The pain was a clean, sharp, blinding line of fire. It tore a gasp from my lungs, my body trying to double over but being held rigid by Argos’s aura. The knife withdrew, and I felt the hot rush of blood mixing with the lake water. The wound was deep, but exact. Nikos had done exactly what was needed, no more. His aim had been perfect, as I’d known it would be.
It hurt, of course. But the physical pain couldn’t compare to the soul-tearing horror of hearing Andromeda say my name like it was a curse. That had been agony. This was just damage.
Then the sky fell into the water.
The world dissolved into a universe of white-hot pressure. Every nerve ending in my body ignited simultaneously. My spine arched backward against Argos’s restraining grip. Consciousness became a fragmented, scattered thing, barely tethered to the meat of my body.
My awareness was no longer my own. It was a speck of dust caught in the gaze of an immense, ancient, and utterly bored entity. The weight of eons pressed into the space where my thoughts used to be. I felt it, the fleeting interest of the god who’d once blessed Agamemnon.
In the heart of that searing inferno, I forged a single, coherent thought. “Help me save her.”
“A Hera Omega.”The words flowed over me, laced with cosmic, divine amusement. It was the boredom of a being who’d seen this particular drama play out countless times before. Zeus. “How tedious. My queen’s little curse. It is not my place to undo it.”
“Is it not? It is a dispute that comes from Hera’s own spite toward you.”
It was bold to snap at Zeus like that, but I couldn’t just let him go, couldn’t let him refuse. Zeus didn’t seem very impressed.“And what of it? Do you really think I owe you anything?”
“I think you created us for a purpose. And I can’t fulfill that purpose if my mate is dead.”
“Nice try, boy, but if you’re trying to appeal to me using sentimentality, you’ll always fail.”
Zeus began to withdraw, his interest already fading. The white-hot agony intensified, the feeling of dissolution becoming permanent. My consciousness started to unravel at the edges. He was going to let me die here, in this warm, electric grave. I was just another failed petitioner who’d disturbed his eternal indifference.
“I will not abandon her,”I screamed into the void, a defiant roar of will against the tide of oblivion.
Zeus paused.
His immense presence focused on me again. I felt his attention like a physical weight, crushing and exhilarating all at once. There was a flicker of something new in his ancient consciousness. Surprise? Amusement? Recognition?
“Your persistence… your willingness to be unmade… that has a certain novelty.”I felt something that might have been approval.“Most of my descendants break. They beg. They bargain. They give up. But you… You demand. You stand your ground. Even here. Even now.”
“How interesting. Your father warned you of your own weakness. Yet, you’d still dig your heels in. You choose your own path. Perhaps… There may be an echo of old blood in you after all.”
A new sensation flooded me. Zeus was closing the wound in my side with the same detached efficiency a man might use to snuff out a candle. It wasn’t a gift, not exactly. It was convenience.
“I can tell you this, blood of Agamemnon. The shadows have a better chance of hiding your Omega than your lightning. But your determination is admirable.”
He circled my fragmented consciousness like a shark. A surge of power erupted through me, sharp and bright. “Do not disappoint me, little king.Poseidon’s boy has become such a bore.”
And then, in a sudden rush, Zeus was gone.
The world flashed back in a torrent of sensation. The lukewarm water, the crushing weight of my father’s aura, the throbbing, hollow ache in my side. I was gasping, shivering, my body a dead weight barely held upright by Argos’s grip. I could hear shouting, the sounds distorted and distant. Nikos. Even Argos. There was a raw, sharp edge to their calls, a panic that cut through the humid air.
I opened my eyes, my vision blurry. Through the haze, I saw my father’s face, inches from my own. The mask of bored indifference was gone. In its place was genuine shock and raw, primal fear. For one terrifying moment, he had thought he’d murdered his heir.
Argos and Nikos hauled me from the water. I collapsed onto the damp wood of the dock, the world tilting sideways. My chest heaved, pulling in air that tasted like metal. Argos released his aura, and the ability to breathe, to think, to be myself, returned.
Beneath the exhaustion, beneath the pain, something new had taken root. The fog of desperation in my mind had been burned away, replaced by a terrible clarity. The god had given me no answers, no solutions, no hope for Andromeda. I had only a meaningless riddle about shadows, one that I could make no sense of.
But he had answered my prayer, regardless. He’d given me the Storm. It was a cold, clean, ruthless fire in my veins. The certainty of a predator that has rediscovered its hunger.
Nikos knelt beside me, his hands hovering over my body like he was afraid to touch me. “Alexander. Alexander, can you hear me?”
“I’m alive.”
“You’re an idiot,” he snarled. “You’re a fucking idiot, and I should have—”
“You did exactly what I asked you to.” I gripped his wrist with more strength than I should have had. “Thank you.”