Page 7 of Until the End of Ever
“My uncle,” Cassius replied. “Destiny. You are a child of the line of Nyx, Lucian. Moros may pay attention toanyonewho calls upon the olden magic of his sisters, the Fates, butyou? Say those words, and they’ll become shackles, more binding than a vow of the elders upon Styx herself. Learn them, in order to ensure you never say them.”
My grandfather thought for a moment, before adding, “Unless you mean to rewrite fate.”
It took me a long time to learn the words, given the fact that I was never allowed to put them together. And in those months, I grew to fear them. Even as a child, I understood this was an immense responsibility.
Vow forever night.The start of a spell written by the Fates themselves.
Kleos shouldn’t have been familiar with them. Certainly not in ancient Greek. She shouldn’t have known the rest of the oath, either. The moment the cursed words crossed her lips, I knew her for what she was.
A fuckinggoddess.
I couldn’t help it; my eyes drifted back to her again, taking in, not only her perfect posture as she squatted before her friend, checking her vitals, but also the waves of energy emanating from her, ten times stronger than anyone else’s.
Ireallyshould have seen it sooner. Nothing else could have intrigued me the way she had from the moment I first saw her, age sixteen. Nothing else would have seemed threatening.
I had about a billion questions, but all could be wrapped up with one neat bow and summed up as: who?
Who was she? As she’d said herself, Kleos had been born to parents as close to human as the inhabitants of Highvale could be. But the fact she knew those words meant that she’d started to become something—someone else.
Whose energy was she sheltering?
Andwhowas the old man rewriting her fate? What divinity had her very existence pissed off enough it attempted to controlher? While careful to share nothing explicit, Apollo had made it clear than the threat came from one of them. Someone the sun god himself took seriously enough to not risk naming them.
More importantly: how were we supposed to protect her, from within and without?
When a mortal became a divinity, they faded, didn’t they? They were replaced by the olden creature whose energy they’d merged with. All outward threats aside, this seemed exponentially more terrifying. Kleos could keep living, and yet, become someone else entirely. Lose herself.
We’d dealt with Apollo today, and he’d said he’d died and taken over a mortal three times. What was left of the original person?
Perhaps that was why he seemed so very familiar with modern vernacular, comfortable in regular clothes. Or maybe he was a fan of TV shows like Cassius. Did Olympus get cable?
I was getting a headache.
I occupied myself by rifling through my basket as everyone sat in silence.
I packed sandwiches, and a few healing draughts, some potions. Shockingly, we didn’t need these, despite having faced one godly monster, and one monstrous god in the space of the last hour.
“Anyone hungry?”
Silver shook her head with a scowl, glaring toward the pit. “Starved, but let’s go. I’mnotstaying near that thing another moment.”
She staggered to her feet, slightly shaky, and Gideon rushed to steady her. I wasn’t sure if she was more worried about Python’s resurgence or another prophecy.
“Yeah, how about we eat outside of the cave of doom?” Kleos agreed.
No one argued, least of all me. The only reason I hadn’t immediately insisted we put as much distance between us and that hole was out of concern for the girl after being what amounted to possessed.
She seemed all right, which in itself, certainly was strange.
“All right. Let me make some light. Careful where you step.” I summoned fire in one of my hands and led the way, Ronan sliding up beside me.
“So that’s why you started to hang out with valers. They’re interesting, huh?”
I snorted. “We’re not exactly meeting gods on a daily basis. And I wouldn’t call almost getting annihilatedtwiceinteresting.”
“I would,” my friend retorted.
I couldn’t say I was surprised.
