Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Minho drifted in and out of a restless haze, his body too sore to settle and his mind too crowded to rest. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the pit again. The shifting ground. The little drakons with their snapping jaws. The giant hand reaching down from above as if he were no more than a pebble to be plucked from the earth.

When the cell door opened at last, he was already awake, sitting stiffly against the wall with Chan’s cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

The creatures that stepped into the cell were both short and broad shouldered, their skin a rough green gray that looked almost scabbed in the morning light. Their ears were long and pointed. Their mouths were full of small crooked teeth.

Minho knew what they were because they were exactly as the stories said. His mother would tell him stories at night of goblins that snatched naughty children from their beds.

He pushed himself to his feet before they could order him to, though the effort made pain flash through his ribs and up his arm. The salve Chan had used the night before had taken away the worst of the burning, but his body still felt battered and heavy.

One of the goblins gave him an open-mouthed grin that dripped saliva. “Look at that. The mortal can stand.”

The other let out a wet little laugh, “Not for long if he keeps moving that slow. Move!”

The goblin with the chain stepped behind him and yanked his wrists together. Cold metal bit into his skin as the cuffs snapped shut. Minho tensed but did not fight it. There was no point. He had no weapon, nowhere to run, and even if he had, he did not know Tartarus well enough to take three steps without getting lost.

The passageways twisted in ways that made Minho feel as though he was moving through the inside of some enormous beast. The stone walls were damp in places. Torches burned in iron brackets, but their flames seemed weak, their light swallowed too quickly by the darkness.

Every time his pace faltered, one of the goblins shoved him harder between the shoulders. When he stumbled on the uneven stone, they laughed.

“Careful,” one called mockingly. “Wouldn’t want Hera’s new pet arriving with his face in the dirt.”

“Maybe they'd like him better that way in Olympus,” the other said.

Olympus.

He had heard stories of it all his life, the way every mortal had. A shining place above the world where gods lived in endless splendor while men and women below fought hunger, storms, grief and time. It had never once occurred to him that he might one day be dragged there in chains.

But Minyeol was there. Chan had said she was waiting in Olympus. She was alive. She was safe. Minho had repeated those words to himself through the long hours of the night until they had almost begun to sound real.

He lifted his head and saw an opening framed by dark stone columns. Beyond it, morning light spilled across a wide whitestone platform carved into the mountainside. It was the first real daylight he had seen since waking in Tartarus, and it struck him so suddenly that he had to squint. The sky beyond was pale gold, streaked with thin clouds.

A carriage waited at the edge of the platform, just like the one that had taken him from the village. Fine silver work ran along the doors and wheels in curling patterns. Symbols had been carved into the black and gold panels.

But what drew his eye even more were the
birds harnessed to it with chains of gold. Peacocks?

When he was taken, he hadn't noticed them before he'd been knocked out. These birds were enormous, far larger than any peacock in the mortal world. Their necks were long and elegant, their feathers a shifting wash of blue and green that caught the sun like pieces of metal dipped in oil. Their tail feathers trailed behind them in great jeweled fans, the eye shaped markings seeming to stare in every direction at once. Their claws clicked against the stone, sharp and delicate.

He stumbled forward, the chains between his wrists clattering loudly in the open air. For one foolish second, he thought of resisting. Throwing his weight back, running and hurling himself off the platform if he had to.

When they reached the carriage, one goblin caught his arm while the other bent to unlock the chains around his wrists. The cuffs sprang open with a sharp click. Minho rubbed at the raw skin. The goblin nearest him gave him a small shove toward the open carriage door.

“In you go, mortal.”

The inside of the carriage was dim after the brightness outside, lined with dark cushions and heavy curtains half drawn against the light. For one strange moment he thought it might be empty.

Then his eyes adjusted. He gasped when he saw Chan leaning back in the corner of the carriage with one arm draped lazily along the seat.

His chest and stomach were unclothed and bare to the morning light. His skin looked pale, the hard lines of his body made sharper by the shadows moving over him. Leather trousers clung close to his legs, dark and fitted, disappearing into tall boots polished enough to catch the faintest glimmer from outside.

A strap crossed his bare chest from shoulder to waist, dark leather studded here and there with metal. All along it were tucked knives of different shapes and sizes. Some had narrow curved blades. Some were short and brutal looking. Some were little more than polished slivers of silver and black, all of them placed neatly within easy reach.

The same deep red markings trailed beneath one eye and down his cheek. The shadows slid over the floor of the carriage and curled around his boots.

Minho lowered himself onto the seat opposite Chan. He tried not to stare, but every time he looked away he caught a shadow moving in the corner of his eye and his gaze snapped back again before he could stop himself.

At last he said, “Do you ever go anywhere without those things?”

Chan finally turned his gaze away from the window, “What things?”

Minho scowled at once, “Do not pretend to be stupid with me.”

Amusement flickered in Chan’s eyes, “So you think me very clever then?”

Minho let out a short breath through his nose and looked pointedly toward the shadows spilling over the floor. One of them twitched as though offended at being acknowledged.

“Those,” he said flatly. “The things slithering around you. What are they?”

Chan followed his gaze and glanced down at the shadows gathered at his feet, “They are shadows. Most places have them, you know.”

Minho narrowed his eyes, “You know very well that those are different.”

This time Chan smiled, but only with one corner of his mouth. It was gone again almost as soon as Minho saw it.

The carriage gave a small jolt beneath them. Outside, the peacocks let out strange shrill cries that were nothing like the birds Minho remembered from stories or travelers’ tales. Their claws scraped against stone. Then the carriage began to move.

