Andie swung the branch out and it raked across Panic’s skull. Henry felt the warm press of her against his back. He tried to fight alongside her, but his vision began to blur. He was losing too much blood. The whole world went white, like the clearing was filling with fog.
“Andie, you have to go. I’m not going to make it.”
“What is that?” she asked. “What’s happening?”
Henry blinked as Andie staggered and rubbed her eyes. The clearing really was filling with fog. The wolves whined and snapped their jaws on empty air.
“A song?” Andie asked, and Henry heard it, too. Low and sweet, a song he knew in a language he didn’t. The wind smelled like salt and burnt sugar. He felt arms around him, and lips soft beside his ear.
“Keep quiet, hero, and let me sing.” Her voice was beautiful. So he closed his mouth and let himself be taken away.
* * *
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ares asked.
Athena watched Ares across the clearing. It was obvious that he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it, and that more than anything convinced her that yes, she did. For just a second, she tried to see beyond the blood, to the boy-god Ares hid down deep. The one who’d had his pride hurt the most of all the gods. The subject of Olympus’ ridicule. Their father, Zeus, had hated him. Ares’ own father. And sometimes Athena had hated him, too.
If they had ever been on the same side, Athena couldn’t remember it. But Ares was right when he said they were alike. When she looked at him, she saw one side of herself. A side she neglected, preferring to box rather than brawl.
But a brawl is what lay before her. Diplomacy didn’t work with gods. They were ancient, with ancient sensibilities. War, they understood. War, she could do.
“Are you really going to make me kill you, brother?” she asked.
“Is there a choice, sister? If I opened my hands now and said I would come to your side, would you let me?”
She looked at those hands, and into his dark, clean-shaven face, so civilized with his cut hair and expensive clothes. He could’ve walked out of a Calvin Klein ad. But the centuries hadn’t changed him that much. His eyes were still a wolf’s eyes.
“No,” she said.
Something like disappointment flashed across his face and disappeared just as quickly.
“It’s fitting, isn’t it,” he said, “that this should happen here. On Artemis’ grave. In her blood. Do you think she sees? Do you think she’ll feel it, when one of us joins her?”
“I think you’re disgusting,” Athena replied. “Father always said you were the most hateful, the most wretched of all his children.”
That got through, as she’d known it would. Ares’ face crumpled, and he charged, not as fast as Hermes but with ten times the force. The impact sent them both into a slim tree, overwhelming the strength of the shallow roots. It fell, and Athena’s foot skidded backward to keep from going over with it. The sound of the tree cracking and crashing would have reached Hermes and the others, and she imagined them stopping short and looking back.
Balance recovered, she twisted Ares around and slammed him into the diagonal fallen trunk, then rolled him onto the ground, back through the blood. He’d sop up all that was left of their fallen sister, before she was done. Penance for his disrespect.
“You fight like I remember,” she said. “Poorly, and without brains.” But with bluster and bronze, too. With rage and heart, like a bellowing bull. When his fist connected with her jaw, and then her stomach, it doubled her over, and he tossed her easily into another tree. Artemis’ blood splashed when she dropped into it.
“You’re still strong,” he said.
“Bother you, does it?” She got up and shook blood drops from her arm.
He bared his teeth and clenched his fists. But he didn’t charge. And there was something in his eyes like pity. It couldn’t be pity, but whatever it was, it made her angry. Ares, pity her? Never.
She jumped for him, and they fought like forces of nature, like blunt instruments, with no regard for pain or damage. His fist split her lip and hers broke his nose. Athena didn’t bother dodging; she didn’t feign and slip like she had with Hera to avoid her stone fist. With Ares it wasn’t about skill or tricks. It was all about strength.
And speed. The feathers in her lungs sapped her wind. Strong or not, she couldn’t keep it up forever. Already her breath came too fast. She didn’t have long.
Her elbow rose up and caught him under the chin. It pushed him back a few steps.