It felt like home to me.
Since this was the first day of school, the quad was packed, and practically everyone had a coffee in one hand and a phone in the other. All sorts of mythological warriors attended Mythos Academy, but the majority of the guys were Romans and Vikings, while the girls were mostly Amazons and Valkyries. Bright, colorful sparks of magic flashed in the air around many of the kids, especially the Valkyries. For some reason, Valkyries almost continuously gave off magic, and showers of sparks streamed out of their fingertips with every gesture they made and every text they sent.
Each kid, each warrior, had their own skills, powers, and magic—everything from enhanced senses to being able to summon up lightning to the ability to heal other people. But in general, Romans and Amazons were superquick, while Vikings and Valkyries were superstrong.
I was none of those things.
I was a Spartan, like my parents, and it was another way I didn’t fit in with everyone else, since Spartans were rare—and very, very dangerous. Almost all the other kids were carrying at least one weapon, whether it was a sword or dagger belted to their waist, a staff propped up on the bench beside them, or even a bow and a quiver full of arrows peeking up out of their gym bag.
But I didn’t have any weapons. I didn’t need them, since I could pick up any object and automatically know how to kill someone with it.
Seriously. I could kill someone with a toothpick if I wanted to. A plastic fork, a paper clip, an ink pen. Whatever was handy. Not that I would ever actually do that, as it would be difficult, even for me, especially when it would be much easier to take away my enemy’s sword and use their own weapon against them. But if I had to, I could defend myself with whatever was lying around, no matter how small and innocuous it might be.
I didn’t know how it worked for other Spartans, how their magic manifested itself, but anytime I was in a fight, I could see what the other person was going to do before they did it. How they were going to move their feet, how they were going to shift their weight, even how hard they were going to swing their sword at me. It was like we were both part of the same movie, only I was three steps ahead of the other person.
And the same thing happened when it came to weapons, whether it was a traditional sword or something as flimsy as a toothpick. As soon as I touched a sword, I could tell how well made it was, how balanced, how strong, and I intuitively adjusted my feet, my grip, and my swings to maximize the damage I could do with the weapon. Ditto for the toothpick, the plastic fork, the paper clip, the ink pen, and anything else I could get my hands on.
And it wasn’t just that I instinctively knew how to hurt people. Something about my Spartan blood made it seem natural, like it was something that I was supposed to do. Holding a sword or a staff or drawing back a bowstring seemed as right and easy as breathing to me.
Sometimes that scared me a little.
I didn’t want to be like my parents. I didn’t want to hurt innocent people. I didn’t want to be a bad person.
I didn’t want to be a Reaper.
I wanted to be…well, I wasn’t quite sure yet. I wanted to do something with my life the way Gwen had. I wanted to do something important. Something that mattered. Something that would aid other people.
And maybe, just maybe, something that would help make up for all my parents’ mistakes.
But I couldn’t do any of that standing here, so I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and stepped out onto the main quad.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered.
I walked along one of the cobblestone paths, winding my way toward the English-history building, since that’s where myth-history was, my first class of the day. I loved myth-history and learning about all the gods, goddesses, warriors, and creatures, and I wondered what new things the professor would talk about this year, especially given the recent battle and Loki’s imprisonment—
“Look!” a voice hissed. “It’s Rory Forseti!”
I was halfway across the quad when I heard my name.
I froze and looked over to my right, dreading what I would see. Sure enough, a group of Valkyries wearing designer boots, jeans, and matching plaid jackets were gathered around one of the iron benches that dotted the quad. They were all quite pretty, with perfect hair and makeup, and their phones and purses were even more expensive than their clothes.
Dezi, Harley, Kylie… I recognized several of the girls, since they were all second-year students like me. None of them had liked me when we started school last fall, and they had outright hated me after it came out that my parents were Reapers.
The Valkyries realized that I was staring at them. But instead of turning away and pretending they hadn’t said my name, they all pointed at me, making pink, green, and blue sparks of magic crackle in the air around them. My heart sank. I knew what was coming next.
“I can’t believe she came back here this year.”
“Did she really think that just because she helped out in North Carolina, we would forget what her parents did? Or what they were?”
“They were Reapers, through and through, and rotten to the core. And she’s probably even worse than they were…”
The snarky comments went on and on, each one sharper, crueler, and more vicious and hurtful than the last. Even worse, the Valkyries’ loud voices drowned out everyone else’s conversations, causing the other students to turn and stare at me as well. In less than a minute, I was the center of everyone’s attention, and they were all talking, texting, and whispering about me.
All I could do was stand there frozen in place with my mouth gaping open, looking like a clueless fool. I’d actually gotten my hopes up. I’d actually thought that this year would be different, better, normal. That I’d done enough good things to change everyone’s opinions of me. But I’d been wrong—dead wrong.
I was such a freaking idiot.
Of course the other kids wouldn’t forget that my parents were Reapers—not for one lousy second. How could they when Reapers had terrorized them all for so long? When they had lived in fear of Reapers their whole lives? When Reapers had killed their friends and family members for generations on end? One battle wasn’t going to change all of that history, all of that bad blood, all of that fear, anger, and hate.
Nothing could ever change that.
But the worst part was that I had hoped it would. I had hoped for the fresh start that Aunt Rachel had said we would have. I had wanted it more than anything.