He pressed a hand to the seat beside him and said nothing until the worst of the lurch passed. Then he looked back at Chan, “How are we getting from Tartarus to Olympus?”

Chan turned his head toward the curtained window, “We're in a carriage, aren't we?”

Minho stared at him for a second. Then he rolled his eyes so hard it made his temple ache.

The corner of Chan’s mouth twitched again. He looked almost pleased by Minho’s irritation, which only made it worse.

“Will you be useful at all?” Minho scowled.

Chan shrugged, “I was not planning to be, no.”

Minho let out a sharp breath and leaned back against the seat, immediately regretting it when the movement pulled at his ribs. Outside the carriage windows, the light became brighter somehow. It spilled thinly through the curtains.

The carriage gave a sudden violent lurch and Minho grabbed at the edge of his seat at once. His heart leapt into his throat as the entire thing jerked upward so sharply that the wheels beneath them seemed to leave the earth. Outside, the peacocks shrieked, a harsh piercing sound that had nothing graceful in it at all. Then came the thunder of wings.

Minho’s head snapped toward the window. He saw great shimmering fans of blue and green beating against the air outside, so large that they filled the glass entirely. The movement sent light flashing in strange jeweled streaks across the inside of the carriage. With every beat of the wings, the carriage rose higher.

Minho stared, his mouth parting before he could stop himself. The platform was moving too. It lifted beneath them with slow, terrible force, and as the carriage cleared the edge of it at last, Minho looked down and felt his stomach drop.

That wasn't a platform at all! It had been an arm. A giant whitestone arm, broad as a road and carved over with ridges and hollows like weathered stone. The hand at its end was still half raised from where it had held the carriage, its fingers curling back slowly into place with the same deliberate care Minho had seen in the arena.

From above, the scale of it was worse. So much worse. The giant’s body disappeared into the deep black below and up into the sky, its face masked by the clouds. Its limbs stretched in every direction, layer upon layer of massive hands and arms speared through Tartarus like the roots of some monstrous tree. Some were braced against the mountainsides. Some reached into the chasms. Some seemed to hold whole structures against the dark.

The higher they climbed, the more of it he could see. Hands. Hundreds of hands. Some lay folded against its vast body. They all had whitestone fingers thick enough to close around a man as easily as a child might cup water in his palms.

His stomach turned the way it had the day before when he and Minyeol had first been taken upward into the sky.

He tore his eyes away at last and looked across at Chan, “What is it?”

Chan sighed, unimpressed by Minho’s questions. He only glanced through the window as though what lay below them was no more remarkable than passing trees on a roadside.

“He,” Chan said pointedly, “is a Hecatoncheires,” he said. “One of the Hundred-Handed Ones.”

Minho frowned, “One of? There are others?”

Chan nodded, “His name is Briareus.”

Minho looked back out the window at the vast tangle of arms below them. He watched as one of the giant’s many arms shifted again and a hand opened somewhere lower down, releasing a rain of dark shapes that vanished into the depths.

“And that thing just… lives there?” Minho asked, unable to stop staring.

Chan grimaced, “Briareus and his brothers were once prisoners of Tartarus themselves.”

Minho tore his eyes from the window and looked at him, “That giant was a prisoner?”

“Hecatoncheires,” Chan corrected with a click of his tongue. Minho muttered about it being the same thing, until Chan began, “Long ago, before he stood watch over this place, Briareus was chained in the depths of it. So were his brothers. They were thrown into Tartarus and left to rot.” Chan tilted his head slightly toward the window. “You should find some comfort in that, mortal. Even creatures like him were once caged, but found freedom.”

“What changed?” Minho asked quietly.

“Zeus.” Chan’s voice remained even as he went on, “When Zeus rose against the old order, he offered to free Briareus and his brothers from Tartarus. Briareus accepted his offer and has remained loyal to him ever since.”

Minho had grown up hearing names like Zeus, Hera and Apollo spoken in stories, in warnings, in half remembered prayers murmured over sickbeds and bad harvests.

The idea of Zeus unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. A giant with a hundred hands was terrible enough. But a god powerful enough to free such a creature and earn its loyalty? Minho felt his stomach twist again.

He pulled the cloak tighter around himself and asked, “Have you ever met him? Zeus, I mean.”

That made Chan laugh. He leaned one shoulder back against the carriage wall and smirked, “Hoping for an audience with Zeus, are you? The king of Olympus does not meet with just anyone.”

Minho made a face at him and looked back out the window. Suddenly, the carriage began to rise even higher. He sucked in a breath and moved away from the window, queasy at the thought of what would happen if the carriage fell from the sky.

He pulled Chan’s cloak more tightly around himself and tried very hard to calm the thumping heart in his chest. His mouth felt dry again, “Your world is dangerous. Monstrous, even.”

Chan’s gaze shifted toward him, mirth dancing in his eyes, “You say that as if your world isn't.”

Minho sat in silence for a while, his eyes fixed on the pale white haze gathering outside the carriage window. A part of him longed to brush his fingers through the clouds. He might have dared if he was still a child.

But he was not a boy anymore. He had to be a man. A man about to join the army of a Goddess.

Minho bit his lip, “About that army I’m to join—”

“Hera’s Oathsworn,” Chan said, cutting across him as if he had known the question was coming.

Minho turned his head, brows knitting together. “Oathsworn,” he repeated slowly. “And who exactly fights in this army?”

Chan shifted slightly against the seat, his shadows moving with him, “The strong ones. Skilled ones. Mortals who survive what others do not. Some are trained from youth. Some are taken later, after they have already proven themselves in battle or hardship. Some are chosen because the Gods find use for a particular talent.”

