Storm of Olympus

by Claire Andrews

Genres: Sword & Sorcery

Synopsis

The heart-pounding conclusion to the Daughter of Sparta series forces Daphne to face her past, her deepest fears, and an enemy who can defeat even the all-powerful gods of Olympus in this epic reimagining of classic Greek mythology, for fans of Circe. 
 
After fighting in the Trojan War against her own people, Daphne is plagued by memories—of her family, of her shortcomings, of her lover, Apollo, and of the secrets he and the gods keep. As she reels from the horrendous sacrifice she had to make and her own failure in the battle for Troy, she knows the Titans are out there—just beyond the island of Aeaea where she has taken refuge—raging a war against the world.
 
As Daphne struggles to regain her will to fight as well as rein in the new abilities that have been thrust upon her, the gods call for her help once more. But it has been prophesized that she will bring about the ruin of Olympus and the downfall of Sparta, just as she caused the destruction of Troy. Now, as she begins to witness her terrible destiny coming true, she must become a hero to rival those of myth and save the gods, her people, and the world. Or she will watch it all burn around her.
 
Claire M. Andrews has crafted a jaw-dropping conclusion to an epic series that gives women a powerful place among Greek mythology, flipping the world of gods and goddesses on its head. This breakneck race to the finish will have readers devouring its pages late into the night with one mind blowing twist after another, in a finale fit for a heroine who rivals any Ancient Greek hero.

Release date: September 5, 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 416

Sample

The sun was well on its way up the horizon, painting the sky in shades of lavender and marigold, and the mortal was late. The god of poetry and prophecy bit back a stream of curses. With each passing moment, the Muses grew further from his reach.

And it was all his fault.

From the city below the gates, the scent of smoke and roasting meat rose. A sharp reminder to Apollo that, although the Spartans honored him every year, he hadn’t deigned to appreciate, even spare a passing glance to, Carneia in centuries.

Not since Koronis passed.

His pride had once again bitten him in the ass. One night of throwing his father’s liaisons in his face was also a night of turning his back on the Muses, who needed his protection. Someone had known he would leave that night and that the gates to the Hesperides would be wide open for anyone to stroll through. Someone who’d planted the idea in his head, no doubt.

The pantheon was in an uproar and, if he was being honest, it was almost a relief to be in Sparta instead. Zeus and Poseidon argued over Apollo’s punishment loud enough to rattle the halls of Knossos many kingdoms away; Dionysus and Hermes offered only barbed comments meant to incite more ire; Ares glared at any god who looked the wrong way at his mother as she accused every god and goddess in turn; Hephaestus had already wiped his hands of the matter and returned to Lemnos, while Persephone and Hades took no sides, watching with the same thoughtful silence that made them such a perfect pair.

When they should have all been working together to find the Muses, they were fighting like children. Forever, hubris was destined to be the downfall of Apollo’s entire family.

While Apollo futilely picked at the perfect threads—not a single one out of place—of his chiton, the clipping of hooves drew his attention up, and the vision galloping toward him threatened to drop his jaw. It was an effort to keep in place the smirk he wore as a permanent shield.

The first thing he noticed were the deep lines already forming between the woman’s brows despite her young age, as though the frown she wore wasn’t just because of the sun shining directly into her gray eyes.

Apollo blinked. That color could only mean one of two things: she was descended either from the gods, or the titans. It would also explain why Artemis believed the girl could get answers from Prometheus. Apollo tucked that tidbit away for later and continued his leisurely examination of this girl.

Atop her collarbone, the Midas Curse slithered along her skin. A tattoo of living gold, it slunk down her neck before disappearing over her shoulder beneath a tumble of straw-colored curls and twigs that framed a tan face. Her nose was long and crooked from someone’s right hook, and her lips were bow-shaped yet clutched between her teeth as she looked Apollo up and down the same as he did her.

Apollo greeted her with the name Artemis had provided. “Daphne.”

