The Unclaimed (University of the Gods Trilogy Book 1) (13 page)

Cassandra waited until everyone had said hello to Alexander and then bent down to kiss him on both cheeks like the others had and to tell him thank you for the invitation.

“It’s my pleasure”, he said and his voice seemed to caress her. “May I say that you look very nice tonight, Cassandra.”

“I do, don’t I”, Cassandra said and laughed and she liked the twinkle in his eyes.

He smiled at her but looked a little preoccupied so she left him alone and looked around to see where she could take a seat. Everyone else seemed to know exactly where to go or what to do and she felt a little lost. She nodded at Wolf, who was wearing a see-through shirt that showed off his muscles and tattoos and it seemed like he had freshly shaved off the hair at the sides again while the rest of the unruly mop hang over his eyes. He gripped at his long beard, letting the muscles play, deliberately showing his very white, sharpened teeth.

“I think we’ll spare each other the niceties”, she said to Wolf and was glad when Alexander asked her to take the place beside him, across from Wolf. “It might not end well at such close quarters.”

“For you it might not”, he said and beckoned her to come over.

Cassandra bent forward, then shrugged. Alexander stretched out his hand and she simply took it.

“I am glad you came”, he said and Cassandra smiled, feeling good, at home somehow. Then River made a whooping sound and the good feeling turned into something else when she saw the way Ben, who had just come in, was looking at her. Cassandra snatched away her hand and poured herself some water, trying to make her hands not shake too much.

The other demigods settled down as well and the stream of chatter and laughter was much louder than could be expected from such a small group. With raised voices they compared battle strategies, newly bought fighting materials and discussed Ariadne’s class on tactics from the day before. Cassandra watched it all in fascination until she realized that she should probably say something as well.

Just then, there was a knock at the door and two of the other remaining Claimed descendants came in, thanking Alexander for the invitation and excusing themselves for being late. It seemed like the last two chairs had been reserved for them and not for Arissa and Bear who didn’t seem to be coming after all.

“We kind of got lost on the way up here”, Jack, a descendant of Apollo said and smiled a derisive smile. “Unlike the Unclaimed, we seem to have trouble finding our way around here.”

Robin, a descendant of Poseidon, looked ashamed at his friend’s words while Alexander was working hard on reigning in his temper.

“Yeah, right”, Wolf said, slumping into his chair. “Why did we have to invite her again?”

River bumped into him as if by accident so that Wolf almost fell off his chair. Wolf bared his teeth but River didn’t seem impressed.

“Mind your manners”, Alexander said evenly. “All of you. Excuse my friend, Cassandra. Claimed can be a bit rude sometimes. As can demigods, apparently.”

Wolf didn’t seem much subdued by this.

“I thought I
was
being civil”, he growled and dug into his food. “After all she is a mere Unclaimed.”

Alexander looked ready to explode and Cassandra felt that it was on her to defuse the situation. After all, she was a guest in this house. And she also knew that Wolf’s bark was sharper than his bite.

“He is right”, Cassandra said, smiling lightly at Alexander to show that she didn’t care about Wolf’s attempts at insulting her. “But rudeness isn’t limited to Claimed and demigods which I will be glad to show you on another day. But for tonight we are all guests here. At least in this we are the same, don’t you think?”

Wolf, realizing that he was most of all insulting Alexander by his behavior, sat up a little straighter and nodded. Jack, the descendant of Apollo, seemed to want to say something but was stopped by a heavy hand falling down on his shoulder belonging to Sol who shook his head, indicating that he wouldn’t stand for any more insults from his side. Jack gritted his teeth and sat down while his companion Robin shot an insecure look towards Alexander, then carefully sat down next to Wolf who chose to ignore him.

“Just remind me again, Wolf”, Cassandra started again, reaching for some cheese. “How exactly did you and your big friend defeat this mere Unclaimed during our first meeting?”

The other demigods stopped their forks midway to their mouths.

“Right, you didn’t”, Cassandra said and stuck the cheese in her mouth.

For a moment Wolf looked like he might go at her then and there. But then he started laughing.

“You have some balls on you”, he said and took his wine to wash down any lingering bad feelings. “And technically you didn’t beat us. We never finished that little encounter.”

“Care to renew it?” Cassandra said, also reaching for the wine but her eyes never leaving Wolf’s face.

