Gods Save the Princess (Grace of Gods Book 2) (30 page)

“No, it’s not healing fast enough.”

“C’mon, get her on my back. We need to get out of the forest in case more of those things are lurking nearby. We have to get to a door and get to Stonehenge.”

“What’s at Stonehenge?” Savannah braced my weight and helped me onto Aidan’s back.

“We’re meeting Griffin there.” Savannah glanced at Aidan and was about to say something but he shook his head.

“He’s helping us, apparently. Leave it at that.”

“My plan is to get everyone into the Underworld and then hopefully trick the Titans into coming down. They’ll get trapped there because without Hades’ consent, or mine, they’ll be stuck. We can put them back into Tartarus and hopefully put an end to this.”

“Why would you be able to say who goes and comes from the Underworld?”

“I’m Persephone.” I said, looking over at Savannah with a smile.

“You’re Hades’ wife.”

“Yes.”

“Makes so much more sense now.” She muttered to herself before smiling, “that’s good. I’m glad you figured it out.”

“Me too, and I’m glad I can help out now.”

She nodded her head and led the way through the trees, “I know a way to a village but it’s a very rudimental civilisation, I don’t even know if they have doors we can use.”

“Why didn’t you stay in the village?” It seemed like a safer bet than going it alone in the rainforest. Savannah turned to look at me gravely, her smile tense as she shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure they’re cannibals.”

Aidan laughed, breaking the dramatic tension the she’d built, “cannibals, huh? You saw humans on spits roasting over the fire or are you just basing that on your college education?” She punched him in the arm making him laugh again.

“Seriously, they have like human bones in their hair and stuff.”

“You’re sure they were human?” I said uncertainly, making her look back over at me and nod.

“I was in medical school, I can tell the difference between animal bones and human bones.”

“Maybe it was a tribute thing.”

“Or maybe they’re cannibals.”

“I hope you taste good with barbecue sauce.” Aidan looked over at Savannah again, a filthy smirk on his face and she punched him again. “Just saying.”

“What happens when we get to this village of cannibals and find out they have no doors, then what?” I asked.

“Then we find out if there’s a way to a place with doors I guess.”

“And when they don’t speak English but in clicks?” Savannah asked, raising her eyebrows with interest.

“First of all, they would have a dialect of their own probably stemming from Spanish or another European background instead of clicks, which is a dialect of African. Don’t be ignorant.”

“I’m not worldly like you Mr. Big shot.” I sat on Aidan’s back watching Savannah and him bicker in a cute way that suggested they were both messing with each other, as opposed to being actually angry.

“The doors.” I reminded them, pulling them from their own conversation.

“Right, doors. If the doors don’t work we make our own door.”

“How do we do that? Build a house? That could take days!”

“We just need a threshold and then make a door, we can borrow one of their tents.”

“If they live in tents.”

“If they live in tents.” He repeated gravely, shifting my weight on his back for a moment before nodding at Savannah. “How much further?”

“Not far, I didn’t want to stay too far away just in case.”

And she was right, not long after that we came into a small clearing packed with huts and humans, going about their day to day. It was like stepping into a portal and seeing how nomads had lived back in the day, or at least how I imagined they had.

“No doors.”

“Now what?” Savannah said, turning to look at both of us.

“Want to ask the cannibals if they have doors?” 

Aidan smirked, making her huff again, “let’s just make our own.”

He nodded and set me down carefully, telling both of us to wait as he returned into the forest looking for a suitable piece of wood.

“Do you think this is going to work?” I looked up at Savannah from where I was sitting. She shrugged, her face a mixture of frustration and worry.

“I hope it does.”

“Do you really think they’re cannibals?” I said, glancing over at the people who still, thankfully, hadn’t noticed us. “They look hungry...”

From across the clearing a group of them returned, spears in hand but no prized game with them. I frowned, looking up at the sky to Olympus. Maybe this was the Titan’s doing, maybe they were punishing the humans because they were a creation of Zeus, so they withheld game and produce.

I shook my head and looked away, no... Why would they do that? It didn’t make sense; it would only make the religious unrest more strained. The Titans needed belief as much as we did for their power.

“How’s this?” Aidan reemerged holding out the door he had fashioned out of wood.

“Works for me.” Savannah said, “you want to do the honours?”

“Sure, I’ll brave the cannibals.” He tucked the door under his arm and started sauntering out into the clearing, immediately drawing attention to himself.

“Easy for him to be brave,” I muttered loud enough for Savannah to hear me: “he shoots lightning bolts out of his hand; I make daisies grow.”

“But you can do some crazy damage with a rock.” She pointed out jokingly, not even realising that it made me uncomfortable. I could still see the judgment on Aidan’s face. I suddenly felt like I needed to repent for my action, but that was an innate reaction. Who would I repent to now? Aidan? That would just make him more smug than usual.

“Are you two coming?” He shouted over his shoulder making Savannah turn and help me to my feet, bracing my weight and guiding me alongside her toward Aidan.

“He better have a bolt ready just in case though...” She whispered to me as we passed three very hungry looking men.

“Excuse us, we won’t be long. We just need a minute with your hut and we’ll be on our way.” Aidan was majestically holding his hand up like he was commanding a mass of people. Wherein actual fact a group of indigenous people were all just staring at him, no clue what he was saying to them. He propped the door up against the tent, trying to secure it enough to make it look like a doorway before turning to look at us.

“Val, you go first.”

“Savannah’s the mortal.” I argued.

“Yes but you’re injured, I know at the very least she can throw a punch.” Savannah stopped in front of the door and let go of me, forcing my weight onto my bad ankle.

