“So you do remember. You just didn’t tell Bolton.”
I don’t know when Bolton jumped down from his throne and breezed over to my side, but I could see him out of my peripheral vision, looking tense. “Remember what, exactly?” The worry was apparent in his voice, but it went ignored.
The room faded out, and the focus was lodged between us, blocking everything else out.
She looked at me through a heavy sheet of tears obstructing her vision as she shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s just nightmares so far; I don’t know what’s real.”
I didn’t need to see her abilities or hear anymore. I knew we shared a memory and that was enough for me. I had fragments floating in my head at night and none of them were of Luna.
I had no validation for how protective I felt of her, but Arianna lived in my head in a way I knew we must have been friends at some point, which was more than I could say for anyone else in the circle.
“I’m the son of Hades. Of course, I’m a nightmare, but it doesn’t mean our memories aren’t real. Pretty sure the scar on my shoulder is from you.”
My cut shirt left openings in the side that showed off the sides of my body easily. I could have been shirtless and showing almost as much. I ran hot, at a boiling, at all times, making my attire justified. I pulled the material towards my neck exposing my shoulder blade to show her my scar patterned after a strike of lightning.
I felt her cold fingertips brush against the embossed skin, no longer flush and taut like the rest of me, with tingling I knew to be the thunder that came before lightning. It made me jump, realizing she was touching me—someone who wasn’t Luna, my Luna.
“This is a cute reunion and all…” Bolton’s strained voice was obvious. He didn’t like this connection he didn’t seem privy to.
I let my shirt settle back over my shoulder, covering up a scar I now knew came from Arianna. I just didn’t know how or why yet. We weren’t supposed to be able to hurt each other, yet I had a scar branching over the back of my shoulder. I had to regain composure and focus on why we were here: someone’s betrayal.
Creating space between Arianna and I, I found a wall to lean against on the other side of the room. “Cut to the chase, Bolton.”
Luna’s eyes caught mine with not worry or empathy, but something I didn’t know she felt. It was too selfish of an emotion for her to wear: jealousy. She was jealous I had a tie to Arianna, even though we didn’t know what that tie was.
“Alba is working with Cheyanne. I don’t know what their plan is. Something is shady. They’re both hiding shit from us.”
Cheyanne? Probably.
Alba? Doubtable.
Kate yawned loudly on purpose to make her point. “Was that really cutting to the chase, if you didn’t know anything?”
“I think they’re sabotaging the ritual. Cheyanne knows she has Henry Jon’s journal. She freaked out in my room asking me if she has the husk and if we can trust Ari.”
I wanted to say, “Maybe we can’t,” after reevaluating my scar and the tingling in her fingertips that didn’t seem to go away—a permanent itch to leave her mark on the world.
Luna’s eyes kept pressuring me to hold her stare, to say something, to do something that made her feel better than the jealousy running its course.
She was asking me permission to be selfish. Who was I to deny her? I laced my fingers with hers lazily, not committed or caring, but on the inside, I felt more alive than I ever had.
Luna wanted to be selfish… with me.
Bolton
Trying to explain betrayal in a room full of just that had me reeling, but the ritual was around the corner. This couldn’t wait any longer.
Nyx staring into Arianna like he knew her better than I did wasn’t going to blow over any time soon.
Cheyanne was hellbent on using the full moon, which just happened to be the same day as the fucking Harvest Dance.
The Harvest Dance was an old tradition passed down from the early 1400’s, that the mortal world took less seriously now by making it a high school dance theme. Settlers who believed if they celebrated the harvest being planted it would bear more fruit.
All the fruit that high schoolers wanted was someone to spike the punch, get laid, and freedom.
At least we agreed on the freedom.
Cheyanne didn’t have to convince us; we all knew the significance of the moon and stars. After all, it was what we were made of.
The first time we were set free to bring balance to the mortal world was the 1600’s, in Henry Jon’s corner of the world, at the same time they were celebrating their own harvest. We knew we needed to influence the town and the people, bring forth new ideas, and propel the mortals forward without their belief in the gods anymore. They had a new God, singular, and none of their new religion involved Zeus or the stars writing their fates. This God was absolute and died for them in an ultimate sacrifice, which we hadn’t done, so our gods were cast aside.
I didn’t expect the mortal world to capture my attention so much. That was the first time I met Arianna, except her name was Rosalia then. She was the only person in that small town who treated us as equals, instead of as the children of God's enemy—someone named the Devil.
Her kindness seeped into our hearts, and I knew I couldn’t leave without her.
I spoke to our gods, always listening and waiting to interrupt your freewill with their own agenda, begging them to give her to me.
Zeus came to me in a dream, explaining that being set free in the mortal world had nothing to do with influence or the people; it had to do with taking Rosalia home to Olympus. Rosalia was his lost daughter who fell out of Olympus and lost her way back home. She took a mortal form, and Zeus patiently waited until she was old enough to trick into coming back home. He sent creatures and signs all meant to enchant her lost memories. When none of that worked, he sent us as a last resort.
Before our gods died, Zeus confessed to being cursed by Hera, his beloved wife, who hated the children he had that she didn’t bare. She was always plotting to kill them off, and in her case, she got a mortal death.
I knew Henry Jon was onto us; his watchful eye didn't see much else. His daughter was beautiful and the ripe age to marry. I was sure the entire world was his enemy.
The ritual went off without a hitch when Rosalia laid down on the smooth rock. I didn't think I'd have the strength to make myself drive the knife into her chest, but I heard Zeus’s voice asking me to bring his daughter home.
That was all the strength I needed to kill her mortal body and go home.
Now the same thing was happening, except there was too much doubt. I doubted leaving. I doubted Ari’s abilities. I doubted the ritual. I doubted the rule now that our gods were dead. And, I doubted the circle.
Everyone was keeping secrets, and all I wanted was answers.
I looked around the room at the people I trusted: one bored, one trying to not be in love, one insecure, one confused, and one who loathed me still.
We weren't winning any awards.
The gods would smite us for even giving into the hormones and mortal emotions like this. This was the opposite of staying levelheaded. After fourteen years in this prison, we all had given in to whatever got us by.
“Kate, I need you to get information. You're close to Cheyanne.”