Minho’s mouth tightened, “And what exactly do they do?”

Chan glanced toward the window before looking back at him, “As Hera commands. They fight where she sends them. They bleed where she requires it. They swear themselves to her name and in return she keeps them bound by oath.”

Minho let out a small, humorless breath, “There's hardly any reward in that.”

Chan did not disagree, “There isn't meant to be. The Oathsworn are disposable.”

Minho’s hand tightened so hard around the cloak that his knuckles ached. That's what he was now. Disposable.

He felt as though he were being swallowed up by a world too large to care whether he lived or died. He had already been dragged from his village, thrown into Tartarus, tested like an animal, and now he was being told that even if he survived all of that, the life waiting for him in Olympus would not really be his own.

He shook his head, “I shouldn't have even asked. Your words bring me no comfort.”

“Should I apologize?” Chan snorted as if the notion of an apology was unfathomable. “Would you prefer I dressed answers in prettier words?”

Minho snapped, “At least then I might pretend for a little longer that I had not been delivered into the hands of monsters.”

That made Chan go quiet. The shadows at his feet stirred restlessly, but he himself remained still, one hand resting loose against his knee.

Minho turned his face toward the window again. He did not want Chan to see how hard he had bitten down on the inside of his cheek just to keep the tears at bay.

The carriage suddenly gave another great lurch upward, violent enough to throw him back against the cushions.

Across from him, Chan straightened at once. He sat up fully, one hand braced briefly against the side of the carriage, his expression sharpening as he tilted his head like someone listening for a signal Minho could not hear.

Minho frowned at him, “What are you doing?”

Chan looked back at him, “We are close enough now.” He reached for the carriage door.

Minho’s brows drew together. “Wait, Chan, what are you doing?!”

Chan paused with one hand on the latch and glanced over his shoulder. The shadows around him seemed almost impatient, crowding close to his boots and then slipping toward the door before drawing back again.

“Good luck, Minho.”

Then Chan opened the carriage door and jumped.

Minho shrieked, eyes wide. He lurched forward with a gasp, nearly tangling himself in the cloak as he scrambled across the carriage.

He reached the open doorway just in time to see… nothing at all. No falling body. No pale face turning back toward him.

Minho swore under his breath and pulled himself up to the window instead, bracing one hand against the frame as he looked out, expecting sky and clouds. Instead he found himself staring at rolling green hills. And the carriage was no longer flying!

It rolled smoothly along a pale paved path that curved through a landscape so bright and green, it did not look real at first. There were flowerbeds everywhere, wide and carefully tended, spilling over with blossoms in colors richer than anything he had seen even in spring back home. Pinks, golds and deep blue flowers crowded together in soft banks beside the road. Beyond them, the hills rose and fell in long green waves beneath a sky so blue it made his eyes ache.

Minho stared for a long moment, his mind struggling to catch up. There were no clouds around them now. The peacocks, absurd and magnificent, trotted along the paved road as if they had always been ordinary, their long tail feathers dragging and rustling behind them.

Something moved at the top of one of the hills and Minho’s breath caught again. A wolf stood there, watching the carriage pass.

It was large, larger than any ordinary wolf had a right to be, its fur a dense dark gray that almost blackened along its spine. It stood very still among the flowers, its dark eyes fixed on the carriage with an unsettling steadiness. Across its face ran red scars, old and jagged, cutting through the fur around one eye and down the bridge of its muzzle as though something had once tried very hard to tear it apart and failed.

It watched until the carriage rolled farther down the path and the hills began to fold between them. Even then, Minho kept looking until it finally disappeared from sight. Only then did he sit back, slowly, his pulse still uneven.

The hills began to grow fewer the farther the carriage went. The ground lifted more steadily ahead, no longer in gentle waves but in long rising slopes that all seemed to lean toward the same impossible place.

The road to Mount Olympus curved downward for a while and ran alongside a river so clear that Minho could see smooth white stones through the water. It flowed quickly, catching the light in restless silver ribbons, and for a moment he found himself staring at it with the strange ache of someone remembering thirst.

Then he saw the figures in it. At first he thought they were mortals. Perhaps, men and women, or something so close to men and women that his eyes accepted them before his mind could object. They moved through the water with ease, diving beneath the surface and rising again with wet hair plastered to bare shoulders, laughter carrying across the river in bright little bursts.

Their skin gleamed. Some lay half draped over rocks at the riverbank, long limbs shining in the sun. Others swam alongside the carriage for a few moments before vanishing beneath the surface again.

One of the women lifted her head and looked straight at him through the carriage window. She smiled and it was… beautiful. That was Minho’s first thought, immediate and foolish. And it embarrassed him almost at once.

Another of them rose from the water nearby, a young man this time, golden skinned and broad shouldered, his hair slicked back as he pushed it from his face. He laughed softly and tipped his head, his gaze running over Minho in a way that made heat creep unexpectedly into his throat.

Behind him, two more emerged from the water, one male and one female, their voices low and sweet as they called to one another. Their eyes slid toward the carriage.

Minho frowned. Something about them felt wrong. Their laughter came easily, but it did not sound like the laughter of village girls washing linen in the river or boys splashing one another in summer heat.

The woman closest to the bank lifted one pale arm and beckoned to him.

“Poor mortal,” she called, her voice carrying strangely well over the sound of the river. “Do they take you bound to Olympus?”

Another surfaced beside her, smiling as though the whole thing amused him, “He looks frightened.”

“Would you not be frightened?” the first one replied, though her eyes remained on Minho and her smile only widened. “I think he ought to come into the water instead. He would look prettier here.” Their laughter rippled out together.

