Page 115 of Blood of Olympus

“Artemis?” I asked, knowing the goddess would understand and take the princess under her tutelage as well.

“Yes, your grace.”

“I shall retire now,” Calliope declared. “I am weary and the day has been long.” And though age had touched her skin, time had not dulled her spark in her eyes, I decided, as she fixed them on me. “Good luck.”

Two warriors — one male, one female — sprinted out of the gardens to aid the Kardian queen down to the dock. Isadora remained behind, casting one last sorrow-filled look at her grandmother, before pivoting and transforming before our eyes. She tucked her heart away, letting fierce determination write its way into every inch of her expression and every one of her bones.

She faced me directly, unwavering under the weight of my gaze. “Thank you, my queen. And you, Lady Artemis. I will not let you down.”

“See that you don’t,” Artemis said. Only the slight tilt to her lips indicated that she was teasing the girl — but Isadora didn’t need to know that.

“She won’t,” Hestia murmured, squinting at the girl. I wasn’t sure exactly what the goddess saw within Isadora, but I knew she would not vouch for her if there was nothing of worth to speak for.

Orion took the pause in conversation as his opportunity to speak. “My lady Artemis is a fierce and loyal huntress. She knows my answer because it is the one she herself has freely given. Lunaris stands with you.”

“As does Caldris,” Icarus avowed. “The Lord Hephaestus is not here because he is actively thwarting Kronos, even now. He and his son openly and quickly pledged their allegiances to you, Queen Nyssa, and it would besmirch their honour to choose any differently. My father would agree: where Hephaestus goes, his people will follow.”

“Thank you, Icarus.”

“And,” he added with a grin, “we have certain resources that Kronos has never even heard of. Projects our tinkerers and technicians have been working on for decades⁠—”

“Like tasers?” our resident taser-boy cut in.

Icarus chuckled. “Better than tasers.”

This time, I allowed my facade to crack open, hinting at what lay just beneath the surface.

Death smiled. “Excellent.”

King Crestos of Theris spoke next, eyeing Demeter with earnestness. “The Lady Demeter has chosen to ally with you and we shall do the same. I’ll not betray my goddess as long as I live, let alone while she sits mere feet from me.”

Demeter gifted the man with a rare, radiant smile, twisting my heart when I wondered if my mother’s had looked the same. “Thank you Crestos. Although, if anyone had reason to defy me, it would be you.”

Crestos’ suntanned skin wrinkled in amusement, cheeks reddening as he chuckled. “Yes. Well. A touch of frosted bollocks never did stop a farmer from harvesting what he is able.”

At this, Demeter snorted unceremoniously. “Crestos, I caught you — quite literally — with your pants down. One second you were enjoying a nice summer… release” — she clicked her fingers — “The next, you almost lost the entirety of your nether-regions!”

Muffled laughter sounded around the table, growing louder when one person locked eyes with another as each of them fought desperately to remain regal, while a goddess was referring to a king’s dick.

While I, too, found it eternally amusing, no laughter spilled from my lips. I was too absorbed in the mathematics of what they had said. My head turned sharply in Demeter’s direction when I realised.

Her green eyes were already on me, as though she had been waiting for that particular epiphany. “Yes,” she murmured. “Almost thirty-one years ago, a winter so sharp and deadly exploded across the lands during the height of summer. Unfortunately, King Crestos was, at the time, exercising his proclivity to work with his people — harvesting crops of sorghum in a bid to beat the coming heatwave.”

“No need for that, in the end,” Crestos added. “Even more unfortunately, though, was the fact that I was mid-piss when it happened.”

“Crestos!” His wife, Queen Kassandra, admonished with a slap to his forearm.

“It’s quite alright,” Demeter intervened with a laugh. “This is not the first time such a conversation has been had.”

“And you’d be hard-pressed to find a more vulgar group than Olympians,” I quipped.

“Hey, now!” Aros cut in. “I think you’d find that gods of the Underworld can be even more lascivious than us. A certain queen, for instance, knowing the lyrics to a bawdy bard’s song,” he added with a wink.

Caelus chuckled, the sound warm and deep in his chest. “You know, I played a game of two truths and a lie with a ferryman recently.” His eyes glittered with the knowledge of what he was about to say next. “One of his statements was that he’d once had a foursome with two naiads and a demi-god⁠—”

“Gross,” I muttered around the instant lump of vomit lingering somewhere around my tonsils.

“And I’m inclined to believe that was one of his truths.”