We spend the rest of the day in bed, breaking only for meals. By unspoken agreement, none of us speak further about the assassin or Zeus or the tournament. Achilles and I do what we can to offer the comfort Helen will allow, which translates to orgasms.
That night, I take second shift. I sit in the chair next to the bed and watch them sleep. Helen didn’t wake when we switched out, and Achilles passed out in the way he’s always been able to—within seconds. He’s got his arm slung over her waist and, a few seconds later, she snuggles back against his bigger body.
I press my hand to my chest. When he wins Ares, they’ll sleep like this. They might snarl and snap at each other, but this morning Achilles demonstrated a deeper understanding of Helen than I have. He gets her, at least on some level.
No reason for that to make my chest ache. My foolish heart might care too deeply for her, might have given itself to Achilles long ago, but even if it breaks at the end of this, at least I have the bittersweet comfort of knowing they’ll take care of each other.
If Achilles isn’t the one to knock Helen out of the tournament. I don’t like his odds of winning her forgiveness anytime soon if that happens. She as much as admitted that it would be impossible.
Maybe I should be the one to do it.
I rub my chest harder. Damn it, I can’t. Even if it would help him, I can’t do that to her. No matter how complicated the potential outcome, we can’t go after her. She…trusts us. Maybe not entirely—Helen is no fool, after all—but she trusts us with her body, trusts us enough to at least share some small vulnerabilities. We can’t turn around and crush her after the last couple of days.
By the time the alarm goes off, I still have no answers. We get ready in near silence. I dress in my workout gear; I have no one to impress, after all. Achilles dons another of the custom uniforms we commissioned for him. This one is inky black and clings to his body, showing off his impressive muscles and elevating his attractiveness to the point where it almost hurts to look at him.
And Helen?
She has on a skintight catsuit that looks like someone spilled oil down her body. With every move, different colors shine in the low light of the room. She’s braided her hair and pinned it up around her head in an almost crown. Smart. The whole damn outfit is so smart. The fabric of the catsuit will make it challenging for anyone to keep hold of her, and her hair is no longer a liability to be grabbed in a fight. Every part of her…glitters. Her makeup is more stark than last time, too. She darkened from her eyes to nearly her temples, a dramatic look that, combined with her black lipstick, gives her the image of someone who should be on the front lines of some ancient army, leading her people into battle.
Helen looks like a warrior queen.
The crowd will be unable to take their eyes off her. More, they’ll love her for the dramatics of it all, especially if she does well.
“Ready?” I finally manage.
“Doesn’t matter if I am. It’s time.”
Achilles moves to the door. “Let’s go.”
Achilles and I share a look and keep Helen between us as we file out of the room and follow the rest of the champions out of the house. I don’t like the way Paris watches her, like she’s a prize that’s his for the taking. It might be technically true, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth all the same.
At the arena, I can’t stop myself from grabbing Helen’s hand and giving it a light squeeze. “It will be fine.”
She spares me a faint smile. “I know.” She squeezes my hand back before releasing it.
Then there’s no more time for talking because we’re being ushered through the concrete tunnel and out into the main area. I’m stunned by the transformation of the arena when the champions file through the entrance. Gone is the obstacle course, replaced by tall walls of varying heights. They look like concrete, but that’s impossible. Concrete would be far too heavy to haul in here to form this…
It’s a maze. It must be.
It’s hard to focus with the ever-present cheering of the crowd. I think I’ll hear that sound in my nightmares. It’s a reminder that too many eyes are on me, that this trial will change things even more than the first. There are twelve champions left.
After this trial, that number will be more than halved.
I glance at Helen and, on the other side of her, Achilles. Both have their expressions locked down, but surely they feel the same tremor in their chests that I do. I have never once doubted that Achilles would win the title of Ares. I don’t doubt it now.
But the cost…
The cost might be higher than I could have dreamed.
Directly in front of us and high above, the lights point at the box seat where Athena resides. She’s wearing a cream suit and is furious. Oh, she has it locked down, but I’ve answered directly to her for too long not to know her moods. She’s just as unhappy with the way things fell out with the would-be assassin as we are. More so since it happened on her watch.
She holds up a hand and the arena immediately falls to silence. Athena sweeps the champions with a single piercing look. “The second trial begins shortly. You will be positioned at different locations within the maze. There is one door leading to the exit, but it requires a key. There are five keys hidden within the maze. There is also a time limit. You may only take one key if and when you find them. If you have not found a key and the door exiting the maze within the time allotted, you will be eliminated.”
This is where alliances begin to break down. Five keys means seven people eliminated. At least. We have to find the keys first, and there’s no guarantee all will be discovered before the time limit is reached.
I take a slow breath and speak softly enough that only Helen and Achilles can hear me. “It’s a good wager that the keys—or at least a few of them—will be in the center of the maze.”
