its his responsibility to keep Hector in line because, well, hes the
only one that can.
It must be really difficult being separated from the rest of your
family, Helen sympathized.
We dont have a choice, Ariadne said with a tight smile.
Is it because of the cult? Helen asked delicately. Lucas never
got a chance to explain . . .
Tantalus and the Hundred Cousins believe that if only one
House exists, then they can raise Atlantis, Ariadne said. Thats
why our family has always lived right on the water. Boston, Nantucket,
Cádiz . . . Theyre all near the Atlantic Ocean and we all
want front row seats.
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Thats insane! Helen blurted out before she realized that Ariadne
was serious. I mean, Atlantis is a myth, right? The thought
of a city existing somewhere, deep under the dark, smothering
waves made Helen shudder involuntarily. She took a sip of her
juice box to cover her violent reaction and waited for Ariadne to
continue.
Is Mount Olympus a myth? Or heaven? It all depends on what
you believe, and most Scions believe that Atlantis is real, but the
problem is that we cant get there until we accomplish a few things
first. See, right after the Trojan War ended, there was a great
prophecy made by Cassandra of Troy. She said that if only one
Scion House remains, then we can raise Atlantis and claim it as our
own land forever. The Hundred Cousins interpret that prophecy to
mean that if we demigods earn our entrance into Atlantis then we
will become immortal, just like the gods of Olympus.
Wow, Helen murmured. Why wouldnt you want that?
Tempting, isnt it? Except the problem is that if all four Houses
unite, or if there is only one unified House left, then we would be
breaking the Truce.
What truce?
The Truce that ended the Trojan War.
I thought the Greeks won. Didnt they kill all the Trojans and
burn Troy to the ground?
They certainly did.
Then if the Greeks won, whod they make the Truce with?
The gods.
Ariadne explained that the Trojan War was the most destructive
war the ancients had ever seen. It wiped out most of the Western
world, nearly ending civilization as we know it, and it was just as
destructive to the gods of Olympus as it was to the humans. Right
from the start, the gods were invested in the war. They chose sides,
either with their half-human children or with heroes who had particularly
pleased them. Some of the gods even came down from
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Olympus to fight in the war. Apollo rode in Hectors chariot,
Athena fought with Achilles, and Poseidon fought on both sides of
the war, changing his mind as often as the tide. Even Aphrodite,
the goddess of love, flew down to the battlefield on one occasion to
protect Paris, and as she scooped him up to fly him away from certain
death, her hand was cut by a Greek blade.
When her father, Zeus, saw Aphrodites injury, he forbade her to
return to Troy. She disobeyed him, of course, and that enraged
Zeus, but not enough to get involved. It wasnt until his daughter
Athena and his son Ares nearly sent each other to Tartarus, a
hellish place of no return for immortals, that Zeus knew he had to
act. The human war was tearing his family apart, and it was threatening
his rule over the heavens.
Zeuss involvement was nearly too late. Ten years had passed
since the war began, and all the Olympians were so invested that
the only way Zeus could get the gods to stop fighting was to get the
Scions to stop fighting. Zeus had to bargain with the mortals, offering
them something they wanted. After ten years of the gods meddling
in their affairs, ten years of the gods dragging the war out and
making it worse, the only thing that both the Greeks and the Trojans
wanted was to be left alone. The mortals, the Scions, wanted
the gods to go back to Olympus and stay there, and in exchange
Zeus agreed as well. If the Scions ended the war, he swore on the
River Styx that the gods would retreat to Olympus and leave the
world alone. But before he sealed his vow he wanted some assurance
that such a terrible war would never threaten Olympus again.
As he saw it, the Greeks unification of the Scion Houses in order to
fight the Trojans nearly tore Olympus apart. Zeus wanted to make
sure that such total involvement never happened again. As he set
his seal on the Truce and made his unbreakable vow that the
Olympians would leave the earth to the mortals, he also swore to
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return to earth and finish the war if the Scion Houses ever united
again.
It sounds like what happened at the end of World War II when
the Allies divided Germany, Helen remarked. They broke the
country up, hoping to avoid World War Three.
Its very much like that, Ariadne agreed. The Fates are obsessed
with cycles, and they repeat the same patterns over and over
all around the worldespecially when it comes to the Big
Threewar, love, and family. Ariadne trailed off for a moment,
thinking some dark thought, before she finished the story. Anyway,
Troy was betrayed by one of their own and burned to the
ground, and after a few months of confusion and tricks and payback
most of which is described in the Odysseythe Olympians
finally left the earth. Zeus swore that if the Houses ever united
again, he would come back and the Trojan War would pretty much
pick up where it left off.
