"It"s not just that. Orion can"t be the Tyrant because he"s the Shield," Lucas said, waving away his father"s objection. "When Ca.s.sandra made the prophecy about Helen being the Descender, she said Helen would go down into the Underworld with her Shield."
"Granted," Matt said equitably, like he"d already thought of this. "But you also found a way into the Underworld, Lucas. And you went there to protect Helen-to shield her."
"Okay, but I didn"t help her free the Furies," Lucas countered, recalling the words of the prophecy.
"Yeah you did," Helen said sheepishly, hating to go against Lucas on this. "I was banished from the Underworld until you gave me the obol. And then you helped me figure out which river we needed."
"Yeah, but Orion was the one who was actually there with you when you freed them."
"Luke," Hector interrupted gently. "You gotta admit Matt"s point raises the possibility that there is more than one interpretation of the prophecy."
"There"s always more than one interpretation," Orion said from the doorway. Everyone turned to look at him as he came back into the library. "Face it. The Fates speak in riddles because they don"t know what the h.e.l.l they"re talking about. If they did, they"d say something straightforward like, "Orion is the Tyrant and he wants to eat your brains for breakfast" or whatever."
Hector"s shoulders started bouncing up and down with silent laughter. Lucas turned his head away and tried to stuff down a laugh of his own, but he made the mistake of catching Jason"s eye.
"Zombie Tyrant," Jason whispered to Lucas, his face turning red with a repressed laugh.
"Huzzah death," Lucas whispered back, cracking up. Apparently, that was some kind of inside joke between the Delos boys because all three of them busted out laughing.
"Enough foolishness," Pallas said, striding angrily for the door. He stopped and turned. "What part of "reducing all mortal cities to rubble" don"t you understand? We"ve all been warned what"s at stake here, and not just for Scions. I don"t want to be the one who stood by and let a tyrant worse than Stalin or Hitler get away because he seemed like such a nice guy when I met him." He looked directly at Orion, and then back at everyone else. No one was laughing anymore. "Do you?"
"Ariadne," Matt called quietly down the upstairs hallway.
Ariadne stopped at her bedroom door and glanced back at him, holding up a finger to signal for him to wait where he was. She listened for her father, brothers, and cousin, but it wasn"t necessary. Matt could hear all the Delos men, he could even feel their pulses throbbing in the air, and he knew that they were occupied elsewhere. But Ariadne didn"t know this, and he didn"t know how to explain it to her yet. After listening for far longer than Matt needed to, Ariadne finally looked satisfied.
"Come in," she whispered, beckoning for him to follow her into her room. He entered uncertainly, standing in the middle of her bedroom while she transferred clothes from one piece of furniture to another without even thinking about putting anything away in her dresser.
She was always a slob. I spent half the war cleaning up after her, the new part of Matt remembered. Worst slave ever.
Matt shook his head and tried to push aside the other consciousness that kept popping up uninvited, just as he tried to suppress the flood of familiarity and tenderness he felt toward the girl he was looking at.
Her bed was just a few feet away. Part of him had never lain beside her and another part of him had spent ten years sleeping next to her-her and no other until the day he died. His hands ached to reach out and touch her again for the first time, so he shoved them in his pockets. He turned his head and stared at the wall as she tossed something silky and lace-trimmed in her closet.
"Matt?" Ariadne asked from across the room. He looked at her as she flung a long tress of her chestnut hair behind her shoulder, desperately trying not to remember how soft both her hair and her round shoulder felt. "My lingerie isn"t going to strike you blind, you know."
"I need to ask you some questions," he said tersely, deliberately turning the conversation away from her undergarments.
"Okay." Ariadne crossed to him and sat on the edge of her bed. Matt took the chair she had just liberated from its burden of laundry and sat opposite her.
"Tell me about the different roles that the Fates mentioned tonight," he asked.
Ariadne smiled, almost like she was expecting this. "You know that the Greeks were in love with theater?" Matt nodded. "Well, the Fates were, too. They always have been. It"s almost like they see the world as a stage, and the Scions are merely their players. In a lot of prophecies, there is mention of certain roles that must be filled, or that the world is waiting to be filled, in order to complete the "Great Cycle" that the Fates seem fixated on. By the way, a cycle is also another name for a series of plays that are interconnected-like the plays by Aeschylus that tell the story of the beginning of the Furies. It"s called the Oresteia."
"Yeah," Matt said ruefully. "I"ve read that one. Now tell me about the specific roles that the Fates mentioned tonight. Have you always known about them?"
"Yes. No one really knows what those roles mean, though. Or what the Fates intend for them."
"How can that be?"
