“There are things, I guess, that I still need to take care of.”
Demeter drew in a rippling breath. “You are tired. Sit, child. Rest.”
Athena cleared her throat. “No, thank you.”
“Why not?”
“Hermes says…” She hesitated and rolled her eyes. “Hermes said that when he sat on you he could feel your pulse through his butt.”
Demeter laughed, hard enough to knock Athena off-balance. Her feet skidded apart, and she put her arms out to steady herself. Startled birds flew from wherever they’d been hiding moments before, squawking their worry at the shifting dirt.
“I wish you’d brought him,” Demeter said, quieting. “I miss his impudence.”
Athena smiled. Having finally reached her aunt she was no longer all that tired. Wind cooled the sweat on her shoulders and neck. The quest neared its end. Soon she could go home.
“Aphrodite,” she said. “What do you know?”
“Nothing.” Demeter recoiled innocently, stretching herself so thin that Athena could feel desert pebbles beneath her toes. “Without Hera to direct her path, Aphrodite will hide. So fast and so well that you’ll never find her.”
“We will find her.”
“Why do you ask if you aren’t going to listen?” Demeter snapped. “Why are you talking about a mortal girl’s revenge? Why are you fighting her fight, instead of yours?”
Athena looked away, across the sand. At first it was grief. The loss of a loved brother. And then it was guilt, too many days spent staring at Cassandra, at the shell of a girl Apollo left behind. She’d made a promise to look after them all. Cassandra, Andie, and Henry. Apollo had made her promise.
“I don’t know what it is,” she said softly. “I never … understood time before. It didn’t mean anything. I could never make a mistake. I don’t know how mortals do this. How they only live once.”
“You doubt your instincts.”
“Why shouldn’t I? Things just end. Isn’t that what you said?”
Demeter wriggled in the dirt. “I might be wrong. You beat Hera, but it wasn’t Hera who caused this. Whatever really did, you may be able to fight.” The eye bulged, scrutinizing. “Tell me. What you’re thinking.”
Images flickered in Athena’s mind: she saw Demeter rise up from the earth and shake herself off, no longer a flat expanse of skin but a woman, with brown hair waving to her waist and deep dark eyes. She saw Hermes with muscle returned to his arms, a beautiful curve in his cheek when he smiled. She saw Apollo, Aidan, bright and perfect as ever, with Cassandra by his side.
She thought and she dreamed. Of wrongs put right. Things restored that would never be. Impossibility hovered like a light in her chest and made her want. To be a hero. To feel alive. As alive as she’d felt that day on the road above Seneca Lake, when she’d charged Hera with iron in her fist.
“We won,” she said quietly. “Hera and I both sought the oracle, but I found her first. The other side was stronger, and everything went wrong. Our side was scattered and made terrible choices, but we won anyway. We left Hera and Poseidon dead, and Aphrodite running for cover. And now I have the girl who kills gods. And I have Odysseus, who can lead me to the other weapon.”
She had Hermes, and capable soldiers in Henry and Andie. And she had herself. Goddess of battle.
“You have much,” Demeter agreed.
“I don’t want to put them through any more,” Athena said, and that was true. Hermes, Odysseus, and Cassandra had been through enough. But she couldn’t deny the urge that grew daily in her gut. She couldn’t deny the exhilaration she’d felt when Hera had fallen on the road.
“Going through is the only way to the other side,” Demeter said.
“The people I’ve endangered … I would see them safe. I dragged them with me before,” she said, and paused thoughtfully. “But always in the right direction.”
“Stop trying to make me say it for you,” Demeter said. “Spit it out.”
“I’m going to wage one more war.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re supposed to fight, and we’re supposed to win.”
“Ah,” said Demeter. “There it is.”
“Yes. There it is. I’m going to hunt down every rogue god and monster. I’ll tear their heads from their shoulders. Cassandra will turn them to dust. One last rush of heroes on the battlefield. It’ll be glorious. Something for the books.”