Annais had everything to prove and no time to do it. As one of five children of the underworld cursed to lead the seven on their journey of death and destruction, Annais had the fate of the universe resting on her shoulders. If Annais and her sister...
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: FOREIGN LAND
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THE LAST PERSON ANNAIS expected to see when she opened her eyes was the God Apollo. Forever seemed to have passed since he stomached being around the Min girls. It was no secret he'd had a soft spot for Penelope — perhaps too soft — so when she died, she took with her a piece of his arrogant, immortal heart that no one had ever gotten close enough to touch before — been allowed and welcomed to explore — and tore it to pieces.
It was because of this that Annais was sure she was seeing things. Her head was pounding in a steady rhythm,like her brain was a monster clawing at the crevices of her skull to be set free. Every inch of her body cried out in agony, as if someone had pushed her over the edge of a cliff to watch her blood spilling across jagged rock. Her eyes burned, seeing double of everything.
This had to be a dream, she thought to herself as the hazy figure of Apollo took a seat across from Ezra, tending to a particularly nasty wound on her leg. His eyes met hers over Ezra's shoulder — a stunning kaleidoscope of gold — prompting Annais to quickly angle her head away. She waited, wondering if Apollo would point out her new status of consciousness, but her name didn't ghost the man's lips, leaving a relieved sigh to fall from her own.
It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to Ezra but for once, Annais was at a complete loss for words to explain everything that was happening inside her head. She'd always known Ezra was beyond the confines of typical demigod power. All of the Min girls were, in their own ways.
Penelope was a skilled fighter learning how to master time like her Titan father when the monster in question drove his scythe into her rib cage. Penelope had always said she never understood her mum Sun-Hee Min's fascination with Kronos — that is, the charming version of the Titan he created to sway her. Sun-Hee was the eldest of the three Min children who came from Korea when they were only teenagers. She moulded herself into whatever others wanted from her — the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect student, the perfect mother. When she met Kronos, she let go. For just one night, she allowed herself to chase what she wanted, and that just so happened to be the charming older man who sought her out on a rare night out with friends. Sun-Hee felt special. Seen. Perfect for who she was, not what she tried so hard to emulate.
Three months later, that man whose name she came to learn was a lie had long disappeared, Sun-Hee's parents had died in a fatal car accident, and she was pregnant with their first grandchild. She vowed to never be imperfect again, and so Penelope paid the price beneath her suffocating idea of tough love. She was pushed into running away at fifteen and was only just mending the burnt bridge with her mum when Sun-Hee's one-night stand took everything from her for a second time. Annais only ever met her mysterious aunt once, at Penelope's funeral. Sun-Hee never acknowledged her existence.