"Because they"re vague. Think about it. The roles are the Hero, the Shield, the Lover, and the Warrior-and seriously? That could mean any one of the Scions who have been born, since like ever. We"re a bunch of hero, warrior, lover, shield-the-weak-with-your-body kind of people," she said, mildly exasperated with how predictable her kind were. "The only role that has specific portents attached to it is the Tyrant, and all of the Houses over the eons have been super vigilant about the signs surrounding him in order to prevent him from ever coming. But you know that prophecy already."
"The Tyrant is born to bitterness. He bears the blood of multiple Houses and must be able to reduce all mortal cities to rubble," Matt said seriously. He didn"t like to agree with Pallas, but Matt knew he was right. He pictured someone like Hitler with Scion strength and the ability to destroy cities just by willing it.
Matt remembered Zach asking the gang a hypothetical question once: If they had a time machine and could go back and kill Hitler before he had a chance to hurt anyone, would they do it? Even if he were still an innocent child when they went back and murdered him? They had all answered yes.
"Matt," Ariadne said, reaching out and putting her hand over his. "Are you okay?"
"And the others, like the Shield and . . . the Warrior," he continued. "Those are set roles, roles that must be filled? Have these roles been there from the beginning?"
"Ca.s.sandra of Troy was the first to mention them . . . so, yeah. All of these roles have been there from the beginning."
"And every role must be filled before this cycle can be completed and the Fates can move on to a new cycle?"
"I"ve never heard it put that way before," Ariadne replied cautiously. Her sharp mind turned this novel idea over quickly as it shuffled through dozens of memorized bits of minutia, until finally, she nodded in acceptance. "But I suppose that"s a plausible interpretation."
"So we"re all trapped," Matt breathed hopelessly. "We have to play our parts or the Fates will just start over and try again with the next batch of Scions."
Ariadne frowned in thought. "Maybe that"s why it feels like we"ve never really left Troy. Because something that was supposed to happen way back then didn"t, and the Fates keep trying to re-create it."
Matt smiled, sternly reminding himself not to lean over and kiss her no matter how clever she was. He waited a moment until he knew his voice would be steady before talking.
"That"s what I think, too," he said. "It"s like the Scions are stuck in an endless round of auditions as the Fates shift new actors into the same roles, looking for the right cast to make their play work."
"But they"re the Fates. If they want something to happen, why can"t they just make it happen?"
"I don"t know," Matt replied. "There must be some other force that moves against them. Maybe their sister, Nemesis."
"We should tell everyone about this," Ariadne said. "Even if they think we"re wrong."
"I agree."
They sat for a while, each of them pondering private thoughts. The sun was starting to come up, and Matt told himself it was time to go, even though he could have sat like that with her for days.
"Good night, Ariadne," Matt said as he stood up.
"Where are you going?" Her luminous hazel eyes were wide and troubled.
"Home. I snuck out when Hector called me," he said, looking anywhere but at her. "I want to be back before my parents wake up so they don"t worry. The riots really freaked them out."
"Okay," she said quietly. "Will you come back later? The Houses are supposed to meet here tonight."
"I don"t know if I can," he said. There was a ship out on the water, carrying his army closer. Matt could feel it like a phantom limb-removed but still aching. "I may have something else to take care of."
Ariadne nodded and looked at the floor. Unable to resist, Matt leaned down and kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled the same, like honey and summer. He let himself run his hand down the back of her bent neck, feeling how slender it was under his calloused palm-as fragile as a flower"s stem.
"Will you try?" she whispered, not looking up.
"Yes. I"ll try."
"Hey. Are you mad at me?" Lucas heard Helen ask.
He turned and saw her floating toward him across the roof of the house. He shook his head, and she sat next to him on the very edge of the roof over his bedroom.
"I didn"t mean to disagree with you in front of the family back there. About Orion being the Shield," she continued.
"It"s okay. You were just bringing up a good point," he said, knowing she could hear the truth in his words. Helen"s new talent as a Falsefinder made things both easier and harder between the two of them. He could never lie to her again, not even to protect her. Not that lying had ever kept her safe. Lucas briefly wondered if he"d ever protected her at all. "I still think Orion"s the Shield, though."
"But I don"t need a Shield. I never did," she said, almost like she was reading his mind. With all the new things she could do, Lucas wouldn"t put telepathy past her.
"No. I guess not," he agreed. Something about that troubled Lucas. Helen had always been the strongest, so what did the Shield "shield" her from, exactly?
"Maybe Orion is the Lover. He is a son of Aphrodite," Helen said, like she was considering it.
That made sense. And although it killed him to think about it, Lucas was pretty sure that Orion was Helen"s actual lover now. But no matter how mixed up all the signs for the different roles were, Lucas knew better.
