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  I felt like I could swallow properly for the first time in hours. The vote continued around the room. Fiona and Tené, predictably, sided with us. Ansel had already secured his half sister’s, Annika, vote. But the other two yeses surprised me.

  Athena’s son, Min, was a huge win. He was a quiet man who I had hardly any interaction with, but that vote was based on our argument and not previous alliances. The second one was Officer Buck, who I was sure had been a no, considering how much he disliked me.

  “He dislikes everyone,” Violet argued when we were debating who would vote what. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  Apparently, my friend had been right. Whether or not Buck liked me had nothing to do with his vote. It pleased me that we had the majority early on.

  But that soon changed when there were five no’s in a row. Some of them looked sorry as they said it, but others, like Egan, made the statement simple and official. I wanted more of a reason as to why they were voting the way they were. But that wasn’t part of the process. The Officials didn’t have to explain their choice, which was incredibly frustrating.

  Finally, it was six to five in our favor. While we were winning, it was just one vote away from a tie. Unlike in the American justice system that I was used to, a tie didn’t indicate a stalemate or a recount. In the Military, a tie went in favor of the opposition, meaning that if it ended in six to six, we lost.

  And the last Official to vote, unfortunately, was the General.

  He took his time. Even though I could have predicted his answer weeks ago, the son of Zeus made me wait for it. This time, he didn’t avoid my eyes. He made eye contact with me to ensure that I heard him loud and clear. I stared right into the eye of the storm, defiant and unafraid.

  There was a small piece of hope that made me believe that he might surprise me, change his mind, and vote in our favor. It was a dim light, but I refused to let it go out as the General opened his mouth to deliver the verdict.

  “I vote to uphold the current ruling, and banish Esme from the Military,” the General announced. “Effective immediately.”

  At those last two words, DeAnne and Jarred, children of Artemis and Poseidon, got to their feet and detained Esme. She jerked away from them, but the pair of them held on firmly.

  “Wait, what?” I balked at the sudden shift in the room, from diplomatic to hostile. “What do you mean effective immediately? She doesn’t even get to say goodbye?”

  “We have held off on this long enough,” the General declared. He got to his feet and leaned against his hands braced on the table. “We have allowed enough license for this traitor.”

  A burst of noise erupted from behind me as my friends, Phae included, protested the ruling. They blocked the exit from the Officials and Esme and yelled in their faces. The Officials wouldn’t back down and retaliated with their own arguments. They yelled at my friends and at each other, opposites scolding the other one.

  The whole time, the General and I stared one another down as chaos reigned down around us. A smirk played on his lips, and I wanted nothing more than to cross the room and smack it right off his face.

  He thought he had beaten me again. I couldn’t believe what he had done to rig this. I knew it had nothing to do with Esme. He couldn’t care less about her. This had everything to do with the rivalry he and I had since the minute I’d stepped on campus.

  I actually thought we had a chance. I should have known better than to think that I could play against the General when I was in his home court. Anger burned in my chest, furious at myself for not doing more. But was there anything else I could have done?

  It was sitting right there, in the corner of my eye. A black, empty chair with my name written on it. Well, almost.

  Once, I hesitated to take the seat that had been offered to me, that was my birthright. Now, there wasn’t any hesitation as I leaped onto the table and stomped across it.

  The room descended into silence as I stood above them all, commanding the attention of the room. It took me three steps to get to the empty seat. I jumped off and plopped down into it, claiming my spot as an Olympic Official, representing Hephaestus.

  There wasn’t a flash of light or any magical ceremony. It was a simply wheeled office chair. But everyone knew what I had just done. A series of gasps went up in the room, but I ignored them. My attention was solely focused on the General.

  His skin blazed bright red, as though Helios himself burned the demigod. He hadn’t ever expected me to pick up the mantle. To his credit, I hadn’t planned to. But now the smirk was on my face. I gripped the arms of the chair tightly, in anticipation of what I was going to do next.

