Page 5

5

Icarus

I wake to waves of agonizing pain. My entire chest is a blazing firestorm. Even before I open my eyes, the events of the last however long come rushing back. My father’s death. Ariadne sailing off into the horizon. The one-eyed man torturing me.

And…Poseidon himself attempting to patch me up.

It’s that last that has me opening my eyes to take in my new situation. I’m back on the bed, but it feels different. The mattress has changed; I’m nearly certain of it. It doesn’t make any sense. I could have sworn I was somewhere with a hard surface, cool against my naked skin, but maybe I imagined it.

Poseidon is nowhere to be seen, but the room isn’t empty. There’s a small, wizened white woman with a cloud of colorless hair standing next to the bed. Her face is a map of a life well lived, showing the years in every line and wrinkle. It’s the kind of aging I’ve been trained to avoid at all costs. All I have is my beauty. The moment time whisks that away, I’ll truly be as worthless as my father always said.

I guess he’ll never say that to me again, being as how he’s dead.

The dark thought makes me laugh, but I immediately regret it when the motion sends fresh pain surging through me. “Ow.”

“Stop that. You’re going to undo all my hard work.” The doctor—because who else could she be?—taps my shoulder in a no-nonsense way. “You’ll live, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve stitched you up. Your bandages will need to be changed regularly, but I’ll discuss all that with Poseidon. Your job is to lie there and rest your pretty head. It’s the best way to heal.”

I want nothing more than to touch the bandages I can now feel wrapped around my torso, but I have a feeling she won’t let me do it while she’s in the room. I paste my best angelic expression on my face and smile at her. “I’ll be a model patient.”

She purses her lips. “You’re going to be as big a pain in the ass as the rest of them. I can already tell. Oh well. You’re Poseidon’s pain in the ass now. See that I’m not called back here because of your ridiculousness.” Without another word, she whisks from the room. I like her. Her brusqueness is refreshing. It’s truth . Rare enough in both Olympus and Aeaea to be worth more than gold.

But no matter what I told the doctor, I have no intention of lying here on my back and waiting for my body to heal. I have plenty of experience in negotiating my way through ongoing pain. Of ensuring no one will notice the hitch in my step or the way I tense when I pull bruised muscles in the wrong way.

I’m in the process of trying to sit up when Poseidon steps back into the room and closes the door softly behind him. “What are you doing?” His deep voice stops me short. He really is too good-looking. It’s the kind of attractiveness that grows on you the more time you spend in his presence. He was handsome enough in a generic sort of way when I’d seen him previously, but now there’s something that draws me to him even though he’s the worst possible choice of a bed partner.

Maybe that’s why I’m attracted to him—because he is the worst choice I could possibly make. My captor. One of the Thirteen. A leader of this doomed city and, by all accounts, one of the few honorable ones. I’m sure that means his skeletons are buried deeper than most. No one in Olympus has hands free of blood.

He wasn’t even supposed to be Poseidon. His uncle held the position and had three children who should have inherited it after his retirement or death. And yet this man now stands before me, possessing one of the legendary legacy titles. I wonder if he’s responsible for their deaths?

“I asked you a question.”

He did, didn’t he? “I’m sitting up. I would think that’s obvious.”

“I heard your orders. Be still, heal.”

“Ironic that you’re telling me I should heal when it’s your man responsible for this.” I finally manage to struggle my way up into a sitting position, propped against the headboard with pillows under my elbows. It’s not entirely comfortable, but admitting as much feels like conceding defeat. “Or do you just want me in tip-top shape so that you can torture me yourself next time?”

“No one is going to torture you,” he snaps. His face flushes with color until the redness blends in with his freckles. “Not again.”

I shouldn’t find his blush charming. We’re talking about torture, after all. But it is charming and I’m only human. “So you killed your man?”

He blinks slowly. “What are you talking about?”

“Eye patch. The one with the big knife. He blames me for his sister’s death. Once you’re that wrapped up in grief, logic holds no sway. If he’s still alive, he’ll come for me again.”

“His name is Polyphemus. And yes, he’s grieving currently. A lot of my people are. We’re a tight-knit group and so the loss of even a single person, let alone several, hits deep. Not that you would understand. Your own father’s dead and you’re making jokes.”

Minos is dead, isn’t he? Every time that thought rolls through my brain, I wait for the emotional backlash sure to follow in its wake. My father is the specter that overshadows everything in my life. The one person I couldn’t convince to love me. There was no manipulation that worked on him. There was no living up to his impossible standards. Even suffering silently through his abuse wasn’t enough for him. I was never good enough. Never strong enough. Never smart enough. Never enough .

And yet I loved him. Pathetic. I should be rejoicing now that he’s gone, now that I can finally be my own person. But I don’t feel anything at all. Not joy, not relief, not even grief. Just a yawning emptiness that feels like it might swallow the entire world whole.

“You wanted him dead, and yet you’re not celebrating,” I finally say. “Let’s not throw stones from glass houses.”

He frowns, his amber eyes flicking over my face as if he’s trying to read my thoughts. He’s welcome to them. At least right now. Finally, he crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Only a couple of the cuts on your chest actually needed stitches. You should be healed in a relatively short time as long as you don’t aggravate the wounds. So you’ll stay in this room and avoid doing anything to aggravate the wounds while I deal with the mess your family made.”

