Born in Beauty Read online

  Born in Beauty

  The Academy of Olympus Book 2

  Melody Rose

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  1

  Sparks flew around my hands as the metal thinned. It was beautiful but tedious work. I was on the last knife of the set, a cleaver ideal for slaughtering meat. My left hand held tight to the handle as the fingers on my right hand gracefully guided the blade along the grinder. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  The metal sang to me while I toyed with it. It told me a story of its origins, of the various meats it had chopped through. Of the weight of the chef who wielded it put behind his swings. The care he took in crafting his delicacies, which seemed to be the same level that I took when making my own creations. I heard it as the blade told me its preferences, how sharp it wanted certain sections to be, and the exact angle which to leave the topmost corner. This way, I could give into the blade’s natural shape and pay homage to the original creator.

  This wasn’t unusual, blades speaking to me this way. I’d gotten used to it by now, the thrum of the metal when I touched it or the tone it gave off when it connected with another metal. It was a one-way conversation that no one else could hear, so I used it to my advantage as much as I could. This was the ideal way to practice listening, under a tent with a single grinder instead of in the heat of battle.

  When the blade let out a delighted squeal, I knew we were done. I stopped the grinder by tapping the pedal on the ground, then stepped away.

  I weighed the weapon in my hand and twirled the handle. It was well made with a square grip that didn’t bite into my hand too much, and the balance between blade and handle was well maintained. While this cleaver had been through the wringer, I managed to smooth out some of the nicks and return the weapon back to its former glory.

  Proud of my work, I turned back to the front table and laid the cleaver back in its spot on the leather cloth. The other eleven blades I’d previously sharpened were carefully placed in a row, slipped into their designated spots in the cloth container. These were professional blades, expensive though used often.

  “Do you mind me asking who made these blades?” I said to the owner of the knives, who waited at the corner of my booth.

  “I bought them at a Renaissance faire if you can believe it,” the man replied with an embarrassed chuckle. He was a larger gentleman with a scruff of a red goatee poking out from his double chin. “I needed a new set to give my son, who was going off to culinary school, following the family tradition. There was this man there who had some of the most beautiful blades I’d ever seen.” The cook offered me an innocent shrug. “I ended up keeping them for myself and gave my father’s set to my son.”

  A pang knocked my gut like a gong. I kept my face as neutral as possible as I thought about the possible blacksmith who’d crafted these blades for this man. I didn’t want to share my discomfort with him. He was still a stranger and a paying customer, after all.

  “Well,” I said after a gulp, “they are beautiful. And now fully sharpened.”

  “Great!” the man bellowed enthusiastically. He pulled out his wallet from deep in his pants pockets. “How much do I owe you?”

  We completed the exchange, and the gentleman offered me a wave as he walked away, with this rolled up set of knives that my father had made.

  There was no doubt in my mind that my dad, Greek god Hephaestus, had made those knives. Mom told me she’d met him at a Renaissance faire where he often frequented to sell his wares. Items he didn’t make for the gods, but for his own enjoyment.

  The set that the cook had bought was too perfect, too pristine to be made by mortal hands. I’d rarely seen blades that beautiful, even just a simple set of cooking knives. My father was the blacksmith of the Gods, and that title definitely showed in his work.

  I released a heavy sigh and turned back to the grinder to change out the belt. Thoughts of my father were still hard, though they came up more frequently than I would have liked. I was still getting used to the idea of having a father at all, even if I’d never met him.

  For as long as I could remember, it had been my mother and me. Biologically speaking, I knew I had a father, but growing up, he wasn’t around. I never minded. Mom and I made up the ideal family, with enough love to fill that missing piece so much so that I hardly ever felt it as a child.

  The only things my father had left me were my bright blue eyes, my candy cane red hair that grew straight out of my head, and an uncanny ability to touch anything hot without getting burned. It was only coincidence that I was obsessed with blacksmithing and then happened to be the daughter of the god of blacksmiths. Or that’s what I chose to believe, anyway.

  We kept the secret of my unnatural abilities for my entire life. Until I was recruited by the Military Academy of Olympus, a college for demigods to learn about their heritage, hone their magical abilities, and defend the world against the mythical beasts who still threatened the lives of mortals.

  It had been quite a shock to discover my status as a demigod. I suddenly went from having no father to having a godly one with magical powers I’d inherited. While I thought I had taken the last year, my first one at the Academy, to process all of that, the pang of disappointment and frustration still showed up at the mention of him.

  Especially when the mentions were so random. Like in the middle of the Sunday Farmer’s Market on Pearl Street, where I worked over the summer.