  “I’m Cheyenne Paulos, child of Hephaestus, and I vote to reinstate Esme into the Military,” I proclaimed, my words crisp and clear so that there was no mistaking me.

  The Olympic Officials looked at each other. Some, like Maurice, had smiles on their faces while others looked grim and grave, as though someone had just died. Nevertheless, Clarissa cleared her throat and straightened herself, taking charge.

  “Then it has been decided,” the daughter of Hera said. “In a vote of seven to six, Esme will be reinstated to the Olympic Military.”

  Before there was a moment to cheer and celebrate our victory, the chair beneath me, the one that I’d used to seal the deal, burst into flames.

  2

  So the good news about the exploding chair was that I was immune to fire. The bad news was that same fire seemed to transport to a completely unknown location.

  The fire flew up around me as a cage of flame surrounded me. The heat flared against my skin, not burning me, but reminding me that it was there. I gripped the edge of the chair, startled by the sudden boom and wall of flame.

  Bright oranges and blinding yellows seared into my vision. I couldn’t hear anything but the rush of the fire, like a crackling waterfall. The sensation was unfamiliar and rather frightening. However, I had been in enough crazy supernatural situations to not let panic settle in so quickly. My guard flew up as fast as the fire wall, and I readied myself for a fight.

  I tucked my legs up onto the seat of the chair and hopped up into a crouch. Tucked into my boot was a trusty knife I made myself. I got into the habit of carrying a knife in my shoe after Ansel suggested it during my second year. It had come in handy more than once.

  I gripped the handle tightly, my body loaded like a gun ready to fire. I watched the flames around me and anticipated when they would subside. They burned bright and hot with no source, so I quickly determined that they were magical, something used more for effect than actual harm. Still, whoever was behind the surprise attack didn’t know what was coming.

  After a quick count to ten, I launched myself forward, overcorrecting due to the spin and wheels of the office chair. I tumbled through the flames and hit the ground in a somersault roll. My back collided with a hard floor, but momentum carried me forward and back up to a crouch. I held out my knife threateningly and eyed my surroundings.

  I saw three women sitting around a campfire in the center of a shadowed, but elegant ballroom. The ceilings were high and intricate, painted with deformed cherubs. Curved, long windows adorned the walls, boarded with plywood and broken sides of crates. No light shone through the cracks.

  One woman crouched on the ground, knees bent, head in her hands. Her curly cascade of gray and black hair draped around her shoulders. She clawed at her face, running her elegant but boney fingers along the trails of her scalp. Her fingers parted to reveal a gaunt face with solid black eyes. There was no difference between her irises or pupils. Both orbs were inky black.

  I gagged at the sight, and my eyes flicked up to the other two women, just to have something else to look at. The oldest of the three women sat by the fire. She occupied her hands with a cat’s cradle game roped around her fingers. Hers was the only face I could see clearly, illuminated as it was by the fire. Wrinkles made her skin droop, and her hair was peppery, knotted tightly at the back of her head. Her ey
es focused downward on her work, winding and weeding through the string. But I could tell that they, too, were the same kind of black as the first woman.

  The last one stood, wearing a fine-fitting sleeveless black dress that allowed us to see the bones beneath her skin. Her cropped black hair swung around her chin. There were fine strands of silver mixed in with the black that glimmered against her pale skin. It was like someone had painted her with snow. Predictably, her eyes were black, but she wore a welcoming, slightly sarcastic smile. She raised her thin hands and clapped them together, slowly and offbeat.

  “Now that is the entrance of a demigod soldier,” she said, pushing the words through her tight smile. “Well done, Cheyenne, very impressive.”

  When none of the creepy women moved to attack me, I slowly rose to my full height. I kept the knife held out in front of me, arm strong and steady.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” I demanded. Though I kept my words clear, my voice was sharp and unforgiving.

