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No sooner than the words have left her lips, the image of her flickers. A moment of fear so vicious strikes me, and I flinch at the whip of it.

She flickers again.

“What’s happening?” Her eyes are wild with panic.

“You’re waking up.”

“No. I don’t want to.” She shakes her head, rejecting the fate neither of us can fight.

“Listen to me.” I grip the sides of her face, even as her form feels less solid. “You need to sleep. When you sleep, I’ll be here.”

Tears well in her eyes, like blades to my heart. She promises, “I’ll sle?—”

She doesn’t finish because she is gone.

I follow the thread of Hypnos back to the Underworld.

Chapter

Thirty-Four

Persephone

Where the Underworldis like a fantasy, Olympus feels like a dream. There is a beauty here that is unspeakable but blurred somehow. It’s not crisp, like reality should be. The haze that blankets the realm plays over the scene like a vivid dream in the first waking moments. There, but not entirely clear. It’s been three weeks, though the days and nights feel impossibly long.

Hydra suffers burning heat, so different from the heat of the Underworld. She is flying less and less. Leuce is on edge, always looking over her shoulder.

And the machinations of this realm are deadly. Every day, another conspiracy is laid bare. Every day, a new horror revealed.

Every day I watch innocence die.

“You will do it, boy!” Zeus’ palm falls heavy on the table, rattling the dishes. “Your purpose is war.”

Ares simply glares through golden eyes speared red with daggers of blood as he cuts into the meat that oozes red onto hisplate. He places a square into his mouth, chewing boredly before he swallows. “No.”

“Waste of power,” Hercules hisses, glaring at his half-brother.

Hera places her hand over her adoptive son’s, her blue eyes flicking once to me. “Perhaps he needs motivation.”

Leuce tenses beside me, but no one asks what she means, even though I’m certain she meant to propose thatIcould be his motivation for whatever atrocity Zeus wants Ares to commit.

What do they want from him?

Hercules stands fast, knocking his chair back as he leans into the table, glaring his hatred at Ares who doesn’t even flinch. “We need this. It’s been too long since there was a war.”

Attached to his back, Hercules’ much smaller, golden wings quiver. As a demigod, the fact he has wings is impressive. It’s no surprise, however, that they are mostly useless. No surprise that he keeps his Pegasus close.

“There are plenty of wars.” Ares leans back in his chair casually, though there is nothing casual about the danger that leaks from him.

“Do you not see the realm?” Hercules spits, throwing an arm wide. “It’s dying.”

Ares smirks, taunting the golden demigod with his golden boy charm now spitting ugly rage. He drawls, “Oh, I know.”

Hercules draws his sword and I gasp in horror, but Ares only laughs.

“Enough!” Zeus roars, his face burning red with anger. “Enough.”

In the arena below, a man no older than thirty and clearly in his physical prime deflects another deathblow from the gladiator. Though he’s holding his own now, the time will come when he inevitably tires. Then, like all the rest, he will die.