“I’ve waited too long for Cassandra.” The fear he felt ran down to his fingers; he could feel feathers trembling. “I’ve waited so long, and now I finally have her. And I’ll kill every one of you if you try to ruin it.” He looked down at the poor dead owl. “Even you, Athena.”

6

FAR JOURNEYS

Athena jerked awake, back tensed taut as a bowstring. There had been a dream, a flash of vision, something breaking. Something awful. She couldn’t remember what it was. All that remained was the adrenaline, sparking through her veins and driving sleep far, far away.

“What is it?”

She glanced over at Hermes, ever the insomniac, even in his weakened condition.

“Are you all right?” He came and knelt beside her. His bony hands on her shoulders were warm to the point of being feverish. “Is it the feathers? Can you breathe?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice was clipped and terse. He took his hands off and rolled his eyes; she muttered an apology. She was never a bitch on purpose, but accidents were happening more and more frequently where Hermes was concerned. Taking out her frustrations on him wasn’t fair.

“I don’t know what it was.” She sighed. Talking was starting to be uncomfortable. The feather in the roof of her mouth pressed down insistently, and the flesh that covered it was tender and inflamed. Soon a bit of it would break through the skin, and she would wriggle it loose and tear it out. They say the mouth is the quickest-healing part of the body. She wondered who “they” were. Mouth wounds seemed to take forever to go away. And a torn strip the length of an owl’s wing feather would be one hell of a canker sore, if it turned to that.

“Maybe just a bad dream,” Hermes said softly.

“We don’t have ‘just dreams,’” she replied. “At least, I don’t.”

“I don’t either. It was just something to say. Anyway, if you don’t remember it, then it isn’t much use.” He gave her a piercing look, making sure nothing was flooding back. “Might as well call it ‘just a dream.’”

“I guess.”

Hermes stood up and stretched his thinning back. He was starting to look like a PSA against anorexia. She held in the soft snort of bitter laughter that accompanied the thought. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was all that funny anymore.

They had traveled hard over the last two days and made it out of the bleak extremes of the desert. Their camp was set on a quiet curve of the Green River in eastern Utah. A soft patch of grass made for a decent bed, and the water was drinkable enough. A scraggly coniferous tree provided shelter. They were living like vagabonds or fugitives, with as little human interaction as possible. Such a lifestyle had always suited Athena, but Hermes was a house cat, and she could tell sleeping on the ground was getting on his nerves. He didn’t hide it well. He constantly tossed and hmphed and stretched his back.

“Are you hungry?” Athena asked.

“Usually,” he replied sulkily, and she tossed him a can of peaches from her pack. He cracked the tin cover off and ate them with his fingers. Dawn was about to break over the river, beautiful and pastel. At least she’d managed to sleep through the night. It hadn’t been an easy task since the encounter with the Nereid.

Her mind constantly returned to the vision that the poor creature had shown her. She saw it again and again, the blood-cloud whipped up in the saltwater, heard the gurgling and panicked currents of fins in death throes.

And the glimpse of him. Of Poseidon. Twisted beyond imagining. She could’ve sworn she’d seen a piece of coral cutting through his shoulder, like it was growing into his skin. Or out of it. Perhaps their deaths were eerily similar.

Regret, stronger than she’d imagined, clenched down on her stomach. They’d never been close, but seeing him that way still felt wrong.

Would he feel the same way? Seeing me pull feathers from my throat?

Probably not. He was weaker than she was and always resented that. He resented that Zeus had made her so strong. He resented that Zeus had that much strength to give her.

But it still felt unfair.

He should be on the sand somewhere, tanned and golden. He should be in the ocean, on a f**king surfboard with a nymph on each arm.

That was what might have been, if fate were kinder. Instead he was a monster, on the opposite side of a war.

Trying to humble me, as usual. She allowed herself a rueful smile. It lasted only a second before dropping off her face. Poseidon was ahead of them, after all, and setting traps too clever to come from his mind alone. He had help, and she suspected she knew who it was. Who they were.