Page 14 of The Games Gods Play
He glances at the phone. “Looks like Hermes made his choice.”
I swallow before asking, “A thief?”
Boone squints at the screen, then shakes his head. “Zai Aridam?”
I pause at that. “Where have I heard that name before?”
He flips the phone around to show me, and sure enough, that name is scrolling across the image, and it finally clicks why it’s familiar. In the last Crucible, a hundred years ago, a man named Mathias Aridam was Zeus’ pick. He never returned. Actually, not a single mortal returned from that one. But their families were all blessed beyond measure.
Aridam. That family took their blessing and moved away from anyone who knew them. This can’t be a coincidence, can it?
“That’s all of them,” Boone says. “I hope they each return home at the end.”
He’s likely in the minority there, as we were still enjoying the result of so many blessings bestowed when no one returned from the last Crucible. I don’t say that out loud.
“Ready?” Boone gets to his feet.
I take a deep breath. “Sure. Why not?”
My stomach sinks when it looks like he’s about to answer my absolutely rhetorical question, but a shock of screams bursts from the phone’s speakers and we both glance down.
“What the—” We stare at the screen.
“Merciful hells,” I mutter.
Zeus’ temple now has a massive, billowing column of red flame out front, pouring black smoke into the skies. Only one god would use that as an entrance.
Hades.
I bet he was scoping out the temple earlier just for this. Of course that would be my luck. The one time I’ve gone anywhere near that forsaken place in all my life, I run into him.
“What is he up to now?” I mutter, ignoring the questioning glance Boone shoots me.
“Greetings, living mortals.” Hades’ voice doesn’t boom. It flows. My stomach clenches in stark recognition of that distinctive fathomless slide of a voice.
“As you all know, I have lost a dear one recently—my lovely Persephone.”
I squeeze my eyes shut at that.
Persephone. His darkly, obsessively beloved queen—Persephone.
His dead queen.
I shiver.
“In her honor…I, too, shall choose a champion,” he announces.
Holy shit. Hades doesn’t participate in the Crucible. Technically, he’s not even part of the major Olympians. Here in the Overworld, rumor has it that because he’s already King of the Underworld, the others in this pantheon don’t want to give him even more power, so he’s not allowed to become King of the Gods in Olympus as well.
A heave of murmurs rips through the crowds around the temple loud enough that the live feed picks it up.
And the mortal he picks. To be chosen by the god of death…yikes. I don’t care exactly what it is the gods have those people doing as champions—but that particular mortal is going to be so screwed.
Hades offers the crowds a slow smile. “And I shall choose…”
Suddenly, thick black smoke swirls around my feet, filling the chamber, and an immediate, knowing dread tries to tear a hole in my stomach. I jerk my head up to stare at Boone, who stares back with dawning horror widening his eyes. “Lyra?”
Oh my gods. “You’ve got to be—”
