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Sunbeams broke through the leaves, leaving shifting spotlights on giggling, flitting dryads—the nymphs of the forest. Ancient male artists drew them as gorgeous green deities of flowing moss hair and shining eyes because that’s how they appeared to them. To my very female vision, they looked like a bunch of thin, gnarled tree stumps waddling around. But that didn’t make them any less beautiful.
“Creepy, aren’t they?” Nitsa drew my attention. “Hard to imagine the gods mating with them.”
“Gods do what they want with whoever they want.” My voice chilled even me. “You’re not held to the rules when you’re the one making them.”
“Very true,” she said softly.
Something rose out of the corner of my eye. The closer we got, I picked it out as a—
“Stadium?”
“That’s right,” Theron called back. “Placement begins.”
Another word people kept saying without explanation. I would stop asking though. I was giving myself away as clueless and too many questions about my past were dangerous. If we were all novices, we were all starting at zero. I’d pick things up along with everyone else.
Our group broke apart, heading for different entrances into the stadium. I stuck with Theron and his friends, the five of us going straight instead of up to the higher seats. We filed into the second row as the seats filled up. Gazing around the novices, I noted that these were all the eighteen-year-olds from every corner of Olympia. Knowing that... it struck me that there were not very many of us.
Hundreds of people pushing and shoving on a lawn seemed like a lot. Hundreds of people in a stadium built for thousands... Were our numbers really this low? Or were the missing just better at hiding than me?
I was pulled out of my musings by a man stepping out in the middle of the arena. I pegged him as Commander Vasili with a single look. His blond hair cut close to the scalp, the opposite of the thick, full beard trying and failing to cover his square jaw. Though we would be battling no monsters today that I knew of, he wore a cuirass, short sword on his hip, and greaves to protect his shins. Not a flicker of emotion rode his sculpted face, but my impressions about him were already forming.
Vasili unstrapped a horn from his belt and held it to his throat. “Let’s begin,” he boomed. “Your instructions are simple. When your name is called, you’ll step up here, name your power, the god or goddess who gifted it to you, then demonstrate that power. If you need materials for the demonstration, make that known. Understood?”
Everyone chorused agreement except me. I knew this was going to happen. I couldn’t be in a school that trained demigods to use their power without answering the question of mine. I simply hoped they might have saved that question for after I escaped.
“Alexis Andino.”
The commander stepped off and a tall, ungainly guy took his place. He swept his murmuring audience with a look like he wished he was somewhere else, throwing up.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered. “Why does he have to do this in front of everyone? We could easily wait outside while they call us into the stadium one by one.”
Theron shook his head. “One thing they’ll never do at Deucalion is make things easier for us.”
My lips pressed together. There was nothing to say in response.
“Speak up, boy,” the commander barked. He sat at a table at the end of the arena with a list and two silent companions on either side of him—a woman in a white coat and an elderly man in old-timey Greek robes.
“Er-Erebus, sir,” Alexis got out. “Son of Erebus. The god of darkness and shadows. I can m-make it dark.”
“Demonstrate.”
No sooner was the order out of his mouth than the sun winked out of existence. Total and complete darkness dipped my vision in black. Screams and cries went up all around me, telling Alexis to stop. I couldn’t see who was freaking out. I couldn’t even see Theron and Ionna sitting next to me.
In a blink, the light returned—shining on a guy whose only fear was public speaking, not performance anxiety.
“Excellent,” Vasili said. “Titan class.”
“What’s the Titan class?” I broke my promise not to ask questions almost immediately.
“The top class,” Theron said. “It’s for trainees whose powers will make a difference in the war effort.”
I nodded. Stealing the light from our enemies would come in handy. The border watchers would’ve caught me a lot faster if I were stumbling around in the dark.
“Kosma Ariti.”
The next demigod stepped up, appearing no more comfortable than the first. “Daughter of Poseidon. I can speak to horses,” she said. “If one is brought from the stables, I can—”
“No need,” Vasili broke in. “Sisyphean class.”
