Eight years since I was cast out of Olympus, and Ares finally found me — here, at the wind-scoured edge of the mortal realm. He found me looking wrecked, surrounded by eight children. "Thena…" His voice cracked. His eyes went red at the rims. "Weren't you the one who despised children? The one who swore she'd stand at Father's right hand and counsel the gods?" I was chewing dried bark. Without a word, I reached into the mud and hauled two filthy children out by the backs of their tunics, then turned and called the rest of them home. Aphrodite stepped into my path, tears catching the light, voice breaking. "Sister. It was Ares himself who convinced Father and Mother to drug you. Apollo switched the bridal chariot — Aphrodite rode away in yours, saffron-veiled and unrecognized, while you were sent in hers." Apollo stood at her side, her hand loosely held in his, expression unreadable. He was waiting, perfectly still, for me to erupt in fury. Ares's tone turned cold. "The mortal was rough, yes — but he looked after Aphrodite when she had nowhere to go. He was decent enough. You endured some hardship. Don't make a spectacle of yourself." Eight years ago, Aphrodite had returned to Zeus's halls on Olympus to reclaim her birthright as the true daughter. She told everyone I — the false daughter — had barred her from the gates. These eight years were the lesson they decided I needed to learn. "Sister." Aphrodite's smile was patient, almost gentle. "The man is dead now. We've come to bring you home. But these children are low-born — you cannot take them with you. They've caused you nothing but suffering. So let's simply kill them." I looked up, startled. Kill them. All of them. I glanced around. The girl swinging from the branch overhead was the only daughter of Poseidon, Lord of the Deep. The one glaring at Aphrodite like she wanted to draw blood was Harmonia, daughter of Hephaestus, the great Forge-God. The two boys wrestling each other over a cricket cage were Castor and Pollux, the twins blessed by God. "You must be so relieved to finally be rid of them." Aphrodite saw me react and smiled wider, dabbing prettily at her eyes. Behind her, Apollo's guards closed their circle around me and the eight children. Swords came up. I pulled the farthest child into my arms and let out a slow breath. This one, above all, could not be harmed. Poseidon had carried his bloodline through five generations without a daughter. This girl was the miracle his entire household had prayed for across lifetimes. Every member of Poseidon's domain was a gloriously unstoppable force — not one of them safe to cross. "What — you'd rather they live?" Apollo's eyes were arctic, the cold radiating off him like a drawn blade. "Thena. Do you truly intend to drag eight strays back to Olympus with you?" I moved fast and pressed my hand over Harmonia's mouth before she could open it. That girl's tongue could flay stone. "Is Sister ashamed?" Aphrodite tilted her head, eyes soft with performed sympathy. "Apollo holds no grudge about your history. Once you come home with us, he's willing to receive you into his sanctuary." The tone was charity. She delivered it like a gift from the Fates themselves. "I'm not going back." All of them stared. Ares's face went hard. His voice dropped to a cutting snarl. "You pull faces at Aphrodite the moment you see her. Have you forgotten every lesson Father's house ever taught you?" I had forgotten more than lessons. I had forgotten the night the snow fell thick and white, and Ares walked away through it with Aphrodite sheltered against his side, never once looking back. I had forgotten how Aphrodite crushed my betrothal token under her heel while Apollo watched — and felt nothing. Eight years was more than enough to set all of it down. "Go ahead, then." Apollo smiled, slow and cruel. "Thena. Don't tell me you've grown fond of playing the grieving widow. Addicted to suffering among mortals?" He looked at the children the way a god looks at something fouling his path. "None of them are mine," I said flatly. "You cannot touch them. And you would be wise not to try." God of Light or not — had he not noticed that not one of these children was the slightest bit afraid of him? They were simply ignoring him, wrapped up in their own games and quarrels. "You won't even claim them, yet you'd die to protect them?" Apollo let out a cold laugh and drew his silver bow in one motion, levelling it at the smallest child. "I cannot try?" Something lurched in my chest. I lunged to block — and Ares's hand cracked across my face, hard enough that my ears rang and sparks burst behind my eyes. "I thought you'd been forced into this life. Now I see you chose it willingly. You disgrace everything Father's house stands for." The sound of the slap rang out sharp and clear. Every child went still. The ringing in my ears settled into a low hum. I drew a slow breath. Something deep and heavy sank inside me. "Apollo." My voice came out steady. "Look at this child. Does he not seem familiar? He is your royal kinsman's son — blood of Olympus." Oktos had moved fast — but not fast enough. The arrow had grazed his arm. A long, clean cut opened along the skin. Blood welled and dripped. He ran into my arms crying, his face drained white. I pulled the divine seal-token from his waist and held it high. "Look carefully." The mark of Olympian blood. Aphrodite's eyes went wide with something that looked almost like fear. Apollo raised his bow again. "My kinsman has no children." "You can't even recognize your own cousin, and they made you Zeus's heir?" Harmonia's face scrunched with withering contempt. She thrust out the Forge-Seal — the divine sigil her father Hephaestus had crafted. "My father is the Forge-God of Olympus. If you want to kill someone — come for me." This time, Aphrodite didn't bother with words. She slapped the Forge-Seal out of Harmonia's hand. "Are all of these 'proofs' something Sister prepared in advance? A little theater for our benefit?"