The mortal offered him nothing more than a curt nod. “Escort.”

Her voice reminded him of honeyed wine. She could sing a lovely song if Spartans ever devoted training to such things.

She guided her horse past the god, looking forward, down the long road ahead of them. “Where are we going?”

Artemis really had told her nothing.

“Mount Kazbek. An old friend lives there and he has the answers we seek.”

He bit back a chuckle as she jerked on her horse’s reins. “That is at least a month’s journey from here.”

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll arrive at Mount Kazbek much sooner than you expect.”

“An Olympian perk, I presume?” There was a small smile at the corner of her mouth.

In that moment, Apollo would do anything to make it blossom. “The first of many I can offer you.”

Daphne scoffed. “I will not be seduced by you, or any other god.”

Annoyance flared in him like the angry sting of a wasp. The presumption, though warranted, nettled at Apollo. He straightened, but not before catching a whiff of something.

Something he hadn’t smelled in hundreds of years.

Smoke and the sea battled for dominance in his nose. Like a whirlpool of power, salty brine was inexplicably softened by flame. It thrummed beneath his skin, like a calling of power to power.

The ichor in each god’s veins comes with a specific scent. With each use of their powers, this scent heightens. Aphrodite smelled overwhelmingly of roses, and Dionysus—unsurprisingly—of wine, Athena of olives, and Apollo of cedarwood. These scents had been the basis for the greatest stories spun about each of the gods, with good reason.

The titans, though. They all smelled the same, save for Nyx. Zeus once preached that it was the taint of their evil. Artemis always said it was a remnant of Hecate’s curse.

This scent, of the deepest fires and the stormiest seas, encircled this girl. If Apollo’s curiosity wasn’t piqued before, it sure was now.

Because it was impossible.

Hundreds of years ago, Zeus hunted each demi-titan to the point of extinction. Only Circe remained, bound to her island sanctuary and prison on Aeaea. Okeanos—Oceanus, as the mortals prayed to him—had many other children, but all nymphs and without the telling trace of ichor that would separate them as titans. The Fates must have been cackling.

As though drawn to this strange woman by a golden tether, Apollo reached across the space between them. His fingers just barely brushed her spine, and she spun around, practically spitting sparks.

“What were you doing?” she demanded, patting her back.

Apollo fumbled for an excuse, hiding behind innocent, childlike wide eyes. “I wanted to see the Midas Curse.”

An itch at the back of his mind dragged his gaze behind them briefly. A flash of black dipping behind a copse of trees. There, a blink and mortal eyes would have missed it. Someone followed them, making sure to keep to the shadows.

“Ask your sister to show you,” Daphne spat, returning his attention to her. She clucked her tongue, leading her mottled white and brown horse as far from him as she could. “Maybe she’ll give you a taste of that arrow if you’re polite enough.”

The sharp edge to her words suggested she didn’t believe he could ever be considered polite. Despite his best interests, and the voice in the back of his mind reminding him of the pain he brought everywhere, Apollo continued to be drawn to her. He guided his horse alongside hers once more, a glimmer of warmth filling his chest when her cheeks took on a lovely shade of pink.

No. He couldn’t go down that path again. No one, not mortal or immortal, could feel the pain of his love ever again. Better to feed the awful stories of him in her mind rather than let Daphne ever see the joy that once flourished there.

Apollo inhaled deeply and threw another glance back over his shoulder. Daphne had already painted him as a villain, in the image of the stories passed down about him for hundreds of years.

If she wanted a villain, and if it would protect her heart, he would become a villain.

Apollo sat beside the dying fire, watching as Daphne fitfully slept. She tossed and turned on her bedroll, face pinched in a scowl and nearly kicking the black wolf now sharing her blanket.

The moment he had seen that mortal lurking in the woods, he’d known something had to be done. Something to keep Lykou silent, yet safe. Or as safe as one can be when on the path of the gods.

