Page 192 of From the Ashes of Gods
Hermes was still. The silence that stretched seemed pregnant, as if the world had stopped to listen in. Who knows? Maybe it had. Terena knew one thing after everything she’d endured.
And that was that she knew nothing.
Then Hermes laughed. It was a chuckle at first, and Terena folded her arms and glared at him. When he saw the look, he roared, his laughter shaking the ground beneath them, his head tossed back as he bellowed his mirth to the sky.
When he calmed enough that he was grinning at the ire in her stare, he said, “You and Sonah are twins.”
Terena gasped.
“Aye,” Hermes said with a smirk. “I don’t know what happened this last time, but she’s never been this young. The weather is new, too.” This last, he remarked with some bemusement.
Terena grabbed a fistful of his sleeve, craning her neck to look him in the eye. “That’s not possible!”
“Aye, she’s your twin,” he said as if to a dullard. “When you made it through the portal?—”
“Wait, what?”
Hermes scowled. She’d made a god scowl. Terena backed up a step, letting go of his sleeve.
“We are not from here?”
Hermes’s scowl faded, and his eyes turned sympathetic. “No, child. You are from the realm we were banished to. The new Greece we created. The new Mount Olympus. Your mother tried to hide you from Ares and made a bargain to keep you from him. Although, as the Fates will tell you, there’s no running from destiny.”
Terena’s stomach flipped. The acidic taste of bile climbed her throat.
“When you and Sonah went through the portal,” Hermes continued, “Zeus… was not happy. He threw a lightning bolt after all of you.”
Terena’s hand flew to her mouth.
Hermes looked around, considering. “Must be what caused all this.”
Terena made a noise in her throat. “Zeus did this? It’s been like this for almost two years now.”
“And it’s also the first time you and I have met in this realm.”
“That’s why I had no visions of you,” Terena thought out loud, ducking her chin to stare at her nails. When she looked back at Hermes, her eyes were hopeful. “My mother came through as well? So she’s here?”
“Careful,” Hermes admonished. “Remember, you’ll have to wait to hear about your mother.”
“Gods,” Terena groaned and lifted her hands to her head. “So we both get eight circles? Me and Sonah?”
“No, Terena,” Hermes snorted. “You and Sonah are bound. Your destiny is bound. You share the loops. If you die or she dies, the loops reset. But this is the eighth and final. Whether you succeed in your labors or not, whether you live or you die, there will be no new loop. No more chances.”
“But I have a destiny,” she said with a sharpness to her voice that made Hermes’s eyebrow arch.
“Aye. And whatever happens in this last circle is that destiny.”
Terena squeezed her eyes shut tight. “This is hurting my head.”
“Aye,” Hermes said, almost sounding sympathetic. Then he clicked his tongue and Terena’s eyes popped open as he hit her on the shoulder. “Cheer up, niece. You found me and now we can begin.”
“Begin what, Hermes?”
His smile was slow as he bent over, his face so close to hers she could see something moving behind his eyes. It made her tremble.
“Taking back what’s ours.”