I tore a strip from my robe and pressed it hard against Oktos's wound, jaw tight. "Aphrodite. Wounding Olympian blood is a capital offence — even for you." Ares waved a lazy hand. "Olympian blood. Thena, your performance is embarrassingly thin." Aphrodite lifted her chin like a goddess who has just rendered a great service and took Apollo's arm with both hands, leaning into him with practiced ease. From across the space between us, I held Apollo's gaze. Steady. Unblinking. After a long moment, he spoke, face empty of expression. "Thena. You've learned to lie." He had almost believed me. Aphrodite pressed her lips together and arranged her face into something wounded and uncertain. "Sister is having children impersonate Olympian blood. If word of this reaches Father Zeus, it will bring ruin down on all of us. She still hates me." Both Apollo and Ares frowned. "Don't be afraid. I'm here." Apollo pulled her close and pressed his lips to her brow. Ares, however, let his fury burn through what little reason he had left. "Eight years and you still haven't learned your place! What exactly do you want, Thena? Aphrodite is the true daughter — you are the counterfeit! What right do you have to compete with her? What right do you have to resent her?" Each word landed like a blade finding a gap in armor. Then something warm closed around my cold fingers. "You used to have it very hard," Harmonia said quietly. I pulled a smile from somewhere and gave it to her, then turned back and gathered myself. "Wait one quarter-hour. Then you'll know whether I was lying." One quarter-hour — the time every day when the children's guardians came to collect them. The time when, on ordinary days, I would dust myself off and walk home unencumbered. "You've stalled long enough!" Ares's fury was at its peak. Aphrodite stepped forward quickly, playing peacemaker. "Father's house can certainly afford eight children. If Sister truly insists on sparing their lives… then let them live." Apollo's expression flickered, faintly displeased, but he gave a reluctant nod, his eyes already softening again as they found Aphrodite. "Whatever Aphrodite wants, I'll go along with it." Ares relented as well. My arms tightened around Oktos until my fingertips went white. "To the outside world, they can be called lost strays," Aphrodite said pleasantly. "But Sister is returning to Olympus. She cannot remain entangled with these children — not even by a thread." She drifted closer, eyes full of something that wasn't quite a smile. "To make sure Sister remembers clearly — for every life we spare, we mark it on Sister's body. One cut per child." The moment the words left her mouth, all eight children surged around me. "How dare you — all three of you!" "Athena is brilliant — even my royal father has praised her wisdom before all of Olympus! How dare you treat her this way! I'll tell him at once and bring her home with me. She won't suffer another moment of your cruelty!" "My mother is waiting for Thena to teach her to play the lyre. You are not allowed to hurt her!" "If you have any courage at all, wait your quarter-hour! Using us as threats against her — you're cowards! When Poseidon arrives, I'd like to see who among you dares lay a hand on her!" Within moments, all of them were seized — gagged, bound, forced to their knees in the dirt. But the quarter-hour was up. "Lady Athena!" Diomedes wrenched his horse to a halt, vaulted from the saddle, and put himself between us with wide, furious eyes. "Stand down! Who are you people?" I looked past him. No one else. My heart dropped into my stomach. "You came alone?" Diomedes's jaw was tight, voice rough and low. "A wave of chaos spirits surged at the eastern border — origin unknown. Lord Poseidon led the others to drive them back. They haven't returned." Border unrest. The escort the twin realms sent for Castor and Pollux would be blocked as well. "Stop playing games." Apollo's expression was complicated, something shifting beneath the surface of it. When he spoke again, his voice had roughened almost imperceptibly. "Thena. Are these children truly worth this much to you? Worth your life? You'd go to every length to save them?"
