Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Surely that man didn’t save his violence and viciousness only for his spouses. Surely his children were subject to it as well.
My chest pings at the thought. My mother may be hard to deal with at times, and her plotting is often at her daughters’ expense, but we grew up knowing we were safe. Out in the countryside, the suffocating rules of the city proper are nowhere in evidence. No one cared if we were perfectly put together at all times. No one was trying to use us as pawns to get to or hurt our mother. We were just children, wild and beloved.
Even without knowing the details of my husband’s childhood, I know it wasn’t like that for him. No one creates such a perfect icy persona unless they have to in order to survive. His sisters went a different route—Helen with her golden perfection and Eris with her fury. And Hercules left the city, though the story is still muddy on whether that was his choice or not.
So, no, I don’t think Perseus had a safe childhood. Certainly not a happy one. It shouldn’t matter. Bad things happen to all sorts of people, and while it’s tragic, it doesn’t excuse their perpetuating abuse onto others.
Perseus just…hasn’t done that. Yet. But he will, won’t he? Because he’s not just Perseus, someone who might have had a chance to leave the generational trauma behind the way Hercules apparently did.
He’s Zeus.
The changing scenery drags me from the death spiral of my thoughts. The city falls in increments, tall buildings giving away to shorter ones which in turn give way to rolling hills and fields. Although I have every intention of keeping my emotions locked down, my heart beats faster and my lungs feel like they expand to twice their size, as if I can taste the country air even through the windows.
Home.
It’s not, though. It hasn’t been home for nearly half my life at this point. Mother wanted us to have a clean break, so the interludes to the country became less and less common as we got older—as she became entrenched in the city’s intrigue.
“It’s beautiful,” Imbros breathes.
That’s right. Ze has never seen the Olympian territory outside of the city proper. I clear my throat. “It is.”
At least until it’s not.
It happens so fucking fast. One moment, we’re surrounded by the fields in late stages of harvest, and the next it’s a tent city. Ixion has to slow down as he turns onto a dirt road that leads into a converted field. The ground is a long way from frozen, so it’s a muddy mess.
All around us, the displaced citizens of the city move about in some semblance of a rhythm. People in every season of life, from a toddler barely able to walk to an elderly couple hunched with age. Kids run between the gaps in what I belatedly realize is a line of adults waiting for…something.
Ixion carefully navigates us through it all, slowly enough that it would probably be faster to walk. I don’t suggest it. I’m too busy picking up signs of my mother’s influence. We reach the head of the line, discovering it’s actually two lines—one for food and one for job allocation. It takes a lot of work to keep a displaced community running, and while my mother has an extensive staff, I imagine they’ll need help.
Not to mention, it’s not a good idea to have so many people in crisis without giving them something productive to focus on. We’ve displaced so many people in an effort to protect them; I suspect it’s not all for nothing.
We park in front of a large tent, which surprises me a little. My mother loves her luxuries, and while this is spacious and looks expensive, it’s hardly a house. Ixion leads the way, holding open the fold that functions as a door. I meet his gaze. “Please wait outside.”
He nods. Ironic that he and the others are less worried about me with my family than they are with my husband. Not that my mother would ever overtly hurt me. However, if a few eggs get cracked in the making of her grand design, she counts it as a worthy sacrifice. Even if those cracked eggs are her daughters.
I see Psyche first. Even here, in the midst of the worst crisis the city has seen in our lifetimes—maybe ever—my sister is every inch an influencer. She’s wearing fitted pink trousers that hug her generous hips and a cute knit black sweater over a polka-dot button-up shirt with a Peter Pan collar. Her hair is perfect, the long brown strands curled and pinned back from her pretty, round face.
She lights up when she sees me. “Callisto!” Psyche crosses the distance between us and enfolds me in a hug that instantly lowers my blood pressure. She’s so fucking good at that. “I didn’t know you were coming.”