“We’ll be right behind you.”

“Promise?”

“As your King and Queen we promise.” She said solemnly. So I nodded, turning to the door and grabbing Aidan’s shady rock handle and pulled the door open, thinking hard about Stonehenge and all the photos I had ever seen of it before crossing through.

Chapter Twenty Five

I stepped through the threshold, entering someone’s home. Glancing around at the rudimentary furniture and other makeshift items I knew I hadn’t actually managed to go anywhere.

“Did it work?” I heard Aidan ask on the other side.

Sighing in frustration I grabbed the door to go back out, “no it didn’t.” I went through to my friends except I stepped right through and half stumbled out into the middle of the ancient rock formation, startling a few tourists.

“Whoa.” I said, gathering my bearings as we both stared at each other. I could see they were trying to figure out where I had come from considering I’d most likely had magically appeared into thin air.

“If youb see a guy in a red jacket, I wasn’t here.” I lied so fluidly I impressed myself while pretending like I was some dumb college kid on a school field trip. I skirted around them and glanced over the masses looking for the other Gods. I wanted Aidan’s plan to have worked, to arrive here to a group of people waiting breathlessly for me, but all I found was tourists.

“Valentina?” Savannah came stumbling through the portal next, followed only milliseconds after by Aidan.

“Hah, it worked.” He said with a grin, pleased that his terrible door had done the job.

“Where’s everyone else?” Savannah seemed to be having the same epiphany as me. If this was it, if we were all that was left of the Gods, we had utterly failed and we had barely even been in power yet.

“Let’s look around before we get disappointed.” Aidan set his hand on Savannah’s lower back and guided her away from the curious tourists while I went in the other direction. I figured I would be hobbling on my ankle but after another steady step I looked down to find it was feeling perfectly fine.

That couldn’t be a coincidence, there had to be other magical beings here. I had to be feeding off their energy to heal or being this close to the mortals was helping.

I moved quicker, with more determination as I searched every face that went by. I wasn’t as worried about the other Gods not being there, as I was about Griffin not being there. What if what had happened on the mountains had led Oliver to go back to Olympus and take his anger at Zeus out on Hades? What if while searching for the key he had been captured?

Face after faceless face passed. I didn’t know these people. They didn’t know me. I was as alone in this crowd as I had been at that first party Jed had taken me to. I felt almost as alone here as I had in the pits of the Underworld. People might’ve surrounded me but they didn’t notice me, they didn’t even give me a second thought. To them I was just one of those dumb college kids on a school trip.

“Val! Over here. They’re over here.” Savannah parted through the crowds, oblivious to the looks people around her gave her. Women envied her and men wanted her, but she didn’t see. Savannah’s self-doubt had always fascinated me. Every time we got ready together she spent most of the time cutting herself down to size but she couldn’t see what everyone else saw. Charlotte had thought her a threat because of her beauty, not because she was Hera.

I slipped between two different families and made my way over to Savannah, “was Griffin there?”

Her face dropped slightly before she shrugged, “I don’t know, I didn’t notice.” She took my hand and led me away to where the rest of the Gods were standing. Some were faring better than others, the tolls of disbelief weighing harder on some than others. Aidan, for one, was still shirtless and allowing everyone to see his ribs weren’t healing by consequence. But of course Zeus’ reliance on belief would be more cataclysmic than the rest of us.

Everett moved forward and offered to heal him, his hands glowing green as he pressed them to Aidan’s ribs and sewed him back together. When he was done Royce came forward and offered Aidan his button-up, leaving him in a white t-shirt. As Aidan finished up he looked around and found everyone was staring at him expectantly. They thought this was his plan, they assumed that he was going to lead them back to Olympus and set everything right.

I took a deep breath as I felt Savannah pull me forward toward Aidan. We stopped beside him and he suddenly directed everyone’s attention to me.

“Alright, Valentina’s got a plan.”

“Thanks for the introduction.” I said drily making Aidan laugh softly.

“Wooo Valentina!” Someone cheered and clapped, every eye of our kind turning to look at Jed who was smirking and obviously somewhat drunk. He would, of course, find a club amongst all this chaos.

“Thanks Jed...” I cleared my throat and tugged on the edge of my jacket’s sleeve, gathering my courage. “Alright, so the problem is that we can’t go back to Olympus without the key. So to bring the key to us we have to trick the Titans into coming to us, bringing it with them. We’re going to descend into the Underworld and trap the Titans there.” All at once everyone started talking disapproving of the plan immensely.

“Wait, wait - WAIT.” I held out my hands and they quieted for a moment, “as the Princess of the Underworld I have the ability to let you in and let you go when it’s time to go back to Olympus. I think, if we can all go down there it will trick the Titans into thinking we’re up to something. Then we might be able to get them to come down into the Underworld where I can trap them. We might even be able to lock them in Tartarus again and fix the balance.”

“And what if they don’t come?” Someone asked loudly.

“Why wouldn’t they? They sent you all down to Earth with the intention of seeing you all killed slowly either by disbelief or by the various monsters that will come for us. Even now we’re in danger.” I cast my eyes to the sky for a moment before looking away, “I know the Underworld isn’t exactly ideal but it will be a haven for those of you who want to help with the plan.”

“And I support this plan.” Aidan said clearly, nodding at everyone in a way that left no room for discussion.

“So how do we get into the Underworld then?” Someone asked loudly. I bit my lip; this was the part I was hoping for Griffin. Hades must surely have a better idea than me, knowing more of the lesser known entrances to the Underworld.

It was a lame answer but it was the only one I had, “I’m still working on that part.”