A prickle of unease rose along the back of his neck. The carriage kept moving, the peacocks stepping lightly along the road as though oblivious to the river beside them, but the figures in the water seemed to keep pace all the same. One of them dove cleanly beneath the surface and reappeared farther ahead, resting both hands on a river rock. For one brief second, the sunlight caught on her face differently.

And Minho saw the truth of it. The illusion broke all at once. Her mouth stretched unnaturally over teeth that were too sharp, narrow and pointed. Her fingers, spread over the wet stone, ended not in neat nails but in small pale claws.

Minho pulled back from the window at once, his pulse kicking hard.

“Naiads,” he muttered under his breath. Nymphs of the water. His mother… They said his mother had been lured by one, entranced by its beauty. The realization left him cold.

The river curved away at last, and the naiads with it. Their laughter thinned behind the carriage until it was lost beneath the sound of the wheels and the peacocks’ claws against the road. Still, Minho kept looking back for longer than he meant to, half expecting one of them to rise from the water and come after him with wet skin and a smiling mouth full of sharp teeth.

When the carriage was far enough that he couldn't hear their laughter anymore, he turned his eyes to the road. The path only climbed higher, the river dropping away below them as Mount Olympus rose before him in all its terrible splendor. Minho sat back against the carriage seat and drew one slow breath after another, trying to steady himself.

The mountain dwarfed everything around it so completely that the green hills below seemed no more than folds in a blanket cast carelessly at its feet. Its sides climbed higher and higher until they disappeared into a brightness too white to look at for long.

Layers of pale stone, terraces, roads, walls, and towers had been built into the mountain. Minho remembered his mother's stories. She told him that a hundred castles could fit upon Mount Olympus and still leave room for gardens and fields. He had laughed then, certain that his mother must have been trying to impress the children around the fire.

Now he looked up at the terraces cut into the mountain, at the glitter of white stone and gold in the distance, and found himself thinking that perhaps a hundred castles had been an understatement.

“You were right, Mother,” Minho murmured.

The carriage rounded a bend and began moving along a winding path cut into the side of the mountain itself. The road was pale, and wide enough to fit three large carriages. It was bordered here and there by low stone walls worked over with carvings that caught the light.

The higher they climbed, the brighter the sun burned. And yet the air grew colder. When the peacocks passed through open stretches without shade, Minho could feel the sun's warmth striking the side of the carriage and crawling over the glass. But when he cracked the window open a little, the air that slipped through was cool enough to raise the hair on his arms.

Every turn of the path offered him some new glimpse of Olympus between stands of trees and over the edges of carved parapets.

A villa perched high above them with a courtyard full of white statues and blue tiled pools that flashed like pieces of sky fallen to earth. A long balcony draped in flowering vines so heavy that they spilled over the railings in red and purple waves. Further above, was a cluster of tall narrow turrets rising from a palace of pale stone, each tipped with gold that shone like little flames against the bright air.

He saw colonnades too, rows of white columns marching along the edges of terraces so broad they looked like fields lifted into the heavens. He saw rooftops tiled in bronze and silver, courtyards ringed with cypress trees and arched bridges connecting one height of the mountain to another.

He had thought Tartarus monstrous because it was ugly, because it crushed men beneath horror, darkness and fear. Olympus unsettled him in a different way. There was beauty everywhere he looked, but it was beauty on such a scale that it ceased to comfort. It only reminded him how small and insignificant he was.

The carriage rounded another curve, and this time the drop beside them opened wide enough that Minho instinctively drew back from the window. The road clung to the side of the mountain with nothing between the wheels and the long sweep of open air beyond.

Awe was not something he welcomed easily after everything that had happened. But it came anyway. He could not pretend otherwise. He had never seen anything like this. He would never have imagined anything like this if he had not been forced to witness it with his own eyes.

The road beneath him looked touched by divinity. Trees had been planted beside it at intervals, silver-leafed and elegant, their branches trembling in the cold air. Statues appeared now and then at bends in the path, gods or heroes or creatures Minho did not know, all carved with such lifelike precision that he found himself looking twice to make sure they were only stone.

He thought suddenly of his father’s little house near the edge of the village, of the smoke darkened beams with a patched roof and the worn step at the front door where Minyeol used to sit when she waited for him to come back from the woods. The memory struck him so sharply that for a second the splendor outside the window blurred.

What was a house like that, a life like that, beside Olympus? Minho swallowed hard and clenched his jaw. He felt his hatred for the gods sharpen.

How dare they live like this, high above the world in marble, gold and endless beauty, while those below prayed to them with empty stomachs and cold hands and grief heavy in their chests? How dare they demand worship from mortals who suffered through hunger, storms and loss, only to spend that devotion on splendor such as this? The sight of Olympus only made the cruelty of the divide feel all the more unbearable.

Minho felt the carriage slow. The road narrowed until it became little more than a pale ribbon cut into the stone. Mist lay thick over it, gathered low and white, so dense that the peacocks’ clawed feet disappeared into it with every step.

For a few uneasy moments, Minho could see almost nothing beyond the carriage windows. The mountain vanished. The drop beside the road vanished. Even the sunlight itself seemed reduced to a weak glow through the shifting white.

His hand tightened around the edge of the window as he peered out, trying to make sense of where they were being taken now. Little by little, the mist began to thin.

Shapes appeared first. Great pale forms ahead, tall enough to make Minho sit up straighter. As the last of the mist rolled aside, he saw that they had come upon a wall.

It rose high before them, elegant rather than brutal, built of white stone so smooth it almost gleamed. Gold ran through it in fine lines, tracing its edges and the carved symbols set at intervals along its length.

