“I think we try,” I said, a little too quietly at first, but Leo heard me.
Her brown-eyed gaze jumped to mine and held it. Slowly, she shook her head. “Paris—”
I needed to be certain, and this wimpy little voice wasn't doing it. “We need to try. Leo is right. You all know she is.Iknow she is, and as much as I hate the thought of placing those pieces together and releasing even one more god, we have to try.”
Hector glared at me. “You've lost your mind.”
His words made me flash a look at Leo. Her pale face went even paler, and she seemed to wobble a little as she stood. Did he not see her taking every one of their arguments to heart?You've lost your mind.She was going to hear those words as if spoken directly to her, and not from an older brother to his younger one.
But she shocked me down to my core when she said in a clear, strong voice, “Please trust me.”
Hector opened his mouth to argue, paused, and shut it. “Okay.”
The turnaround was so quick, my head spun. Achilles stared at him. “Hector.”
“No.” He didn't spare our friend a glance. “She's right. She's asking for our trust. Even if I think this is a bad idea, I trust her. I trust you, Leo. If you say this is what we should do, we'll do it.”
Stepping back, she tripped on the chair but quickly caught herself and hurried around the table. Hector caught her, wrapped his arms around her, and bent his head to her. “I'm afraid.”
Achilles shoved his hands on his hips, blew out a breath, and stared at the ceiling. I watched him. One breath. Another.
Then, suddenly, he straightened and ripped the cover off the container. In seconds, before Hector or Pollux or Orestes or I could stop him, he'd removed each of the pieces of the seal.
I thought he'd lay them out, study them, but he didn't. Like they were a puzzle he'd put together a million times, he placed the base on the table and fit the next piece to it.
All of us stared, waiting for something. A flash of lightning. An earthquake. A bright light followed by an explosion.
None of it came.
Not right away.
Leo
Icould feel Hector's fear like a physical thing, and it hit me right in the chest, because I knew where it was coming from. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his dimples had disappeared like they'd never existed.
I'd done that. I'd made the mood in this room plummet. And though I had good reasons behind what I was proposing, it didn't make it easier to do.
I didn't want to run and hide or be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. I wanted a life, and I wanted it with these men.
Hector gripped the sides of the table, staring at the pieces with a muscle tic, tic, ticking in his cheek. He waited for the world to end when all he'd strived to do his entire existence was protect the world from the gods.
And I wasn't positive this would work. I thought it would—I was 80/20 in favor. I'd buy a lottery ticket on our odds, but certainty? No. I wasn't certain.
So, was this a risk worth taking?
Yes.As I’d read those myths and epic poems, turning the question of what to do over and over in my mind, I realized—we had to risk it. My showdown with Poseidon made me feel a little surer, but what I would give to be certain this would work.
Achilles had taken my request,trust me,and turned it into a challenge. He placed the two pieces together, one with his own likeness, to rest against the other and stepped away.
My heart pounded so hard my entire body pulsed.
Be ready,the otherness inside me whispered.
When one second after another and another passed, I almost relaxed. I almost let out a breath.
I stared at the partially completed seal, taking in the way each jagged edge fit against the other. The way one scene blended into the other, connecting Pollux to Achilles and Achilles to Hector.
The beauty and the heartbreak.