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T was still watching and listening, but he hadn’t reacted at all to Sophia’s “aggrieved immortal” comment, so perhaps she wasn’t talking about him. Either that, or he didn’t see himself that way.
“Even with the path closed?”
Sophia smiled grimly. “You would have leaped willingly to your death, Prophêtis. Be glad your Philotes stopped you from making such a foolhardy decision without losing his own life in the process.”
Her words stunned me into silence. Evidently, I still hadn’t learned not to be a silly, trusting fool, even after all this time. Hadn’t Dare warned me? He’d known, and I’d been idiotically optimistic.
“Peace, Grace. That you and your daimons provide each other with balance is a strength, not a weakness. They temper your optimism, and you temper their pessimism. Their love for you has bolstered your confidence, but I am glad to see that your ego has not grown so large that you believe yourself to be infallible. I have often theorized to myself that the prophecy—at least in part—fell on your shoulders because your cripplingly low self-worth meant you would never abuse the authority you were given.”
T snorted louder than I’d ever heard him.
“Thank… you?” Even T looked embarrassed that I’d thanked her for that. It hadn’t exactly been a glowing endorsement, but she wasn’t exactly wrong either. The Grace who’d hidden away in the lonely sanctuary of her apartment in Milton, away from the judgmental agathos of Auburn where she’d never fit in, that Gracedidhave cripplingly low self-esteem.
I wasn’tthatGrace anymore.
I almost laughed at the idea of being afraid to go to the bastion of snobby privilege that was Auburn. After the things I’d seen and experienced, I couldn’t help but think of that community as petty and insignificant. Toy tyrants with plastic thrones, so absorbed in themselves that they didn’t even realize how ridiculous they looked to the outside world.
“Of course, you’re not the same young agathos you were when you started out on this journey,” Sophia continued, her thoughts mirroring my own. “You’ve grown. Changed. Developed a little backbone, and you’ll need it. For eons, Gaia has been a dictator—mostly a benevolent one, though, in recent times, we have seen how dangerous she can be when she isnotfeeling so benevolent. The Olympians are a tangled mess of strong wills and dissident opinions, but they are balanced in their power, in the way that all things must be.”
“You still think we’ll be successful? Even with the pit closed?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m sure of it.” Sophia opened her hand, showing me a handful of orange dirt she’d somehow gathered. “Someday soon, this soil will be fertile once more. The land will be lush and green, and filled with all manner of creatures. It will not be a world of steel buildings and endless paved roads. It will not be a world you, or any of the generations currently living, recognize. But it will begood. It will bring more good to more people from all walks of life, and I believe that is the reassurance you sought when you requested my presence, but my time is running out.”
She dusted off her hands, surveying the battlefield in the distance.
“You are scared. I suggest you follow your beloved Oneiroi’s advice.”
Do what scares you.
Sophia disappeared, and I blew out a long breath, turning to look at a wary Typhoeus. Monster, son of Gaia, and unlikely ally. Perhaps even a friend.
He was still staring at me through the fence, eyes full of challenge, but something more too. Resignation, perhaps. Loneliness, too. That much was familiar to me.
“Help me help you, T.”
He huffed, and in that small, dismissive sound, I heard his silent question.What exactly is it you think you can do?
“I’m very important, I’ll have you know,” I told him sternly, impressed I could get the words out without my brain flagging them as a lie. “I’m the Prophêtis.”
He all but rolled his eyes, ignoring me. At first, I’d assumed me being the Prophêtis waswhyT had kidnapped me, but now I wondered if it was just because I was the only mortal who had spoken to him.
The earth rumbled in the distance, and we both snapped to attention, watching as the horizon itself seemed to shift. The coastline, I was sure of it. T had flown us in from that direction.
I could have sworn the ground wasgrowling;it was the strangest noise I’d ever heard, and the fence shook where I clung desperately to it.
Gaia was ready to intervene.
The battleground was suddenly crawling with a mass of black shapes that I immediately recognized as the oversized scorpions we’d faced in Athens. As frightening as that was, it was nothing to whatever was happening on the horizon. Whatever wasgrowingon the horizon.
By the gods… It was avolcano. It had to be. A steep blackened cone had risen from the ocean, dominating the skyline. Smoke poured out of the opening in the top, and whether there was an explosion coming or something worse, I wasn’t about to sit on the sidelines while Wild was directly in the line of fire.
“Fight with me,” I told T. “Stand by my side. Ally with us. Show everyone that you have values and principles, that you are a being as worthy of freedom as any other.”
T stood, peering over the fence at me curiously. Perhaps a little nervously.
“You want friends, this is how you earn them. Every soldier on that battlefield will want to be your friend if you fight in their ranks.”
I was taking a gamble, and perhaps it was a foolish one, but underneath all that dismissive irritation, T was at least a little fond of me, or he wouldn’t have tried so hard to keep me alive. I stepped up onto the row of beams, legs shaking as I turned to face him.