And it left off somewhere just short of the total destruction of
civilization, Helen said, trying to imagine what the end of civilization
would mean now. If the Trojan War was so destructive with
only swords and arrows, what would happen if it was fought with
todays weapons?
Yeah. That crossed our minds, Ariadne broke eye contact and
looked at her lap. Thats why my familymy father, uncle Castor,
and aunt Pandoraseparated themselves from the rest of the
House of Thebes. Even if Tantalus is right, even if unification is the
key to immortality, we didnt think it was worth the total destruction
of the earth.
Thats a lot to give up. I mean, its the right thing to do, obviously,
but immortality . . . Helen shook her head at the thought.
And Tantalus and the Hundred Cousins just let you go? she
asked incredulously.
What choice did they have? They cant kill us because were all
family, but lately they were starting to threaten us, trying to bully
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us back to the fold, and some of usokay, Hectorwere starting to
fight back. He was looking for fights, taking the bait when they
called him a coward for not wanting to fight the gods. In our tradition,
to kill your own kin is the worst sin imaginable, and he came
so close, Helen. My family left Spain be
cause Hector got into a terrible
fight and nearly got killed, but worse, he nearly killed
someone of his own blood. There is no forgiveness for a kin-killer,
Ariadne said in a hushed voice.
But yours isnt the last House. Mine is, Helen said, the whole
truth beginning to dawn on her.
No one knew about you. About two decades ago there was this
Final Confrontation between the Houses. All Four Houses attacked
one another, each of them trying to eliminate the others.
The House of Thebes won, and it was thought that the other three,
The House of Atreus, the House of Athens, and the House of
Rome, were wiped out entirely. But even though everyone else was
supposed to be dead, Atlantis wasnt raised and the gods did not
return. My father, aunt, and uncle thought that we were the ones
that were keeping the war at bay by refusing to join Tantalus and
his cult. We thought it had to be us because no one else was supposed
to be left. Ariadne took a deep breath and looked at Helen.
But it was you all along. Somehow your mother hid you here, preserved
your House, whichever one it is, and kept the war from
starting. Sheyoualso kept Tantalus from attaining Atlantis.
Helen sat in silence for a moment, realizing how many incredibly
strong demigods wanted her dead. The Hundred Cousins believed
that if the House of Thebes was unified and the only Scion House
left on earth that they would become like gods, and Helens life was
the only thing standing in the way. Her life was also the only thing
keeping the Olympians from coming back to earth and starting
World War Whatever. So the Delos family had to protect her even
if they all died doing it. And here she was refusing to learn how to
fight. No wonder Hector hated her.
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Im sorry, Helen finally said, so overwhelmed by her own
selfishness that she had almost no emotion in her voice. Your
family is siding with me against your own kin.
Your burden is heavier, Ariadne said, taking Helens hand. She
was going to say something else, but she was interrupted by Pandora
who burst into the locker room, looking for them.
Hey! Am I going to have to take someone to the hospital? she
asked, only half joking. Theres a whole lot of blood out there.
No, shes okay, Ariadne answered back with a laugh as she
stood up.
Something was still bothering Helen. There was a hole in the
story Ariadne had just told her.
Who was it? Helen asked suddenly, looking up at Ariadnes
puzzled face. The way we were taught the story, Odysseus tricked
the Trojans with a giant wooden horse. Everyone knows about the
Trojan horse. But you said someone betrayed Troy, and I dont
think it was by mistake.
I was hoping you wouldnt pick that up, Ariadne said, looking
like she was mentally kicking herself. There was no wooden horse.
Its a nice fairytale, but thats all it is. Odysseus was involved, thats
true, but all he did was convince Helen to use her beauty to charm
the guards into opening the gates at night. Thats really all it took.
Its why we Scions never name our children after her. For us, naming
your daughter Helen is like a Christian naming their child
Judas.
Helen ran past her dad and upstairs when she got home, claiming
she wanted to turn in early. She did her homework and then made
herself lie down, but she couldnt sleep. Her brain kept sifting
through everything Ariadne had told her that afternoon, focusing
mostly on the cult of the Hundred Cousins. To distract herself from
thinking about just how many people would want her dead so that
they could live forever, she got out of bed and attempted to fly.