The peacocks drew the carriage straight toward the wall, and for one strange second Minho thought they meant to crash into it. But suddenly, great doors of ivory and gold materialized before his eyes!

The doors were worked over with delicate carvings of peacocks, pomegranates, and crowned women with severe, beautiful faces. They swung inward without a sound.

Beyond the doors, the grounds opened wide. The castle had walls the color of ripe peaches. Those walls rose gracefully, their windows tall and glimmering. Their roofs were edged in gold that caught the sun.

Slender balconies curved outward from the upper floors, their railings worked in intricate patterns. Colonnades lined the front of the castle, their columns slim and elegant, leading the eye toward a broad set of stairs.

Gardens spread out around it in neat abundance. Hedges were trimmed into low walls and archways. White gravel paths curled between beds of roses, lilies, and flowers Minho could not name. There were fruit trees as well, heavy with blossoms and green leaves, and farther off he caught the glitter of fountains throwing thin streams of water into the air.

Servants moved everywhere. Nymphs, by the look of them, though unlike the river creatures below they were dressed, all in pale flowing garments that shifted as they hurried from one place to another. Some carried baskets of cut flowers. Others balanced folded cloth over their arms or jars of oil and trays of fruit. A pair bent over one of the garden beds, their hands moving quickly as they trimmed stems and cleared dead leaves.

But Minho quickly realized he was not heading toward the castle itself. He frowned and leaned closer to the window.

The peacocks did not take the path leading to the front steps. Instead, they followed a side path cut neatly between stretches of garden and low walls of white stone. It wound past the castle rather than toward it, carrying them farther along the mountainside. The elegant castle began to fall behind, its balconies and towers slipping from view one by one as the carriage climbed again.

He could not understand it. If Hera had summoned him, surely it would be to her castle?

As the path grew steeper white stone walls gave way to rougher terraces cut into the mountain. Then he heard voices barked sharp with command. The clash of metal. Boots striking packed earth.

The carriage rounded one final bend and the barracks came into view. They sprawled across a wide field. Long buildings of pale stone stood in neat rows, their roofs dark and steep, their entrances broad enough for men to pass in and out in groups. Training yards stretched between them, marked out by posts, weapon racks, and packed ground scored by countless feet.

Soldiers were everywhere. Some sparred in pairs with metal and wooden swords, their strikes quick and brutal enough that Minho flinched the first time one blade cracked against another’s shoulder. Others practiced in lines, moving spears in unison under the eye of a barking commander. Archers stood farther off in a row, drawing and releasing in such perfect rhythm that the sound of their bowstrings became a single repeated snap.

He saw men hauling water buckets, men running the perimeter of the terrace. There were also women in armor, stripping blades clean with cloths already darkened by oil.

The carriage finally came to a stop. Minho sat very still, looking out at the training yard, at the soldiers covered in sweat and dust and effort. He tried to imagine himself among them but he could not. He was not a soldier.

Something slammed against the roof of the carriage hard enough to make Minho jump. The sound rang through the small space above him, a heavy metallic strike followed by a rough voice barking from outside, “Out!”

Before he could move, the door was pulled open from the outside. Bright light flooded in all at once, and with it came the sight of a broad shouldered man standing there in bronze armor. His beard was thick and dark with streaks of gray running through it, his face weathered and stern. A sword hung at his side, and the look in his eyes made it clear he had no patience for hesitation.

“I said get out, boy!”

Minho realized that the entire training yard had gone still. Every soldier nearby had stopped what they were doing. They were staring openly now, some with curiosity, others with disdain. He heard the whispers begin almost at once.

“That is him?”

“The champion of Tartarus?”

“He survived?”

“By himself?”

He climbed stiffly from the carriage, every bruise in his body protesting as soon as his boots hit the ground. The bulky man stepped back to give him room.

Minho barely looked at him. His gaze swept over the rows of barracks and the busy training grounds, searching for a small figure. Dark hair. A tiny face. A beautiful smile. Minyeol, where are you?

The anger that had been coiled tight in his chest since leaving Tartarus rose hotter at once.

“Where is my little sister?” he demanded. “I was told she would be here. Where is she?”

The man’s expression hardened, “There are no little girls here.”

Minho took a threatening step forward before he could think better of it, “That is a lie. I want to see her.” His voice shook with fury now, though whether from anger or fear he could not have said, “I was told she had been brought here. And you will take me to her!”

The man stared at him for a long moment. Then he turned his head slightly and called out, “You two. Bring him.”

Two soldiers stepped forward at once, saluting, “Yes, Commander!”

One was a woman with her dark hair braided tightly back from her face, her arms bare and corded with muscle beneath a sleeveless leather cuirass. The other was a man with cropped hair and a scar running from the edge of his mouth to his jaw.

Minho took a step back, “Do not touch me!”

The woman took one arm. The man seized the other. Minho twisted violently at once, trying to wrench himself free, but his body was still too battered from Tartarus and they were far stronger than he was. Pain flashed through his wounded arm so brightly it made his vision blur for a second, but even then he fought.

“Let go of me!”

The man tightened his grip. The woman caught him around the shoulders when he tried to throw his weight backward. Minho dug in his heels against the ground but they dragged him away.

They took him toward a large tent set slightly apart from the nearest barracks. It was made of thick brown fabric edged in red and gold, held taut by polished wooden poles and ropes staked neatly into the earth. A standard bearing a peacock crest snapped above it in the mountain air.

The light dimmed at once beneath the fabric roof. The air smelled of parchment, wax, and sweet smoke burning in a shallow bronze dish near the entrance. A long table stood at the center of the tent, covered in scrolls, seal stones, and ink pots. Behind it sat a woman.