Apollo also knew that tearing down the young man was exactly what he needed to build up the wall between him and Daphne forever. Perhaps someday he would live to regret fostering the resentment and distrust within her, but for now, it would keep her safe.

Except… he did not expect such fire to erupt from the young woman.

His chin still, remarkably, smarted from her fist. Such strength behind a mortal hand. He brushed his tender flesh, the buzz of a beard prickling his fingers. With another pass of his hand, the skin was smooth and unblemished again. The small amount of magic filled his lungs with an unfamiliar ache. How much longer could he use his powers in such a way before they were gone forever?

He never imagined, in all his immortal life, that such a thing would even be possible. Some rebellious part of him was glad. Another part, thinking of the titans bound magically in a tomb below Troy, dreaded the day that magic fell away completely. And of the horrors resting in a cursed sleep deep, deep below the Mesogeios.

The world would burn the day Olympus lost its power.

Better to use his magic wisely and to return the Muses to Olympus as fast as he could. He slapped his palms to the earth, kicking up dust. The wolf’s head jerked up, eyes wide. The stars dashed across the sky above them. The black pine trees of the Taygetus range disappeared in a blink, replaced with the clustered fir trees at the base of Mount Othrys, hundreds of miles away from where they’d made camp. Daphne would no doubt reel with confusion when she awoke; Apollo chuckled at the image.

The birds in the boughs above them fled at their sudden arrival with startled screeches, making Daphne grumble in her sleep. The noise would have woken anyone else, especially a Spartan, but an immortal kept her in his clutches.

The smell of Hypnos’s power permeated the new camp: lavender and sea brine. Apollo grabbed a stick and cracked it into tiny pieces, scattering them into the hungry flames. He’d never had a quarrel with the god of sleep, so why would Hypnos interfere now?

Lykou climbed to his paws, sniffing frantically around the new camp.

Did the scents from the titan stronghold, destroyed a thousand years before during the Titanomachy, still linger there? If Apollo squinted hard enough, his immortal eyes could make out the stones once used as a foundation for Érebos’s temple in the shadowed distance, overgrown with tree roots and moss.

There were statues, broken and clinging to the earth, hidden among the trees. Koios and Kreios, faces as cruel and callous as they were in life. Themis, carrying a sword as tall as she stood, and Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Oh, how the mortals always loved that story.

Cronus, whose marble eyes seemed to track Apollo’s every movement and whose mouth was parted in a wide, broken smile, was covered in black vines.

Érebos’s statue was the only one untouched by age and decay. Nyx must have come there often to look upon the only remnant of her husband.

Lykou yipped, drawing Apollo’s attention back to camp. The greenery beneath Daphne had begun to glow.

Apollo flung himself to his feet. The ground pulsed beneath her, flashing once, then again. Lykou lunged for the girl. Apollo grabbed him around the middle, grimacing as the wolf’s teeth dug into the flesh of his arms, desperately trying to wrench away.

“Leave her,” the god hissed into the wolf’s pointed ears. “Watch.”

The grass beneath Daphne beaded with glowing dew, shimmering in the pale green light beneath her and the silver moonlight above. The water inched toward her and rested on her arms and legs. The scratches on her limbs from her run during Carneia were kissed by the watery touch. Each misted away with the vanishing of her cuts—the water healed her.

The light beneath her dimmed, then vanished, returning them all to darkness. Apollo released the wolf, who tumbled forward, sniffing tentatively around the young mortal.

Daphne flopped back onto her side, eyes resolutely shut. Sleepily, she murmured, “Alkaios… Pyrrhus.”

For them. She was, knowingly or not, risking it all—the fate of the entire world—for them. Her brothers.

In all his immortal existence, Apollo had never cared for another other than Artemis, not even Koronis, as much as Daphne did her brothers.

The god knew then, watching the girl continue to sleep, that he would go to the ends of this world and the next to keep her safe.