“Find your way in, find your way out,” Achilles muses. “Seems simple enough.”
Helen snorts. “Sure. Simple. Except for the other champions trying to do the same thing.”
Down the line of champions, Bellerophon approaches with black hoods in their hands. Ah, that makes sense. They’re not going to give us a chance to potentially memorize the way through the maze. If we’re blindfolded and they take a strange route, it will be discombobulating enough that we should all start on even ground.
At least in theory.
Bellerophon eases the first hood over the Minotaur’s head and tightens it a bit. Then they move to the next champion.
“There will be fighting and they’re going to fight dirty.” I’m not saying anything that they don’t know, but I feel compelled all the same.
Helen shakes her head, her picture-perfect smile in place. “So will I.” She looks between us. For the first time since we got into the vans this morning, some of the real woman shows beneath the mask. “Stay out of my way. I don’t… Look, I like you two. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t be competing against each other, but this isn’t a perfect world and I’m not going to let my emotions compromise my goals. So no hard feelings, but I will go through you to get Ares if I have to.”
My stomach twists at her words, even if they aren’t surprising. The feeling only gets worse when Achilles booms out a laugh. “We’ll see you on the other side, princess.”
Her grin is downright feral. “Bet on it.”
Then Bellerophon is in front of her, sliding the black hood over her head. They move to me next. Even knowing it’s coming, it’s still disorienting in the extreme to have all sight taken from me. The hood is perfectly blacked out, and the sound of the crowd feels particularly loud without my sight to distract me.
I jolt when hands touch my shoulders. They guide me forward, and even knowing we’re maybe twenty feet from the maze, I still can’t get my bearings. I try to keep track of the twists and turns, but it’s a lost cause. And if I’m not able to, I highly doubt any of the others are having a more successful time of it.
Oh well. This isn’t outside the expected parameters.
The hands on my shoulders tug me to a stop and a soft voice in my ear says, “Stay here with the hood on until Athena begins the trial.”
I nod, and they release my shoulders. Without the touch to anchor me, I feel even more out of sorts. The sound is unrelenting, and with the darkness so complete, I have to fight against the urge to lift my hands defensively. Anyone could be standing just out of reach and…
The cheering goes quiet and Athena’s familiar cool tone fills the empty space. “The second trial begins now. The trial will end in two hours or when five champions have escaped the maze. Good luck.”
I drag the hood from my head and blink into the bright lights. The walls are just as high inside the maze as they were outside it, but I can still see the upper tiers of the arena and the several of the screens showing the various champions. It’s impossible to gather enough info to be helpful, though. The maze walls seem to be uniformly gray. Even the differing heights of the walls—ranging anywhere from ten to fourteen feet, best I can tell—only add to the disorienting feeling of being unable to guess which direction to go. The other champions could be on the other side from me or the next path over, or they could be nowhere near me. Focusing on the screens will be more distraction than asset.
The path I’m on is relatively straight, one direction leading deeper into the maze and one appearing to lead toward the perimeter. When I was doing research on what the possible trials could be, mazes were on the list. The common advice to get out of a maze seems to be pick a direction and follow that wall to the exit.
Unfortunately, that won’t help me now.
I need to find a key before I find the exit, and that means heading deeper into the maze rather than toward the perimeter. If I knew what style maze this was…
Oh well. There’s only one way to find out. I take a deep breath and head in the approximate direction of the center in an easy jog. Fast enough to cover ground efficiently, but not so fast as to be caught unaware if I come upon another champion. The only champions that will be eliminated are the ones still in the maze when the time runs out, which means the smartest way to deal with anyone I come across is to incapacitate them in some way. Knocking someone unconscious isn’t an easy feat, so that means going for the legs. Knees are the best bet.
Unfortunately, the other champions will be trying to do the same to me.
I wind my way through the maze, the paths leading me away from and toward the center in turn. With the arena being the way it is, it’s impossible to know if I’m making progress or just moving farther away from my goal.
The crowd screams and I stop short, gaze flying to the screens I can see from my current position. They all show Atalanta. She’s flying through the maze, sprinting at a pace that has her locs streaming out in her wake. I see why a moment later when the Minotaur veers around the corner behind her.
“Oh fuck,” I breathe. He looks like he wants to kill her.
He’s almost on her when she turns on her heel, launching herself against the wall and spinning in the air to deliver a brutal punch to his square jaw. It knocks him back a step into the opposite wall. By the time he recovers, she’s gone, disappeared around the nearest corner.
I watch for several more heartbeats before it’s clear that she got away, and I feel a strange sort of relief. We’d be better served for Atalanta to be eliminated this trial, but that doesn’t mean I want her hurt in the process. I exhale slowly and force myself to refocus. Now’s not the time to get distracted. I need to keep my eye on the prize.
A flash of movement at the corner of my eye has me turning…
Right into Hector’s fist.