“Sure, why don’t we?” Wolf said and River clapped his hands.

“Stop that”, he said and smiled at both of them. “We all know that you are seasoned fighters and that in a fair fight, Wolf might just about stand a chance against Cassandra.”

Wolf growled and threw himself on River, who had been prepared for that and easily let himself fall to the side. Wolf took River into a bear hug and they ended up rolling towards the sofa, crashing a chair and several other items in the process.

“Enough”, Alexander cried and laughed when Wolf and River eventually came back to the table grinning like little boys who had just been caught doing something they shouldn’t have.

“Sorry for breaking your favorite cup”, Wolf said, grinning broadly, while River unsuccessfully tried to get the chair to stand again but gave up eventually. Wolf simply dragged one of the other chairs to the table and sat down again.

“To us contestants”, River said and smiled at Cassandra, who nodded thanks to him.

“To the contestants”, Alexander said and toasted her as well.

Cassandra once again sipped carefully at the wine that had been served with the food but found she didn’t much care for it. The others seemed more used to it and emptied their glasses in one go. Cassandra found herself getting used to the taste after a couple of sips though and suddenly she had emptied her glass and was ready for more and immediately had her glass refilled.

They ate and drank for a while and Cassandra felt herself talk in an easy manner to everyone, even Wolf. Only Ben’s mood got darker by the minute. Soon enough Ben’s eyes had taken on a glassy look and Cassandra was pretty sure that he was purposefully drinking too much as if he was trying to forget something. But even though Wolf shot him a concerned look from time to time and Alexander more than once inquired whether he wouldn’t like to try some thing or another, they left him alone and Cassandra felt that they knew something she didn’t. River asked if anyone knew when the second of the challenges would take place and Ben raised his head but immediately went back to nursing his glass when no one seemed to know the answer to the question.

“Cassandra, tell us something about yourself”, Beatrix suddenly piped up when conversation had slowed down to a comfortable chatter because everyone was feeling pretty full. “What was it like growing up in an orphanage?”

Cassandra briefly thought that a voice coming from such a perfect mouth shouldn’t have been quite so high-pitched but she appreciated her interest until Beatrix added: “Was it very dirty? Were you very poor? Did you have more than one change of clothes? Because you still seem to be wearing the same things over and over. And was there decent food? I mean, could you even, like, shower?”

Sol lightly touched Beatrix to indicate that she was going too far but Cassandra shook her head to indicate that she didn’t mind.

“It was worse”, she said quietly and Beatrix’s eyes widened in shock. “Especially the part with the clothes. Sometimes we had to wear our shirts three days in a row.”

“You poor thing”, Beatrix said and clapped her hands on her mouth. “That borders on, you know, abuse, doesn’t it? It must have been terrible, growing up like that.”

Cassandra nodded in exaggerated agreement and Alexander beside her politely coughed into his glass and quietly told her to stop leading Beatrix on. She just wanted to tell her that they even had to share food on one plate when she realized that it would have been even crueler to tell Beatrix what it was really like in an orphanage.

“How did you manage to escape from there?” Alexander asked and suddenly Cassandra didn’t feel like holding back anymore.

“I am not sure I will ever truly escape that place”, Cassandra said, biting her lip. “We found a way to educate ourselves and we managed to trick our father into letting us take part in the entrance tests and when we got admitted, he didn’t have a choice but to let us go.”

She remembered how their father had punished them for tricking him but in the end it hadn’t mattered. They had left and they would never go back, not on his terms anyway.

“What about the ones you had to leave behind?” Ben said and his voice, though slurred, hit a nerve right there.

“It’s not her fault”, Alexander said softly. “She is not responsible for them anymore.”

He put his hand on hers but she drew it back.

“No, he is right”, Cassandra said and raised her chin. “I am responsible but so are you. No one watches over Parents like mine, no one checks up on them, controls what they are doing. That should be changed, that has to be changed.”

“What about the Protectors in your area?” River asked, compassion in his voice. “They would have had the power to do something, right?”

Cassandra snorted. She remembered how some of them had come over from time to time, taken a quick look and then disappeared again and never came back.

“It can’t have been that bad”, Alexander said and Cassandra felt his words sting almost as much as Ben’s.