The water doesn’t even stir. There’s nothing of that typhoon I unleashed when I first landed upon Aeaea, months ago, in the squall below the cliff. What few clouds there are don’t even darken in response to my futile show of power; they’re nothing but wisps of white, like an old woman’s hair, stretching across the horizon.

The sea laughs at my failure.

Below the cliff, Odysseus and his men stop their work to watch my efforts. For many moons, they have prayed for my success. And, for many moons, I have failed them. I’ve failed all of them.

“Avenge us, daughter of Oceanus.” Artemis’s words are a whisper of a memory.

I choke back a snarl. I won’t be able to save Olympus if I can’t even call down a little rain. Since arriving here, I have fought to harness and control the powers roiling around inside me. The Fates must laugh at my failure, again and again.

Another tendril of smoke in the air floods my senses. What carnage must be happening on the shore of Greece for so much smoke to travel so far.

“He will die protecting Olympus from the titans,” Artemis said of Apollo in the bowels of Odysseus’s ship. “The Moirai have fated it.”

A choked sob lodges in my throat. Has he already passed to the Underworld while I fail again and again to call upon my powers?

Silent as a mouse, Circe comes up beside me on the rocky precipice and grabs me by the shoulder, her long nails digging into my tanned skin. “What are you feeling, Daphne? What emotion did you use this time to try to call upon your powers?”

“Rage.” My lower teeth stick out as I grind my back molars together.

Circe clucks her tongue. “I’ve told you before that you’ll need more than anger to destroy the titans.”

“Anger is all I have.”

War took all the joy out of me, and my brother’s death suffocated all the light.

“You told me once that Apollo compared his powers to the ebb and flow of a tide,” she says, pointing to the water below. Remembering Apollo’s voice makes my heart clench. “He wasn’t wrong,” she continues, “but there’s more to it than that. When the gods swallowed the ambrosia seeds atop Mount Olympus, they took a piece of the mountain’s power, and the mountain took a piece of them as well. The powers are a gift to protect the mountain and the Hesperides. It will take a part of you every time you reach for that power, and the only way to control it, and keep it from destroying you, is to forge a will of the strongest iron.”

She turns me around to face her. In a certain light, her skin might appear simply pale, but beneath the unrelenting sun, the green tinge is unmistakable. An inheritance from her mother, a sea nymph. It’s the same color as her unsettling eyes, ringed with gray, which pin me to the earth. She places a hand on my other shoulder.

“I want you to close your eyes.” Huffing, I do as she asks. “Now, think of Troy.”

Reluctantly, I return to the city of my downfall. Troy fills my senses. Spices sting my nose, too many to name. Priam’s illustrious family sits across from me in a theater crowded with laughing, cheering people. Hector bouncing his son on his knee. The baths soaking me to the core and filling me with comforting warmth. Apollo holding me close against his chest as he carries me down a long, dark hallway. Those same hallways, stained with blood. A great shadow swooping over the ruins of the city. Alkaios’s lifeless body, fallen between pieces of black, broken clay.

I flinch and feel Circe lean closer. “What are you feeling now?”

My hands tremble. “Pain.”

“I guess I should have expected that.” She sighs softly. “Think of Sparta.”

My home, the jade-tiled floor reflecting the rising sun beyond the towering Taygetus mountains that surround the city. People lining the gray streets, and a gymnasion crowded with competing Spartiates. The birds of the Taygetus forest singing all around me. The cushioned, mossy floor beneath my feet. Pyrrhus handing me my first dagger, his calloused fingers grazing my wrist.

That same hand beating my face to a pulp.

“More pain,” I gasp.

A sharp twinge as Artemis stabs me in the stomach with her golden arrow. Alkaios falling into my arms. Apollo’s face twisted with hurt.

My eyes flutter open. “All I feel now is pain.”

“Well, don’t forget the anger,” Circe says, walking around me, dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. Though, being an immortal, falling into the sharp rocks and crashing waves below would hardly even bruise her. “Settle into both the anger and pain.”

