“When can we go to a city?” Hermes thumped the dirt with his fist. She supposed it did make for a shitty mattress.
Athena laughed. “I knew it. Missing your pillow top and manicured nails?”
Hermes threw a peach at her; she dipped low, birdlike, and caught it in her mouth. He curled his lip. “Excuse me if I’d like to have some comfort during my final days.”
“These aren’t your final days,” she said, but he seemed not to hear. He was looking off to the west with his back to the breaking dawn, his fingers suspended over the jar of peaches.
“Maybe we should just live it out,” he said quietly. “Just enjoy what time we have left. Haven’t we had enough?” She turned away from his glance and watched the water of the river pass. It moved without pausing, without taking notice. It was indifferent to them. That was how she had been for a long time. The world forgot her, and she forgot it, passing through cities and existing on the fringe, an observer rather than a participant. But now it was different. She couldn’t explain it to Hermes, who had lived among the humans and, she suspected, lived right up to the hilt, but dying to her felt strangely similar to waking up.
“No.” He sighed and ate another slice of peach. “Not for you. I can see that. I can see it turning in your brain. You’ve got your old cape of Justice on again. You’re getting it in your head that you could be a hero. Athena and Hermes, last of the sane gods, saving the humans and righting the wrongs.” In the soft-hued light of morning, with the sun coming up over his back, she couldn’t tell how serious he was.
“Don’t sound so high and mighty. You’ve played the hero before.”
Hermes snorted. “Rarely. And never front and center. Face it, sis, I was always the Green Lantern to your Iron Man.”
“Don’t be such a nerd. Besides, you’re mixing Marvel and DC.”
“Who’s the nerd?” Hermes arched his brow. Then he softened. “My point is, there is no point. We’re dying, so we panic and band together. So what? What the hell are we trying to save, anyway? We have no purpose. We’re obsolete gods in a destructive world. The earth wouldn’t shed a tear, not even for withered old Demeter.”
“There was a time when we mattered,” said Athena, but Hermes shook his head.
“No. There was a time when we lived. Rather than just existed. But that hasn’t been for centuries. I walked with mortals, played with them, ate with them. I’ve used up more of them than I can count or remember. But I stopped living. Look at us, Athena. No family, no friends—”
“You’re my family. You’re my friend.”
He squinted at her and smiled sarcastically. “You need a helping hand and I’m afraid of dying. You can’t fight alone and I don’t want to be alone. We call each other ‘sister’ and ‘brother,’ but I don’t know if it means anything. Maybe it never did. Gods are cold. War, killing, and stabbing each other in the back is really what we do best.”
What he said was true enough. What they were probably wasn’t worth saving. But it didn’t mean she would let herself go. She sat peacefully a few moments, watching the water pass, swirling and dark in the early dawn. Then she sighed.
“I want you to stop it.” They locked eyes. “It’s the talk of the dying, and I won’t hear it. I know you, Hermes, whatever you might say. You’ll sing a different tune when this is over, if we come out on top. You’ll fly again, you’ll laugh again.” She tore her eyes away and looked back toward the river. “You’ll call me ‘sister’ and mean it.”
“Athena,” he said, but she stood up and started to gather her things, rolling her thin blanket into her pack and walking toward the water to fill her leather cask.
“Never mind,” she said. “Let’s just get moving.”
“Moving where? Why do we even need to find this girl? Prophets. What good is foresight? We know we’re dying. We know that Uncle Poseidon will try to kill us so he can live.”
Athena crouched by the river, filling the water cask and letting the cold river slide over her fingers, over her wrists with their bracelets of tattoos. The reflection that looked back at her was a girl’s face.
Not a warrior’s face. Not a general’s face. But it will be again. Soon.
“Demeter said she’s more than a prophet.” She stood and shook her hands dry. “And Poseidon wants her; that has to mean something. That trap of Nereids—”
“Might’ve been just laid for us. Maybe he doesn’t want her at all.”