Page 67 of The Games Gods Play
I take too long answering, and her eyes narrow shrewdly. “In that case, you probably don’t want to be in here.”
“Turn that shit off!” a voice shouts from the back corner, slurring the words slightly.
A familiar voice I heard only this morning.
Warily, I turn and then lean to peek around a pillar. Sure enough, Poseidon is sitting at a table, still in his fish-scale pants with his blue hair tied up in a messy man-bun, visibly drunk as the proverbial skunk and sporting one hell of a black eye.
Shit. Lethe’s right. I really shouldn’t be here.
With a frown, I follow his gaze to one of the TVs, and my stomach tightens. I can’t hear the broadcast, but I don’t need to. The words splashed across the screen tell me exactly who the woman is. She’s speaking at a podium of microphones, surrounded by what appear to be family, and my heart goes a little fetal.
The banner at the bottom of the screen reads—Beauty queen Isabel Rojas Hernáiz’s body returned by the gods. Partner of ten years, Estephany Roscio, speaks out against the Crucible and the Greek pantheon.
The devastation that creases Isabel’s partner’s face, turning her eyes red and puffy from crying, is so raw, so brutally deep, I can hardly stand to look at her.
Lethe is pouring a drink for one of the other patrons but flicks a glance in the direction of the back corner. “Poseidon is in a mood. I’d steer clear if I were you.”
“What happened to his face?”
“Artemis.”
The bartender says this as if it explains everything.
A crash explodes through the room, and I about jump out of my skin. The initial violence is followed by a sudden hush punctuated with the sizzle of sparking. Poseidon’s trident now sticks out of the screen that had been showing Isabel’s family.
“Hey!” Lethe calls, moving down the bar to where she can see him better. “You going to replace that?”
“Does the little mortal really think I wanted to kill my own champion?” Poseidon barks at the shattered screen.
A nymph sitting beside him tries to calm him. “Of course she wouldn’t think that. The mortals don’t know what happened. The Daemones only returned the body and announced the winner of the Labor. They didn’t explain how she died—or why.” When that doesn’t seem to work, she adds, “They’re probably all blaming Hades anyway.”
As everyone around her nods in agreement, I swallow the bile rising in my throat. Poseidon flops back against his seat with a harrumph, crossing his arms.
Lethe grimaces, then slides her focus from him to me. “You’d better get out of here before he notices you.”
I’m already on that same page, my gaze darting between Poseidon and the door. But my breath catches as I realize the angry god’s attention is turning—to me.
34
Zai Aridam
In a blink, I slip out the door and back onto the street. I don’t breathe easy until I leave the entertainment district behind entirely, heading west toward the temples.
Since Aphrodite offered the original suggestion, I decide to pray for Isabel in hers, so I aim toward the one that screams goddess of love thanks to the pink glow coming from inside it. Apparently, Hades isn’t the only one who publicly leans into perception but privately is something quite different.
As I pass the temple dedicated to Hermes, though, movement inside catches my eye, and I pause. The boniness of Zai Aridam’s shoulders is hard to mistake. His back is to me, and I can see the way his dark hair curls a little against the nape of his neck.
Hesitation stays my steps. Clearly, he is praying, and maybe, like me, he’s struggling with what happened today. In which case, I should just give him privacy. But…
I need allies. It’s the whole reason I’m risking my neck being out here.
Does this make me an opportunistic bitch? Probably. But I walk inside all the same.
Lit by oil lamps along the walls and between columns, the temple is a simple circular room with a shrine at the front—a beautifully carved, almost lifelike depiction of Hermes mid-flight, with his winged helm and winged sandals. He holds his staff in one hand like a weapon, and clouds spiral down from his feet. Serpents and wings adorn the domed roof, and two potted palm trees stand to either side of the shrine.
Zai is standing directly before the statue, head bowed. Freshly lit incense burns, rising in an undulating tail of smoke and filling the room with a layer of clove and cinnamon with lavender, lemon, and safflower blended in a scent so familiar to me, it’s like coming home. After all, until now, I’ve prayed to this god more than any other.
“Do you come here to pray to the god of thieves?” Zai’s question comes out of nowhere, since he hasn’t so much as lifted his head. I didn’t even realize he knew I was here.
