Page 6 of Artemis' Bow
“What’s the plan? How can I help?” Dax asks.
Kira elbows him in the gut. “We. How can we help?”
“Other than training, there isn’t much. The war isn’t immediate, but we have to search for the temple of the next god to be weakened.” I lean against Jayden for support.
Even though things are still strained between us because of my own stupid fears and memory of the island of the lotus eaters, he and Raven are my biggest support system right now.
“We can set up a new training schedule for the students who want to fight. My brothers and I can test them and put them in brackets based on skill level,” Dax offers.
“That would be incredibly helpful.” I grin.
I turn to Raven with a raised brow. I never expected Dax to have such helpful suggestions, but I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s something I’d expect Raven to come up with as the daughter of Ares as well.
“I have my mind on the possible mission ahead; we still have time to prepare the masses,” she says as she stomps up the stairs. “But she’s right. That’s a great way you can help.”
“If you guys can do that and get them started on more training that would take a weight off and maybe convince more students that this is the right place to be.”
Jayden puts a hand on the small of my back and guides me up the stairs. I turn and wave to Kira and Dax. Exhaustion weighs heavily on me as I place my hand on my door and push it open.
The locks on our doors only open for us—something about magic signatures. Though as much as my magic has shifted and grown recently, it still surprises me when it opens for me.
“I’m going to get the maps. Do we know where the temple of Artemis was in the ancient world?” I call over my shoulder.
“It was in Ephesus,” Adrian says.
“It was a port city,” Thad agrees. “The city was prone to flooding because it was surrounded by water. Not only the sea but a large river as well. Not sure if that helps. I just know things about the sea.”
“That does help a lot actually. It tells me we need to look at the coastal areas. The problem is that there are a lot of coasts.” I grab the maps and the book from the top of my closet and head back into the main room.
“As soon as we know about where it was, we should be able to narrow it down, B,” Raven says.
She grabs the US map from me and spreads it out across the coffee table. The temples of Ares and Poseidon are marked as well as where we found Delphi on our first mission to save the academy.
That feels like a lifetime. How can it possibly be less than a year? So much has happened since then. We have all changed and grown so much. We went to the damn underworld. We saved four gods and the world multiple times and it’s all leading to a final battle. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
“You okay?” Jayden asks, squeezing my hip.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about all the things we’ve done.
I tap the marker for Delphi and grin, remembering the stupid rhyming battle. Jayden groans and shakes his head.
“Don’t remind me. Those rhymes were terrible.”
“We should have known then that Apollo wasn’t on our side.”
“What rhymes?” Thad asks.
He fits so well in our group now that it’s easy to forget he wasn’t there from the beginning sometimes.
“Just after the start of term, the Hermes kids went missing and we were tasked with going after them and the lightning bolt. When we were in the mountains of Arizona, we ran into a shifter pack that had some issues with weird magic,” I say.
“They found a fountain at the mountain base, but anyone who got too close would be stuck rhyming. They couldn’t say anything without rhyming. It was rough.” Jayden sits on the floor and pulls me into his lap.
“The alpha asked us to help him and when we realized it was the fountain of Delphi, we knew we were probably the only ones who could help them. We thought it would be easy and it would have been if it hadn’t been for the giant snake that protected the heart of Gaia.”
“A battle ensued and we got too close to the fountain. Needless to say, we ended up affected by the cursed thing.” Jayden wraps his arms around me.
“That was the funniest thing I have seen in my life. Three battle-worn warriors who couldn’t stop with the terrible rhymes.” Adrian laughs.
