Page 105 of The Shadow Gods

“I didn't have a choice.” I glanced down at my body. Same pale skin with freckles. Same clothes.

Closing my eyes, I tried to temper my panic from five alarms down to a dull throbbing.

“Calm down.”

Hissing filled my ears, and I opened my eyes. Castor wasn't looking at me but around me. I lifted a hand to trail over the silky, scaled heads of my serpents.

He studied them, but when nothing happened, took a step closer, interested in spite of himself. “They don't work on the dead.”

“Obviously,” I said, then shut my mouth. That had been harsher than I meant it to be.

“They are part of you,” he replied. Holding out a hand near one of the serpents, he waited. If he thought it would lick his hand like a dog, he was wrong. I didn't flinch, however, when he trailed a finger along its throat.

Stepping away, he dropped his hand. “It's strange you ended up here. No one else has.”

“I'm not staying here.” It wasn't until I said the words aloud that I realized they were true. I would find a way back. I had once—well—Athena had brought me back. But if she'd done it once, she could do it again. If Paris had put the seal back together, then maybe,maybe,their power was boosted. And if that was true, they would move the heavens to get me.

I knew it.

Orestes

Ahorrible thought occurred to me—I was finally facing justice for my crimes. I’d murdered my mother but never really paid for it. The Furies chased me for centuries, yes, but what I’d felt when I heard their screams and saw the images they forced into my mind was nothing compared to what I felt now.

There was no word for it, this all-encompassing hopelessness.

I shut my eyes against the light and gritted my teeth when Athena's power blanketed the room.

Then receded.

I opened my eyes, utterly unsurprised when I counted six living forms and one who remained motionless.

Athena blinked. “I don't understand.”

“Power isn't a bottomless well,” Hector said. He touched Leo's hand with gentle fingertips, then linked his fingers with hers. “You've given too much away.”

“How?” she asked, truly mystified. “I am a goddess.”

“Youwerea goddess,” Hector replied. “Now you are something like us. You have nothing left to raise the living from the dead.”

Achilles lunged toward her, catching her before she could lurch back. “I made you a promise.”

“Wait,” Pollux said. He held up one hand. “She's the only one here who ever brought someone back.”

“I don't know where she is,” Athena said, which was stupid, because Achilles put his hands around her throat.

“Achilles, stop!” One second, Pollux was across the cave, the next, to Athena. He put his hand on Achilles. “We might need her.”

“Why?” he asked, voice just above a growl. “She doesn't have the power to bring Leo back, and if she did, can't find her. There's no reason to let her live. She'll only draw the other gods here.”

Pollux closed his eyes, breathing in. “We have the power. We can bring her back. But we need to know how.”

Achilles loosened his hands enough that the goddess could break free. Stepping away from us, she raised her hands in defeat. “I have nothing to offer you.”

But she did. Pollux's words settled inside me with a feeling of rightness.

“Tell me how,” I commanded.

After all, I’d found Leo in this cave and with less strength than pushed against my skin now. When she’d been alive, the thing between us led me here. Now, filled with the power the gods had gifted me so long ago, I could trace her across universes. Just thinking of her and imagining my love as a steel cord connecting us, gave me a pinprick of hope.

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