The two roil in my core. A sickness rises up my throat. “I don’t want to.”

“You must.”

For my brothers.

Swallowing back bile and pain, I reach again toward my center. The power must sense my desperation because it recoils. I bite back a growl of frustration and reach deeper.

“Sink into your feelings.” Circe stops behind me and rests her hands on my shoulders again. “Reach, Daphne. Like I taught you.”

The sun is unforgiving, making my cheeks burn. I’ll heal quickly, though. The ambrosia gave me many gifts. I clench my eyes shut and the backs of my eyelids are a vivid red against its glare.

The anger and fear make my arms tremble. The power answers to it, but whenever I reach inward, it flings itself away.

I think of Alkaios, bleeding out. Nyx’s cackling laugh.

The power flares. I reach desperately for it. The sky darkens above me, snuffing out the sun.

It blasts right through me.

The ground shudders. Circe’s nails dig in, gripping me for balance. A whirlpool begins to spin in the squall below.

Just as quickly, the ground stills. Too soon.

The titaness says, “You need to learn control.”

“I’m trying,” I snap. “What do you think we’ve been doing this entire—”

She shoves me. The air rushes from my lungs. I’m soaring over the cliff. I don’t even have time to scream before I slam into the ocean below.

The waves swallow me with an unnatural eagerness.

Mine, mine, mine, they seem to crow.

“Use your powers!” Circe screams from above.

I open my mouth to yell and the ocean swoops in. I choke on the salted spray. Fury and fear war within me. Oh, I’ll use my powers to wipe her from the earth once I get out of this damn whirlpool.

I can feel my gifts coursing through my limbs. My anger, easy to call on when I look up through the crashing waves at the titaness standing on the cliff, scoops up a ball of the power within me. A wave crashes down, flooding my mouth and pulling me deeper into the swirling water. Whatever grasp I had on my power flees.

The current yanks on my hips, dragging me down. I kick and crawl. The sun hardly pierces the sea here. The light fragments above. I reach desperately for it. Now, I harness my fear and pull forward that power scrambling around inside me. I release it in a great burst.

Still, I fall deeper into the dark abyss.

Perhaps this is for the best.

I’ve brought nothing but pain and destruction to the world. I couldn’t even protect Helen.

My lungs scream, my movements now sluggish. My body jerks, spasming against the crushing weight of the sea. Down I fall.

The pain flees me, and the anger abandons me. Down here, there isn’t even fear.

There’s just me, and the mistakes I’ve made.

Circe slaps me so hard my teeth sing.

She at least had the kindness to wait until I’d hurled up all the water from my lungs. Although, that might have just been to prevent me from tossing it all up in her face.

She found me in the darkness and dragged me to shore. I didn’t fight, but I didn’t help her, either. When we finally crawled across the rocky beach, she tossed me to the ground like a sack of rotted grain.

“You fool,” she hisses, kicking the rocks. “You think killing yourself will solve the world’s problems?”

“Perhaps a few,” I say, honestly. “I knew I wouldn’t die. Not really.”

“Even gods can die.” Her voice drops to a near whisper, face more pale than normal. “You should know that better than anyone.”

Because I killed Ares.

But I wasn’t referring to my newfound godly status. Even before Apollo fed me the seed of ambrosia that awakened the ichor in my veins, the water was never my enemy. My wounds were always mysteriously healed when I came into contact with water, my body suddenly near invincible. Below Knossos, in the Eurotas, in that very sea beyond Aeaea. There were times I should have died, but the water revived me.

The one gift my father—the titan Oceanus—ever gave me.

“You’re holding yourself back,” Circe says, extending a hand to help me to my feet. “We must try again.”

“Enough of this. You’re not helping.” I stand and slap her hand away, tossing my sodden plait over a shoulder and stomping across the beach.

She calls after me, “I can’t help you, Daphne, if you won’t help yourself.”

