Helen backed away from the window. There was a squeezing feeling in her throat, and her feet were bumbling over the uneven ground with shock. Orion reached out for her, but she threw his hands off blindly. Undeterred, Orion reached for her again and clamped a hand over her mouth when he’d captured her.
“Take it easy! It’s not what you think,” he hissed in her ear.
He led them both away from the house, and as far back across the top of the promontory as he dared without shoving them both off the cliff before he continued.
“Daphne helps my father handle my mother when she has one of her spells. She must have had one tonight, probably because my dad has to go to the meeting of the Houses. My mom hates all the Houses, even her own.” He paused in the middle of his rushed explanation, looking to see if Helen was keeping up. “There was a Scion war before we were born,” he said.
Still muffled behind Orion’s hand, Helen relaxed her muscles and nodded, both in answer to his tacit question about the war and to let him know that she wasn’t going to barge into the house or start yelling. He relaxed his grip on her mouth but kept her close to him. Helen had known that there had been some sort of final confrontation between the Scion Houses about twenty years ago, and that it had been a bloodbath—the End Times—or so it had seemed to them.
“My mom was Head of the House of Rome, and she killed a lot of people. The war really messed her up. And now my mother doesn’t deal well with any mention of the Houses,” he tried to continue but had to stop there, gritting his teeth to control his voice. “She doesn’t deal well with anything, actually. She’s sick, Helen.”
Helen knew that Scions only get sick in one way. Orion was trying to tell her as gently as he could that his mother, Leda, was insane.
Based on the fact that Daedalus needed Daphne to help him control Leda, Helen knew Leda was not only strong, but that she had to be the kind of insane that was truly dangerous to be around. The house they lived in was miles away from anyone, as far away from civilization as they could get without tipping into the sea. Helen could only imagine the amount of screaming that must accompany the “spells” as Orion had called them. She wondered what it was like for him to have grown up with all that as a small boy.
Orion released Helen gently and turned away from her as he swiped the back of his hand across his face. Helen reached forward and took his other hand, cradling it close to her chest as he collected himself. She studied him carefully, waiting until he turned back to her and nodded, letting her know that he had it together again, and then he led her back toward the house.
“You said she was dead,” Helen whispered. Orion shook his head.
“You assumed she was dead when I told you I was the Head of the House of Rome, but death isn’t the only way a House gets a new Head,” he looked away. “I didn’t know you well enough then. I was too ashamed to tell you. . . .”
Helen nodded, stopping him. He didn’t need to explain himself to her. “It’s okay,” she said quietly.
Another light switched on inside the house, and both Helen and Orion turned their heads sharply to look in the window.
Helen saw a frantic woman with long chestnut hair descend the stairs in a nightgown. Barefoot and mussed from sleep, her disheveled state only added to her appeal. She was older, in her forties, but still shaped like a pinup girl. Her light reddish-brown hair danced around her in a cloud of fat, silky curls that take most women hours with a blow-dryer and a curling iron to achieve. They were Orion’s curls, and the long, shapely arc of her muscled limbs had the same balance, the same perfect proportions as his did.
Half bursting out of her nightgown in all the right ways even though she was obviously oblivious to this fact, Helen guessed that this woman would probably still look seductive even if she’d fallen ass over teakettle down the steps. She was a smaller, female version of Orion, and as such she was the perfect temptation for the opposite sex. Everything about her screamed that this woman was Leda, a daughter of Aphrodite, and Orion’s mother.
“He’s here!” she rasped, running to the widow. Orion pulled Helen away from the circle of light just as Daedalus jumped up from his seat and pulled Leda back before she could get a good look outside. Even from a distance, Helen could see the feral look on her face. Her eyes were opened so wide they were showing the whites, and they were rolling around like a spooked horse’s. Helen shuddered involuntarily.
“There’s no one here, love,” Daedalus said in a weary voice, taking Leda’s shoulders and turning her away from the window.
“Adonis! I can smell you out there!” the hysterical woman shrieked, viciously fighting her husband to get away. “I won’t let you kill my baby!”