"Orion isn"t the Lover."
"How do you know?"
"That part"s taken already."
Helen looked at him, her beautiful mismatched eyes swimming with regret and, Lucas hoped desperately, not pity as well. "You know . . . all these new talents I have . . ." Her voice wavered. "One of them is controlling hearts."
"So you mentioned."
"I could take your love for me away," she offered in a small voice.
"And then what?"
Helen"s brow pinched together, like she was confused by his question. "Well, then you could move on with your life. We"d have to stay away from each other, though."
"We tried that already, remember?" Lucas asked with a wry smile. "It didn"t work."
Lucas had no doubt Helen could erase his love for her, but he also knew he"d only fall in love with her again the next time he laid eyes on her. There was no "moving on" for him. No matter what else Lucas did in his life, his love for Helen would always define him. He was the Lover.
"Please, Lucas? I want to make this easier on you," she said quietly, her head tilted down.
"Then stop talking nonsense." He b.u.mped her shoulder playfully with his until she dropped her pained look and smiled. "We"ve been over this a dozen times. Nothing"s ever going to change the way I feel about you."
She finally met his eyes and nodded sadly, accepting what she could hear in his voice-the truth.
"So, maybe Orion"s the Hero?" she asked, trying to change the subject to something more productive.
"Hector," Lucas replied immediately, shaking his head.
"Right. That"s a no-brainer," Helen said, rolling her eyes a little. "Unless Hector"s the Warrior?"
"The Warrior joins the fight last, and Hector"s never come late to a fight in his life. I"d bet just about anything Hector"s the Hero and Orion"s the Shield."
Helen seemed to struggle for a moment with her next question. "What is it?" Lucas asked coaxingly.
"Is the Tyrant really as bad as Pallas said?"
Lucas nodded slowly. He didn"t want to scare her, but he also knew he couldn"t lie to her. "What little of the prophecy we have left talks about the Tyrant like he"s stronger than all the G.o.ds combined. And there"s supposed to be this huge battle with monsters and storms when the Tyrant rises. Even the sky is supposed to change colors, like a kaleidoscope."
"Sounds like the apocalypse."
"Yeah," Lucas said, feeling Helen shiver.
They sat there for a while, dangling their feet off the side of the house. Even though the conversation had taken such a dark turn, just having Helen near him relaxed Lucas and helped him focus. He might not be able to kiss her, but if she was sitting right next to him, he didn"t torture himself over who else she might be with. And what they were probably doing.
He reminded himself it was better this way and swallowed the lump in his throat. He wanted Helen to be happy, and he trusted that Orion could give that to her. Lucas certainly never had. All he ever did was make Helen miserable, and as soon as he knew this whole mess was over, he was going to make sure he never hurt her again.
Burying these consuming thoughts, Lucas forced his mind to drift instead. He shuffled through every image and use of a shield he could come up with.
"Shield, defense, bastion, block . . . ," he mumbled. "What does Orion shield us from? What does he block?"
"Well. He seems pretty good at blocking doorways," Helen joked. Her smile disappeared quickly as a thought occurred to her. "And prophecies."
"And the futures of anyone who spends a lot of time with him," he breathed. "Orion shields you from the awareness of the Fates, Helen. If the Fates can"t see you, they can"t decide your life for you. Do you know what this means? You have free will."
They stared at each other, so shocked they almost couldn"t believe it, but both of them sensed a tingling in the air that told them they were onto something huge.
"But why me? Why am I the one who gets to choose?" Helen"s eyes darted around fearfully. "What role am I playing, Lucas?"
"You"re the Descender."
"That"s not on the list."
She was right. Lucas felt a moment of anxiety, and then relaxed as the solution came to him. "Out of all of us, you were the last one to discover that you"re a Scion-the last to join the fight. You"re the Warrior, of course."
Helen calmed down and smiled tentatively. "Huh. Go figure." Her nose wrinkled as she thought of something. "The Fates know I suck at fighting, right?"
"You"ve gotten better." He really tried to keep a straight face, but it wouldn"t hold.
Helen pushed him off the roof. He floated up in front of her, holding his hands in an "I surrender" gesture, still trying not to laugh. She crossed her arms huffily and looked away, trying not to laugh with him.
"Lover, my heinie," she said, cracking a grin and nudging him away from her with her foot.
He caught her ankle and pulled himself between her dangling legs. Helen"s eyes widened with surprise and her lips softened and fell apart.
"That"s right," he whispered. Lucas leaned in close to her, loving that in spite of everything that had happened, she couldn"t help but react to him. "Don"t ever forget it."
He grazed the curve of her cheek with his fingertips before flying away.