"Aren’t you going to say thank you, Harmonia? I gave you the tools to awaken your friends."
By this time, my ‘friends’, the Amazons, had formed behind me, every one of them ready to defend me if need be. I could feel the tension in the air and I addressed them without turning.
"It’s okay, friends ... I am sure Hecate means no harm. Do you, Hecate?" I raised my eyebrows.
"Of course not," she replied, her smile unwavering.
"And yes. We should thank you," I added. "You saved the night. We appreciate your efforts."
"Your gratitude is not why I am here," she replied brusquely. "I’m here to tell you something that you don’t know. I saw a vision of Aphrodite. She wants you to find Ares before you come to her. She is safe, no harm has come to her. But she feels that you will need Ares in order to help her."
"How do you know this?" I asked uncertainly.
"I saw her, of course," Hecate answered matter-of-factly. "She’s well, I assure you. But you must listen to me. You must do as she wishes and you must find Ares. He will help you save us all."
I took a shaking step backward. Save them all? I couldn’t even save Aphrodite.
Hecate noticed my hesitation.
"I have foreseen that you will save us, Harmonia. It will be written in the stars for all of eternity. If you choose to act on your destiny, that is." She stared at me mockingly. "Will that be your choice?"
"Don’t speak to me about destiny!" I said angrily. "For two thousand years, the Fates have manipulated me using that very same line. Destiny, fate. What are those things except for someone imposing their will on others?"
I felt anger bubbling to the surface and I fought to suppress it. It wouldn’t do to lose my temper with her. Nothing here was her fault, even if her attitude was annoying at best.
She stared at me placidly, unmoved by my mini-rant.
"Do you expect me to feel sorry for you, Harmonia? Yes, you’ve been relegated to mortal form for a couple of millennia. Yes, your lives have been sad. So what? No one truly dies.
Your soul is that of a goddess. Here you stand now in front of me in your true form no worse for the wear. What should I feel sorry for?"
Her eyes flashed fire for a brief moment and I wondered at her ire.
"I mean no disrespect toward you, Hecate," I murmured. "It is easy to become agitated at one’s lot in life at times."
She nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "It is. But one must learn to overcome it. Self-pity is not helpful to anyone. Pull on your goddess panties, my dear. It’s time to come out swinging."
Hecate wanted me angry. I could feel it. Perhaps she felt if I were angry, I would fare better against the Fates. And maybe she was right. If my back was up, I would be far less inclined to back down. But backing down wasn’t in the cards for me. I could feel that much.
"Do you know where Ares is?" I asked, sticking my chin out.
She shook her head.
"No. They are very effectively blocking that information from us. We’ve tried Seeking spells, but to no avail. All we see is blackness when we try. You must find him, my dear. It is up to you."
"I thought you said I would need you two more times?" I asked suspiciously.
"And you will," she nodded. "That much is certain. And when you need us, we will be there. Do not doubt that."
"Thank you," I replied quietly. "I will ponder Ares’ whereabouts. Perhaps it is something that I already know ... that I just cannot remember. I feel so much lingering just under the surface of my memory. I just can’t access it. It is maddening."
She nodded. "Yes. That is the result of the Fates. They have done that to us all, I am afraid.
But we must overcome it. And we will, I assure you. Eventually."
She sounded so sure of herself and I wished I felt the same. Cadmus laid his hand on the small of my back as we watched her shift into the black dog’s shape once more. She nodded her large head towards us in a gesture of farewell as her golden eyes glowed in the night.
And then she was gone.
I turned to Cadmus. "I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to look. Everyone is counting on me and I might fail them all." I could hear the anxiety in my voice and so could he.
He grasped my hands with both of his own and squeezed them gently.
"My love, I have never known you to fail. You have always accomplished whatever you needed to do."
My eyes flew to his.
"Do you remember everything now? All of the lives that we have shared?..." my voice trailed off. Could I be so lucky?
He nodded.
"I don’t remember all of the details, but I do remember bits and pieces of so many of them.
Mainly, I remember the feelings. The overwhelming feeling of love that I have always felt for you. It is almost tangible and it seems that it conquers everything, regardless of how much the Fates would wish it otherwise. They cannot stop what we feel."
And I realized that he was right. They couldn’t. They could block our memories and they could make us fail to even remember who we were ... but they couldn’t erase what we felt for each other. Cadmus was a genius.
I leaned up and kissed him quickly on the cheek.
"Cadmus, my love, you are amazing. That is brilliant. Thank you!"
He raised a dark eyebrow.