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She tried to think lighter, then higher. She even tried to sneak up
on it by pretending to trip, but all she succeeding in doing was
jumping up and down until her father yelled up the stairs for her to
stop clowning around.
Hoping a little ancient history would put her to sleep, she picked
up the copy of the Iliad that Cassandra had given her and read as
much as she could. It seemed like every page was filled with the
gods meddling in the world of men. Helen could see why her ancestors
had eventually decided that praying for divine intervention
wasnt such a good idea.
She was up to the part where Achilles, who struck Helen as the
worlds most celebrated psychopath, started sulking in his tent
over a girl when she heard a definite footstep overhead. And then
another. Relying on the extrasensory hearing shed always known
she had, but only recently begun to let herself use, she zeroed in on
her father, listening to his rib cage moving against his chair as he
breathed in and out. He was watching the late news on the TV
downstairs and he sounded perfectly normal to Helen. The widows
walk above her, however, was now suspiciously silent.
Helen slipped out of bed and grabbed the old baseball bat she
kept in her closet. Holding her slugger at the ready she walked
sideways, foot over foot, out her bedroom door and to the steps
that led to the widows walk. She paused for a moment on the landing
between the stairs that led down to the first floor and the stairs
that led up to the roof, listening again for her father. After a few
moments of tense indecision, she heard him cluck his tongue at the
antics of some camera-greedy congresswoman on TV and she relaxed.
He was still okay, so she knew that whatever she had heard
had not made it downstairs yet. With the intention of keeping it
that way, she ascended the stairs to the widows walk.
As soon as she stepped outside, Helen felt the cool fall air soak
through the thin cotton of her nightshirt, rendering it useless
against the elements. A flickering shadow in the starlight caught
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the corner of her eye and she swung at it, but the top of her bat was
stopped before it came around in a full arc. She heard the chunky
slap of wood on skin.
Damn it, its me! Hector whispered harshly. Helen saw him
hiding in the shadows, shaking out his right hand like it stung.
What the hell? Hector, is that you? Helen hissed back. He came
closer so she could see him better, avoiding a dark lump on the
ground. Helen looked at the lump more carefully and noticed it
was her sleeping bag, the one she kept in the waterproof chest her
father had given her. What are you doing?!
What does it look like Im doing? he responded peevishly, still
trying to shake the feeling back into his hand.
Camping? she said sarcastically. Then it hit her. All of those
sounds shed been hearing at nightsounds shed thought were the
Furieshad a much more mundane source. Youve been up here
every night, havent you?
Almost. One of us is always up here at night to watch over you,
he said, and then grabbed Helens arm as she turned away from
him in embarra
ssment. Its usually Lucas because hes the only
one who can fly here, he continued. As if that made it better.
And you never thought to ask if I wanted you here, eavesdropping
on my dad and me? she asked, furious.
Hector smiled at her, smothering a laugh. Yeah. Because I can
see how youd want to keep all those discussions about politics and
baseball to yourself. So private, he said, rolling his eyes.
Do you stay all night while Im sleeping? she asked, unable to
look at him. He suddenly understood why she was so upset, and
his smile switched off.
You havent had a nightmare in a while, he started to say.
Go home, Hector, Helen said, cutting him off and turning to
leave.
No, he responded immediately, extending his arm across the
doorway to block her exit. I dont care if youre embarrassed. I
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dont care if you dont want us here. There are a lot of people whod
like to see you dead, Princess, and unfortunately my family cant
leave you unprotected until I say you can defend yourself.
Why do you get to decide when Im ready? Helen crossed her
arms and rubbed her shoulders against the cold. The wind off the
water had teeth.
Because everyone knows that Im the only one who wont go
easy on you. And just so you know, Im not about to apologize for
making sure you dont get kidnapped by one of those batty women
running around the island, he warned. Helens teeth chattered.
He looked at her standing there shivering and Helen could have almost
sworn that he looked guilty for a second. Then he looked off
to the side and cursed to himself. But maybe we should have told
you that we were sleeping up here, he admitted finally.
You think? I get it, Hector. Im in a lot of danger. But you should
have at least given me a heads-up about this.
All right! Point taken! he said, nearly growling with frustration.
But were still not leaving you or your father unguarded at night.
Suddenly, Helen wasnt angry anymore. In fact, knowing that
Hector and his family extended their protection to her father made
her feel ridiculously grateful. She stood there smiling at him for a
second.
Thank you, she said quietly.
He froze midbreath and stared at her, amazed that her mood had
changed so quickly. Thats it? No more arguing? he asked