I ignore her, pretending I can’t hear her over the encroaching tide. She knows I can, though. Another new gift from the ambrosia.

I pass and ignore Odysseus and his soldiers carrying driftwood across the beach toward their own encampment on the far side of the island. Circe offered to share her cottage with them, but after she caught one of them dabbling in her herbs and promptly turned him into a squealing pig, Odysseus decided it would be better if he and his men stayed close to a sanded beach. There, where the trees are few and the land the flattest, those who remain of the Ithacan fleet have been rebuilding their ships, slowly but surely.

Too many were lost in the Trojan War. Many were also lost on the crossing of the Aegean.

“What was that out there?” one of the men calls out to me. Sinon, I remember his name from Troy. “Don’t they teach you Spartans how to swim?”

“Didn’t they teach you Ithacans when to mind your own business?” I trudge past him and under my breath add, “Besides, I’m not a Spartan.”

I chew the inside of my cheek, ascending the steep hill to Circe’s cottage with ease. Beyond the island, the sun is setting, a ball of fiery red dipping behind the horizon. Distantly, I wonder if Helios, Circe’s father, has sided with the Olympians or the titans.

Her cottage is a scattered mess when I walk through the doorway. You’d think that a woman with as much spare time as she has would be better organized, but she always seems to know where everything is without a second thought. I kick aside a couple of bowls, stomping toward my cot. There’s a gap between the boards just above where I rest my head, and a breeze stirs the grass of the makeshift bed. Despite not being tired in the slightest, I flop down on the cot, picking at the grass and listening through the gap.

Odysseus’s men sing on the far end of the island. Normally I can hear them laughing and chattering, but this tune is a dirge. The sound is hollow and low, all the men lending their voices to the song of mourning. My name is pattered throughout their lyrics.

I roll over, curling into a fetal position and clenching my eyes shut. I let them down today. They have no hope of leaving this island and protecting their homes. Not while the titans prowl the earth and the gods are unable to stop them. They need my gifts, not just another soldier.

A gull’s scream drags me from the throes of sleep. I rub a hand down my cheek, dragging it over my lips with a groan. Dawn reaches thin fingers through the cottage wall slats. More cries echo up the cliffs and into the cottage. It must be feeding time.

I frown. Circe typically feeds the gulls in the middle of the day. Their cries are so loud. I blink away the sleep still clouding my mind. Another scream echoes up into the cottage, and the tone of it jerks me to my feet. Those are no birds.

Circe.

The titans have arrived. Heart thundering in my chest, I snatch up the dagger beneath my pillow and sprint out the door. It smashes into the side of the house and I thunder down the narrow path, my eyes peeled for the crew.

Rocks skitter beneath my rushing feet. There’s no familiar burn in my lungs, hardly a strain in my muscles as I sprint across the island. The gifts of the Hesperides imbue my every pounding step. I don’t need storm nor sea to destroy the titans. I only need the strength inside me.

I dash around a craggy outcrop and skid to a halt. My dagger falls from my hands to clatter to the rocks as horror blankets me.

Bodies, dozens of them, float among the waves.

Circe and Odysseus bark commands, his men dragging body after body onto the rocky shore. Without thinking, I snatch back the dagger and place it in my belt before leaping toward the water. I rush past them all and throw myself into the squall and drag man after man from the roaring waves.

Another body floats in the distance, spread-eagle and deathly still. My toe is sliced open on a barnacle as I run through the water, but the pain is barely a sting. Maybe Circe can revive them. Maybe they’re not even dead yet.

It takes me too long to swim out to the man. When I’m close enough, I hook an arm over his broad chest and hug his body to mine.

“Bring me to land,” I whisper to the water.

The sea ignores my desperate plea. It continues to toss us around.

“Bring me to the shore!” I scream.