  It was one of the last summer Sundays before fall would hit, and I would have to go back to school. People from all over town were bustling about, picking up novelty honey, fresh vegetables, or overpriced almonds. There were food trucks in the center square, and on the south end, a local animal shelter had brought dogs to be adopted. Families and young couples buzzed about, nearly everyone wearing sunglasses and hats. People rushed for shade, crowding under the large oak trees just off the Farmer’s Market, or dipped into the local businesses on Pearl Street for a whiff of air conditioning.

  It was days like this that I was grateful for my ability to resist heat. The air felt light and perfect to me, though I knew the humidity made others break out into a sweat the minute they got out of the car. Still, I stayed underneath my tent and settled into the lawn chair to await the next customer.

  Curled around my feet were two large Dobermans. Unlike the other dogs at the Farmer’s Market that squirreled away from the sun and pranced on the hot, black pavement, Khryseos and Argyreos lounged in the sun like lizards. Despite their mainly black coats, the two enchanted dogs were like me and relished in the heat. They gathered energy from it, like solar panels. The more intense, the better. Considering both dogs were used to being in my father’s forge, which was hotter than Hades, this trait wasn’t surprising.


  I leaned over the sides of my chair and offered each dog a pat on the head. Khryseos leaned into my palm, whereas Argyreos nipped at me with his nose, so he could lick me. The Dobermans had been my dad’s dogs and sent to the Academy when he went missing. Since then, they’ve been under my care.

  Khryseos and Argyreos didn’t take the notion of me leaving very well. They ripped crops out of the ground, torn apart the barn, and even had the audacity of peeing around the outside of the Academy’s forge. All as an act of rebellion. So Mac, the Academy farmer and animal caretaker, conceded and let them stay with me for the summer.

  Mom and the dogs got along well enough. They were very protective of me, but the minute they knew that Mom was my ally, Khryseos and Argyreos adopted her into their circle of protection.

  They pretty much followed me everywhere nowadays, like a shadow. The Farmer’s Market was one of their favorite places because they got to meet all sorts of new people, experience new smells, and try new foods. I spoiled them relentlessly with the stuff I fed them. But they were immortal dogs with iron stomachs. They could handle it. Plus, knowing all of the hipster, organic, and uber-healthy stuff at the Farmer’s Market, I was pretty sure this was the best diet they had in millennia.

  I didn’t sell anything like hand made granola or weirdly spiced popcorn at the market. No, my friends Violet and Benji were the ones with the cooking talent and the green thumb. Certainly not my area of expertise. My booth was a blade sharpening stand. It was a simple set up, and I charged reasonably to sharpen these aspiring or professional cooks’ knives. It wasn’t the most lucrative business, but I traveled to Farmer’s Markets throughout the week and made enough over the summer. Considering I’d lost my previous job at the living history museum when I went away to the Academy, I needed something for the few summer weeks that I was home to make some sort of income.

  Luckily, Mom let me stay at her place rent-free, for which I was eternally grateful. Not only did I have to give up my job when going to the Academy, but I had to give up my apartment too. So I was back in my childhood home, living with my mom.

  It was one of the only things that made me feel like a normal twenty-something.

  After not having seen my mom for eight months, it was wonderful to reconnect with old movie nights, dinners, talks that went late into the evenings, and morning runs. She wasn’t thrilled about that last activity, but it was something we did every morning at the Academy and became a healthy habit I didn’t want to break.

  It hurt my heart to think about the fact that we only had one more week left before I had to head back. I wanted to spend as much time with Mom as possible before I left again. This was my last Farmer’s Market that I planned to work so we could hang out during the week. Mom had a couple of planning days where she had to go into the classrooms, but I decided that I would come with her to help set everything up. Being a teacher, her summer ended earlier than her students so she could prepare for their arrival.

  “Slow day?” said an all too familiar voice.

  As if I had conjured her up, my mom leaned against my front table with her chin in her hand. She wore a comically large sun hat with oversized square sunglasses. A wicker basket swung from her elbow, and a patterned dress hung over her body, looking like she’d cut a hole in the middle of a bedsheet and threw it over herself.

  “Mom!” I got up from my chair, surprised and delighted to see her. “What are you doing here? And more importantly, what the hell are you wearing?”

  “Oh, this old thing?” Mom stepped back and pulled at the seams of her outfit, stretching it out and making it more unflattering, if that were possible. “It’s a mumu.”

  “Did it come from a cow?” I asked with wide eyes, playing off the weird title of the garment.

  “No,” Mom said as she whacked at me playfully. “It’s fashionable. I think I blend right in with his hipster crowd.”

  Mom spread out her arms and twirled. She nearly smacked a couple in the face with her gestures, causing her to teeter uneasily on her feet as she missed them. I chuckled warmly at the absurd sight of my mother in the middle of the Farmer’s Market, with all of her unfashionably mumu glory.