“Oh but it was”, Cassandra retorted sharper than she had intended, remembering the cold, the hunger, the lice, the frequent stomach bugs, the death of the little ones. They had dealt with it and they had done better than most other orphanages. Still, she felt every death was a personal failure and it hurt to think about every one they had lost.

“You and your divine fathers and mothers turn away their eyes and ears when it comes to the suffering of the less fortunate. You don’t care for the children in the orphanages, for the Unclaimed girls who are forced to sell themselves because they are not strong enough to fight and are just too different to fit in the human world. You don’t care that there is dirt and hurt in the world because you haven’t even lived in it, have you?”

She looked into the shocked faces of the others, trying to hide their embarrassment at her outburst, and Cassandra realized that she would never be part of that group.

“Thank you for inviting me”, Cassandra said and got up. “It’s time for me to go now. Think about it next time you eat from your golden plates that there are some children who don’t even have a plate to eat from.”

She knew that this was putting it a bit too harshly but she didn’t care. They lived in a world where they couldn’t even imagine what it must be like to have nothing but the clothes you are wearing and not even those really belonged to you.

She more staggered than walked towards the door and felt stupid for having a burning sensation in her eyes that wouldn’t even leave her once she was back home and lying curled up in her bed. With a hick-up and a tissue in hand, Cassandra finally felt sleep come in the early hours of the morning. 

The morning after the feast, Cassandra felt terrible. She apparently had what was called a hangover, something she didn’t care to have ever again. After she had gotten rid of the remains of last night’s food, she still felt like she was about to die. Charlie, the resident expert for situations like that, had eventually managed to coax her out of the bathroom and into the kitchen.

Cassandra, feeling like she had been run over by a steam train, begged for something to stop the loud banging noise in her head and started to curl herself into a fetal position on the sofa until the putrid smell emanating from it made her rethink that option and she simply lay down on the floor instead. Eventually, Summer took pity on her and forced her to eat a little dry bread to settle her stomach. Then she gave her two small pills and made her drink a glass of cool water, telling her to be more careful next time.

As soon as she was able to sit straight again, Hector made her get up and go to class with him. His position was that it was her own fault and that she had to live with the consequences. So, with a still very sensitive stomach and a headache that had only slightly been reduced by Summer’s pills, Cassandra dragged herself after Hector.

Approaching the classroom panting and sweating, she took to praying to the gods that she wouldn’t embarrass herself that day by puking, or worse, fainting in front of the others. To her relief however she found that the fresh air and the brisk pace Hector had taken to punish her helped reduce the headache to a throb and that she would be ok so long as no one offered her any food or drink or anything else for that matter.

The classroom was already packed. Cassandra winced when the chattering and laughing, and worst of all, the smell of almost sixty students packed into a room too small for half of them, hit her. Hector, who felt her instinctively drawing back from all the noise, put his huge hand on her shoulder and prevented her from taking flight. Instead, he steered her towards the back rows where a few chairs were still left empty. In passing, Cassandra gave a short nod of acknowledgment to the demigods and with a slight feeling of satisfaction she noted that they didn’t look too rosy either. Beatrix and Sol greeted her with a small wave and half-smile each while River, who looked positively green, had his eyes closed and didn’t even take note of her coming in.

Ben was as pale as a sheet and had tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. He was swaying a little back and forth like he was having trouble sitting straight. Alexander kept offering him something to drink but he refused. When she passed him, Ben didn’t meet her eye, like he was ashamed. Wolf on the other hand, bared his teeth and wished her a very loud good morning. Wolf laughed when Ben groaned at that. Apparently he was the only one who didn’t suffer any repercussions from the night before.

Alexander smiled his warm smile at her and Cassandra could have sworn she instantly felt better. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry that she had left in such bad form the night before but Hector, who misunderstood her hesitation as another attempt at flight, tightened his grip almost to the point of crushing her clavicle and pushed her further to the back. Cassandra was glad that there didn’t seem to be any lingering hard feelings between them. She was sure that part of the vehemence with which she had reacted had been due to the influence of alcohol. She also still felt that she had been right in her outrage about the way the Unclaimed were treated. But it wasn’t the demigods fault, at least not yet. And maybe they would make a different choice when it was their time to be Protectors. Or maybe they wouldn’t. Only time would tell.

