Goddess (18 page)

“I can’t do this with you. Not tonight,” he said quietly. “I just watched my brother get burned to a crisp right in front of me—”

He stopped and looked away from her, his shoulders swelling with a deep breath. He caught and held it before it turned into tears. Andy knelt down on the sand next to him while he struggled, feeling horrible. He was barely keeping it together, but still he’d put all his other feelings aside and risked his life to save hers. And then she’d yelled at him. Not her classiest moment.

“I’m sorry, Hector.” Andy touched his arm with the tips of her fingers. He leaned a tiny bit closer.

“The worst part is not knowing where they went or how he’s doing,” he confided. “I
hate
that I can’t help them. You know?”

She did. Hector was good at saving people. She had just seen for herself that Hector was the type of guy who would rather fight a god than feel useless. Not being able to do anything was probably the worst kind of torture for him.

“Can Orion find them in the Underworld? Oh! Maybe he could even bring you with him? You could go get them,” she said, trying to be helpful.

“Orion can’t find Helen. She’s the one who finds
him
when they meet in the Underworld,” Hector replied, shaking his head.

“They spent all that time down there together, and they don’t have a set meeting place?”

“Time and space aren’t like they are here, and Helen is the Descender, not Orion. He could look for her, but unless she knew that he was looking for her, and she went to him, they’d never meet up.” Hector pushed some sand around with his hands, swirling his fingers through it in frustration. “Helen’s the one in control.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” Andy looked down at the patterns he was making in the sand and frowned. “So all we can do is wait for Helen to come back? That’s pretty annoying.”

“That’s why I needed a swim. There’s some water nymph in my family, and I’ve always felt at home in the ocean,” he said, smiling and looking down at the sand. “Helps me calm down.”

“Me too.” She stared at his profile, wondering how it was that they had so much in common already. They’d never said more than a few words to each other, but she understood him perfectly. “And almost getting in a fight with a god isn’t exactly calming. Sorry about that.”

“No. Don’t say that.”

He looked up at her, and she forgot how to breathe. He was beautiful, sure. But beauty is easy. That wasn’t what moved her. What moved her was all the life she saw inside of him. He had such a strong spirit it seemed to reach out of his eyes and grab her.

“You showing up was the best thing that’s happened to me all day,” he said, totally ruining the moment.

Andy cringed. “Yeah, well. Thanks?” she said dubiously. “But I’d be more impressed with that line if I didn’t know what a crap day you’ve had.”

They both cracked up.

“That line was pretty pathetic, wasn’t it?” he asked, making fun of himself.

“I’ve heard worse, but yeah. It was pretty bad.” She grinned at him and threw up her hands incredulously. “What happened? I had you pegged as this total smoothie.”

“What can I say? I’m off my game,” he laughed, and looked away, growing almost shy. “I am
so
not smooth around you.”

“Good,” she said quietly, letting the joke go. “I like you better like this, anyway.”

When he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes and smiled, Andy knew she’d never mistake him for anyone else again. It didn’t matter who he looked like. Hector was unique. Andy also knew that, like it or not, from that moment on no other man would ever quite equal him in her mind.

Matt watched Apollo leave Hector and Andy on the beach and relaxed his grip on his dagger, thankful that nothing had happened. He knew he couldn’t have allowed Apollo to hurt the girl but interfering would have caused a whole mess of problems. Matt was still trying to convince himself he could live with a few misgivings as long as the greater evil was exterminated. He was just glad he didn’t have to confront those misgivings yet, and he hoped the gods didn’t put him in a position where he would have to.

Matt stole up the beach silently. Quiet as he was, he knew the only reason Hector hadn’t heard him was that he was distracted by Andy.

He and Andromache were reunited. From what Matt saw they had the same kind of love as before. A tender, humorous companionship that could survive anything—even war, famine, and the loss of other loved ones. Their love was one of the reasons Troy had withstood the siege.

Matt wished them the best and hoped it would turn out differently this time. He really liked Hector. He always had, despite their deep political differences. Hector was the only one who really understood him.