Daphne was up now and grabbing Daedalus by the shoulders so they formed a cage around Leda with their bodies. They pressed into her from opposite sides, using their weight to restrain her arms and keep her from tearing at her hair and face. Helen could tell by the gentle, but almost clinical way they went about this, that Daedalus and Daphne had done it many times before.
“I’ll kill you if you try to hurt my baby!” Leda howled, sobbing now, her voice shredding with pure crazy. “I’ll kill you myself!”
“Adonis is dead, Leda! Your brother is dead!” Daphne shouted over Leda until the distraught woman stopped bucking and started to relax.
“My baby brother,” Leda said, calmed momentarily by her confusion. “My baby. My baby brother. But which is which? I know I killed one of them. Who did I choose?”
Leda started rocking back and forth, quietly chanting the words, “My baby. My baby brother,” over and over as Daedalus and Daphne tried to soothe her. Each time she repeated this pitiful mantra, her volume raised another notch until she was screaming.
“Get me out of here, Helen,” Orion said in a shaky whisper. Helen looked at him and saw tears streaming silently down his face.
She immediately wrapped her arms around him and they shot into the air, leaving behind the sound of Leda’s inconsolable wailing. Orion buried his face in Helen’s neck. She could feel his hot tears streaming across her skin and quickly turning cold in the thinning air as they gained altitude.
Shivering, they hovered high over the ocean, clinging to each other. Orion didn’t make any noise. After what Helen guessed was years of practice, he’d gotten good at silencing the sound of his own crying until there was nothing—not even the flutter of his diaphragm—just the fast and deep throbbing of his heartbeat. Helen pulled him closer and flew him away from this nightmare, even though she knew she’d never get him far enough away to make it any better.
Heading south along the coast, she brought them to a pretty little beach somewhere around Cape Ann in Massachusetts and lowered them to the ground. They sat next to each other on the sand, him staring out at the water and her staring at his profile.
“They were close. Adonis and my mother,” he said finally. “They loved each other very much—until she fell in love with my father. All the Houses, but especially the House of Rome, don’t allow for Scions from different Houses to have children together out of fear that it will create the Tyrant.” Orion paused here and gestured to himself ruefully. “When my mom got pregnant with me, Adonis came to kill me—and her, I guess, since she was still carrying me. But my mother killed him instead.”
Helen leaned against Orion’s shoulder and looked out at the dark waves crashing on the beach. She’d figured it was something like that, but sensed there was more to the story. The dull colors crawling out of Orion’s chest were heavy and leaden with guilt and regret.
“The worst part came later,” Orion continued in a strained voice. “You know how the members in each House have certain physical characteristics? There’s always some variation, like Lucas, Jason, and Ariadne who don’t look like the other members of their House. But in general, Thebans are blond and look like Lucas’s dad.” Helen nodded. “Did you also know that every generation has a handful of specific characters who get repeated over and over? They are almost exact replicas of the main characters who fought at Troy. As soon as one of these main characters die, another is born to take his or her place.”
“No, I didn’t know that.” Helen bit her lip, processing this. “I don’t think the Delos family knows this, either, or they would have explained it to me.”
“The House of Athens figured this out a long time ago, but the House of Thebes may not have. The Thebans have always had a lot of variation in their line, and probably haven’t been able to spot the pattern yet. Your House, the House of Atreus is the only exception. You hand down the Helen archetype mother to daughter, but for the rest of us, an exact look-alike can only happen if a main character dies first.”
“Like the Fates have to recast the play with a baby when one of the lead characters dies,” Helen said musingly. “You look exactly like Aeneas, you know.”
“Yeah, I remember Automedon calling me ‘General Aeneas’ right after you electrocuted him,” he said, smiling a little at the memory. His face scrunched up momentarily. “Wait. How could you know what Aeneas looked like?”
“Long story,” Helen said, waving a dismissive hand. “Keep going with yours first.”
“Well, apart from Aeneas, there’s someone else I look like exactly.”