Lines of age were etched into her face. Her gray hair was braided and wound high, pinned in place with long gold needles. She wore white and crimson layered to form a simple dress.

The commander entered behind them and said, “He refuses to submit.”

The woman’s gaze moved over Minho slowly, taking in the cloak around his shoulders, the rawness at his wrists, the stubborn set of his jaw, and the dirt still clinging to his clothes from Tartarus. “Well, they often do.”

Minho glared at her, “Where is my sister?”

The woman did not answer. Instead she reached toward the table and lifted a rolled parchment, setting it before him. Beside it she placed a quill dipped in ink.

“Sign.”

Anger, fear, exhaustion, all of it tangled together so tightly in him that he could barely tell one from the other anymore.

“I shall not,” he refused.

The woman sighed softly, not with frustration but with boredom, “If he will not sign willingly, make him sign. I have no time for this foolishness.”

Minho’s blood turned cold. The commander stepped forward, and the two soldiers still holding him shifted their grips.

Panic hit him hard enough to make his heart stutter.

“No,” he said quickly, this time with none of the earlier defiance. “No, you cannot just—”

The first blow cut him off. It came from the commander’s fist, hard into his ribs, and Minho folded at once with a sharp sound torn from his throat. Before he could catch his breath, another strike came. Then another. The soldiers holding him kept him upright while the commander beat the resistance out of him.

Minho tried to twist away. Tried to raise his arms to shield himself. His wounded one gave out almost at once. Pain burst bright and useless through his body. A blow caught his mouth and he tasted blood. Another struck his stomach hard enough that his knees nearly buckled despite the soldiers keeping him on his feet.

When the commander finally stepped back, Minho sagged between the two soldiers, his head hanging, blood slipping from the corner of his mouth to the dirt floor below. The world had gone blurred at the edges. The tent swayed around him when he tried to lift his head.

The woman picked up the quill again. One of the soldiers forced Minho’s hand open. The other shoved the quill between his fingers. He tried weakly to let it fall, but they tightened his grip until pain shot through the knuckles. The commander caught his wrist and dragged him forward to the table.

Minho saw the parchment swimming below him. “I…” The word barely came out.

The commander’s grip tightened until Minho thought the bones in his wrist might crack. His hand was forced downward. The quill scratched against the parchment. One crooked line. Then another. The commander moved his wrist while the soldier kept his fingers clenched tight, dragging the shape of his name from him.

Minho watched it happen through a haze of pain and disbelief. When it was done, the woman took the scroll away before he could even fully see what had been written. She held it up briefly, inspected the name there, and gave one small nod as though everything had gone exactly as it should.

Minho’s hand fell limp at once. The quill dropped from his fingers and rolled across the table.

“There,” the woman said. “He is bound.”

Minho lifted his head with effort, blood on his mouth, fury rising weakly through the pain like something still alive enough to refuse death.

“Where is… my… s–sister?”

When he came to, the first thing he saw was a pair of wide eyes staring down at him. His body reacted before his mind could catch up. He jerked upward at once, sucking in a sharp breath as pain and dizziness rushed through him together.

“Oh, they got you real good, didn't they?”

Minho blinked hard and the room around him swam into focus little by little. White linen. Pale stone walls. A narrow bed beneath him.

He was in an infirmary. But this was nothing like the tiny infirmary in his village. He saw shelves upon shelves, lined with clay jars and folded cloths. The sharp clean scent of crushed herbs and boiled water hung in the air.

Sunlight spilled in through an open window high in the wall. The mountain breeze that came with it was cold enough to make him shiver. But the flaming torches on the walls took the brunt of it.

He pushed himself up, ignoring the protest that came from every part of his body. His head spun almost at once, a hot wave of dizziness washing over him hard enough that he had to brace one hand against the mattress to keep from falling right back down.

“Easy,” the boy said quickly. “Take it easy. You look like you’re about to faint again.”

Minho turned his head and squinted at him. He looked about Minho’s age, perhaps a little younger, perhaps not. It was hard to tell when his face moved so animatedly while he spoke.

His hair, the color of raven feathers, fell over his forehead and crept over his collar. And perhaps it was the dizziness, but Minho could've sworn the boy's hair was streaked with blue in the firelight.

The boy stood beside the bed with the loose restless energy of someone who could not stay still even if ordered to.His eyes were a stormy gray as they flicked over Minho's bruises. But he himself was not without injury. One of his arms was held in a sling against his chest.

He wore a blue uniform, though not the armor that Minho had seen out in the training yard. Without the breastplate and leather straps, the Oathsworn uniform looked simpler, though still finer than anything Minho had ever owned.

The tunic was a deep clear blue, belted at the waist with dark leather, the sleeves fitted closely to the wrists. There were peacock feathers embroidered in silver stitching at the collar and along the edges. The cloth itself looked thick enough to hold warmth against the mountain cold. Dark trousers disappeared into worn boots lined with fur.

Minho shifted backward on the bed, wincing when the movement pulled at his ribs. His body still felt sore, as if every bone was broken. His mouth tasted stale, and when he touched his lip with his tongue he found the split there still tender.

The boy seemed to notice the way Minho was looking at him because he lifted his good hand in something halfway between a greeting and surrender, “I’m not here to harm you. Hope that helps.”

That only made Minho narrow his eyes in suspicion, “Who are you? And what do you want?”

The boy glanced toward the window and then back at him, “There’s no one else in here. Just us. Well, unless you count all the jars. But I don’t think they’re very talkative.” He laughed nervously at his own joke and then sobered, “I just thought I could help.”

