Page 23 of The Mortal Trials

“There!” Hermes remarks, as if he’s just used his napkin to dab a bit of water off a table’s clean surface instead of stopping a gruesome mid-air murder. “Your islands await.” He sweeps a hand to a stone walkway skirting the enormous temple and leaves us to descend terraced staircases that appear as a cascade of white marble pouring from the hilltop.

As a large group, we walk through the yard where Ceann Ársa first landed and make our way to the shore. Where only ocean surrounded this new piece of earth when we first arrived, now small islands encircle it, each connected to the temple isle by a thin strip of rock and sand. As Hermes announced, there’s one for each of us. Twenty-five? Thirty, maybe? I didn’t get a chance to count the contestants.

The homes glow from within with lamplight that flickers and gutters.

“How do we know which one is ours?” Niall asks from beside me.

“Maybe they’re all the same and we can choose any of them?” I move to the nearest path and am unable to take a single step onto it. There’s a solid wall of air in front of me. “No. This one isn’t mine.”

He tries the path and the invisible force bars him from going any farther. “It’s not mine, either.”

Since we don’t know which way our homes are, I start walking counterclockwise, away from the other contestants who huddle around the first gate, each trying to gain entry until one woman is finally allowed through.

Niall follows me and we test each island until we reach the twelfth, where Niall is allowed entrance. He waits while I trudge to the next one over. My thighs quiver from the exertion of traversing so many stairs, before wading through sand as thick as squelching mud.

My island is the thirteenth, and I know Ares chose this one with me in mind.

To reflect the thirteen sword strikes I parried.

Like reflections, Niall and I walk the thin strips of sand to our respective homes and stand outside, taking them in. The foundations are made of stone, but the walls are traditional brick, the roof crafted from overlapping, curved terra cotta tiles.

Niall waves at me with a hopeful expression on his face.

I force a brief wave. We’re going to die here. I’m not sure which of us will take their last breath first, but our heartbeats are numbered. Maybe civility is something I can manage until then.

Morrigan is my only hope for a champion. If she doesn’t come through, Ares will ruin me in ways I can’t fathom before anyone can mutter my name and hero in the same sentence.

I twist the knob, push the door open, and step over the threshold, pleasantly surprised by what I find. The interior is opulent despite its simplicity. Though small, a doorway leads to a tiled bathing room, and the fireplace is inlaid with marble. Two wooden beams span the ceiling.

A scene of lionesses on the wall facing the temple has been painted with exquisite precision.

A rectangular kline couch stretches to serve as a bed. It’s larger than what I sleep on at home, and the linen bedding covering it is the finest I’ve ever felt between my fingers. The curves of its warm-hued, wooden legs slip into the bodies of bronze lionesses that stand sentry, straight-backed, gazes alert.

A small matching table sits empty at the head of the bed, and there is a large kibotos chest in the corner crafted from the same wood with bronze latches and a lock. My feet carry me to it. On its surface, two golden lionesses have been painted, mirror images of each other.

Beyond the great felines, the painter crafted a grove of olive trees and captured a sky that slips from sunny day on one side, to darkest night on the other.

From life to death?

I can’t stand looking at it. Or at them anymore.

Turning from the chest, I find something worse.

When I walked in, I saw two lionesses in the wall fresco. When I noticed the other leonine features built into the furniture, I thought whoever designed my suite had gone with a matching theme that meant nothing.

But looking at the fresco from this angle, it looks very different. There are no felines on the plaster.

On the wall, someone painted the moment I was taken home and my sister helped me through our courtyard into Abuela’s house. Burnt soil surrounds us. The iron gate is unlatched behind us. There’s agony on my face, and a mixture of rage and determination on Carina’s. This was the moment that changed everything.

She decided her path in that very second. I can see it in her eyes.

Eyes someone captured so accurately and vividly, I want to scream.

I can’t stay here.

I can’t.

Pushing outside, I forget the pain in my leg and the weariness in my soul and try to run down the path, off my personal island.