Nothing. A wave slams us both down into the dark abyss. A growl between clenched teeth releases a stream of bubbles as I haul both of us to the surface. I gasp a lungful of salty air but the body in my arms is a leaden weight threatening to drag me back down. With all my strength, I kick and push through the wild sea.

When we finally reach land, I throw both myself and the man into the rocks and sand. Shells and barnacles lacerate my palms and knees.

“Circe!” I cry out, but the goddess is already beside me.

She gives the dagger, still in my belt, a disdainful grimace before tugging the body from my arms and flipping him over. I gasp, all the wind rushing from my lungs.

Hermes lies at my feet.

Circe hurries around her cottage, pulling herbs from shelves and throwing them into a pot simmering over the fire. Hermes rests on my bed, chest shuddering with every rise and fall. At least he’s alive. I never thought I would feel such relief to know that my once-enemy is alive. Circe will nurse him back. The titaness will make sure he doesn’t accept Thanatos’s outstretched hand.

There were no other survivors.

A gash stretches across Hermes’s abdomen, pumping black ichor from his body with every strained breath. He’s wearing dark blue leather armor that is torn and stained with ichor. His dark braids have been shorn nearly to the scalp on either side of his head, while a shadow of a dark beard grazes his angular chin.

“Wake up, Hermes,” I say, resting a hand on his cold cheek.

As if he hears me, his face turns in my direction, eyes still shut. The firelight glows on the sickly sweat dotting his brow and neck.

My lip trembles. “Please wake up. I can’t lose you, too.”

Not after Alkaios and Troy.

Circe brusquely shoves me aside. “Your blathering will do nothing.”

She pulls my hand from his face and, without warning, slices a knife along my palm. I yelp as my ichor pours from the fresh cut. She squeezes it into a small clay bowl filled with red powder, and smoke begins to billow from the mixture.

She sprinkles some of it along Hermes’s wound, muttering unintelligibly under her breath. His skin hisses. A great roar erupts from him, his entire back arcing and hands clenching the frayed blankets.

“Hold on to his arms.” Circe tosses some more powder over his skin. “I need to leech the poison from him.”

Shock jars me. “Poison?”

“Don’t just stand there! Unless you want the messenger to die, grab him!”

I reach immediately for his arms. Where once his immortal strength made mine laughable, I now easily hold him down despite his bucking and straining.

Circe’s muttering rises into a song I don’t recognize, her eyes glowing red, then blue, then black. The smell of burning herbs permeates the cottage. Smoke rises from Hermes’s chest. Her power pulses and my grip slips. His fist catches me on the temple, and I fall backward.

Hermes leaps from the bed. He grabs me by the throat. His fingers tighten inexorably, closing my airways. Circe’s song rises.

“Hermes,” I choke out. “Please. We’re trying to save you.”

“Save me?” The voice that leaks from his mouth is nothing like the deep timber of before. No, this is melodic and saccharine, and all too familiar. Nyx speaks again with Hermes’s mouth. “You’re too late to save any of them.”

Dark spots begin to fill my vision. Circe’s hymn reaches its peak and the entire cottage trembles. Her power flares.

We’re all blasted to opposite sides of the room. My back hits the driftwood wall and I crash straight through it. Limbs flailing and neck whipping hard enough to send my head into a tailspin, I’m tumbling through rocks and brush until finally the earth rights itself. Splinters and ash tangle my hair. With a groan, I shove myself to my back and count the stars until they stop dancing in my eyes. Only then do I stagger into what remains of the cottage.

Hermes lies flat on the dirt floor. I collapse to my knees and press my head against his chest. Though quiet, his heart still beats.

A relieved sigh passes my torn lips. Clutching her side with a grimace, Circe limps over to us. Ichor seeps between her fingers.

“That was no mere curse,” she says, shaking her head. The gash in her side slowly heals, leaving her peplos stained with wet black. “Hecate is the Olympian master of such magic, and she would never ally herself with the titans. No. That magic was nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Dread rises in my throat like