Shadows of Fate

Chapter 11

Tobias flickered in the Gray, and settled on the branch across from me. We sat in our favorite climbing tree, the one we always planned to build a tree house in, but never did. Light blazed out of my bedroom window as if the sun was trapped inside. When I found myself back in the Gray world that night, I thought I was going to go blind. I'd opened my eyes, staring straight into Icarus's burning face.

"Do you think he can hear us?" Tobias asked.

"No idea." I still rubbed at the dots behind my eyelids.

"Does he even sleep?"

"Dunno," I replied.

"And he really is Hermes, the god with wings on his shoes?" He paused. "Can he fly?"

"I don't know."

"Do you know anything?" Tobias asked.

"Apparently not," I snapped.

Tobias had to know he wasn't helping. This was not the time to be acting like an annoying brother. I needed to think, not be grilled with questions that I also wanted to ask. Even with what I saw, Icarus couldn't be a god. I was in love with mythology, but it was just that. Myth. Stories that ancient cultures told to explain things that science one day would. Unless the thing they couldn't explain were supernatural balls of light turning human and having super powers. Science still couldn't explain what I'd experienced.

I sunk my head into my hands. I couldn't find any rational explanation. Aside from me being a total nutcase.

Tobias eyed me, his smile faltered for a moment, but then he grinned. "Was Ares a total badass?" He leaned back and looked out into the deep Gray world. "I imagine him being like James Bond but, you know, a god, smooth talking and butt kicking."

"He was kind of an asshole," I said.

Tobias chortled, and a smirk found its way back onto my face.

"You're taking this all rather well," I noted. I expected Tobias to snap, freak, do something when I blurted out that we were apparently demigods, like all our favorite Greek heroes. Instead I got a calm grin and a "sweet."

"I'm in a coma," Tobias said, as if I didn't know. "Finding out I might be descended from gods is a step up."

"Except they think we're an abomination."

Tobias raised a brow.

"Ares' words." Tobias and I were being punished for our parent's mistake. We didn't choose to be born to a god. Well, I guess if I did have a choice, I probably would have been all for it, but we weren't given the choice.

"Dad can't be one of them," Tobias said. He shifted nervously on his branch. "If he was, he would burn our eyes out when you came into the Gray."

Point taken, but that would mean... "Do you think he knows we aren't his?"

Tobias frowned. "No matter what, he's our dad. He raised us, and that's what matters."

"Even if he lied to us?" I asked.

"Kids are adopted all the time."

"Not kids like us." I hesitated before continuing. "And Mom, did she know?" Did she choose to be with a god? Or worse, was she used, and then disposed of. My stomach sank.

"You don't think—" Tobias began, but the look in his eyes told me he knew exactly what I was thinking. "That's a big assumption."

"They never found her body," I reminded him. "What if our real father took her away to keep his secret?"