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Hector
Thousands of Years Ago
Waves crashed over the sides of the boat, soaking me, but I was already chilled to the bone.
I couldn’t make out the shore anymore. Even the lighthouse beam was just a dull shadow, unable to pierce this unnatural darkness.
I squinted, glancing away from the shore to make out the figures on the boat. My eyesight was perfect. A thousand times stronger and more precise than a mortal’s, but this darkness wasn’t like any storm I’d watched approach the shores of Troy. This was a gods-made storm, conjured to demonstrate power.
And anger.
Let them sit with their anger. Let all of them stew in it. Trapped fathoms below the waves, they would have an eternity to consider their revenge.
Hopefully.
If this worked as it should.
“Drop it in. Seal it.” My brother’s voice rang in my head. “Seal it.”
This storm was my fault, but not the events that had brought us here. I took full responsibility for the idea that had sprung from my head the same way Athena had sprung from Zeus’s.
Power pulsed beneath the ship, lifting us like we were riding the tallest waves before we crested the swell.
This was it. The last breath exhaled by the gods. The last manifestation of their power before they disappeared from the heavens, and Earth, forever.
My own power, and that of the four men I now called brothers, was tied to the generation who had sired us. And while we were stronger than mortals, we were nothing like our mothers and fathers.
Everything I had, every gift I knew about, I had pushed into this seal. My brothers had offered their power as well. It had to be enough.
But, gods, what if it wasn’t?
I reached for the seal, the obsidian was slick from the rain and sea. When I dropped this into the Aegean, our own gifts might disappear as well. And while I could live with that, I hesitated at bringing that fate upon my brothers.
Above us, lightning flashed.
We were running out of time.
To some—to most—this would appear as a simple amphora, or jug, adorned with figures. But it was much more than that.
Thunder boomed and next to me, my brother startled.
Time was up, but still I hesitated. Suddenly, the seal was ripped from my hands, and before I could react, hurtled into the sea.
“There.” My brother, the one who felt things so deeply he doubled over in pain, clenched his shaking hands into fists. “It’s done.”
His blond hair lay plastered against his skull, and his blue eyes, usually bright and warm, were as dull as the light on shore.
Paris wore his suffering like I wore my armor. “I never want to see these shores again.” Like his hands, his voice shook, but I knew it wasn’t from fear.
This was our life now. Everything we did, said, felt, was smothered in guilt and bitterness.
But what was the alternative? To forget? Move on?
The face of my wife and son flashed in front of me. No. I would never want to forget them. They’d been innocent victims in this game. A game where the gods moved us around in the same way my son used to play with his lead soldiers and horses.
By the time I had revived from my mortal death, and began my new, immortal one, the body of my son had rotted on the rocky cliffs where he’d been murdered. My wife was gone. A queen, yes, but remarried to the victorious king.
I turned my gaze into the black depths. I imagined the seal sinking, its magic reaching out like fingers of flames, quicker and quicker, as it followed the lure of power emanating from the gods.
