my mother. With the straightforward way she spoke, it was clear she’d told this story before. “That was our purpose. To be the playthings of the Titans. They loved us, and we loved them in return. But then they decided that we weren’t enough, so they made a new race that, unlike us, could cease to exist if they fought one another.”
“They created war.”
Ava sounded so small and meek that I hardly believed it was her speaking. Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, her cheeks had lost their color, and the hurt on her face was so palpable that I could barely stand to look at her.
“The Titans made humans do terrible things to entertain them.” Ava wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed. “They were denied the most basic rights and freedoms.”
“Humans were soldiers who never saw the end of battle,” said James. “They were at the mercy of the Titans, but unlike the six siblings—”
“They were powerless to stop them.” My mother sat down beside me and set her hand over mine. “The things mortals do to one another is nothing compared to what the Titans did. Mental and physical torture. No sign of relief. No voice that could possibly sway the most powerful beings in the universe.”
“So the six rebelled,” said Ava. She stared at the space between us, seemingly studying the velvet bench cushion, but a thread of strength ran through her voice now. “They banded together and used the powers the Titans had given them to fight back.”
“And we won.” My mother smiled. She was the gentlest person I knew; she didn’t even kill the spiders and snakes that snuck into her garden. I couldn’t imagine her going to war untold eons ago with a force I didn’t begin to understand. “The Titans’ greatest weakness was their belief that there was no greater power in the world, and they couldn’t imagine us thinking for ourselves. Perhaps if they hadn’t created mortals or given us abilities for their own amusement, we would still be theirs after all this time. Their mistake was not in creating us, but in creating something for us to protect.”
She ran her fingers through my hair, and it was such a familiar gesture that my anxieties began to disappear, replaced by warmth that ran through me and melted the icy fear that had formed.
“We nearly lost so many times, and there were moments when we wanted to give in, but all it took in each of us was the memory of what the Titans were doing to the defenseless, and we pressed on. As long as we existed, we would not stand for it.”
With startling clarity, I finally saw the balance between gods and mortals: gods were, in a strange way, the ones who were chained because of a war the six siblings had won an incalculable amount of time ago. They—we depended on humanity for our survival as much as humanity had depended on Walter and the others all those eons ago. It was why James was so afraid of the day humanity would eventually die out and there was nothing left but the dead and those who ruled them. Once humans didn’t need him any longer, he would fade. They all would, except for me and Henry. But without humans, gods were nothing.
“Is that what that was?” I said. “A—Titan?”
“He’s called Cronus, and he was once the king of the Titans,” said my mother. “He has been asleep since the end of the war, trapped in Tartarus with Nyx watching over him and the other imprisoned Titans.”
Ava shuddered, but said nothing. I fidgeted. “Nyx?” I said, hating how little I knew about any of this. My lessons from the year before had focused on the Greek myths, not their true heritage, and no amount of studying would ever make up for the fact that I hadn’t lived through it like the rest of them. Or at least hadn’t heard the stories for millennia.
“She is the best guard we have,” said my mother. “Henry volunteered to keep Cronus and the rest of the Titans who posed a risk to humanity locked up in the Underworld so there would be no humans around to tempt them, but we knew that if we allowed Cronus to remain conscious, he would find a way out. So the only solution we had was to keep him trapped in his dreams, which is Nyx’s specialty.”
“Then how did he wake up?” I said. “How did he get to the palace?”
James shoved his hands into his pockets. “Henry and I think he’s been waking up for some time—at least a few decades. He’s kept quiet until now, gaining strength, but there’s no way to check and see how awake he really is without risking our lives.”
“The Titans created us,” said my mother. “And they can kill us, as well.”
That was the last thing I wanted to think about, Henry running off to fight that monster again while he might very well be in agony. “You still haven’t told me how he woke up in the first place,” I said, struggling to keep my voice from shaking.
“We don’t know,” said James. “We think Calliope did it.”
“But—” I frowned. “You said he’s been waking up for ages.”
“Decades,” he corrected.
I rolled my eyes. What was a lifetime to most people was the blink of an eye to the council. I would get there eventually, I supposed—if Cronus didn’t eat me first—but until then, I was on mortal time. Six months was six months, not a pleasant nap.
“There’s a strong possibility Calliope planned ahead and started the process when Henry made it clear he would never return her feelings,” said James. “When he started to bring girls home to meet the family and get tested, well …” He shrugged. “She must have snapped. No one but Calliope has the power to break Nyx’s loyalty to Henry and persuade her to wake Cronus up.”
Another thing I wasn’t crazy about hearing: how powerful the goddess who wanted me dead happened to be. “It doesn’t make any sense. If she was trying to protect humans, then why would she risk things going back to the way they were under the Titans?”
“We don’t know,” said my mother. “If we did, we would try to reason with her, but that has proven futile so far.”
“There’s a possibility she bargained with him,” said James. “Why she would trust him to keep his word, I don’t know, but she took your decision hard—”
“She hates you.” Ava squeezed my hand. “It’s the kind of hate that’s all-consuming, and it doesn’t stop for anything. Especially not reason.”
So I had been the target after all, not Ava. I shuddered to think what might have happened if I’d frozen, too.
And was James right? Would Henry have ripped the world apart if Cronus had killed me? I wanted to believe it would have been because of how he felt for me, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind pointed out that if I died, he might have to give up his position as ruler of the Underworld and fade, if he didn’t die going after Cronus. That would’ve pissed me off, too.
“James,” I croaked. “Please get your arm fixed before you bleed to death.”
Glancing at his ripped jacket that was now soaked with blood, he frowned, as if he’d forgotten he’d been injured in the first place. More proof my wound only hurt so badly because I could remember what pain felt like. “Oh. Right. I’ll go do that, then. You’re okay?”
I nodded, and he hesitated before crossing the antechamber and kissing my cheek. He didn’t say goodbye, and I was grateful for that small sign the council wasn’t afraid the world was about to end.
“Come,” said my mother, offering her hand. “Let’s get you someplace where you can rest.”
I wanted to protest. If Henry couldn’t rest, then what right did I have to do so while he was out battling a Titan? However, I knew better than to fight my mother on it. Stubbornness really did run in the family.
She and Ava helped me as I limped to the bedroom. It was humiliating, feeling as if my leg was on fire when the wound was gone and no one else seemed to be affected by injuries that were worse than mine. I tried to walk on my own and ignore it, but that only resulted in a few agonizing steps