It won’t be now.
Olympus has made sure of that.
This fucking city. It takes and takes and takes, and the trade-off might be power, but what the fuck is the point of power when I can’t protect my sisters, can’t even shieldmy wifefrom a godsdamned sex tape?
“Perseus.” Eris snaps her fingers in front of my face. When I look up, she snatches the phone from my grasp. I fully expect her to lay into me, to be like Ares and belabor the point that my relationship with my wife should be the least of my concerns right now. She doesn’t. She glances at the phone and sighs. “I’m sorry.”
Ares pushes off the desk and flops into the chair next to mine. She pulls off the band holding her hair back and drags her fingers through the newly freed strands. “This is such a clusterfuck. We evacuated everyone to save them from the invasion, and now there’s no invasion and no blockade. We look like fools. We’re losing the confidence of the civilian population, disrupting their lives for no damned reason.”
“Thereisan invasion,” I snap. “It just looks different than we expected.” Except I’m not certain of that, am I? Even after all thetime I wasted today, I’m still not sure the woman spotted in the video was actually Circe. If it was, sheallowedherself to be seen. Like she wanted me to play the fool, searching for her when she’s nowhere to be found.
Like she wanted me distracted.
“Maybe she’s not in the city at all. At least not anymore.” I sit upright. “Are we tracking people leaving for the country?”
“With what manpower?” Ares throws up her hands and slumps back into her chair. “Everyone is either on perimeter, searching for Circe, or managing the civilians who waited to evacuate. There’s no one left to monitor those on the road, and why would there be? They’re allowed free movement.”
Eris moves around to take the spot that Ares vacated against the desk. “Perseus.” She waits for me to give her my full attention. “You’re grasping at straws. We might not know if Circe is actually in the city, but what wedoknow is that the Thirteen are fracturing and the city will pay the price of that fracture.That’sthe problem that needs to be your focus. We have all the resources available searching for Circe. We needyouto stabilize the public’s perception of what’s going on in Olympus. You need to convince the rest of the Thirteen that you’re not a power-mad dictator in waiting.”
I don’t care about Olympus or the Thirteen.
I don’t say it. I can’t admit that finally holding the Zeus title, the one thing I spent my entire life working toward, has only made it clear that this isn’t what I want. It’s never mattered what I desired, though. It’s about duty. “If you feel so strongly about the stability of Olympus, you never should have stepped down as Aphrodite.”
Ares curses, but Eris doesn’t flinch. She meets my gaze steadily.“Walking away from the title doesn’t mean I stop being able to observe, to think. You need to take your own advice, Perseus. Stop reacting andthink. Sele isn’t me, but they’re doing a fine job as Aphrodite. More than that, there isn’t another alternative.”
Alternative. To power, to the titles, to… Why does this keep coming up? I narrow my eyes. “Have you been talking to Hermes?”
She blinks. “I haven’t seen Hermes in…months? I don’t know. A long time.”
“She’s around,” I mutter. I didn’t take her comments earlier seriously, but now I wonder. If bringing down the Thirteen has truly been her goal all along, then she was a traitor from the start. “She popped by my office to tell me that we should dismantle our system of government and set up…something.”
“How does she plan on doingthat?” Ares shakes her head. “The Thirteen have always existed. It’s a fundamental part of what Olympus is.”
“So was the barrier, but look at it now.” Eris shrugs when we both glare at her. “I’m not saying we should rush to topple what’s left of our government. Just pointing out that things are changing—have been changing for some time.”
If nothing else is true, that is. “We don’t need change. We need stability.” The words feel dragged out of me. I’m so fucking tired, but there’s no one else. There’s never been anyone else. Trying to find Hera before the video does so I can be the one to break the news to her is a fool’s errand. This is Olympus; gossip travels faster than the speed of light. “And we can’t have true stability until Circe is removed as a threat.”
Eris shrugs. “You’re not wrong, but there’s a lot of damagethat can be repaired in the meantime. The coup with Poseidon and Hades can be spun to prove that the three legacy titles are in an alliance for the first time in generations. That’s powerful. We just have to use it.”
“It won’t be enough to bring Artemis around.” Ares laces her fingers behind her head. “She hates our entire family and your stepping down as Aphrodite hasn’t changed that. You’re right that Sele was a good choice for Aphrodite, but they’re going to play things safe to protect themselves. Same with Hephaestus. Xe will look after xir people, because that’s where xir loyalty lies. Their respective votes about the attack on Circe’s blockade prove that. If either of them makes alliances, it won’t be until the dust settles.”
“Dionysus isn’t cooperating, either.” Eris examines her nails. “It seems he’s in your wife’s corner now.”
I truly wish I could say that her corner and mine are one and the same. They aren’t. “Demeter is mercenary, but she knows where her best interests lie. She’s worked too damn hard to marry one of her daughters to me to undermine that now.”
“Maybe,” Ares says almost reluctantly.
My sisters exchange another one of those speaking glances. I hate it when they do that. “What?” I snap.
“Demeter’s loyalty only lasts as long as your power does.” Ares stretches and shoves to her feet. “So let’s do what we have to in order to ensure your power doesn’t falter.”
I look from her to Eris and back again. “Athena is in my corner. You are.” I nod to Ares. “Apollo is.” I reach for another name, but come up short.Fuck. Four out of thirteen is shit odds. “I’ll talk to Poseidon and see what I can do. Hades, too, for that matter. Weworked together well during the attack on the ships. We can come together again to defend the city.”
“I hope so.” Eris plucks the bottle of scotch from my desk and takes a long drink. “Because I’m pretty sure you only have one chance to get this train back on the tracks. If you fail…”
Failure is not an option.My father’s voice haunts me, a nasty little reminder that Zeus hasneverfailed, and if I do, I’ll be the first. That was the metaphorical whip he used against me countless times over the years. Don’t fail the title, the family,him. I clear my throat. “If I fail?”
She meets my gaze. “Don’t fail, Perseus. For all our sakes.”
