern Greece. The Siren’s already gone to try to stop him. But, Theron…”
Her hand on his arm stopped his movement toward the door. He looked down at her. “I know, Your Highness. We won’t hurt him. Not if we don’t have to.” He glanced over her head to the tall Argonaut beyond. “We need to go.”
Low murmurs rose up in the room. The mass of male bodies moved toward the door but the tall Argonaut lingered, waited for the others to leave, then crossed to the queen and kissed her before following the others out.
And in the silence, seeing something Maelea knew she’d never find no matter how long she looked, she felt more alone than she had before. Alone and very much aware of the darkness still hovering in some hidden part of the colony. Darkness that had nothing to do with the Orb.
A darkness that called to her and taunted her to find it.
Chapter 26
The cool wind whipped through the mountains. A chill Orpheus barely registered because revenge burned hot, heating him from the inside out.
The trees were different, the mountaintops more weathered than he remembered. Though humans called the city at the base of the majestic Mount Olympus the City of Gods, it wasn’t. On earth, this wasn’t anything more than rock and soil. The metaphysical Mount Olympus where the gods actually lived was a different place entirely. But he didn’t need to recognize the landmarks to tell him he was in the right place. The Orb grew hotter against his chest the closer he got, and memories of the last time he’d been here flickered through his mind like a steady stream of color.
There was one similarity in the two very different lives he’d led. Then, as now, his only goal had been to see justice served. The gods—those mystical beings who were nothing more than fallen angels—had one weakness. The same weakness that was responsible for their fall from grace so long ago. They were enamored of humanity. And they meddled in that which they couldn’t understand and could never replicate.
The temple was nothing but crumbled rock and broken columns. A thrill of victory slinked through him as he stepped from one massive boulder to the next. Destroyed. Just as Olympus would soon be destroyed.
He located what would have been the altar area of the temple—the temple to Zeus, no irony there—and called on the power of the Orb as he conjured a spell to clear a space. When the mountain of stone had been sufficiently moved out of the way, he crawled down into the pit that remained and stared at the marble altar now broken in two, the iconic lightning bolt, the symbol of the King of the Gods, cut right down the middle.
He stepped around behind the slabs of marble and reached underneath the right side to the hidden compartment in the base. The one that held the small wooden box he’d left there so many years ago.
The Orb grew warmer. The box was lodged in the broken marble. He grimaced as he fished around inside, found the bronze latch and flipped it up, his fingers closing around a small teardrop-shaped glass.
His skin grew red-hot. He pulled his hand free and stared at the swirling cloud of gas inside the container marked with the symbol of the Titans. The mixture found in heaven and on earth and even in the Underworld. That which made life possible. Power and strength surged in the palm of his hand, shot up his arm, gathered in his chest. And he felt a stark tug where the Orb lay beneath his shirt, as if the medallion were calling the element home.
He pushed to his feet. Reached for the chain around his neck. Stopped when he heard movement behind him. Slowly, he turned and stared into eyes as old as the sun.
“Be sure of this move, hero.”
Lachesis. The wrinkled and petite Fate had warned him off the air element once before. Had told him stealing it would bring a wrath he’d never understand. And looking back, he knew that it had. But then he hadn’t had the Orb and the earth element. Now he did. Now he had what everyone wanted.
“It’s too late for theatrics, old woman. I’ve already reached my quota for this lifetime, and the last. And I’m no hero.”
He climbed out of the pit, started down the hill away from the ruins with the air element in his palm. Lachesis appeared on the path, stopping his feet.
“You were destined for something greater than this, Orpheus. Greater than thievery and vengeance, and much greater than ignorance. Do not fall into the trappings of the gods. For it makes you no better than them.”
He ground his teeth. “Look close, Fate. I am no better than them. The fact I was born part daemon proves that loud and clear.”
He pushed past her, nothing but a gust of wind hitting him where her solid flesh should be. He was done with people telling him what to do. His father Perseus had tried. Zeus had ordered. This Fate had even cajoled long ago. And in this life? Isadora, the Argonauts, even Skyla…they were all trying to make him into something he wasn’t.
Thoughts of Skyla flittered through his mind, followed by memories of when they’d first met so many years ago. When he was a man wanting more. When he’d known she was sent by Zeus to seduce the element out from under him. When he’d turned the tide on her and seduced her right back, just to torment the god.
“You are not a daemon, hero,” the Fate called after him. “Not anymore. You earned your soul back, just as I knew you would.”
So he’d been right. His daemon really was gone. And that fullness he’d felt in his chest…that had been his soul. A soul he’d come to believe he just didn’t have. Not that it made a difference. It didn’t change who he was inside. The same man he’d been over two thousand years ago. One who cared for nothing but what he was due.
“Vengeance will do you no good,” the Fate added. “And a great many will suffer if you fail this time.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Fate. Retribution’s the only thing that’ll make all the shit I’ve been through worth it.” What he’d done, what Skyla had done, what had happened in the long lonely years since.
“You—”
“And the nice thing about revenge,” he added, “it means I’m not in hell anymore.”
“There’s more than one kind of hell in this life, Orpheus. There’s the hell that Hades can subject you to, and then there’s the living hell. The kind you create for yourself. The kind that’s impossible to break free from. Ask Skyla about that hell. Ask her how many lovers she’s taken since your death or why she stayed with the Sirens for so long. You are not the only one who sacrificed and suffered. You are simply the one who got a second chance.”
His feet stilled on the sodden grass. He didn’t want to hear about Skyla or what she’d been through. He didn’t want to think about the consequences of what he’d done. He just wanted to hold on to his anger as he’d done for so long. To blame the gods for the fucking hand of fate he’d been dealt. He just wanted…