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I make love to her over and over until her body can take no more, and she falls into sleep. Even then, I yearn for her.

Even as I pull her close, and she sighs warmly against my chest in sleep, I can’t ignore the cool swell of dread that rises inside me. Can’t ignore the blooming fear I feel in the face of the future I cannot flee from.

I press my lips to her forehead, a palm to her belly where the souls of my daughters grow. And again, I pray to the Fates for mercy.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Persephone

“I don't havea good feeling about this.” Hesitation twists Maya’s expression as her fingers knot in front of her belly. “I don't think you should go.”

“I don't have a choice.” I sigh, pulling a gown from a hanger and tossing it onto the bench in the middle of the closet.

If the Moirai are right, Ares’ future and the continuation of humanity as we know it, depends on me travelling to Olympus.

Just the thought has a chill snaking down my spine. It erupts over my flesh in goosebumps that are more than visible. They’re a beacon of my discomfort. My fear.

The Moirai say that Ares is at a fork in his path. That I am the thing that will pull him away from the darkness and into the light. Not just the facade of light, as is the way of the games Zeus plays, but the true light that lives inside us. It’s not a light that needs to shine and shimmer, on display for all to see. It’s a quiet light. It’s doing the right thing even though the right thing is cloaked in shadows and seeping chaos. For change is never simple or easy. Peace does not sprout from earth thathas not been upturned. One cannot protect another without first tarnishing his armour. I only have to look at Hades for proof of that.

There is no reward without work. And when one is working for anything that matters—truly matters—work is often hard.

Maya lowers to the bench. “There’s always a choice.”

I roll my eyes at the row of gowns.I don’t know what to pack.“Do you know anything about Olympus?”

Maya’s frown twists into a look of horror. “Why would I know anything about Olympus?”

“Sorry.” I sigh. “It was a silly question.”

Maya harrumphs, but she manages a grumble, “Olympus is an ugly, evil place. It is filled with ugly and evil Gods.”

“Funny.” I finger a pretty, light blue gown.

“What’s funny?” Maya doesn’t sound impressed. “There’s nothing funny about Olympus.”

I swear, I can hear her shiver. I explain, “When I imagine Olympus, I think of it as light and bright. I don't foresee black clothing being in the height of fashion.”

Maya snorts. “It’s not.”

I twist with the pretty, light blue dress. “So, they’d wear something like this?”

“Sure.” She scowls at the gown. “Though I think Zeus favors white and gold.”

I drop the pretty blue dress in favor of an ebony number with a scandalous slit clean to the hip. Then I pluck the dark green one next to it.

I carry the gowns to the suitcase Maya sits beside on the bench. She’s supposed to be helping me pack. She’s not.

I lay the gowns inside and tell her, “When I lived in the human world, before I knew the Gods were real, when I thought of them as myth, I always imagined Olympus was just another way to imagine Heaven. I thought of it as a bright and beautifulplace, harmonious music—” I laugh at myself. At my innocence. My ignorance. “I pictured angels, warmth, and sunlight.”

“There will be sunlight,” Maya admits. “And I suppose what you picture as angels.”

My eyes cut to hers. “What do you mean?”

“I think the angel’s humanity often paints are mostly in Zeus’ image. Hera’s, too.” Her scowl is back, but deeper this time. “And Hercules. Can’t forget about the golden boy with his golden wings.”

“Huh.” I nibble my lip as I consider, bobbing my head to my thoughts. “There’s a lot of crossover to creatures of myth and the Gods.”