The smile froze on Aphrodite's face. She gripped Apollo's hand tight beneath the folds of her golden robe. He didn't react. She cut a sharp glance at me, then turned to Diomedes with a gasp, one hand flying to her mouth. "Diomedes — aren't you dead? No wonder Sister refuses to leave with us!" Apollo's gaze went dark and unreadable. Cold in a way that made the air feel thinner. "Don't stay here," I said to Diomedes. "Find Poseidon. Or Heracles. Bring them back." Both figures were legendary — bearers of divine honors directly given by Zeus, never to be set aside. Apollo would know them on sight. Diomedes startled, then immediately moved to remount. Apollo moved without warning. Before anyone could react, he was across the ground, silver arrows loosed, knocking Diomedes off his horse — the shafts aimed at his heart. "Apollo, stop — he is a guardian of the mortal realm!" The words tore out of me. The god didn't listen. Diomedes twisted, dodging the killing shots — but he was one against many. Apollo's guards drove their blades in. One. Then another. Blood hit my face. I stood there with my mouth open, mind blank. "Don't hurt him. He doesn't deserve this!" No one listened. They pulled their blades free. Diomedes knelt on one knee in the dirt, bleeding from a dozen wounds, still trying to hold himself upright. Aphrodite's guard stepped on the back of his neck and drove his forehead into the ground. Apollo stepped back with an expression of pure distaste. "Sister, that was no guardian. He drew arms against Zeus's chosen heir. He's an assassin." Aphrodite's smile grew brighter by the moment. Beside me, a blade rose, pale and cold in the light. "Sister should think carefully. These eight children — are you saving them or not?" "I'm saving them." Eight cuts won't kill me. These eight years, their families had looked after me in ways that had no name for it. Four cuts came down. The iron smell of blood thickened in the air until it was hard to breathe through. Ares grabbed the blade from the nearest guard, the vein at his temple pulsing. "Thena! You would still save them?!" Somewhere behind me, a child was crying, small and broken. Cold sweat soaked through my clothes. Each breath came in pieces. "I'll save them. And I'm not going back to Father Zeus's house." Fury cracked through Ares like a thunderbolt. He drove four more cuts across my body, voice like hammered iron. "Whether you go back is not your decision. What you owe Aphrodite — what you owe this family — you haven't finished paying it." I swallowed the sound that tried to come out. Both hands found the ground. I pressed myself up, slowly, until my back was straight. Aphrodite watched my desperate, ragged breathing and looked genuinely pleased. "Ares, look — Sister is bleeding so much below. Is she… is she with child? We shouldn't force her back to Olympus in this condition, I shouldn't have pushed her—" I looked down, dazed. It was Oktos's blood. Apollo turned sharply, jaw set. Two words, barely audible through his clenched teeth. "Get rid of it." The guards obeyed immediately. They seized my arms and wrenched them back. Forced my abdomen bare. Fists came in. I could only make sounds I didn't choose to make, feeling like everything inside me had been displaced. I couldn't form a single word. "Nonsense — Lady Athena is pure. There is no child!" Diomedes's mouth was full of blood. He held on, and he held his ground. Aphrodite laid one hand across the throat of the nearest child, fingers curling slowly. "Nonsense?" She glanced at Diomedes's sudden tension. "If they aren't Sister's children, why do you care so much what happens to them?"
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