“Your uncle Adonis.” Helen didn’t even have to mull that one over. She knew how cruel the Fates were, and for some reason they seemed to be particularly cruel to Orion. Like they had it out for him.
As soon as she thought this, she made a guess at the reason why. Aeneas was one of the only male survivors of Troy. He’d escaped fate. Somehow, this one character had gotten away from his destiny. Helen wondered how in the world anyone could do that, but she put that thought on the back burner as Orion continued.
“It was fine while I was still a baby, but as soon as I got a little older, my mother started confusing me with her brother.” He stopped and swallowed. “She started to see me as an enemy. I haven’t been able to go anywhere near her since I was eight. And my dad couldn’t leave her alone for long. So he left me to fend for myself most of the time.”
Helen could hear the bitterness in his voice, even though he tried to tone it down. A thought occurred to her. She felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and anger flushed hot under her skin. Her voice shook when she spoke. “Did your mother give you those scars, Orion?”
“No,” he said sharply. “My mother’s cousin, Corvus. He didn’t want me to succeed my mother when it became clear she was too far gone to lead anymore. I was claimed by the House of Athens, and a lot of my cousins still don’t think I should lead the House of Rome. Corvus came after me when I was eleven. He lost.”
Helen saw a dark fire burning inside Orion’s chest. Black flames licked at his heart. He killed his cousin, she thought. Orion had only been eleven years old when he’d killed a man. Helen shook her head and decided to stick with a topic she could actually fathom at this point—his mother.
“Did your mom ever try to . . . you know . . . kill you?” Helen asked carefully. Orion only nodded, his eyes glued to the waves. Helen turned her head and looked back at the water with him.
“It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he admitted in a dead tone.
Helen wanted to ask him more about his scars and his cousin Corvus, but she knew from the numb look on his face that Orion had dug up enough painful memories for one night. Besides, she didn’t know if she could bear to hear any more just then.
“You know what scares me?” she asked after a long silence. “The ocean.”
Orion laughed softly. “Not Tartarus?”
“Tartarus blows,” Helen agreed with a definite nod. “But the ocean truly terrifies me.”
“And what about everything you just learned about me?” he asked quietly. “Does that terrify you, too?”
“No,” she replied. She thought about how Orion’s father had left him to fend for himself. How this Corvus guy hunted him when he was just a kid, and how pretty much every second of his life he’d known that he would never get anything that resembled love from the people who were supposed to take care of him. “It really pisses me off, though.”
They shared a comfortable silence, each of them thinking their own thoughts.
“Thank you,” Orion said after a long pause. He began untying his boots.
“What’re you doing?” she asked, puzzled, as he kicked them off.
“First, I think it’s pathetic that you grew up on an island and you’re scared of the water,” he said, standing up and taking off his jacket. “Second, I think it’s time for both of us to stop being afraid.” He reached down to help her up off the sand. “I’m going to teach you to swim.”
“Now? Wait,” she quibbled, tugging on his arm. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Sure you can.” He grinned at her—back to his sweet, playful self again. “Now take off your clothes.”
Helen laughed, but when he took off his shirt and she saw the scars on his chest, her laughter died away. After a brief moment she made up her mind and jumped to her feet. “Why not?” she said, kicking off her shoes and pulling her shirt over her head. “I killed a freaking Myrmidon. How bad can a shark be?”
“That’s ma girl,” he said, shucking off his jeans. Helen did the same and immediately started shivering in the cold air.
“Am I going to die of hypothermia in there?”
“Not with me. That water will feel like a warm bath,” he promised, taking her hand. “Ready?”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this!” Helen screamed joyfully, and they ran toward the dark ocean. Right before Helen met the first wave she stopped dead, nearly yanking Orion’s arm out of its socket. She danced up and down on her tiptoes. “Nope. I can’t do this!” she screamed.
The wave parted and went around her and Orion, like Moses and the Red Sea.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him with relief. “I totally chickened out.” She noticed that his face was frozen and his eyes were wide.
“I didn’t do this,” he said, watching the water flow back around them without touching their skin. “You’re doing it.”