That’s the thing about walls,
Matt thought.
The men on either side of them sometimes have nearly everything in common—except for the one detail that they are willing to kill each other over.

Running up the beach to Great Point Lighthouse, Matt could vaguely make out the tents of his army’s camp. Well camouflaged even during the day, they looked like nothing more than sand dunes to the casual observer, but Matt could see them for what they were. Myrmidon nests.

“Master,” Telamon said, appearing soundlessly next to Matt.

Matt smiled at him and clasped him warmly by the forearms in greeting. He was surprised to feel such a deep tie to the captain. Fond memories welled up in Matt, reminding him of the bond they once shared. Telamon peered into Matt’s face.

“I look nothing like him, Telamon,” Matt said with a chuckle.

“It’s not the looks that are important,” he replied sincerely. “It’s your conviction that counts.”

“I know what I believe. I would have believed it even if the dagger never came to me. I realize that now, and I know what I have to do,” Matt said sadly, and released his old friend.

He became aware of a mass of men moving out of the dunes. They gathered around Matt like a thinking fog that bristled with arrows and swords.

“Which is precisely why the dagger chose you.” Telamon stepped back and raised his voice slightly, including the other thirty-two Myrmidons in this reunion. “Master would never force his beliefs on another. That’s why it took so long. He waited until he found a spirit that matched his own.”

The soldiers who seemingly appeared out of thin air passed in front of Matt, each of them searching his face as Telamon had. Some of the faces of his soldiers had monstrous ant-like characteristics, like antennae, shiny all-black eyes, or lobster-red skin that seemed to be made out of shell. Some appeared nearly human on the outside, but Matt knew they weren’t.

Matt recognized them one by one. They must have recognized something familiar about him as well, because as they each looked him over, satisfied looks spread across their faces.

“I know you all, and I notice that many of us have been lost along the way,” Matt said with real emotion.

They had waited for him for so long, and every single one of them had come when they were called. Matt couldn’t live with himself if he wasn’t honest about the doubt that he still felt. “I’m sorry, brothers. I’m not sure this war is just. It’s not our goal I question. I know what is right, and I know I need to do it no matter how hard it is for me. But I still have reservations about who we fight alongside.”

“As you did at Troy,” Telamon said with a knowing half smile, like he was reminding Matt that nothing much had changed. “You fight for no king, and no country, Master. You fight for the right of every man to decide his own fate. As every one of us decided for ourselves when we swore on the blade.”

“Swore on the blade,”
the mass of Myrmidons whispered.

“One man, one vote,” Telamon prompted.

“One man, one vote,”
the Myrmidons chanted back.

Matt waited for the chorus of believers to settle down before continuing. There was something about their single-mindedness that disturbed him, especially since what they were repeating in unison was the cornerstone of
individual
thought, and the jewel of Greek philosophy.

The idea of “one man, one vote” was the beginning of democracy. Poor or rich, god or mortal, Matt believed that every being should be counted equally. The weak had just as much right to decide for themselves as the powerful. That belief was something he would die to defend. Matt also knew that when one individual acquired too much power, those without power suffered and usually died. He couldn’t live with himself if he let that happen. Not when he could stop it. But he didn’t want to make the same mistakes he had at Troy.

“The god Hermes has informed me that several Scions wish to join our cause against the Tyrant, but I don’t trust them. What I want each of you to consider is this: Should we go it alone?” Matt asked, stepping back and raising his voice to include all his men in this decision. “What do you say? Should we have Hermes arrange for all of us to meet the Scions? Or can we do this without making alliances with people and with gods who are not much better than the evil we fight?”

“We fight and die for one purpose, Master,” Telamon said. The word
Master
was whispered through the men in agreement, unsettling Matt again. “Alone or with allies, it matters not. When you fight, those who seek the same goal as you will claim credit for your victories whether you want them to or not. Only one thing really matters.”

Matt nodded, his decision made, despite all he knew it would cost him. “The Tyrant must die.”

Helen lay in the grass, staring at Lucas while he slept. In its first moments, this new world she created was nothing but that—soft grass under her, a sun in the blue sky above her, and Lucas beside her. Then the world grew, because he was suffering.