  “As for what I’m doing here,” Mom said, completing her turn and landing back against my table, “I wanted to treat you to lunch. What do you say?”

  “Absolutely,” I agreed without hesitation.

  With one fluid motion, I untied my apron and pulled it over my head. I hung it on a hook that rested on one of the tent legs. The last step was putting out the “Be Back Later” sign. I adjusted the movable hands of the clock to give myself a comfortable hour with my mom. It was my booth so I could set my own hours.

  I whistled, and both dogs got to their feet, snapping to attention. “Come on, boys.” I beckoned to them, and they dutifully followed.

  Mom looped her arm through mine and guided the way to the food courts as if she had been the one working here all summer and not me. We weaved through the throngs of people. Children whined about the heat, while mothers consoled them with ice cream made from bananas, completely dairy-free. A couple considered a bench and fed each other fresh grapes they just purchased from one of the largest fruit stands. A woman poured her water into a metal bowl for her golden retriever.

  It was pleasant and comforting to be in such a nice community space. The summer had been relaxing and worry-free, but now with the vacation coming to an end, I couldn’t help but think about the stress of classes, tests, and training that would come with going back to the Academy. I let out a big sigh, and Mom instantly caught on to my distress.

  “I don’t want you to go back either,” she said as she leaned into my shoulder, the edges of her big hat flicking against my nose. “But it’s good for you. You’re learning so much.”

  “I know,” I admitted, with another sigh. “I just don’t want another year like last year.”

  “You mean you don’t want another fall semester,” Mom corrected as she steered us in line for the food truck with the best tacos. “Your spring one was nice and quiet.”

  She had a point. The fall semester, which I had started late, had been filled with prophecies, betrayals, and battling monsters. I learned about the Ultimate Weapon that I was supposedly destined to build to help the demigods beat the monsters once and for all. Beasts from all of the Greek myths continued to plague Earth, and it was the duty of the demigods to keep them from disrupting the mortals and their everyday lives. This Ultimate Weapon was supposed to stop the beasts for good.

  Unfortunately, the prophecy was rather vague on what the weapon was or how it was supposed to be made. So there had been a dispute between me and another soldier, Esme, about who and what was being made. She ended up leaving the Academy and escaped trial for treason. The daughter of Prometheus was still out there, determined to find the Ultimate Weapon before the Academy did, before I did.

  I also learned I could control the Eternal Flame, which was apparently another rare ability. Oh, and that I was the only child of Hephaestus in decades. It had been a heavy several weeks.

  I didn’t respond to Mom right away because we reached the front of the taco truck. After ordering and getting our food, we commandeered a nearby bench. Mom reached into the top of her mumu and pulled out a fan, seemingly out of nowhere. With one hand, she held her plate of tacos while she fanned herself with the other.

  I stared at her incredulously.

  “What?” she said with a smile. “I know you can’t feel it, but it’s hot as hell out here.”

  I rolled my eyes and took a bite of my taco. The flavors melted together beautifully, the kick of the homemade hot sauce not coming until later in the bite. I wave my hands around my mouth, smacking my lips, while my mom laughed at my reaction. After I recovered, I peeled off a couple of pieces of steak… I’d ordered extra… and dropped it on the ground for Khryseos and Argyreos. They gobbled it up gratefully and then patiently waited for another helping.

  “As much as I hate to say i
t,” Mom said through a mouthful of taco. She swallowed before continuing. “I think that adventure is just a part of your life now.”

  “Crap,” I muttered, sensing that she was right.

  “Cheyenne,” my mom said, her tone dropping into something serious. “You’ve got this. You’re great.”

  “You’re my mom,” I said with a scoff, “you have to say that.”

  “No, I don’t,” Mom protested. “I say it because it’s true. Look at me.” Mom tucked her finger on my chin and turned me to face her. She removed her sunglasses and placed them atop her hat. “You are amazing. You’re so talented, and I’m not just talking about the magical stuff.”

  “Mom,” I said urgently, trying to get her to lower her voice.

  “No one’s listening,” she said with the brush of her hand in mid-air. “You might be able to stick your hand in a fire and not get burned, or sense the types of metal in a blade from a mile away--”

  “I can’t sense it that far,” I corrected her.

  “Not my point,” Mom said, annoyed. “My point is that in spite of all of that supernatural ability, you still are a talented blacksmith, a kind and compassionate human being, and resilient and brave and--”

  “Okay, I get it,” I said with a chuckle, cutting her off before she recited the whole dictionary to me. I leaned my head on her shoulder, holding my taco plate in my lap. Khryseos and Argyreos sat up and licked at it. I tilted it down so I could give them better access, which both dogs appreciated.