Page 95 of Invoking Ruin

“Atê is up there without us, and I want to bring her home. Will you help me?”

The horse stares me down, ears flat for a long moment, and I’m not sure if he’s going to bite or kick me.

Come on, beast. You love her as much as I do.

Finally, the horse sighs and lowers himself in the grass, his wings spreading out wide.

“Thank you.” I climb onto the horse’s back and grab hold of his mane, the best I can do with no saddle and no reins.

Pegasus rights himself, prancing lightly.

At the edge of the clearing, Lethe and Hephaestus wait for me.

“Aim for the center,” Lethe instructs. “They’ll be there.”

I nod and dig my knees into Pegasus’ side. The horse flaps his wings and we rise up into the air.

Aim for the center.

Atê hurtled straight for her own destruction. Fitting for the goddess of Ruin.

And I stood in the hall just hours ago and said nothing when everyone had condemned her, because I couldn’t reconcile the part of me that wanted to protect her with the part of me that was supposed to have done what everyone else wanted.

I’ve spent centuries, my whole life really, seeking freedom while trying not to anger anyone.

Come home to Olympus, brother.

You’re needed here, brother.

Be responsible.

Only Atê wanted me to be selfish. All she ever asked in return was to be at my side.

And I kept letting the parts of me that wanted to please others silence the temptation, the rightness of her offer.

She’s still trying to give me my greatest desires. This time, without any strings.

I badly want her strings. I even want her hooks in me, telling me to kiss her, to love her.

Only, that wouldn’t work, because loving her isn’t a mistake.

Hopefully, I’ll get to tell her that. I won’t be too late to save her.

I urge Pegasus higher, faster, his powerful wings flapping as we gain speed. Olympus drops away, and below it, all of Greece shrinks into green specks.

But the chasm above us only grows larger and larger.

The emptiness of it leaves me breathless. I can’t see Atê anywhere, even as we get close enough to feel the wind of the chasm drawing us in. Pegasus stops and rears, letting out a snort of alarm while I hang on for dear life.

“I don’t blame you, but we have to get closer,” I tell him as I stroke his neck, hoping to calm him. Likely, he can smell my own terror, my mind running from one horrible what if to another.

What if we get there, and she’s already gone?

The crack into the Void is so wide, so powerful, it ruffles my hair and Pegasus’ mane from a considerable distance. I can’t believe Atê flew right for it.

We’d all be better off if she’d been a little more selfish today.

The ache in my chest sharpens. She’d been selfish with everyone else on Gaia. Stolen from them, hurt them, left them to their awful fates, but not with me.

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