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“With great difficulty, since most of our gifts have been channeled into our descendents. You’re acquainted with Sophia, of course. She’s been whispering her wisdom in your ears whenever she’s been able to. Now, move, if you want me to fix him.”
“Dare?” Grace asked softly, looming over me, her long, black hair brushing against my face. “Is that okay? I want you to be healed, but it’s your body. You need to decide.”
“I am the spirit of good health, what exactly do you think I’m going to do to him?” Did divinities roll their eyes? Itsoundedlike she was rolling her eyes.
“Unf,” I replied, nodding my head slightly so she’d know it was an agreement.
Grace nodded silently, encouraging everyone to move back so Hygeia could approach. I clung to Grace’s fingers for as long as I could, feeling needy as fuck at how bereft I was to no longer be holding her hand. Finally, I got a glimpse of the goddess in question and was struck by how incredibly ordinary she was.
Hygeia was at least six feet tall, slim, and draped in an elaborate-looking dark-blue toga thing. She looked middle-aged, with severe features and frown lines around her brow and mouth, and her dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun.
The only thing goddess-y about her was her haunting voice and Stone Age fashion. Aside from that, she looked very much like the terrifying librarian who’d always caught Riot and me smoking behind the building in high school.
Hygeia glared down at me, cataloging my injuries as though they caused her personal offense. “Mortals can be trying, ungrateful creatures. I could abide Gaia’s indifference to them, but I cannot abide her cruelty. We are not quite as bound toservein the way our descendents are, but we aren’t immune from that call either.”
And with that strange speech, she clamped her hand down hard on my leg sending a shot of blindingly hot pain upwards from where she touched me. I arched off the bed, mouth open on a silent scream as pure agony traveled through every inch of my body, far worse than the pain I’d been in before.
This wasn’t worth it. Nothing was worth this. I tried to find the words to stop it, to tell her to leave, but suddenly the world was spinning, the colors all morphing into a swirl of blissful darkness.
Chapter 3
Bulletwrappedbotharmsaround my waist, struggling to hold me back as Dare went limp. If I weren’t so terrified for Dare, I’d have realized how easily I slipped out of Bullet’s weak embrace.
Wild stepped in front of me before I could get to Dare, raising an eyebrow at me before lifting me clean off the ground so I was watching Hygeia work over his back. Nothing about Wild’s hold on me was weak, and after a quick struggle, I rested my chin on his shoulder, slumping against him to wait for Hygeia to finish doing what she was doing.
“It’s probably better this way,” Bullet murmured, stepping up next to me and shooting me an apologetic grimace. “At least he’s not in any pain right now.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that. Hygeia’s magic seemed to travel through Dare’s veins, lighting them up a disturbing shade of silver that glowed from the inside out. We should have asked more questions, should have found out exactly what she intended to do to him.
Should have found out how it was she evenexisted, though perhaps that was a question I should have been asking myself sooner. Thanatos was an original daimon, and we’d met him, though he resided in the safe haven that was the underworld. There must be others down there, other daimons like the ones from the mural painted on the ceiling of Hades and Persephone’s palace.
Had the agathos been here all along? Did they have a realm of their own to hide away in? I couldn’t imagine them in the underworld. In my agathos classes, the founders of our lines were treated more asspiritsthan physical beings. There were shrines to them and visiting them was encouraged as a spiritual experience, but we neverworshippedthem, only Anesidora.
Should we have been worshipping them? Or at least paying them some kind of respect? Unease slithered down my spine at the way I’d always felt and talked about my own gift. If Eutychia suddenly appeared, I doubted she’d be happy to see me.
“It was a good thing you got all the shards out of his arm,” Hygeia said casually, the silvery light emanating from Dare’s body illuminating her in the most ominous way. “I was waiting until you finished that to arrive. You did a not entirely unimpressive job with that, human.”
Marek made a strangled noise from the corner he’d retreated to when Hygeia arrived, gripping the wall behind him with both hands, eyes wide with fear.
“Sophia won’t be able to speak to you all now,” she continued, hand still pulsating with power where it rested on Dare’s leg. Hygeia paused for a moment, giving me a guarded look. “Not without your help, at least. Should you succeed in fulfilling the prophecy, the true agathos will be free to walk among mortals once more, in some form or another. The Olympians are not the only deities imprisoned, they’re just the only ones in a cell.”
I nodded mutely, unsure how to respond to that. Just what kind of world would we be creating if we succeeded in our task? Visions of nymphs sunbathing on rocks and drunken satyrs in the forests filled my head.
“Well, that will have to do,” Hygeia announced, the silver fading from Dare’s veins as her own form flickered in and out. “I have run out of energy. He will live, as will the sacrifice.”
My head shot up, and I wriggled free of Wild’s hold. “What sacrifice?”
Hygeia gave me a sly smile that sent chills down the back of my spine. “To be an agathos is to sacrifice, is it not? I’m immortal, I cannot take his poor health onto myself, so instead it went to a proxy. They’ll be fine, no need to concern yourself.”
She flickered in and out of sight again while icy terror spread through my entire body. Dare’s injuries had beenlife-threatening, and the idea of inflicting them on someone else was appalling.
My bonded all felt remarkably calm about this—a reminder of their daimonic nature. The small amount of compassion they’d acquired in comparison to other daimons rarely extended beyond our little group.
“I believethank youis what you meant to say,” Hygeia huffed, flickering out of sight. Her disembodied voice spoke, making us all startle. “Sophia has watched over you so far, and she gave everything she had left to get me here. Perhaps you could return the favor—you would be safe with my sisters.”
With that, her divine presence vanished with a silent rush of air, sucking the chill she’d brought with her out of the room as she went.
“What the fuck,” Riot breathed, rubbing his temples. Marek backed slowly out the door, clutching the first-aid kit to his chest like a shield. “I don’t even know where to begin with that. But Dare is okay now. Right?”