"For?"
"For telling me what I need to do!" I called over my shoulder as I rushed back to the center of the circle. Digging through my bag, I pulled out the compass.
Ortrera gazed at me.
"Sister, you know it can’t lead you to someone unless you can picture the location."
I stared back. "Maybe, but think on this ... each of us harbors a place in our heart for those that we love. The love that we feel for everyone is different and unique. It is essentially a specific place. Couldn’t that be used as some sort of a beacon for this compass to use in tracking someone?"
I concentrated on the globe, staring into it as I focused on the place in my heart where my father dwelled. I pictured him as Ares, massive and fearless, leading countless wars for Zeus.
He had never been afraid of anything and had certainly never backed down. I pictured him as Marc Antony, laughing and strong, leading Cleopatra’s armies against Rome. He was brave and gallant and tragically beautiful. The familiar feelings that I felt for him were overwhelming and always the same no matter what form he took.
And as I stared into the compass, he began to materialize before my eyes. Slowly and faintly, but he was there. I was doing it. I could see his outline and his dark hair. My pulse raced as I thought harder, pulling out every memory that I had. And the picture completed itself.
I gasped as I stared into his familiar face.
Ares was also my mortal father.
Chapter Thirteen
He had the muscled body of Ares, but his face still resembled Paul Lockhart’s enough that I instantly recognized him. And I don’t know why I was so surprised or how I hadn’t noticed it before.
My father had left my mother for his secretary, he loved to flirt, he had bought me a Lexus.
He loved extravagance and women- something that Aphrodite, in every life, tolerated. But this ... this did take me off guard. I hadn’t been expecting it, even if it did seem so obvious. In mortal terms, their age difference was disgusting.
Jade had just turned eighteen and my father was thirty-nine. But I had to push that aside.
We weren’t dealing with mortal terms or mortal rules now- because none of us was really mortal at all.
And really, none of this should surprise me. Ares was present in some form in every life I had ever led. He and Aphrodite always found each other, as did Aphrodite and myself ...and Cadmus. We were all tied to each other. We were no longer Macy, Jade, Paul Lockhart or Gavin. Neither were we Cleopatra, Charmian, Marc Antony or Hasani. Not anymore.
We were all ageless. Time could no longer constrain us.
I sighed. Things just got more curious as time progressed.
<
br /> I turned to Cadmus and the Amazons to relay the news. Their faces reflected the surprise that I was sure had been on my own.
"Now what?" Cadmus asked in amazement.
"Now I tell you the other part. He’s here already. Look."
I thrust the compass toward him. Ares stood proudly in the center, his arms and legs restrained with heavy chains as Alexi stood at his side. In the background, I could see the dungeons of Zeus’ palace. He was here in the Spiritlands on Olympus. No wonder he hadn’t been at the hospital the night of homecoming and hadn’t returned my mother’s phone calls. He had been here. And he didn’t look happy.
"Why did Hecate say that we needed to find Ares first, before we sought out Aphrodite?"
Ortrera asked. "We should reach them at the same time. He’s clearly at Olympus already."
"Perhaps Aphrodite is not," I suggested. Peering into the globe, I fervently conjured up every emotion I had ever felt toward my mother. I pictured her as Jade, Cleopatra, Aphrodite and everything in between and the love that I had felt for her each and every time. And she appeared.
She was lying on some sort of thick marble slab, her hands and feet bound with golden cords, her face indignant. Of course, the cords must be enchanted to hold a goddess and Aphrodite did not look pleased about being restrained. I almost laughed at the look of pure outrage on her lovely face, but it died in my chest when I saw who she was with.
Instead of Eris, whom I expected, someone else was standing over her left shoulder.
Annen.
The next thing I knew, Cadmus was gently picking me up off the ground, cradling me to his chest.
"Come back to me, love," he murmured into my ear. "I’m here. Come to me."
I had fainted. For a goddess, I certainly didn’t contain my feelings very well. I opened my eyes and stared into his.
"Cadmus, something is so, so wrong. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Annen is with Aphrodite. The Keres have her."
I slumped back against his chest and allowed him to hold me as I pondered this new twist.
His heart clanged against his ribs and it soothed me with his rhythmic cadence. I zoned out completely for a few minutes, just trying to calm down and absorb this new knowledge.
Finally, I lifted my head one more time.
"Why are they doing this?" I whispered. "What do they stand to gain?"
Cadmus shook his head. "I do not know," he admitted. "I think there is much that we do not yet know."