Minho looked around. The boy was right. The infirmary was empty aside from the two of them. A second bed stood against the far wall, neatly made and untouched.

Minho’s gaze returned to the boy, “But who are you?”

The boy’s face brightened as if he had been waiting for the question, “I'm Jisung. And I hail from Athens.” He said it proudly, and before Minho could ask him anything else, Jisung continued, “Well, my parents are from Pylos, but my mother lived in Kourion for a time and my father sailed through practically every sea there is. Or at least that’s what he always claimed. He liked telling stories.”

“My sis—”

“My family has a whole thing about ancestry,” Jisung babbled. “Uncles and cousins and old names and who married who and which branch of the line supposedly came from someone noble or blessed or both. You know how people are.”

Minho, in fact, did not know how people were when it came to family histories because no one in his house had ever come from a bloodline that mattered. He started to tell Jisung as much.

But Jisung rambled on, “My mother liked to remind everyone that her people had old ties in Kourion. Though my father always said that meant very little when her brothers still argued over fish prices like market wives. And then he’d start talking about ships again, of course. Every sea, every storm, every port, every woman who supposedly wept when he left. My mother never believed half of it, but she let him talk.”

Minho stared at him for a moment, still trying to decide whether the boy was harmless or simply strange.

Jisung seemed to realize, belatedly, that he had been rambling, because he cleared his throat and gave a quick crooked smile, “Sorry, I talk too much, don't I?”

“Not at all,” Minho snorted, sarcastically.

Jisung gave him a toothy grin, “That's what I thought!”

Minho looked down at the blanket tangled over his legs. Someone had washed the blood from his skin and changed his clothes while he was unconscious. The thought made his jaw tighten.

“How long have I been here?”

“Not long,” Jisung replied. “A few hours, maybe. They dragged you in half dead. I thought you were dead at first, actually, but then you started breathing in that awful painful sounding way, so that was nice.”

Minho gave him a flat look.

Jisung coughed lightly, “I mean, it was nice that you were alive!” He edged a little closer to the bed and Minho pulled away again. “The healers were here earlier,” he said. “They fixed what they could. You slept through most of it.”

Minho’s fingers curled into the blanket, eyeing Jisung’s arm, “Why are you here?”

Jisung glanced down at the sling and wrinkled his nose, “Dislocated shoulder. Happened in training yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Everything blurs together after a while.” He tilted his head, “You?”

Minho looked at him in disbelief, “You know very well why I am here.”

Jisung considered that, “Fair enough. It's just that sometimes there's more to someone than meets the eye.”

For a moment, silence settled between them. But Jisung was not built for silence.

“So,” he raised a brow at Minho. “I heard you argued with Commander Medaeus.”

Minho scowled, “I only wanted to find my little sister. It hardly warranted—” he gestured to the bruises covering his arms and legs, “—all of this.”

He pushed the blanket aside and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

Jisung shook his head, “Wait, what are you doing?”

Minho ignored the question and pushed himself to his feet. The room swayed at once, but he locked his knees and waited for it to steady. His ribs still ached and his arm still felt wrong, though no longer as though it were on fire.

Jisung tilted his head. “You know, my grandfather, a harbor master in Argos, always said—”

“I do not care for you,” Minho scoffed, one hand braced against the bedpost. “And I care even less for your ancestors.”

Jisung looked mildly offended, “Now that is harsh.”

Minho felt only a little sorry, “I need to find my sister.”

He made it only another two steps before Jisung said, “I know where she might be.”

Minho stopped so suddenly that pain flashed through his side. He whirled on Jisung, fury burning in his veins, “What did you say?”

Jisung shifted his weight, eyes darted nervously from side to side, “I said I might know.”

Minho crossed the space between them. He caught the front of the boy’s uniform in both fists, bunching the blue cloth beneath his fingers, and slammed him back against the wall hard enough to make the jars on the nearest shelf rattle. Jisung let out a startled sound, his good hand flying up at once while the one in the sling bounced awkwardly against his chest.

“Where is she?” Minho demanded. “Where is Minyeol?!”

“Easy,” Jisung said quickly, and there was a laugh in his voice, but it came out thin and wrong. “Easy, now. Gods, you move faster than you look like you could.”

Minho tightened his grip on his lapels instead of loosening it, “Do not toy with me.” Minho shoved him harder, his heart pounding so fast it made his head swim. “Where is she?”

“I do not know for certain. But,” Jisung added quickly, “I heard a rumor. Only a rumor.” He licked his lips, “There was talk of a little girl taken to serve as a cup bearer in the Palace of Aegis Veil.”

Minho clenched his jaw, “Aegis Veil? What is that?”

“Hera’s palace,” Jisung told him with wide eyes. “It is named the Palace of Aegis Veil, for the white mist—” he stopped himself. “You probably don't care about that part.”

Minho imagined Minyeol among strangers in gleaming halls, carrying golden cups with both hands. Oh, she would be so frightened and alone, trying not to cry because she knew he would want her to be brave.

Slowly, Minho released him. The cloth of Jisung’s uniform fell rumpled back into place. He sucked in a breath and straightened at once, tugging the lapels smooth with his good hand as though that small act might restore some dignity.

“You really ought not lunge at people when you look one sharp breeze away from collapsing yourself,” he muttered, dusting his shoulder.

Minho ignored that too, “How do I get to the Palace of Whatever?”

“The Palace of Aegis Veil,” Jisung let out a small, humorless laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “Mortals do not wander in and out as they please. They will beat you half to death again before you even reach the lower gates.” He grimaced, “Or perhaps, fully to death this time.””

Minho knew he was right. But that only made the fury in him burn hotter.

