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I knew what he’d say, though. Tell me to dig down deep and find the magic at my core.
“Elyse,” Zeus said from behind me. “Who are you?”
I turned around to tell him to stop asking me shitty questions. It wasn’t a time for riddles and games. I wanted him to leave so my men and I could continue to fight, to try stopping all this from happening. To at least save a few lives, if nothing else.
But when I met Zeus’s gaze, he didn’t quite look like himself. His skin remained bronze, his hair the same color, but the structure of his face looked different. It was as if I looked at Zeus, but it was someone else, as if two images had been superimposed so I saw them both together.
A moment later, my heart leaped in my chest.
“Dad?” I asked, my voice shaking, because of all the wicked things Zeus could have done, he chose to morph into the one person who made me weak, who brought so many memories of heartache and loss, tears and regret over the fact that I couldn’t save him when he died in battle.
Logically, this didn’t make sense. Zeus should not have looked even remotely like my father. But no matter how much I blinked or tried to look at the face and find Zeus’s features, I only saw my dad.
“What’s going on here?” I asked.
“You have the blood of Zeus in you, Elyse Lowe,” he said, my dad’s voice loud and clear, and my throat thickened. Every fiber in my being screamed to run over to my dad, to embrace him, to tell him how much I missed him, to have him hold me as I cried my eyes out.
“Don’t forget where you come from,” he said. “It’s the only way you’ll know where you’re going.”
I shook my head. What the hell did that mean?
“We’re dying here, Dad,” I said. “It’s a mess. Can’t you see?”
“You’re here to look after them. Not to join them.”
It was my dad’s face and voice all right, but the riddles sounded a lot more like Zeus than my dad. What was he doing, torturing me like this?
“Did you think I was going to find some wisdom in this? That I’d be able to beat X because I suddenly remember my dad?” I asked, speaking to Zeus. “Or what? Why are you doing this to me, showing me my father when you know I miss him, that I wish he were here, that I—”
I couldn’t finish my sentence. The words caught in my throat when I suddenly realized what was going on. Zeus was allowing my dad to come through him to talk to me.
“Dad?” I asked. But this time I was talking to Zeus himself. His face changed again, and my dad was gone. “How is this possible?”
“You tell me.”
“How can I be one of yours? How does this work?”
“I blessed you with my bloodline. Divine power.” Zeus smiled proudly, his eyes glinting.
I wasn’t just a human with divine power, I was part of Zeus, or at least his power ran in my veins. So, I wasn’t related to him. I had no idea what was going on, or how this could be.
But this realization changed everything. It meant I wasn’t just a girl on Earth, scared shitless and unable to do anything other than to come back to life.
“I’m a goddess of some kind? Oh, shit, that’s what I was meant to work out, wasn’t it?”
Zeus nodded. “I bestowed your family line with my blood, and you each had to come to the realization of what lay inside you for the real power to awaken. And you’re the only one who’s achieved it after all this time.”
I looked around at all the gods surrounding me, unable to find my voice. They studied me with smiles on their faces. My breaths hitched in my lungs, and my skin tingled. Was this real? So many emotions tangled inside me, from being pissed at Zeus for not just telling my family what lay inside us, instead of playing this game. My father and brothers would still be alive… but would arguing with the king of Gods win me any favor after I’d discovered I might be a goddess. Hell!
Heracles suddenly appeared next to me, standing tall. “I don’t train humans, Elyse. You were a goddess all along. You just needed to work it out on your own.”
“And you couldn’t maybe drop a hint earlier on?” I asked, glaring at him.
Heracles shook his head, the corners of his mouth holding back the smile. “Take it from someone who knows, you need to get to rock bottom before you can start the climb to get back to the top.”
I was confused, furious, broken. “This doesn’t make any sense. What would that make me?”
“Goddess of Sanctuary,” Zeus declared, his voice booming. “Protector of humans, safety and salvation, and preservation from harm.”
