Antigoddess

through the vast forest that surrounded Abbott Park. It was there somewhere, the owl that had flown up against Cassandra’s window. He had to find it.

That’s a weird coincidence, Cassandra had said. But it wasn’t. No matter how much he wanted it to be. Their time of calm would end. Unless he stopped it.

The moment Cassandra spoke of feathers breaking through skin, he knew. He knew that somewhere his sister was dying, with feathers cutting through her body. His self-righteous, battle-ready sister. And now she wanted something. Something that had to do with Cassandra.

“You can’t have her,” he said, and his breath left his throat in a cloud of steam. He had to find the owl. It wouldn’t be hard. It was Athena’s servant, but it was still just an owl. It wouldn’t race to her side to whisper in her ear. It would fly, and hunt, and sleep, and reach her in its own time.

The wind came up hard and sudden; the sound it made moving across the bridge and over the river was like a scream. The river would be covered over soon, locked down under ice and snow, only breaking through in the spaces where it sped up, past rocks and through spinning eddies. Aidan breathed the cold in deep but couldn’t feel it. Cold had never been able to touch him. Not in all his long, immortal life. He was a golden glow. He was light, and heat. He was Apollo, the sun, and he’d burn down anyone who tried to hurt her.

Movement high up in the pines caught his attention and he moved, darting off the bridge, running low and quiet. He reached the owl in moments, watching from beneath as it swooped from branch to branch. He watched its brown speckled belly, its flight feathers stretched out on the wind like fingers. It didn’t pay any attention to him, so far below on the ground. Not even when he leapt up to catch it when it dove.

The sensation of being pulled down out of the air had no time to register in the bird’s brain. Neither did the feeling of its wings being crushed, or its neck being broken. There were no final thoughts. Only vague surprise and no regrets.

Aidan looked down at the feathery mess in his hands. The owl was dead. Silenced. He stroked the feathers.

“You didn’t feel it. And it wasn’t your fault.” The bird was so light in his hands. Maybe he shouldn’t have killed it. Maybe they could have caged it and kept it as a pet. Cassandra might have liked that.

But how many more would she send? He couldn’t cage them all. His hands tightened. Questions filled his ears like they’d been shouted. What did she want? And how many others would she bring with her?

“I’ve waited too long for Cassandra.” The fear he felt ran down to his fingers; he could feel feathers trembling. “I’ve waited so long, and now I finally have her. And I’ll kill every one of you if you try to ruin it.” He looked down at the poor dead owl. “Even you, Athena.”

6 FAR JOURNEYS

Athena jerked awake, back tensed taut as a bowstring. There had been a dream, a flash of vision, something breaking. Something awful. She couldn’t remember what it was. All that remained was the adrenaline, sparking through her veins and driving sleep far, far away.

“What is it?”

She glanced over at Hermes, ever the insomniac, even in his weakened condition.

“Are you all right?” He came and knelt beside her. His bony hands on her shoulders were warm to the point of being feverish. “Is it the feathers? Can you breathe?”

“I’m fine.” Her voice was clipped and terse. He took his hands off and rolled his eyes; she muttered an apology. She was never a bitch on purpose, but accidents were happening more and more frequently where Hermes was concerned. Taking out her frustrations on him wasn’t fair.

“I don’t know what it was.” She sighed. Talking was starting to be uncomfortable. The feather in the roof of her mouth pressed down insistently, and the flesh that covered it was tender and inflamed. Soon a bit of it would break through the skin, and she would wriggle it loose and tear it out. They say the mouth is the quickest-healing part of the body. She wondered who “they” were. Mouth wounds seemed to take forever to go away. And a torn strip the length of an owl’s wing feather would be one hell of a canker sore, if it turned to that.

“Maybe just a bad dream,” Hermes said softly.

“We don’t have ‘just dreams,’” she replied. “At least, I don’t.”

“I don’t either. It was just something to say. Anyway, if you don’t remember it, then it isn’t much use.” He gave her a piercing look, making sure nothing was flooding back. “Might as well call it ‘just a dream.’”

“I guess.”

Hermes stood up and stretched his thinning back. He was starting to look like a PSA against anorexia. She held in the soft snort of bitter laughter that accompanied the thought. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was all that funny anymore.

They had traveled hard over the last two days and made it out of the bleak extremes of the desert. Their camp was set on a quiet curve of the Green River in eastern Utah. A soft patch of grass made for a decent bed, and the water was drinkable enough. A scraggly coniferous tree provided shelter. They were living like vagabonds or fugitives, with as little human interaction as possible. Such a lifestyle had always suited Athena, but Hermes was a house cat, and she could tell sleeping on the ground was getting on his nerves. He didn’t hide it well. He constantly tossed and hmphed and stretched his back.

“Are you hungry?” Athena asked.

“Usually,” he replied sulkily, and she tossed him a can of peaches from her pack. He cracked the tin cover off and ate them with his fingers. Dawn was about to break over the river, beautiful and pastel. At least she’d managed to sleep through the night. It hadn’t been an easy task since the encounter with the Nereid.

Her mind constantly returned to the vision that the poor creature had shown her. She saw it again and again, the blood-cloud whipped up in the saltwater, heard the gurgling and panicked currents of fins in death throes.

And the glimpse of him. Of Poseidon. Twisted beyond imagining. She could’ve sworn she’d seen a piece of coral cutting through his shoulder, like it was growing into his skin. Or out of it. Perhaps their deaths were eerily similar.

Regret, stronger than she’d imagined, clenched down on her stomach. They’d never been close, but seeing him that way still felt wrong.

Would he feel the same way? Seeing me pull feathers from my throat?

Probably not. He was weaker than she was and always resented that. He resented that Zeus had made her so strong. He resented that Zeus had that much strength to give her.

But it still felt unfair.

He should be on the sand somewhere, tanned and golden. He should be in the ocean, on a fucking surfboard with a nymph on each arm.

That was what might have been, if fate were kinder. Instead he was a monster, on the opposite side of a war.

Trying to humble me, as usual. She allowed herself a rueful smile. It lasted only a second before dropping off her face. Poseidon was ahead of them, after all, and setting traps too clever to come from his mind alone. He had help, and she suspected she knew who it was. Who they were.

“When can we go to a city?” Hermes thumped the dirt with his fist. She supposed it did make for a shitty mattress.

Athena laughed. “I knew it. Missing your pillow top and manicured nails?”

Hermes threw a peach at her; she dipped low, birdlike, and caught it in her mouth. He curled his lip. “Excuse me if I’d like to have some comfort during my final days.”

“These aren’t your final days,” she said, but he seemed not to hear. He was looking off to the west with his back to the breaking dawn, his fingers suspended over the jar of peaches.

“Maybe we should just live it out,” he said quietly. “Just enjoy what time we have left. Haven’t we had enough?” She turned away from his glance and watched the water of the river pass. It moved without pausing,