I nodded in agreement while Ortrera spoke up.
"Perhaps this is an instance where Hecate can help. Perhaps she knows or can help us sort it out."
"Perhaps," I murmured.
At this point, I didn’t feel encouraged. I still felt blind-sided by the Keres’ betrayal. I had been so thoroughly convinced that they meant to help me. Ahmose had even said as much at the pool before he died.
Something wasn’t clicking. This couldn’t be right. I couldn’t force my mind to bend around this betrayal.
"In the morning, we will ride directly to the witches," Cadmus decided. "It cannot hurt to try."
The Amazons nodded their assent and we all settled down for the night. I lay inside the comfort of Cadmus’ arms and stared blankly at the night as I listened to the sounds around me.
Subtle movements from blankets scraping against skin, the crackling of the fire and then later, even the eerily haunting cry of a Chimera somewhere high above us. I didn’t let it bother me. I simply moved closer to Cadmus, comfortable in the fact that any Chimera would have to go through him to get to me. And he had already slayed dragons.
* * *
We flew at dawn, when the sunrise was just staring to peek above the horizon of the Spiritlands. Yellowy fingers stretched across the land, bathing our faces in the warmth of the sun. I wished that I could ride with Cadmus and rest against his chest as we flew through the clouds, but it wasn’t possible. I once again clutched Ortrera’s back as I rode behind her in the front of the formation.
Below us, I could see inhabitants of the Spiritlands going about their daily lives. Just as in the real world, farmers farmed, merchants sold things, builders built. It was easier here, to be sure, because so many of the residents possessed magical abilities to some degree, but that was normal for this enchanted place.
After a time, I noticed that our horses were slowing the pulse of their wings. I glanced at Ortrera.
"They require nectar," she explained. "They haven’t been able to drink in a while. They are growing tired."
As she scanned the landscape below us, I gazed at Cadmus. Had he managed to drink?
Last night, he had brought me a flask, but I had not seen him drink from it. His appearance was just the same as it was as Gavin’s, so it was likely that he had not. He would need it soon, also.
No one could safely stay in mortal form for long here.
Ortrera spotted a stream and turned her horse’s head towards it, the rest of the warriors following suit. We descended next to the water in a field of waving purple daisies. Like normal, before I could dismount, Cadmus was at my side pulling me from the horse. I felt his arms tremble as he held me, a tell-tale sign of fatigue.
I laid my hand against his cheek.
"Sweet, you haven’t yet taken nectar. You must or you will grow weak here. I need you strong."
He nodded, his jaw flexing, and I wondered at his apparent reluctance. But I didn’t remark on it. Instead, I watched him crouch by the stream and scoop it into his mouth. He swallowed with his beautiful eyes closed and his face tilted toward the sun.
While I watched, he transformed into the Cadmus from my memory. His muscles filled out, each individual striation in his biceps becoming apparent to the naked eye. His face quickly leaned down into that of a man, while still retaining his handsome, boyish good looks.
I sucked in my breath. My god, he was beautiful. With the sun shining onto him from behind and the stream sparkling next to him, he truly seemed unworldly.
He had the strangest expression on his face and I stepped toward him in concern.
"My love," I began hesitantly. "What is it? Does something trouble you?"
He nodded curtly, remaining silent as a muscle in his jaw flexed.
"Well?" I prompted. "What is it? Do you feel unwell?"
He sighed and shook his head.
"No. I feel fine. But, Harmonia, the nectar restored my memory. I was afraid of that. I didn’t wish to remember."
I was completely puzzled until a scant second later I realized what he meant.
"Your memories with Eris?" I whispered.
He nodded slowly.
"I don’t wish to talk about it," he said softly. "There is no need to trouble you with it, too.
Let us just remember that it wasn’t truly me. I was enchanted, I wasn’t myself. She ...we ... didn’t. But it was enough." His voice choked off and he grabbed me in a fierce embrace, clutching me to him tightly.
"You are the one, Harmonia," he growled into my hair. "It is you. It has always been you.
No matter what happened. Do you understand?"
The pain in his voice distracted me from my own dismay and I nodded silently. He was right. He could not help what happened any more than I could.
"Cadmus, do not trouble yourself with it. Put it out of your mind," I pleaded softly. "You are right. It wasn’t you. I know that."
He nodded and turned away, busying himself with filling his flask. I gave him the alone time. I knew him inside and out. He needed to regroup. And I needed something to distract me, as well. If I focused on it, it might well become my undoing.
I turned to Ortrera. "I want her head on a spike, sister."