  “You know the answers to both of those questions, so why waste the breath asking them?” the older woman said with a heavy sigh. Her focus stayed on the weaving she did with her fingers, not once glancing up at her companions or me.

  My mind spun through the possibilities. I picked up on the visual clues: three women, three distinct ages. The oldest played with string. The fire and the black eyes… The answer crashed into me like a tidal wave, and my arm finally lowered. Fear made my heart stop.

  I was in the presence of the most powerful goddesses in the entirety of Greek mythology. These three were the deciders of life and death. They plotted the world, creating and destroying destinies with the flick of the wrist. Not only did they control mortal lives, but they were the only gods who could directly affect the lives of the gods themselves.

  “Clotho the Spinner,” I said with a nod toward the eldest of the women. She looked up at me and smiled, yellow crooked teeth confirming my guess.

  “Lachesis the Allotter,” I addressed the middle-aged woman crouched next to the fire, who still held the sides of her head as though she had a migraine.

  “And Atropos the Turner,” I finished, my gaze shifting to the youngest of the three, the thin one in the slinky dress. “Together, you are the Moirai, also known as the Fates.”

  “I told you she was a clever one, Lachesis,” Atropos said with a bright grin at her sister.

  The middle woman growled at the youngest goddess, baring her sharp teeth, much whiter and better taken care of than the oldest sister. If Lachesis’s reaction bothered Atropos, she didn’t show it.

  “And I’m in the Cave of Eileithyia, where mortals are born and where mortals die,” I concluded. I eyed the ballroom with a new eye now that I knew exactly what it was. It was indeed very cave-like with the lack of light and curved corners. I blew out a heavy breath that made my lips flutter. “It’s certainly not what I would have pictured if I’m honest.”

  Atropos laughed, though it was hollow, as if she were trying too hard to please me. “We’ve upgraded over the years. It might be time for another overhaul.”

  “I like it,” Clotho said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s because you were the one to pick this decor in the first place,” Atropos argued, putting out a sassy hip to one side and resting a hand on it. “I think it’s my turn.”

  “You know the order of things,” Clotho said with a single raised finger. She had the frayed rope wrapped around it several times. “If we want a change, Lachesis is next.”

  Atropos rolled her eyes, clearly not satisfied with this answer. “Why do we have to do everything in that order?”

  “Because it is the way of things,” Clotho explained simply.

  Out of nowhere, Atropos released a deafening growl that echoed throughout the chamber. She punched her fists towards the ground and threw her head back, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. In a flash, she pulled out a pair of ratty, chipped scissors from between her breasts and jutted the tip out towards Clotho. For a brief second, I thought the goddess was going to stab her sister with the scissors. But instead, the youngest Moriai opened the scissors and snapped them down on one strand of the rope Clotho worked on.

  The snap reverberated through the air like a gunshot.

  The oldest woman held the two strands in her hand, looking annoyed. I thought she was about to scold the goddess, but Clotho did nothing of the sort. She simply tossed the strand in her right hand into the fire.

  According to the myths, the Fates controlled the universe. In the Cave of Eileithyia, who was the goddess of childbirth, they created lives from the string that Clotho wove. Then Lachesis would measure out the length of the string, consequently determining the life of the mortal. Finally, Atropos would use her infamous scissors to cut the string, thus ending the life of the mortal. If I wasn’t mistaken, Atropos just severed a mortal life while having a fit over interior design. And Clotho threw it into the fire, symbolically giving the soul to Hades like it was no big deal.

  If I wasn’t terrified of these goddesses before, I sure was now.

  Lachesis popped up from her spot on the floor and stomped over to Atropos, and her eyebrows pinched together in a clear expression of anger. She stretched out her two arms and shoved Atropos back.

  “You bitch!” Lachesis hollered. “You’re supposed to let me measure that.”

