Page 129 of Until the End of Ever
I should kneel. I should thank her. But I couldn’t do either, I just stared, feeling tears against my skin.
“It has been some time,” she told me in an old tongue I shouldn’t know.
“Frigga,” I said, hailing her by the name I used to call her.
She smiled back. “Freya.”
The moment my hand touched hers, I was practically revived, all pain and fatigue fading.
“Too long since you’ve been this awake. I’ve missed you, friend.”
I didn’t know how to tell her that I was Kleos Valesco, not her old friend. I could remember a life where this woman had beenlaughing and dancing and sharing secret with me, and yet, this felt like a far away dream more than a memory. “I’m not?—”
She pressed her hand to my cheek. “My own Ares faded, and do you know what I see when I look at the man who replaced him? My son. His energy accepted him. And you have been chosen by Freya for a reason.”
Her smile was so kind I could almost cry.
And then she turned to Zeus. “Husband.”
He took a step back.
“You lied.”
“I didn’t. This town, it’s full of dangerous souls, half awake. You wouldn’t believe who’s stirring. It needs to be destroyed.”
“You lied,” she repeated, steady and commanding. “You led me to believe we were neutralizing a threat. Instead I see you wanted to raze the walls to regain access to Earth. And its many mortal females you could abduct for your entertainment, no doubt. As well as destroy what’s left of my friend. One I’ve loved as a sister.”
Hera—Frigga—didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to.
“You don’t understand?—”
“I understand you perfectly, husband. And it ends now.”
To my confusion, I watched her draw a knife, not to threaten her husband, but to bring it to her own wrist.
She wouldn’t hurt herself. I gasped, pressing my hands to hers unbidden in order to heal her.
“Not yet, Kleos, new Freya. You need to drink it first.”
I blinked. “Drink?”
“You’ve slept for long enough. You must awaken who you are meant to be.”
Gently, the goddess pressed her wrist to my lips. I was definitely not a vampire fan, and had zero blood fetish, but when my tongue first came into contact with the gold substance, it didn’t taste like iron and salt. It was honey and mead and theheadiest wine. The ichor in her veins, offered freely, was better than the most exquisite ambrosia.
“That’s it, sister. Rise.”
I detached myself from the bleeding wrist, healing it with half a thought.
And as she’d suggested, I stood up to full height, feeling not only revitalized but renewed. Like the matter composing my cells had completely been rewritten.
Zeus took one step back, then another.
The next moment, he was gone with a flash of lightning through the sky.
57
GIDEON
