“Torn my hand off?” Ares laughed. “Weeks of fighting monsters have made you overconfident.”
Weeks of fighting monsters. Had it been that long that she’d spent tearing scales and claws off of beasts at the banks of the Styx? Had that much time passed in the dark? She didn’t know. It could have been days and it could have been forever.
“It wasn’t all a joke, either, Aphrodite,” Ares said. “This is going to take a lot of blood.”
He drew the blade across his hand and flicked a few red drops into the lake. He shook blood in all directions, flinging it onto petals of asphodel and into the mud of the bank. Athena recoiled as some of it landed on her face, but it was smart. The dead would smell it, and come for a taste. It wouldn’t take long.
“Why are we doing this?” Athena asked, wiping her cheek.
“Have you noticed how Persephone is nowhere near?” Ares asked. “How she seems to hang out by the river border, and near her palace? I think it’s because she’s mostly dead now. Mostly a shade herself. I don’t think the dead are quite as obedient as they used to be.”
As Athena looked out across the still lake, a pale head poked out of one of the tunnels. A pale arm followed it, and then another, until a parade of waxy corpses lurched toward them, so many that Athena wished Ares had put out less bait. They came from everywhere, even from the corridor they’d come down, their legs stiff and jerking, vacant eyes bright at the prospect of food. Of life.
Aphrodite moved close to Ares and took his arm. So many dead were disconcerting. Men, women, youths, all shuffled closer with their mouths slightly open.
“They won’t hurt you,” Ares whispered into Aphrodite’s hair.
“You sure?” Athena asked irritably. “What’s the second part of the plan?” The first of the dead touched her: a whisper against her shoulder. Then a weak, groping hand.
Athena pushed her panic down. They were only shades. Only the dead, and she could force her way through thousands if she had to.
Which she would, if she wanted to get free. Hundreds of pale shades had already assembled in only a few seconds.
“All right, before there are too many.” Ares’ voice was loud, and not quite as calm as before.
“Ares, hurry,” Aphrodite pressed.
He dragged the blade across his wrist and reached for the head of the nearest dead. He forced his wrist against its mouth and let it drink. “Here.” He tossed Athena the knife. “Feed as many as you can.”
Athena watched the corpse lap and suck on Ares’ blood. Color quickly returned to its hair, its cheeks, and even the rags it wore. The eyes blinked to something like life.
Turncoats. They were making turncoats. The blood of whoever fed the dead would bind the dead to them.
Athena made a quick cut in her palm and shoved it in the face of the nearest shambling body.
“Give me the knife,” Aphrodite said.
Athena handed it over, and Aphrodite followed their lead. When they started, Athena feared an onslaught, a rush of bodies crushing them and pushing them back into the lake. But the corpses just shuffled without much aim. All except those being fed.
Ares had finished with two, and held both of them by the shoulder.
“Your mistress is dead now, like you,” he said. “She isn’t your queen any longer, but a shade who walks the halls. Find her. Bring her to us.”
*
Athena lay back on a bed of asphodel. The wounds on her wrists and hands had scabbed over, but she’d given up so much blood that her head swam. How much blood could a god bleed before they passed out? She still didn’t know. But she, Ares, and Aphrodite had pressed the issue. Aphrodite lay somewhere in the flowers beside her, and Ares sat wearily on a rock.
“Does anyone have anything to eat?” Aphrodite asked. “Some fruit?”