Helen stopped mentally shoving the water away and instead imagined the water touching her. The invisible envelope that held back the water collapsed and a wave rushed in, covering Helen and Orion up to their waists. She looked up at Orion with an apologetic face.
“Yeah . . . so I forgot to mention that I sort of absorbed some of your talents when the three of us became blood brothers,” she said tentatively. “At least that’s what Lucas thinks.”
“I’d say he’s right,” Orion replied, giving Helen a funny look.
“The one thing he didn’t figure out was why,” Helen said, biting her lower lip. “Any theories?”
“About why you’re crazy strong?” he asked distractedly. “No idea. But I have a feeling the Fates are involved.”
“What?” she asked cautiously. “Are you mad at me?”
“No. It’s just that I have a talent that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he said softly. Another wave pounded around them. “Can you cause earthquakes, Helen?”
“I don’t know. Where do you feel them?” Helen asked, knowing he would know what she meant. She felt lightning low in her belly. She felt gravity deep inside her individual cells at the smallest level and guessed that earthquakes had to be felt somewhere in the body like these other senses. Orion moved closer to her, his face serious.
“Here,” he said, brushing his hands up the inside of her bare thighs. “Like riding a horse the size of a continent,” he added, his voice low. Helen put her hands on his shoulders, her knees suddenly weak.
The ground trembled.
Orion caught her before her legs gave out and pulled her tightly against him. “That’s a yes,” he whispered.
Helen ran her fingers across the scar on his chest, and then fanned her palm out to touch as much of him as she could at once. He lowered his head and kissed her, pulling her down with him beneath the next oncoming wave.
Helen didn’t have a chance to freak out about being underwater—she was too intent on returning the kiss. She didn’t even notice that she was breathing the water like it was air as she slid her hands across his shoulders and the back of his neck. The only thing that she could think was how amazing Orion felt. Amazing. But not right.
Orion pulled away suddenly. Helen opened her eyes and clearly saw the sad look on his face even though the water was dark. She knew she was making a mess of things. Her one chance to be happy with another guy—a guy who was pretty much perfect—and she was absolutely wrecking it. She reached for him again, desperately hoping to push past her ridiculous fixation on Lucas. If she was with Orion, really with him tonight, she hoped that maybe she would be able to leave Lucas behind.
Orion dodged her embrace, his jaw set. He took her hand firmly and kicked for the surface, towing her along behind him.
They had sunk deeper and drifted farther out than Helen thought. She realized that she might be able to control the ocean now, but she still didn’t know how to swim. It didn’t matter. In a few powerful strokes Orion had them both back to shore. He didn’t say a word on the way. As soon as they stood on sand, he dropped her hand and headed directly back up the beach to where they had left their clothes.
“Orion. I’m sorry, okay?” Helen called out, trailing behind him. He didn’t even slow down. She scurried to keep up, but he only went faster. “Will you just wait?”
“Why?” he said, spinning around. “What about you and me is going to be different five minutes from now, or five years from now for that matter? I could wait my whole life for you, and you’d still be in love with Lucas.”
“But I love you, too,” Helen stammered.
“I know you do,” he said heavily. “But not like you love him.” Orion sat down on the sand. Helen stood over him, fretfully wringing her hands.
“Maybe it’s not the same, but that doesn’t mean that eventually . . .” Helen trailed off.
There was no “eventually,” and Helen knew it. Even after she’d touched the water from the River Lethe and couldn’t remember her own name, she’d still remembered Lucas. She’d never get over him. Lucas was it for her.
Orion pulled her down next to him and sighed. “My parents are like you and Lucas, you know. They love each other more than they love anyone or anything else in the world—more than they love me. My whole life I’ve wondered what it feels like to be loved like that. To be loved more.” He looked Helen in the eye, his gaze intent and hurting. “I know you love me, Helen. But don’t I deserve to be someone’s first choice for a change?”
Tears burned in Helen’s eyes. The look on Orion’s face was exactly like the one she’d seen on Aeneas’ face when his mother chose the other Helen over him. All his life, in every life he’d lived, Orion had been the runner-up to someone else.