They sat down and Cassandra almost forgave her brother for bullying her into class when he handed her a bottle of water just when she was thinking she was about to die from thirst. She emptied it rapidly, wiped her mouth and watched in sympathy when River got up and hurriedly left the room.

Cassandra sighed and closed her eyes to rest for a moment. As soon as she did, unbidden memories of the orphanage sprang up. She vividly remembered how twice a week they had cleaned their tables after breakfast and studied there, the smell of stale bread and almost turned milk still hanging in the air. Their father had always said that knowledge was power but that in order to fight well, they only needed to know the basics. They had made sure to know much more than that and it had been enough to pass the entrance tests. She hoped it would be enough to survive the next three years as well.

The only thing their father had taught them extensively about was the Trojan war. He could go on for hours about it. They knew much too well that their mother and father had been an actual part of the war and as punishment they had both been allowed to stay alive to tell their tale. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of happily ever after.

Their father had told them over and over again how the war had started: Eris, goddess of strife and discord, had not been invited to a feast of the gods. To avenge herself, she had thrown a golden apple before them, inscribed with the words “To the Fairest.” Hera, Athena and Aphrodite all claimed to be the rightful recipient of the apple and Zeus, who didn’t want to be caught in the middle, decided upon Paris, son to the King of Troy, to make the decision for him. All three goddesses wanted to win the prize, so Hera promised to make Paris king of Europe and Asia, Athena promised him wisdom and skill in battle. But it was Aphrodite who offered him what he eventually chose: the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. Unfortunately, that woman was already married at the time, namely to the Spartan king Menelaus. Still, Aphrodite made Helen fall in love with Paris and Paris snatched Helen from her husband, thereby starting a bloody, brutal war that went on for ten years.

It was hard to imagine that a woman who had turned her face into a lifeless mask with too many surgeries, who used so much peroxide that her hair looked artificial and brittle and who was forever wearing clothes that were much too tight had been the reason the Trojan war had started. Their mother, the once beautiful Helen, had made her husband Menelaus willing to risk the life of his family and all his subjects because she had run off with Paris. Menelaus said that he had started the war to win her back, that he had loved her very much and couldn’t bear to see her with someone else. But Cassandra saw no love between them and she often thought that maybe there had been none from the beginning. That it had just been his pride that had stung because she had left him so easily for another man, had even married a second time once Paris was killed during the war. Only when Menelaus had won the war had she come back to her husband because it was either him or death.

One of the reasons Cassandra always put up with her father rambling on and on about the war was that her namesake, the original Cassandra, was a part of the story and even though that Cassandra had foreseen the downfall of her house and the death of her brother Paris, it had been her curse that no one had believed her.

She was disturbed in her thoughts by her brother’s continuous attempts at finding a more comfortable position. The chair he sat on was much too small for him. He shifted and moved until the chair was groaning and he decided to sit on a table instead. The clock told her that Ariadne’s class on tactics and defense was about to start but their teacher wasn’t anywhere to be seen yet. The room was filling up quickly, making the little oxygen left in the room an even more sought-after good. Finally, one of the Claimed took it on himself to open the windows and everyone sighed with relief. Then the first complaints came that the air was too cold and drafty and soon there was a heated discussion about whether it was better to die from suffocation or freeze to death.

Bear, who was sitting in the front row, had put two chairs next to each other and was trying to balance his big bulk on them without much luck. He looked like he could use some cold air, too. His head was fiery red, his gaze wild. He kept throwing glances at the door as if he was waiting for something. His left leg was bouncing up and down restlessly and he looked like he was about to jump up and charge at someone. His gaze turned even wilder when he saw Sol and Beatrix smooching. His tension lessened visibly when Arissa finally entered.

As usual, Arissa simply looked stunning. Although today she was wearing simple black trousers, a black tank top and a see-through white blouse, everyone held their breath or, in some cases, even dropped their jaw. Arissa didn’t even start to pretend that she didn’t enjoy the attention. She gave everyone a big smile and, with a very interesting sway of her hips, moved to sit beside Bear who was staring at her in eager participation. She threw a quick look at Ben, who still looked pale but this time with anger, and then whispered something into Bear’s ear that made him grip the handle of his chair so hard it broke. Satisfied, Arissa turned to talk to Beatrix, leaving Bear in a state of even greater turmoil than before.

