Page 14 of Until the End of Ever
In the town itself, we stopped by the House of Angelos Sikialianos, now a festival museum.
I could have spent forever in there, comparing the celebrations we still held in Highvale to those that used to be held here, thousands of years ago.
I would have loved to see the Hosios Loukas monastery, the Museum of Amfissa, the Haunted Harmena, but Lucian was the voice of reason.
“Sunset in Highvale is in two hours,” he told me. “And we need to be back at the Corycian Cave. We have time for one thing, and it needs to be the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia.”
“Spoilsport,” Gideon grumbled. “Taking Kleos to an ancient town and not letting her explore every inch is truly cruel.”
I bobbed my head emphatically. “Bringing us here for less than half a day was nothing short of criminal. Why does the sun set so early at the end of autumn?”
Lucian smiled. “We can come back, after we’ve dealt with the…situation.”
The situation being me.
And the fact that there was a god after my blood. That certainly was sobering.
Athena’s sanctuary was almost intact; it was easy to imagine what it would have looked like when it had just been built. One blink, and I could see it, freshly painted, with colorful murals, and golden arches.
In the place where the altar would normally have stood, we left one token each, before portalling back to the cave.
I pouted while Lucian offered Ronan and Silver their two portions. Surely a little more ambrosia couldn’t have hurt? Apollo himself called me a goddess. Wasn’t that supposed to be my exclusive diet?
Both Ronan and Silver devoured their food, moaning after each bite to rub it in, and shortly after, it was time to portal back to Highvale: a golden arch glowed at the cave entrance once again.
In a flash, we were back at the temple of Phoebus Apollo, greeted by its many keepers, and, to my distress, my mother.
“What in the name of all the gods are you doing here?” she demanded, lips pinched. “And in this company.”
Great. Just great.
¹Mack says:"God-spawns, hey? No wonder we heard a disturbance. Well, you didn't end the world, so what can I do for you?"
“God-spawns” doesn’t have a true translation. We chose Θεογ?ννητοι, “born from the gods” rather than Ημ?θεοι “demigods.”
5
LUCIAN
If anyone prompted me to explain why I was so disgusted by Zenya Pendros, I would have lied. I would have blamed her job, or her family of vulgar arrivistes who’d turned their back on the values of Highvale in order to be embraced by the new bloods.
I wasn’t particularly fond of politicians, but both my brother and paternal grandmother held seats in the magistrates, and I only begrudged them a little. I didn’t have much against temple priests and priestesses. Did I think that their job was decidedly outdated? Naturally. I could never imagine wasting my time lighting incense, polishing marble statues, and chanting hymns, but like many ceremonial parts of life at Highvale, they were a necessity. The twelve temples in the vale did belong to the Olympian gods, and there was no telling what they would have done if they’d been neglected. So, I wasn’t bothered by her position at the head of Zeus’s order.
The truth was simpler. I had something on her, and I didn’t feel like divulging it. Not when I could make her squirm.
I was sixteen the first time I noticed them both. Kleos, I’d looked at after sensing her freaky energy, and Zenya onlybecause she was right there, snapping orders at the shy teenager trotting behind her.
There had been no mistaking the way Zenya’s eyes had roamed over me. Even then, I knew the look. But I was also aware that I was pretty, tall, and built for my age, thanks to my grandfather’s training. To my young mind, it was no big deal; she wouldn’t ever act on her clear appreciation, would she? She was a respectable woman, part of the council of elders, and married, to boot.
She waited three years to make advances, finding me in a dark corner of the Hall of Truce after Beltane.
I’d been hiding from Kore’s friend, Thea, another woman determined to get me into her clutches. Typically, I wouldn’t have cared, but she was a Briar—from the only founding family not related to the Saltzins yet. I couldn’t risk my mother seeing us together and drafting a betrothal before the end of the night. Preoccupied as I was keeping track of Thea, I didn’t notice the older woman until she was close enough for me to get a whiff of her sugary-sweet perfume.
“I see you staring,” the woman whispered, teasing, taking yet another step, which pushed her tits flush against my chest.
She wasn’t short—five-eight or so, without accounting for the heels. I towered over her today, but at nineteen, we were around the same height.
Instinctively, I’d glanced behind her, half expecting to see her daughter. She was going to warn me off her, in all likelihood. Yet another possibility came to mind, as intriguing as it was terrifying. After all, I was Lucian Regis, and most of the twenty-seven noble lines in Highvale would have committed a dozen crimes to marry into the founding families.
