Page 11 of Crown of Olympus
Hera sputtered but held her tongue. She skewered me with her gaze as I returned to my conjured throne, crossing one leg over the other.
“Please. Do continue.” The corner of my mouth lifted.
The goddess seethed. Her face turned a mottled shade of red, but to her credit, she resumed her speech, even if it was through gritted teeth.
“As I was saying,” she paused, levelling a glare at me. “Competitors will report here tomorrow morning. Hermes will deliver all instructions and rules for the trials. You are dismissed.”
“Wait,” Poseidon barked. “There is still the matter of Zeus’ sentencing to discuss.” His blue eyes glared at me from beneath lowered brows.
Hera’s were raised — as if she had forgotten the reason we were assembled.
“What is there left to discuss?” I asked. “Zeus is dead. Murdered, in fact. I sentenced his soul, as is my duty. Perhaps you should be looking for his murderer instead of wasting your time with me.”
Poseidon’s fingers twitched around his trident. I knew he longed to skewer me — again — with more than his gaze. But he had no right.
“Perhaps we cannot punish you for your heinous sentencing,” Hera began, “but mark my words, child: you will pay for this.”
“The bastard had it coming,” I seethed. “You all know what he did, and yet, you allowed him to go unpunished.”
Demeter flinched.
“Well, now he’s suffering the consequences of his actions.”
I willed the throne to swallow me whole. As I fell into thecomforting embrace of my shadows, I caught the shock in Hera’s eyes. If they’d bulged any further out of her sockets, they would have rolled right out of her pretty head and bounced, bloodily, across the pristine floor.
Chuckling darkly, I let my shadows take me home.
CHAPTER 4
Nyssa
Charon casually flickedhis playing card atop the pile, lips pursed in faux concentration.
“Pay the Ferryman,” he declared smugly.
Sure enough, his cards totalled thirteen — a winning hand.
Scowling, I replied, “How is it that you always win?”
“Because you keep losing.”
Charon mimicked my posture: a frown, arms crossed, lower lip stuck out. I managed to appear unruffled for all of three seconds before dissolving into a fit of giggles.
“Another round,” I laughed, leaning back on the fuzzy, multicoloured rug my mother had insisted on placing before the hearth. It still bore the scars of our misguided childhood attempts to play pretend flame-wielders. We’d scavenged fallen branches from the gardens, tossed them into the fire, and waited ‘til their ends lit — then proceeded to spar with our flaming branch-swords. In the living room, much to my father’s delight.
Melted patches now dotted the fabric behind Charon, and I smiled at the memory.
“You’ll owe me a hundred gold drachmas if you keep goingthe way you are,” he huffed amusedly. Still, he scooped up the pile of tattered cards anyway — their edges worn from years of use — and began to shuffle them.
Very. Slowly.
That Furies-damned dimple appeared as he smirked. I returned it while plotting and gleefully bore witness to his faltering grin.
I snickered as Charon flinched with his whole body, which then turned to snorting amusement as he flicked a hand through his hair and launched something black across the rug. He leapt to his feet with a scream — a very masculine, very godly scream — and I howled as a fist-sized tarantula, crafted entirely from shadows, scurried across the now-scattered deck of cards to crawl into my waiting palm.
I couldn’t remember the last time my belly hurt from the intensity of a laugh, but it did now. I laughed until tears leaked from my eyes and my stomach cramped. Charon, still horrified, did not take his eyes off the offending creature, lest it reappear atop his head.
His scowl deepened as I gently placed the spider upon my shoulder and bent to collect the strewn cards, still sniggering.
