Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
It’s Hera that I call back even before I get dressed. She’s not a patient woman, and I highly doubt failing to make herself a widow has sweetened her temperament.
Sure enough, she answers almost before the phone actually rings. “Where are you?”
I prop the phone between my shoulder and ear and reach for a pair of pants. “Securing my prisoner. I take it Zeus is alive, judging from all the times he’s called me.”
“Yes.” Her voice is so cold, I’m surprised the phone doesn’t ice in my hand. “A small setback, but not a permanent one.”
Previously, I found her confidence inspiring. She plays the same games the rest of the Thirteen do, but she at least has the aim of protecting the people of Olympus. Well, she intends to protect her family, but it benefits the general population, which is the only reason I agreed to support her attempted coup. The enemy is literally at our gates; we can’t afford to have the Thirteen divided, and they will never be unified under this Zeus. He’s not charismatic enough, and the others see his attempts to bring the group together as weakness. He should have taken a note from his father’s playbook and ruled by fear, but it’s too late for that now.
“I assume there’s a reason you called. Unless you’re actually ready to discuss the navy currently laying siege to our bay.” Unlikely. Hera moves fast, but this is too much, even for her. We all feared the barrier would come down, but I hardly believed it was possible. It’s held for my entire life, my parents’ lives, my grandparents’, back more generations than I can count. The barrier was just a fact of life, and now it’s gone and Olympus is not prepared to deal with an outside threat.
“He’s called a meeting. I’m sure you’ll get a notification of it shortly. Afterward, I would prefer you linger here so we can discuss our next steps.”
Our next steps. She means to continue with her plans to murder her husband, and obviously she needs my help. Not that she ultimately asked me for much help when it came to putting together the plan to annihilate Dodona Tower. The only reason I agreed with that recklessness was because she promised to clear the tower of everyone except Zeus before bringing it down. The amount of destruction is hard to quantify, but the tower has served as an image for Zeus’s power for generations, ever since it was built so long ago. Bringing it down serves to undermine that title.
It all seems rather petty now. I thought we had more time. I was certain of it. But here we are; the barrier has come down. The barrier has come down. I can barely comprehend what that means. For so long my entire role in Olympus was to ensure our imports and exports came through the barrier smoothly. To ensure the people of Olympus wanted for nothing. To ensure we were safe.
Safety is going to be a foreign concept moving forward, I suspect.
I have no interest in making Hera my enemy. She’s much more useful as an ally, and we’ll need all the alliances we can get in order to protect the people who need it the most. So I swallow down my distaste and say, “I’ll be there.” I hang up before she can. It takes mere moments to finish dressing, but I still feel uneasy.
Everything is changing. And I can’t say it’s changing for the better.
It’s tempting to check on Icarus, but nothing I’ve learned about this man has given me any indication that he’s actually dangerous. Yes, he’s Minos’s son. Yes, he attacked Pan at the country party. Yes, he even took me captive and tackled me into the icy waves of the marina. But once we hit the water, the fight seemed to go out of him. I’m the one who had to drag him to safety. He hardly attempted to drown me.
No. There’s no reason to check on him. There is, however, every reason to ensure that the meeting of the Thirteen doesn’t progress without me present. There are people among that number who I trust to put the city’s safety first, but unfortunately they’re in the minority. I need to be there to act as a balancing force.
I run into Polyphemus near the front door. He looks just worried as I feel. “You’re off to the tower?”
“Yes. I need you and Orion to gather all the people we have and set up a network of sentries along the coastline to ensure that none of those ships land without our knowing about it. Use phones but have radios as backup in case something happens to the cell towers.” I don’t want to believe Circe would be able to dismantle our communication so quickly, but better to plan for the worst outcome. “I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”