“Not much further, the administration office is just around the next corner and to your right.” My escort says, squeezing past the Golden-God and me, to take the lead. He’s not wrong, the next corner we take leads us to an office space, with a reception desk.
I turn to look to the right and growl out loud. The courtyard outside is the exact same courtyard the drawbridge led us into. “We just went round in a circle.”
“I thought you’d like a tour and to know where to find me.” Golden-God winks before disappearing. I mean literally disappearing; blink and he’s gone.
“How-?” I begin, then shake my head dismissing my own question.
They’re Gods, of course they can do strange things but it doesn’t make it easy for my human brain to comprehend though.
“Can I help you?” A woman asks, making me turn back to face the reception desk. I open my mouth to respond, but my escort pipes up, “I was asked to bring Miss Ryxa Day directly to the principal.”
“Ah, Miss Day, please take a seat.” She motions towards the fancy chair against the wall. I cross the room and sit down, curious why I’m here instead of out there with the other human students.
“You may go back to the rest of the group, Mr Liones.” She says to my escort. He doesn’t say anything, just gives me a weird look over his shoulder and leaves. I’m curious who he is and what he does here, but with him leaving, I have no way of finding out right now.
I feel like I’m waiting for the gallows. Even at my own school I was never singled out like this. I mean sure, I was clumsy sometimes, made mistakes that ended with me embarrassing myself, but that’s pretty normal for a teen. This however, being summoned to the office like I’ve done something wrong the moment I arrive is a little much though - Not that I’ve done anything wrong, it just feels that way. Especially with the woman behind the desk just sitting there staring at me. “Um, excuse me, but you wouldn’t happen to know what this is all about, would you?” I ask.
“Special request for your assignment. Normally you’d be assigned randomly until the end of the first term, that way the Gods can get to know you and decide if they want you to be put on their schedules, but occasionally a God takes a liking to someone right away and they request a special assignment. You my dear are going to be a very busy little bee. You’ve been requested by our very first triplet Gods.”
“Did you say triplets?” I frown at her, sure I heard that wrong. “I thought Gods were only capable of reproducing once every generation.”
“We were all shocked too, but technically triplets are only the one egg separated into three, so it’s still only one birth.” She tilts her head slightly as though thinking it over, then adds, “It is the first we’ve ever heard of a God having triplets, but not the first time a God has had a multiple birth. There were twins once,” She pauses, once again tilting her head, “Seven generations ago. Adessius and Narcessius if I remember correctly. That was before the Gods descended to the Earth realm though.”
“Do they really have a dragon beneath the school?” I’m curious to know if it’s true and this woman seems to like the sound of her own voice.
“Oh yes. She’s beautiful. Her name is Hecatate, they brought her with them when they came to Earth. She only comes out on the full moon, apparently the dragons were all wiped out during their decades long wars back on their own planets. No one knows why she came with them or why she hides below ground all the time. There’s a rumour that dragons were once fierce warriors for the Gods, capable of being ridden and trained, but no one has been able to even get close enough to her to feed her, let alone train or ride her. Only the Gods have been able to even enter her caves. There was one human who went in there. Silly boy was overly curious and was never seen again.”
“Do they really punish people by feeding them to the dragon?”
“No, dear, that’s only a punishment for the Gods. They’d never feed a human to her, that would incite a war.” She tilts her head again before adding, “Of course if the human were to do something that was punishable by death, they might be given the option of dying by the dragon; that would be a special honour reserved for only the worst of offenders though.”
Again she lists her head to the side. I look more closely at her, realising that she’s tilting her head to the side to listen to a device she has in her ear. It looks much the same as my earbuds for my phone, except this thing is way smaller and almost completely clear, giving the illusion that it’s not there from certain angles.
“They’re ready for you, dear, just walk through the doors there.” She points to the only other doors in the office besides the ones that lead out to the hallway we came in through and the exit doors that my escort disappeared through. Rolling my eyes as I get up, I trudge to the door. I’m not sure what I did so wrong to draw attention to myself on my first day, but I sure as hell am not going to proudly go to my doom.
FOUR
TANNER
“You can’t be serious!” I snap at Zeus. I know I shouldn’t, he’s likely to strike me down with one of his famous lightning bolts for doing so but come on. The asshole just told me I have to get close to a human. As though any self-respecting God would want to get close to one after the bullshit we go through coming into our powers.
“Deadly serious. We need to know if thishumanis a Demi-God posing as a human. She has all the signs of being one and we believe she’s slipped through the cracks.” He snarls as though being a Demi-God is the worst thing in the world. Granted most Demi-Gods are trouble, especially since they hold immense power and have no control, but why bother trying to figure it out when it would be easier to just get rid of them and move on with our lives. Not that I’d ever condone such a thing, but these assholes would.
“Fine.” I snap, walking back to the door leading to the administration area. “I’ll look into the suspected Demi-God, but I am not getting close to her. There’s no need for those drastic measures.”
“We’ll try it your way. You’ve got six months. If you can’t give us an answer by then, you’ll be looking for new employment and the girl will be fed to Hecatate.” Zeus’s words chase me from the room, right into a girl who looks just like my mother.
I grip her shoulders, pushing her to arm’s length so I can see her more clearly. “Holy shit, you look just like my mum.” The words are out of my mouth before I can even think. She’s stunning, long silvery hair, just like mine. Even her eyes are the same silvery blue as mine.
“Who are you?” She hisses like a spitfire.
“Tanner Hades, most of the students call me Junior though. I’ll be your Power Manipulations teacher. Who’s your parents? My guess would be Petra or Ambrosia, you look just like them, but obviously you can’t be Ambrosia’s kid, she had a son. And you couldn’t be Petra’s that would make you my little sister and I’m pretty sure I’d know if I had a little sister. Of course you couldn’t be Aphrodite’s either, she hasn’t had a child in centuries, not since Hades broke her heart when he chose my mother over her.”
She mumbles something, but I’m not paying much attention. I’m still too in shock over how much she looks like a female version of me.
“Oh you don’t know who your parents are? Well that makes things difficult. You know we could figure it out, what are your powers?”
“Miss Day, we’re waiting.” Zeus yells out behind me.