“I can’t think of anyone in the world who deserves to be loved—loved more—more than you,” Helen said, her voice breaking. “I thought being with you would make me forget him. But that’s just a nice way of saying I was using you.” She bent her head. “I’m so sorry.”
Orion put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close to him. “Hey, I’m the one who kissed you. I put myself in this situation. And I ought to know better.”
“But I want to love you more,” she said slowly, afraid to continue. She steeled herself and pulled back to meet his eyes. “You could make me love you more, couldn’t you?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Until the next time you see Lucas. But you already know this. You didn’t just fall in love with him once. You fall in love with him every time you look at him.”
“Then I’ll stay away from him. Forever.”
He glanced away and bit his lower lip, debating it. “But I’d always know,” he whispered. “I’d always know that I forced you to love me, and that it isn’t real. I think I’d rather never be loved than know that.”
Helen nodded, staring at her hands without seeing them. She wrapped her arms around his chest and let the tears come . . . for Orion, for herself, and for Lucas, but mainly because she was so sick of it all. She had power over the most magnificent forces on Earth, but she still didn’t feel like she had power over the most important thing of all—her own heart.
Orion lay back on the sand and pulled her down on top of him. He banished the water soaking their skin and hair so they were immediately dry, and stared up at the stars while Helen cried a few frustrated tears. When she’d settled down, he piled their discarded clothes over them, still holding her on top of him to keep her off the cold sand. She was too tired to think straight anymore.
“So are we friends?” he asked after a long silence.
“Doesn’t seem enough, does it?” she said as sleep quickly set in and started to paralyze her. “We’re more than friends. We’re brothers. Blood brothers.”
His chest shuddered with a little laugh under her cheek, and she felt him whisper “brothers” to himself as he drifted off to sleep.
The last thing Helen thought before she drifted off after him was that she’d slept on a beach like this before with another boy. But this time there was no Helen-shaped dent for her to fit inside.
“Uncle?” Helen called out.
“I’m here, niece,” Hades replied kindly. Helen turned around and found him walking up the infinite beach in the Underworld—the one that never led to an ocean.
She smiled tentatively at him as he joined her. “Thank you for coming. I have a lot of questions.” Her voice was quivering with uncertainty. “When I’m sitting across from myself, and other people are calling me names like ‘Guinevere,’ I’m having a memory, not a dream, right?”
“Correct.”
“How?”
Hades’ dark helmet glimmered. “The dead have choices. They don’t have to stay in the Underworld forever if they don’t wish to. But in order to leave, they must wash their memories away in the River Lethe, before they can be reborn.”
“And when I touched a few drops of that river water?” she asked, following up on a hunch.
“Life experiences are never annihilated. The river remembers. Your soul called to those memories in the water, and they joined you in this life. It’s rare, but it happens sometimes,” he said, and then turned his cloaked head away. “Why don’t you clothe yourself?”
“Oh. Right,” she said. Embarrassed, she crossed her arms over her lacy bra. “I don’t know how.”
“Yes you do. Think, Helen.”
“I want to be wearing warm, clean clothes,” she said distinctly. Helen pictured a sturdy outfit, complete with the lined galoshes that she usually wore in the Underworld, and it instantly appeared on her body. Helen raised her eyes to the place behind the shadows where she guessed Hades’ eyes would be. “Okay, first question. How can I do this? How can I control the Underworld?”
“Because you have a talent in common with me, and with Morpheus and Zeus, to name a few,” he said firmly. “Each of us can make one world. I made Hades. Morpheus made the shadow lands. The Furies made the dry lands. Zeus made Olympus, and Tartarus created Tartarus eons before any of us existed. And Tartarus left the boundaries of her land open for all who share in this power, although none of us have ever seen her.”
“But what has this got to do with me?” Helen blurted out, feeling like she was in way over her head. “I’ve never made anything. I’ve never even made the honor roll.”
