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And she’s going to get all of it if I have one damn thing to say about it.
With a grunt of effort, I haul myself up by the next hand hold and pull one step closer to the top of the hill.
The decoy isn’t going to last forever, and I really don’t know what I’m going to do if I end up face to face with Ares, himself. And not just because I’m hilariously outgunned. I managed to kill four fallen, and while they weren’t on the same level as the God of War, it’s still more than most people on Olympus can boast about.
No, the problem isn’t whether or not I can kill Ares—it’s that I sort of don’t want to.
Look, don’t get me wrong. What he did to Janie, killing her and dragging her into this fight he’s having with my mother, that’s one hundred percent bullshit, and no way am I leaving her here. From the few interactions I’ve had with him, Ares is definitely an asshole.
But I also can’t blame him for his grudge against Aphrodite. What she did to him was horrible, and for such a stupid reason as her wounded pride… because gods forbid that there’s actually a man out there who doesn’t want to bed her.
Ares has been trapped down here for thousands of years, because of Aphrodite’s petty spite. Cut off from everything. What he did to Janie was horrible, and even if I can get her back, I’m not sure I could ever forgive it. But Ares had thought she was me, which while I’m also not thrilled about, at least it’s keeping it more in the family. I’m not sure I could condemn him to death over it.
My mother painted him out to be a madman, bent on vengeance for no good reason. Someone who hated his fellow gods, and would use any means he could to force them into a war they couldn’t win. Granted, I’d only had a couple of brief interactions with him, one of which I’m still half convinced was a hallucination brought up by my slowly freezing brain, but he didn’t strike me as any of those things.
He's definitely a jerk, with anger management issues. I still want to punch him. But I don’t necessarily want him dead.
I wantmedead even less, though, so I’m going to try to get in and get out before my little lure fails me.
One last handhold, and I drag myself up and over onto the peak of the crag. My armor scrapes against the black rock, bits of solid magma flaking everywhere. I stagger to my feet, trying to brush the worst of the dust and grime off as I squint around. Ash sticks to the sweaty parts of my face, and it just smears when I swipe at it.
The light isn’t great, and there’s a lot of smoke hanging in the air from the distant volcanoes that sting my eyes. Everything has a vaguely reddish tinge, like the sky itself is burning.
Maybe Morevna’s snowy forests weren’t so bad, after all.
There’s a castle in the distance. I almost missed it in my first look around, because it looks like it was made out of the same volcanic stone as literally everything else here. Even the spires are pointed like the mountains behind it, jagged and unfriendly, thrusting up into the bleeding wound of the sky.
That must be Ares’ stronghold. It would be the most likely place for him to be holding Janie hostage, as well.
But then I hesitate. What if he has her squirreled away somewhere else, and I spend too much time going all the way to his keep, and she isn’t even there? But where else could she be?
The doomsday clock in my head counts down from four days, great big scarlet numbers flicking over and over. I don’t have time for hesitation. But I also don’t have time to waste going to the wrong place.
The idea hits like a flash of light, and I fumble the mirror from the Third Gate out of my armor. It looks like such a small thing, barely bigger than my palm and made of polished bronze. When I first saw it in the hands of a fallen, it was taller than I was. Not so any longer. Regardless, the mirror grants insight and shows you the things you need to see.
So, here goes nothing.
Somehow, I manage to angle myself so my back is to the castle, and I hold the mirror up so that I can see over my shoulder. Even more impressive, I don’t fall off the side of the crag doing it.
At the sight revealed, my breath catches in my throat. Heat gathers at the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill tears if I as much as blink too hard.
Because there, in the mirror, I can see a small, pale light at the center of Ares’s castle. That little light flickers like a candle in a breeze, pulsing like a tiny heartbeat, but I know, in my heart, in mysoul, that it’s Janie.
She’s right here, almost in my reach.
And nothing is going to stop me from getting to her.
THREE
PEN
Unfortunately, the mirror also makes the little black dots moving around the castle more obvious.
I can’t see them with my own eyes, not at this distance, but it makes sense that Ares would have guard patrols around his castle. The Fifth Gate is where the souls of soldiers and warriors end up. I wonder if that was true before Ares took over the level, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
I tuck the mirror away safely and eye the distance between my vantage point and the castle. There’s a lot of ground to cover between the two, and I’m seriously running out of time.
All I have to do is make my way across a volcanic field, between some horrible serrated mountains, break into a heavily guarded castle to rescue my sister, and then do it all in reverse to get out again.