Right. The mess. Circe. I seem to remember saying something incredibly dramatic before I passed out a second time in the tub, but I had almost forgotten that particular sword hanging over all of our necks. Circe deals with failure as well as my late father did. She’s hardly going to spare me out of the goodness of her heart. Which means I have to get out of this city before she invades properly.

I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but hopefully I have at least a couple days to figure it out.

My best bet is the man who stands before me. He’s Poseidon ; he’s bound to have access to a wide variety of water vessels that could potentially slip through Circe’s net in the dark of night. But first I have to escape him…or turn him to my way of thinking.

“You stripped me,” I say. I don’t particularly care that he took off my pants and underwear, but this kind of accusation is a surefire way to get a bead on the kind of person he is.

Did I think he was blushing before? This new flush to his pale skin puts that one to shame. He practically turns as crimson as his hair, and he shifts from foot to foot like a small child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Interesting.

He clears his throat a few times. “I put a towel over your hips. I didn’t see anything. You were covered in blood, and so the pants had to come off. It was all very respectable.”

How infuriatingly charming. “Respectable. What’s respectable about someone unconscious and bleeding as you ogle their naked body? And not just anyone—the man you’re holding captive.” Every word is designed to worm its way into the crack he’s exposed to me. Because he is supposedly a man of honor, and people of honor are inherently more manipulatable than others. They expect you to hold the same moral center that they do, and so they never see you coming.

“That’s not… I didn’t…” He clears his throat. “You’re trying to provoke a reaction out of me.”

“If I was, it’d be working. You feel guilty. And you should.”

He glares. “I am sorry for the harm you came to while under my care, but you aren’t going to be able to manipulate me. You tried to harm my city and everyone in it, which makes you the enemy. I need to leave now, but when I return, I fully expect you to give me the information I need to protect my people and the rest of the city. Do you understand me?”

Do you understand me?

He says it softly, evenly. He’s not yelling at me. He’s not even really threatening me. And yet my body locks up all the same. I’m thankful for the blanket covering my lower half because it hides my clenched fists from his gaze. It takes more effort than it usually does to paste my charming smile on my face, to force my shoulders to relax as if his words have found no purchase. It’s vitally important not to show your weak underbelly to those who want to hurt you. It doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you, but at least they won’t be able to find your soft center. “It’s cute how you’re so committed to the bit. Even Demeter breaks character sometimes. I’m your enemy. Why are you pretending you care about the people of Olympus to me? ”

Poseidon’s brows draw together. “What are you talking about?”

If he keeps this up, it’s going to jump straight past charming into irritating. I wave my hand. “It was a smart move taking the strong, silent stance and gaining a reputation as a man who’s for the people or whatever. I can see why you’d go that route instead of the others when you came into the title so unexpectedly…unless it wasn’t unexpected.”

I’m watching him closely, looking for that character break. Usually, I can talk quickly enough for a time to get anyone angry at me—certainly angry enough to stop this ridiculous act.

But he just looks more confused. “Did Polyphemus hit your head, too? What are you talking about?”

“Stop pretending!” I flinch as soon as the yell leaves my lips. This isn’t strategic. I’m being stubborn for no damn reason at all. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“Icarus.”

“I understand that you want information from me.” And I do. He’s given me the path to cracking him wide open. Because he’s an honorable man, and people pretending to be honorable are even easier to manipulate than those who are actually honorable. They’re predictable.

“What I want is to protect the city from Circe. More importantly, the people in the city.”

Not himself. Not the Thirteen. The helpless people who rely on those stronger for safety. Surely he’s not actually an honorable man. That would be too good to be true…

I shake my head roughly. “It doesn’t matter what you want. It’s all the same to me.”

I’ll give him everything he asks for. I can’t stop Circe—I don’t think anyone can at this point—but part of Circe’s power is her support base, and I’ve slept with more than a few of them over the years. I’m good at pillow talk, good at delving into the little nooks and crannies that hide their secrets. They love to brag, love to tell me things no one else knows. Things I can exploit. And what they don’t brag about, I find on my own. I’m not as good with computers as Ariadne, but I’m no slouch, either.

I already intended to use the information I’ve painstakingly compiled to blackmail them into giving me enough money to live a lavish lifestyle until I die of old age. That money would’ve gone a long way toward protecting Ariadne and me, into getting us far away from Olympus and Aeaea. An entire world away, even.

I’ll still need money if I survive this, but if I’m still in Olympus when Circe takes the city, I’m going to need every bit of blackmail to ensure I don’t end up dead along with the rest of her enemies. Unfortunately, I don’t have blackmail on Circe —her preferences lean more in the sapphic direction—but depending on who she brought as generals, I should have a decent chance of living through this.

I just need to string Poseidon along until that happens. If he’s going to insist on pretending to be an honorable man, then I’m going to use it against him to ensure I stay alive.

I settle back down into the comfort of the bed. Now, when I’m finally properly alone, I allow myself to picture my sister, to witness the desperation on her face as she forced a promise from me: Carnaval next year. We’re supposed to meet there. I don’t know if I believe that it’s even possible…but Poseidon has given me an avenue forward. And I mean to take it.