Cassandra thought back to last night and the notable absence of both Bear and Arissa. Not that it necessarily had to mean anything. But by the way Ben angrily kept rubbing his wrist, it must have meant something to him at least and he looked like he was about to get up and do something stupid.

Alexander, who saw his friend’s distress, said something to him that first made him freeze, then relax. With an uncharacteristically stiff movement of his whole upper body, Ben made a conscious effort to turn away from his girlfriend and went to stare straight ahead instead, ignoring Arissa’s antics as best he could. Hector cleared his throat and bent down to touch Cassandra’s shoulder, shaking his head.

“I know”, Cassandra said quietly. “She is walking on very thin ice, that girl.”

Hector gently pressed her shoulder and leaned back again. Cassandra wondered whether Arissa knew that she was playing with fire but by the way she threw back her long blond hair and arched her back, she knew it very well.

Bear’s larynx did a wild dance but just when he was about to reach for Arissa, she got up and went to sit on River’s chair, right beside Ben who was still staring straight ahead. She reached out to him to touch his arm and after a moment he relented and put his hand on hers. Cassandra felt incredibly disappointed. Apparently this was how their relationship worked.

Bear, who had gotten all worked up again, broke the other handle off too but kept quiet when he met Ariadne’s stern eye, who had just then entered and at least partly picked up on what was going on. She watched him trying to reassemble the chair with a raised eyebrow and a slight shake of the head and waited for the room to quiet down.

In the meantime, Ariadne left Bear to it, put down her books, rearranged some papers and snatched up some chalk from the floor. She did it with swift, efficient movements that showed her no-nonsense approach to things. She was small and lithe, her hair cut short because it was more practical that way and her clothes and shoes just the right mixture of comfortable and businesslike. Cassandra had come to know her as someone who valued the achievements of the mind higher than those of the body and who – up until now – had treated them fairly, though with no special warmth or kindness. She expected them to read and think and discuss and always gave them more homework than they could handle. She didn’t like excuses and she didn’t like flattery and she especially didn’t like being lied to. Cassandra hadn’t finished reading the book assigned for this lesson and she felt bad about it. By the way everyone was looking at anything but their teacher she knew she probably wasn’t the only one.

But after saying some more words of welcome, Ariadne, in an unusual change to her normal routine that would have left her reading from her notes, started to speak freely to them.

“The mind is at least as important as your body”, she said and thoughtfully played with a little piece of red string. “Hippolyta and Ajax will make sure that you will be prepared for anything you will encounter on the battlefield, I will teach your minds to stay flexible, to always expect the unexpected, to think outside the box. Because your brain is a muscle that needs to be trained, too.”

Bear made a grunting noise and got up.

“My muscle is already about twice as big as everyone else’s”, he said and raised his right arm to show what he was talking about. “And I bet it beats brain.”

That got him a few sniggers and suppressed laughs but when Bear saw the expression on Ariadne’s face he quickly sat down again under the croaking protest of his two chairs.

“I will let it slide this time”, Ariadne said with another stern look at Bear. “But if you really think that your arm muscles will help you get out of a labyrinth or trick a Minotaur, think again, because the Minotaur is much stronger and definitely much cleverer than your left arm muscle, Bear Hammersmith. And as for getting out of a labyrinth, didn’t I see you back at the teacher’s room this morning because you thought it was your classroom?”

That made everyone laugh and Bear murmured that he had been looking for the bathroom.

“So much for using your muscles instead of your head”, Ariadne said and then turned towards the rest of the class. “Before we concentrate on the special mindset that is necessary to find your way out of a labyrinth, I would like to start off today’s class with a question that always leaves me startled by the variety of answers I get. Usually I pose this question at the end of the year but this morning I thought, why not now? Let’s see how they are doing.”

She waited for the murmuring to quiet down.

“I expect that you have all been taught the history of the Trojan war?”

There was some hesitant nodding and some very definite paper rearranging and avoiding of eye contact as no one wanted to be the next victim of Ariadne’s inquiries. Wolf seemed to be the only one who didn’t mind. He leaned back, revealing some very tanned, tattooed stomach muscles and scratched his belly. Ariadne smiled and stepped in front of him.