I frowned. “I think that’s just a stupid story to scare people. Medusa may exist, but she isn’t some scary woman walking around with snakes for hair.”
“Move it or lose it, recruit.”
Someone pushed Ren and me aside, so they could pass by on the path. Two someones. A centaur with long, flowing auburn hair that matched the hair on his horse body, and a tall, thin woman topping six feet, with green tendrils of hair. Hair that seemed to move around her head, as if it was floating in water. I squinted to get a closer look. Were there tiny little faces at the ends of that hair?
She turned to look at me, and her eyes were completely white, devoid of an iris or pupil. She had no eyelashes either, just almond-shaped pale orbs. She smiled, flashing razor-sharp, pointed teeth.
The centaur also glanced back at us, and there was no disguising his distaste in what he saw. “Can you believe the type of misfit they’re letting into the academy nowadays? It wasn’t like when we trained here.”
“That was a few thousand years ago, Chiron. The world has changed.”
They both turned back around and kept walking down the path to the academy.
Ren nudged me in the side. “What was that you were saying?”
I gaped, rubbing at my eyes. Was I hallucinating? Had I actually drowned in the ocean, and this was some kind of purgatory? Or were all the rumors and stories about the Gods and the demi-gods who were spawned from them as real as I was?
Chapter Four
MELANY
Still startled by the encounter with Medusa and Chiron, I kept my head down the rest of the way to the academy. I really didn’t want to court any more trouble. Deep inside, I thought for sure they somehow knew I didn’t belong, being demigods and all, and would out me right there and then before my peers. It hadn’t happened, but now I was even more paranoid than before.
The closer we got to the school, the grander and loftier it loomed. From a distance, it had looked maybe three stories tall, but the reality of it when we neared the ornate, ten-foot high wooden doors was like peering up at a great Gothic cathedral or a castle from medieval England, built to withstand any battle siege. It was all dark stone and sharp edges. There was nothing comforting or warm about the place at all.
As the first recruit arrived—naturally it just happened to be the guy who had saved me and his little crew—the huge doors opened, as if on their own, and he and the rest of the recruits walked through, entering the building. When I passed under the high arch of the entrance, a strange vibration rippled over my body, and now I was suddenly dry and so were my clothes and my backpack. I looked around to see if others had felt it, but I couldn’t tell, as either they had a look of rapture on their face or abject terror. I didn’t think they even noticed they weren’t sopping wet anymore.
I decided to stick to Ren’s side as we all gathered in the antechamber. I was a mass of nervous energy, unsure of what to do or where to go. But then an excited murmur rippled through the group as a man with long, gray hair and a neatly clipped gray beard leisurely came down the wide stone staircase in front of us.
Beside me, a girl I didn’t know grabbed my arm. “It’s Zeus,” she whispered. “Holy crap.”
I craned my neck to get a better view of him as he stood on the steps and looked down at us with an amused quirk of his lips. He didn’t look all-powerful or all-knowing. He looked like a tired old man out for a stroll, wearing baggy beige linen pants and a roomy linen tunic. Was he wearing a bathrobe on top?
“Welcome recruits.” His voice boomed, echoing all around us. I actually could feel it vibrating against my heart. It was like being next to a huge speaker at a rave, and the DJ was spinning something bass heavy. I rubbed at my sternum, frowning, as he continued to speak.
“You have been invited to the academy because there is something special about you. You have been picked out of millions of young people because somewhere in your family lineage runs Gods’ blood.”
Oh shit. I’m going to get found out. I most definitely do not have Gods’ blood running through my veins.
The girl beside me continued to squeeze my arm, as her excitement grew with his words. “I knew it,” she whispered.
“You are stronger, smarter, healthier, more enhanced than the rest of the population, and that is why you are here.” His eyes started to glow as his voice rumbled throughout the building. “To train to be the fiercest soldiers to ever set foot on the Earth.”
Some of the group clapped, others cheered. I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat, knowing I shouldn’t be here. I wondered how easy it would be for me to turn around and walk out of the academy. Would I be stopped?
“Your training will not be easy. It will be the most difficult thing you have ever done. You will be asked to push yourself beyond your limitations. There will be sweat and tears and blood spilled in the halls of this academy before your three years are finished.”
I glanced around at all the people surrounding me. Some had glossy, wide eyes, enraptured with Zeus’s speech, and others kept their gazes on their feet, maybe too afraid to even look at the God of all Gods. One boy nearby licked his lips nervously. His hands shook at his sides.
My heart pounded so hard I could feel it in my throat, but it wasn’t with fear. Exhilaration at the prospect of pushing myself beyond anything I could imagine made my head swim. Maybe here I could prove myself. Prove that I was worth all the cells that combined in complicated patterns to make me a person. Although I was afraid of being found out, I wasn’t frightened of sweat, tears, or blood. I’d spilled them already just to get here.
“Your first year will be hard. You will be trained in all disciplines, both physical and mental, so that we may ascertain where your Gods’ power and affiliation lies. At the end of the year, you will each have to face twelve harrowing trials. One for each of the Gods. If you survive, you will be placed into the corresponding God’s clan that you are connected to.”
That caused a murmur through the group. I heard various Gods’ names spoken out loud. Poseidon. Athena. Apollo. I heard one girl near me say, “I’m most definitely in Aphrodite’s clan.” She was pretty and blonde, and it made me both angry and sad that she thought her looks was what was special about her. Everyone was so enthralled with what clan they wanted to belong to they seemed to have missed the, “If you survive,” part of that sentence.
I didn’t know which of the Gods I aspired to. I hadn’t given it much thought over the years, since I never expected to be called to the academy.
A buzzing filled my ear, like a slight brushing of a finger across the top, or a hushed whisper of words I couldn’t quite decipher.
I whipped around to see who had spoken. Someone was messing around. The boy behind me gave me a funny look and then ignored me. I glanced at the girl beside him, but I didn’t think she even noticed my presence she was so wrapped up in what Zeus was saying. Had I imagined the voice? It was possible, but it just had been so clear.
“Know this now, not every one of you will succeed here.”
That made everyone shut up.
“Some of you will fail. And if you do, you will not just be sent back to your homes. In fact, you will never be able to go back home again. If you fail, you will be expelled from this academy and cursed to live the rest of your life in hardship and misery. No one will take pity on you. No one will help you. You will forever be the lost.”