Goddess Boot Camp

We sign off and I shut down the computer. I give the merit badges one last look before I tuck in. For the first time since Damian told me about the test, I'm feeling pretty confident. All I have to do is get through tomorrow's trials and then everything will be cake.

* * *

'Ground my powers.'

Griffin rolls his eyes at me. 'I am not grounding your powers,' he says. 'Even if I could, I wouldn't. You can control them on your own now.'

I'm not so sure. I mean, yeah, I completed the obstacle course yesterday with flying colors, but that's because I was totally concentrating. I didn't have anything else on my mind. Like, say, the freakin' Pythian Games trials!

This is the biggest race of my life, so I might be a little distracted.

'Please,' I beg. 'Just for this race. Just to make sure I don't… accidentally use them.'

'You won't.' He presses his lips to mine. 'Besides, I told you. I can't.'

'But what if-'

'I know you're worried about accidentally using your powers,' he says. That's the understatement of the millennium. 'I've been thinking about what you said about your dad's record. How you're afraid to read it.'

The record has been sitting under my bed ever since I got home from meeting Damian in the courtyard that night. Every time I catch a glimpse, it's like it's taunting me. Tempting me to face my fears. But I'm far too chicken.

'First of all,' he says. 'I never knew your dad, but I can't imagine a parent that selfish could have raised such an amazingly compassionate daughter.'

I give him a half smile, because I think he's definitely overstating my compassion. After the way I've treated him and overreacted in the past, I think I'm currently pretty low on the compassion scale.

'And second,' he says, oblivious to my unspoken self-deprecation. 'I want you to consider this: Would yougive up the people you love for a cross-country win?'

'Of course not!' How could he even think that? 'I would never-'

Griffin holds up a hand to stop me. 'That's my point,' he says. 'I've never known anyone who loved their sport as much as you. If you wouldn't make that choice, I can't imagine your father would.'

My rant deflates. He's right. I love running more than almost anything. But only almost. I don't love it more than Mom or Griffin-or, on a good day, Damian and Stella. Dad musthave loved us more than football.

'You're right,' I say slowly, smiling. 'I don't think he chose football over me and Mom consciously or otherwise.'

My insides are calm-maybe for the first time in a long time. When Dad died, I remember being so very angry. At him, at Mom, at whatever deity or act of nature had taken him from us. At myself, too, for the possibility that I'd taken him for granted while he was alive. Then, when I found out that he was hematheos,that he was smoted for that, the anger had returned. Maybe I didn't even recognize it, but it was there. Bubbling under everything.

Griffin made me see what I couldn't-that the anger had come from fear.

Now, even though nothing has changed except my perspective on the situation, the anger is gone.

Maybe I'll even read the record-someday. It suddenly doesn't seem like such an important decision. I know and love and trust my dad. I don't need to read a trial transcript to know that.

'Good,' Griffin says, tugging me to his chest and slipping his arms around my waist. 'Because you have a race to run, and you won't win if you don't focus. And if you don't make the team, Coach Lenny will blame me. He'll probably make me run to Beijing and back.'

I love that my overactive imagination is rubbing off on him.

'Racers to the starting block,' Coach Lenny's voice booms through the megaphone, 'for the women's long-distance trial.'

Griffin gives me a squeeze and a shove in the direction of the race.

My heart rate quadruples. People in the notbos world may not have ever heard of the Pythian Games, but in this world they're the equivalent of the Olympics. Making the Cycladian team, competing against the best hematheos racers in the islands, is not going to be a cakewalk.

When I step into the starting box, though, my anxiety disappears. This is my home turf-literally, since we're racing on the Academy course, but also figuratively. Distance running is my world, hematheos or not.

Coach Lenny lifts the starting pistol into the air and fires.

I turn on the autopilot, taking off with the two dozen other women competing for the three precious spots on the team. They're all strangers, mostly older than me and from other islands in the Cyclades. There was no planning and strategizing how to beat the other racers ahead of time. This is just me, running my race. Five laps around the five-mile white course plus one around the yellow.

Tuning out everything but my feet and the course ahead, I run.

By the time I finish the fifth white lap, I can't feel my legs. My lungs burn fire with every breath. I don't know how long I've been running, but it must be over two hours. The end of my pain is just a mile and a quarter away.

As I make the turn from the white course onto the yellow, I begin to take stock of my surroundings. Not the trees and bushes and woodland critters; the other racers. There aren't any.

Although I can't see them anymore, I know there are two racers ahead of me on the track. Through my pain, I'd absently taken note when the two blondes had pushed out from the lead group a couple miles back.

I risk a glance back over my shoulder. I don't see any racers behind me, either, but I can hear their footbeats on the path.

The anticipation of victory eases my pain. Third place means a spot on the team, and right now that's all that matters to me.

When I face back to the front, there is a racer on the course. Her long brown ponytail bounces with every step, obscuring the competitor number pinned to her shirt. I blink my eyes, certain that I'm seeing things. She wasn't there a second ago. But, no matter how many times I squeeze my lids shut and reopen them, she's still there.

She also isn't one of the two blondes who'd pulled into the lead. That means I'm in fourth place. There are no prizes for fourth.

'Impossible,' I mutter between gasping breaths.

Then, realizing the futility of denial, I turn off my shock. She is only about ten paces ahead of me. I can catch up with her on this final lap-maybe not easily, with my legs feeling al dente, but I can do it. When it comes to running, I can do anything.

Drawing on every last ounce of my energy, I increase my pace.

She must sense my acceleration, because she speeds up identically and keeps her solid lead.

I try again.

She matches me again.

Three times I speed up, only to watch her lead stay constant.

Finally, when I know I have next to nothing left to give, she starts pulling away. I'm getting left behind and there's nothing I can do. Tears of frustration sting my eyes. I was so close-so close- tomaking the team, but my body just doesn't have the juice to catch her.

We round the final bend in the yellow course, onto the straightaway to the finish line, and I watch