“You haven’t made anything yet. But you will if you choose to,” he said with a small chuckle that was hauntingly familiar. “There have been other Scions with this talent before. You call them Descenders, but that is not the correct name, really, as it only describes the allowance I made for Scions of your kind to be able to come to me for help. What help I can offer, at any rate,” he said, his voice heavy with regret. “So far, I have failed you all.”
“My kind?” Helen’s palms started to sweat. “What kind am I?”
“You are a Worldbuilder, Helen. You have the power to sculpt a land for whomever you wish to enter it. A world of your own that abides entirely by your rules. Eternal youth. Fulfillment. Or eternal trials and suffering—whatever you think will serve best.”
A thin silence wreathed around them as Helen absorbed this.
“But . . . that’s . . . just . . . terrible!” she stammered, the air knocked out of her lungs for a moment. “Have you seen my pottery? I can’t ‘sculpt’ a new world—it’ll be a disaster! Can’t you find someone who can at least draw or something?”
“I’m sorry, Helen, but the Fates do not dole out this particular talent often.” Hades smiled before he grew serious again. “In fact, there have only been two Scions before you who learned how to use the talent well enough to create their own lands, and even then those worlds only lasted a short while.”
“Who were they?”
“Morgan and Atlanta. One created Avalon, and the other Atlantis. Both their worlds dissolved into the mists or beneath the waves when their creators were defeated, but Scions remember those lands to this day. Especially Atlantis. They die for it still.”
“Wait. You’re saying that Atlantis doesn’t exist?”
“Not anymore. Every Worldbuilder must be able to defend his or her lands against any challenger. Morgan and Atlanta both lost.”
Helen sat down on the seeping wet of the damp sand, her head in her hands. She’d shouldered a lot of responsibility because she’d had no other choice, but this was beyond her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t do this. I’ve done a lot, but this is too much.”
“And what’s that?” Hades asked. “What can’t you do?”
Helen raised her head and regarded Hades with blank, desperate eyes. “I can’t go back to rest of the Scions and tell them that all this murdering they’ve been doing so they could get to Atlantis has been for nothing!” Her voice took on a hysterical edge. “What was all that crap from the Oracle about there being only one House left, and that ‘One House’ being the key to Atlantis? They’ve been killing each other off for decades now, and you want me to go back to them and tell them it was all a lie, that there is no Atlantis? I can’t do it!”
“It’s not a lie. Just a misinterpretation of the prophecy,” Hades said calmly. She stared up at him, numb with shock.
“That’s not good enough,” she replied in a surprisingly level voice. “You need to tell me more.”
He sat down next to her on the sand, near enough that the shadows parted a bit so she could see the bright green of his eyes and a familiar beauty mark that hung like a dark tear high on the slope of one of his perfect cheekbones.
“The prophecy has been fulfilled. The Houses are one, Helen.” Hades took her hands between both of his, cradling them in warmth. “You will raise Atlantis, or Avalon, or Helena—whatever you wish to call it—and once your world is made you can decide who may enter, who must stay or go, and how each inhabitant experiences your land. It really is all up to you.”
“That’s too much for one person,” Helen said, shaking her head like she could keep her responsibility at bay by rejecting it vehemently enough. “It’s too much power.”
Hades pushed back the cowl covering his head, removed the Helm of Darkness, and banished the shadows that clung to him. Staring back at Helen was a face she knew and loved dearly.
“There will be many Scions who will agree with that statement. Many beings, both mortal and immortal, will stop at nothing to keep you from claiming your true power.” Hades’ bright green eyes were dimmed by sadness. “If you build a world, many forces will try to rip it down. You and your Scion alliance will have to fight to defend it, and many of you may die, just as the gods want.”
“So I won’t build a world.”
Hades took her hand. “The Fates will make sure you have no choice.”
“No,” Helen said, shaking her head stubbornly. “I refuse to believe three crones run my life. I won’t build a world if the cost is that my friends and family must go to war. If I never build my own world, the gods won’t challenge us, and no one has to fight.”
“You are brave and compassionate, as a Worldbuilder should be, and I am very proud of you. But a war is coming to your shores, niece,” Hades said sadly. “You, like your namesake before you, must decide how to meet it.”
