Page 18 of The Fifth Gate

Ares’s voice is a low snarl, full of enough fury that my skin runs cold, the back of my neck prickling with warning. “Nothing but pretty, poison words. As if I didn’t learn my lesson an eon ago.”

A flush climbs up into my cheeks, blood pulsing in the skin of my ears. Three guesses who he’s talking about, and the first two don’t count. Part of me wants to march in there, and give him a piece of my mind—how dare he blame me for any of this, when, other than my mother’s original scheme, this was allhisdoing from first to last?

Luckily, the rest of me, the part that wants to live more than it wants the minute and a half of satisfaction yelling at Ares would bring, has the other part of me in a sleeper hold.

“Mmm.”

The second voice in the room is clearer now, but it’s hard to judge who it is from a single syllable. Whoever Ares is venting to, they don’t seem to be interested in listening. From the sound of their reply, not even a proper word, they’re about three seconds from nodding off.

“I should just end this and be done with it.” Ares shifts in his throne, his fist rapping against the armrest. “She’s just as manipulative as her mother. I could be looking at Aphrodite’s twin.”

Now, that’s just plain unfair. Not that I’m going to storm into the room and confront him about it, but it still rankles. Ares is just too angry, too frustrated to think clearly. He doesn’t even see me when he looks atme. He just sees Aphrodite.

Why does that hurt so much?

It’s not until the other person starts laughing that I realize it’s Hades Ares is talking to. At the sound of Hades’ laughter, Ares goes very still. The tension in the room builds to the point that I can feel it just hovering outside.

“You find this amusing,” he asks in a far too quiet voice.

“I do, actually,” Hades says. He doesn’t seem to either notice or care about the War God’s mounting fury. “Tell me, have you ever actually spoken to Penelope?”

The tension doesn’t so much break, as twist sideways. “Of course.”

“Then?”

“Your meaning?” I can tell from his tone of voice that Ares doesn’t quite understand where Hades is going with this.

There’s a sound of liquid pouring, as if Hades is settling in with some wine, which is probably exactly what’s happening. If he weren’t a god, from what I’ve witnessed, I’d say he’s an alcoholic.

“I ask,” Hades responds, “because if you’d ever actually paid attention while in her presence, you would have realized that mother and daughter couldn’t be more dissimilar. Other than their physical assets, about which I will grant you that, yes, they might as well be twins.”

Ares goes quiet.

Now I kind of feel like I owe Hades a solid. Not enough to sleep with the horn dog, of course, but it does feel nice to be defended. I’m not used to anyone seeing me, really seeing me, other than my own family, who are immune to Aphrodite’s curse.

And Adonis.

I shake my head, and inch backwards as quietly as I’m able. I don’t have time to sit around eavesdropping on what some asshole god thinks of me, especially when he’s already made his feelings on that subject abundantly clear. I need to get Janie, and get back to Adonis, and then once we’re all home and safe, I can work through all these stupid, confusing emotions, and decide what can be done about Ares’s situation.

It still hurts, though. Being compared to Aphrodite. I don’t like it at the best of times. I’ve worked hard to have my own identity, instead of just being a derivative of my mother. And I really don’t like the comparison now that I have a better idea of just how cruel and petty she can be. I’d thought the curse she’d laid on me was horrible, but apparently, I was getting off easy.

I mean, I’m not oblivious or stupid. I always had an inkling of what she was capable of. Hell, I grew up learning the family history, and if there was one theme common among all my aunts and uncles and cousins, it was their ability to be cruel and vindictive over the smallest slights. But even when Aphrodite saddled me with this curse, I guess part of me still held out hope that she’d done it to try to keep me at Olympus. To keep me safe. That somewhere in that gorgeous exterior, there was at least a hint of maternal instinct.

But dooming someone to eternity in this place, cut off from everything and everyone… I never thought she’d go that far. Especially over something so small as her wounded pride. I guess it runs a little deeper than that, though. Aphrodite is the goddess of love, and she’s been known to inspire wars on occasion. Troy, I’m looking at you. So, maybe she thought she and Ares would be a good pairing, something lasting? And the idea that someone she thought was compatible didn’t want her? Aphrodite: the goddess of Love and Beauty? It would be almost unbearable.

Still a seriously horrible move, though.

I find another room not far from the throne, and while I know it’s not the one that Janie is being held in, I do peek inside, just to make sure it isn’t full of guards, or anything. When I catch sight of all the armor and weapons inside, for a second, my heart actually stops. It’s not until I realize there’s no one inside the armor that it manages to lurch back into a mostly normal, if slightly elevated, rhythm.

This place is an armory, and it’s freaking huge. Makes sense, what with Ares being the god of war, and all the soldiers and warriors and all. I’m just glad it’s empty and not holding a guard breakroom or something.

I almost move past it. I come that close to just walking on by to continue my search for Janie’s prison. But then, at the far end of the armory, past the racks and racks of weapons, and the stands covered in armor from throughout history, everything from leather breastplates and samurai pauldrons to modern tactical gear, there’s a stand illuminated softly by no light source that I can find. On the stand sits a helmet.

Maybe ‘helm’ would be a better word. It’s not like something you’d use to ride a bike or even a motorcycle. Not even like anything you’d see at a renaissance fair either, with big feathers and a face plate that swings down. No, this is old, pitted metal, with a nose guard that hangs down between the eyes. It’s way too unimpressive for the amount of power I can feel swirling around it like its own personal halo.

My breath catches, and with another quick look to make sure I’m not about to get tripped over by someone with a sword or something, I creep into the armory.

The Relic of the Fifth Gate. It has to be. And if I’m right, then I’m going to need it in order to get Janie and myself out of here.

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