  “I hadn’t finished weaving it yet,” Clotho said with another defeated sigh. “It’ll end as a miscarriage. No damage there.” She returned to her weaving, wholly disinterested in what her sisters were doing.

  I wanted to throw up at Clotho’s words. The carelessness for a human life was apparent and horrifying.

  “You can’t just go around cutting off lives without consulting us,” Lachesis said with another shove at Atropos. The younger goddess dropped her scissors and stumbled back this time. However, she didn’t take the abuse. She dealt it right back with a violent slap to her sister’s face.

  “After thousands of years, you don’t think I know that, Lachesis?” Atropos snarled as the middle goddess cradled her face from the injury.

  I felt as though I stumbled on the set for some sort of high drama reality TV show. My gut told me I shouldn’t be there, and I was intruding on some private family beef. I glanced over my shoulder, but there was no sign of my burning chair or any sort of way out. That’s when I realized I was at the mercy of these goddesses and knew I wasn’t getting out of there without their help or permission.

  As though she were noticing me for the first time, Clotho clicked her tongue. “Ladies, we have a guest, or did you forget that we brought Hephaestus’s daughter here?”

  The feuding goddesses turned their attention to me, and I offered a small wave, mainly because I couldn't think of anything to say. Atropos and Lachesis stepped away from each other, as though they were repealing magnets. They didn’t say another word. Instead, Atropos pushed her hair back into place and pointed to something at my feet.

  “Cheyenne, would you mind bringing me my scissors?” the goddess asked politely, as though she were asking me to pass the mustard.

  I looked down at my feet and took an instinctive step back from the tool. They laid there, splayed open to make an X on the ground. Rust shined in the flickering light of the fire. I could tell from here that the screws were loose so that the blades didn’t match up perfectly. It didn’t help that the sharp ends were bumpy and had chips. There was a crack along the thumb ring that made holding the scissors uncomfortable.

  A prickle ran up the length of my arms and down my spine. The metal sang to me, louder than something that far away should have. While scissors weren’t typically seen as weapons, they had all the same components of knives and blades I created during my lifetime.

  It was a coincidence that the daughter of Hephaestus was a blacksmith. While women blacksmiths weren’t common, I was one of the best in the nation or the world, depending on who they asked. And no, I wasn’t cocky. I created weapons and armor for the gods themselves, somet
hing that only the cyclops or Hephaestus had been known to do. There weren’t any master blacksmiths in the USA that could say that.

  It helped that my father’s blood equipped me with some pretty advantageous powers, like my immunity to fire and extreme heats in general. I could also control the Eternal Flame, a rare feat even among demigods. The Eternal Flame was the fire of life that Prometheus gave the mortals to free themselves from slavery from the gods. It was a temperamental element, with a personality of its own.

  Not only that, but I could also sense metals used to make weapons. They spoke to me and told me the secrets of their creation. It was like having a sixth sense, though some days, I would have traded the singing metal for ghosts… like now.

  This metal told stories of old. It mourned for the lives it had taken, the horrible things it had been forced to do. The metal rebelled the best it could, rusting before its time, and cracking under the pressure. But I didn’t want the weight of the scissors in my hands. The worry, the guilt, and the memories would be so much heavier if I actually held the metal, especially if it was this strong from right here.

  “Cheyenne,” Atropos said, distracting me from the stories the metal sang in my ear. “Are you going to refuse me?”

  “That wouldn’t be wise,” Clotho warned.

  I knew to refuse a goddess, especially one who had her level of power, was a terrible idea. But I really didn’t think I could pick up the scissors. If I did, I might not be able to hand them back to her, the way it screamed for mercy from her control. Instead, I kicked the scissors across the floor.

  They skidded like a hockey puck on ice and landed at Atropos’s high-heeled foot. The goddess’s black eyes flicked from the scissors, up to me, and back again. She huffed but bent down and plucked the tool off the ground. The minute the scissors were back in her hand, the singing stopped. At least I could be grateful for that.