He turned away from Jisung and steadied himself against the edge of the nearest table. Minyeol was somewhere, serving the very goddess who had thrown him into Tartarus like meat into a pit full of vipers.

“How do I get there?” Minho asked, almost pleading. “Please, I need to…” his shoulders sagged. “I need to find her.”

“I'll tell you,” Jisung offered, lifting his good hand slightly, “but first, you are going to sit back down and let me tend to those wounds.”

Minho looked at him doubtfully, “Are you a healer?”

Jisung gave him a quizzical look, “I should tell you that the Healers come no more than once for the Oathsworn. If you are lucky, they see to you properly the first time. If you are not, then whatever still aches, bleeds, festers, or breaks after that becomes your own problem.”

Minho’s mouth tightened into a frown.

Jisung must have seen the refusal still sitting in his face because he went on, his tone a little softer now, “If an injury needs more care after the Healer leaves, it must be handled by your own hand or the hand of whoever pities you enough to help.” He glanced down at his sling and gave a small shrug. “Most of the time, no one pities anyone.”

Minho did not like the sound of any of that. But then there had been very little on Olympus so far that he did like.

He let out a frustrated sigh and turned back toward the bed. “Fine,” he said stiffly. “Do it quickly.”

Jisung brightened immediately, relief loosening his smile. “See? You can be sensible.”

Jisung moved at once, gathering cloths, a small bowl of water, and a squat jar of ointment from the shelves nearby. He did all of it one handed and with an ease that suggested he had done this before. That thought did not comfort Minho. How often did one end up with a broken arm here?

Jisung set the things down beside him and crouched awkwardly. Up close, he smelled faintly of soap, herbs, and the clean mountain air drifting in through the window. He unwound the cloth already tied around Minho’s arm and winced a little when he saw the bruise darkening along his ribs.

“They really did make a spectacle of you,” he muttered. He dipped a cloth into the water and began gently cleaning the dried blood from Minho’s split lip first.

The room was quiet except for the faint clink of the bowl and the sounds drifting in from outside. Minho listened without meaning to, his jaw tightening every time he heard the shouts from the training yard.

Jisung must have noticed where his attention had gone because he said, “They will have everyone drilling harder this week.”

Minho looked at him, “Why?”

Jisung tied off one fresh strip of cloth around Minho’s forearm and sat back on his heels, “The Rival Rite. It happens every six months. It's a… training exercise of sorts.” He reached for the jar of ointment and twisted the lid open with his thumb. “It is a battle between Hera’s Oathsworn and Zeus’s Bloodsworn.”

Minho watched him in silence for a second. “Bloodsworn? What are they?” He thought of the Drakons and the giant. Could there be worse waiting for him?

Jisung looked up and there was fear in his eyes, “The Bloodsworn are not like us.” He dipped two fingers into the ointment and began spreading it carefully over the bruise at Minho’s side. The salve was cool and smelled sour.

“We, the Oathsworn,” Jisung said, “are the part of Olympus no one bothers to mourn for long. We are gathered, trained, used, and sent where we are needed. We are the infantry and there are always more to take our place.”

Minho’s brows drew together, “And how are the Bloodsworn different?”

“Well, for one, they answer directly to Zeus.” Jisung screwed the lid back onto the jar and set it aside. “They are his commanders. His lieutenants. The ones he trusts to carry his will.” He hesitated, then added more quietly, “They are powerful in ways the rest of us are not. Many of them are of his own kin. His blood. Or the children and descendants of those close enough to him to matter. Even the ones who are not gods themselves are usually born from powerful lines.”

Minho felt irritation rise again, “I do not understand why Olympus needs an army at all. If the gods are what the stories say, what need do they have of men and women to fight for them?”

That made Jisung go still. The room seemed quieter for a moment. Even the noise outside faded strangely in Minho’s ears as he watched Jisung’s face close in on itself.

“I have not asked the answer to that question,” Jisung pursed his lips. “People who ask too much too loudly do not often stay where they are long enough to enjoy the answers.” He reached for another clean strip of cloth and wound it more securely around Minho’s ribs. “Olympus has enemies. It is home to Gods who hold grudges. It is a home to Gods who do not love one another nearly as much as the poets pretend. That is all I will say.”

Minho’s patience snapped thinly. “Speak plainly for once. Tell me how to help my sister.”

Jisung sighed, “If you want access to the Palace of Aegis Veil, the Oathsworn will need to win the Rival Rite.”

Minho stared at him, “Win against Gods and Demi-Gods, you mean.”

“Yes.”

Jisung wiped his hand with a wet cloth, “Victory brings rewards. Privileges. Favor, if only for a little while. Doors open that are usually shut. The victors dine at Aegis Veil.”

Minho looked toward the open window, toward the bright impossible mountain beyond it. He thought of Minyeol carrying cups in some shining hall while gods looked at her with cruel eyes.

“When is it?” Minho asked.

Jisung hesitated for only a moment this time, “Tomorrow. But you don't have to join—”

“I will fight,” Minho hissed.

“Then you are a fool,” Jisung’s voice sharpened with anger for the first time. “The Rite is not some village contest where boys punch each other bloody and call it honor. It is not training with blunted practice swords while everyone claps from the sidelines. They do not go easy on us. They do not stop because a man is wounded or frightened or too new to understand how to lift a sword.”

“I was thrown into Tartarus against my will,” Minho rose to his feet. “I was beaten and bound to an oath I never agreed to. I woke up in a cell and was told my life belongs to gods who do not even trouble themselves to hide how little they value it. And now you tell me my sister is somewhere, carrying cups for the very goddess who did this to us. If that Rite is the only path toward her, then I will take it.”