She willed the sunshine to take his pain away, the air to heal his wounds, and the ground to nourish him so he didn’t need food or water. In seconds, Lucas was healthy and perfect again. His eyes fluttered open and locked with hers, and Helen’s whole world was in him.

“Hi,” he said, a smile spreading across his face.

“Hi,” she replied, smiling back at him.

“Am I dead?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Oh, good.” He looked up at the bright, blank sky.

Helen hadn’t had a chance to put any clouds in it yet. Clouds popped into existence as they occurred to her, hazing out the yellow sun perfectly so Lucas wasn’t blinded by it.

“Are you sure I’m not dead? ’Cuz I feel kinda dead,” he said suspiciously.

Helen chuckled and laid her hand on his chest. For a moment, the steady thumping of his heart was the only sound in Helen’s world. “You don’t feel dead to me.”

“That’s all that matters,” he said, turning his head to look at her. Worry darkened his eyes. “I know this isn’t possible. What did you do, Helen?”

“I made you a world.”

Lucas sat up and looked around, and she felt suddenly shy, like he was looking at an unfinished painting, and she was still sitting at her easel. Helen willed the grass to stretch out and turn into a field. She put flowers in the grass, bees in the flowers, and filled the air with the scent and sounds of springtime. He watched the world grow, like a carpet unrolling in all directions, and looked back at Helen. He dropped his head, shaking it.

“It figures. If anyone was ever gifted enough to make a whole new world, it would be you, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not the only one
ever
,” she admitted, sitting up next to Lucas and regarding him seriously. “Hades did it. Zeus did it. Morpheus did it. And . . . Atlanta did it.”

“Atlanta. As in,
Atlantis
?” he asked, frowning in thought. Helen nodded. Lucas turned to her, deadly serious. “Helen, do you know where Atlantis is?”

Helen swallowed and nodded. Like removing a Band-Aid, she figured it would be best if she just got it over with quickly.

“It’s gone. I don’t know all the details, but Hades told me that it sank forever when Atlanta lost some kind of challenge.” Helen watched Lucas’s face fall, like something in his body ached. “I’m sorry, Lucas. There is no Atlantis.”

“No. But there’s here,” he said, his mood lifting. Helen looked at him, puzzled.

“Yes, but no Atlantis means that there’s no immortality. All those years the Houses have been killing each other to get to Atlantis and become immortal . . . and it’s all a fairy tale.”

“I’ll bet anything your world is better than Atlantis ever was. And I bet if Atlanta could make people immortal, so can you.”

“Well, thanks, but all I’ve made so far is a field of flowers. Not eternal life.”

He looked at her for a few moments. Helen knew this look. He gave it to her when he was trying to figure out the best way to explain something complicated to her.

“Just spit it out,” she groaned, grinning at the inevitable lesson he was about to give her.

“I’m just thinking about how your world works. Everything you want to happen, happens—no matter how crazy it is, right? But there are still rules,” Lucas said, talking and thinking at the same time. “Let me put it this way. You healed my body. And I know I was pretty close to dead.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“When we go back to the other world. Ah, Earth,” he said, grimacing at how strange it was to say that. “I’m assuming that my wounds won’t come back, will they?”

“Of course not. You’re healed.”

“So you changed my body. Whatever you did to my body here will carry over when we return to Earth. That’s one of the rules.” Lucas waited for Helen to nod, which she did slowly, still trying to catch up with him. “Then what’s to say you couldn’t make me immortal here and I’d stay that way, forever, no matter what world we go to?”

Helen stared at him. “How do you
do
that? How do you figure everything out so quickly?”

“You may be all-powerful, but nothing beats plain old logic.” He smiled at her. “Am I right? You can make anyone immortal by bringing them here and willing it?”

She nodded silently, thinking about how she’d get injured in Hades and wake up in her bed on Earth and still be injured. She knew from experience that if something happened to the body in one world it carried over into all the others. The same went for immortality. Helen knew this was right implicitly, the same way she knew her feet were there even when she wasn’t thinking about them. She could make herself and Lucas immortal just by thinking it here in her world.