Chaos. Hope. Love.

Chaos

As much as it was a risk, I returned to the store a day later. The gods could have been lying in wait for me, for all I knew, but I couldn't stay away. I'd have to close the place, which ground my broken heart into tiny little bits. I liked the shop. It was more home than anything I'd experienced in years.

Once I re-formed in the shop, I took a slow walk to the kitchenette in the back. The smell of books brought tears to my eyes. I blinked them away and kept walking. No matter how much I wanted this life, I couldn't keep living it. If the gods caught up with me, I'd definitely wish I could die. Especially now, when they knew I had a hand in saving Achilles.

Maybe I could open a bookstore somewhere else... No, it wouldn't be the same. This place... This was home. I shook my head and turned on the coffee machine. While it percolated away, I went to the fridge.

A picture was stuck under a magnet. Stick figures. Daddy, me, Eris. They were all holding hands with a heart around it.

Hope must have put it there as a surprise. I stared at it, a lump forming in my throat. It was my fault she was stuck on Olympus. If I hadn't obscured Achilles...

If I hadn't obscured Achilles, Hope wouldn't have existed. She enriched his life. He loved her so much. I pressed my forehead to the fridge's door. The gods would destroy the Hope we knew and loved. They weren't truly capable of love. Or maybe they were, but couldn't be bothered. Hope was just a pawn to them, a way to get what they wanted. Which was probably to bring Achilles in so they could kill him.

A world without Achilles and Hope felt wrong to even consider. In my anger, I'd left Achilles to face his end alone. Crying out softly, I staggered back a few steps. I couldn't let him go through with it. No matter what, this couldn't be the way everything ended.

I wiped the few tears trailing over my cheeks and hurried back among my books, taking a brief moment to commit as much of the store as possible to memory. Once I was done, I dissolved into the air. My destination: Olympus.

It didn't take me long to arrive. I was everywhere, in everything, and as I moved, the chaos that was life soaked into me. It felt good, but I didn't really want to think about it.

Olympus hadn't changed much. The place still looked like ancient Greece with lots of white marble and statues. Slightly below where the gods lived was the garden. If I squinted, I could see the golden apples ripening on the trees. Shaking my head, I stepped onto the marble path leading to the biggest building in the entire city. The Amphitheatre contained seats for all the gods. Was mine still there?

Noise swelled inside, sounding almost like a crowd cheering a football game. It was worse, though. Less cheery. More like baying for blood. My heart thumped hard and I dissolved again, rushing through the main entrance.

The lesser gods were cheering in a half circle. Zeus, Hera and company occupied the other half. Athena stood to one side, her face impassive, her hand on Hope's shoulder. Hope was crying, but the din swallowed up the sounds. She strained forward, toward the arena, but Athena ground her jaw and picked the girl up.

I followed their gazes. Achilles was in the arena with Ares. Both were armed with sharp swords. Achilles's heel bled, which gave him a huge disadvantage. Ares easily feinted and slammed his pommel into Achilles's face. The crowd roared its approval as Achilles hit the sand, scattering it away. Blood soaked into it.

With a hoarse cry, I dissolved and re-formed between them, keeping Ares in sight. The crowd fell silent as recognition lit Ares's red eyes.

"Eris!" he called out. "You never could stay away from a battle."

Which had always convinced the arrogant ass that I was in love with him. Never was. His job and my job converged on quite a few points. Well it had, until I'd quit and went into hiding.