Jennifer Estep Bundle (29 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Estep

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Chapter 22
As soon as my fingers brushed the hilt, the eye snapped open and regarded me with its gray-purple gaze once more.
“Gypsy,” an old, crusty voice seemed to murmur in my head.
“At last. ”
Okay, so apparently it talked, too.
Supercreepy,
but I was too far gone now to care. My fingers closed all the way around the hilt, and I yanked the sword out of The Case. The way the hilt was designed, my hand covered the lower half of the man's face—from the mouth down. His nose hooked over my hand, a wrist guard, I think it was called, with the open eye clearly visible above that—the eye that was still staring at me. For a moment, nothing happened.
And then, the emotions hit me.
The sword was old—
ancient
even—in the way the Bowl of Tears was. So many things flashed through my mind. So many images. Battles, mostly. Hundreds, thousands of them, all happening in a single second. Big, small, quiet, loud. I smelled smoke and blood. Heard screams of rage and pain. Felt other swords, other blades, slicing into my own skin in a way that made me cry out in pain and completely furious at the same time.
I couldn't do anything but stand there and see the images and ride the waves of emotions pouring through me. I couldn't have let go of the sword even if I'd wanted to. After a second, the images slowed down enough for me to make some sense of them. I realized that I was watching battles from throughout history. Different times, different places, different enemies. Clothes, weapons, armor, people. They all changed, becoming more and more modern with every passing fight.
But one thing was the same in every image—in every battle, a woman wielded the sword. One after another, their faces flashed through my mind, almost too fast for me to follow. But I felt them, felt their emotions, felt all the things they had felt when they'd been wielding the sword. Pride. Power. Fear. Anger. And most of all, a sense of duty and honor.
There were gaps, too, times when the sword wasn't in the images, when it was just the women, one after another, being born, growing up, having daughters of their own, growing old, and finally dying. The images skipped on from one to the next, and I got the sense that this was a long, unbroken chain of women stretching back to the time when the gods themselves walked the earth.
Among the images, I saw a familiar face—Grandma Frost. Her features flickered before me for an instant, before they were replaced by another face—my mom's face.
“Mom?” I whispered.
Grace Frost smiled at me, and her mouth opened, almost as if she was trying to say something to me.
“Mom!” I stretched out my hand to her, as if I could somehow reach into the vision and touch her.
And I felt myself falling, falling, falling....
With a gasp, my eyes snapped open, and I found myself standing in the middle of the Library of Antiquities, in the spot where the glass case that had once held the Bowl of Tears had been. I still had the sword in my hand, and I whirled around, looking for the others.
They weren't here.
There was no Jasmine coming to kill me. No Morgan lying on the table looking at nothing. No Logan fighting off a Nemean prowler. It was just me in the library—alone.
“Hello?” I called out. “Is—is anyone here?”
My voice echoed through the library, a frightened lonely little sound that seemed to stretch on forever—
“Hello, Gwendolyn,” a soft voice murmured.
I bit back a scream and turned around. A woman stood behind me, right in front of the closed double doors. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about her. Average height, slender, but with some muscle on her. Her hair fell to her shoulders in soft brown ringlets that seemed to shimmer with a metallic bronze sheen. She wore a gown that reminded me of a toga—long flowing fabric in a sweet lilac color. A silver belt looped around her waist, and some kind of silver flowers ringed her head like a crown. Laurels, I thought, wondering how I even knew that to start with.
But the more I stared at her, the more I realized that she was simply the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Not because her features were beautiful, but because there was an aura about her, a presence, a sense of peace and serenity and eternity. For some reason, it comforted me, even now, when I probably should have been screaming my head off at all the weirdness that had happened in the last hour. In the last freaking
minute.
The woman walked closer to me, her gown flowing around her body like water. For the first time, I noticed that she had a set of soft, feathery wings attached to her back, kind of what I'd always thought an angel's would look like. Was I dead? Was this some sort of heaven?
The winged woman stopped in front of me and regarded me with eyes that were neither gray nor purple but the soft shade of twilight in between.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
She tilted her head to the side and smiled. “I think you know.”
And suddenly I did. The knowledge filled my mind. I'd seen her picture before in my myth-history books and had heard Professor Metis talk about her. I'd even seen her statue in this very library. I looked up at the spot on the second floor where the marble statue always stood, but it was gone. Maybe because she was standing in front of me.
“You're Nike, the Greek goddess of victory,” I said in a small voice.
She nodded. “That's right. And you are Gwendolyn Frost, daughter of Grace Frost, granddaughter of Geraldine Frost, and so on and so forth.”
“You know my mom? And my grandma?”
A mysterious smile curved Nike's lips. “I know all of your ancestors, Gwendolyn. The women in your family have served me since time itself began.”
Okay, I felt like my head was going to explode. I mean, here I was, talking to a goddess. A real goddess. And not just any goddess, but Nike, the kick-ass chick who'd defeated Loki and pretty much saved the world from destruction. And she knew me and all about my family. Yeah, my brain was
definitely
exploding inside my skull.
“Um ... should I bow or something?” I asked, feeling like I was standing outside of myself, like this was all happening to another person. “Because I didn't pay attention in myth-history class, so I really don't know the proper etiquette for the whole talking-to-a-goddess thing. Sorry.”
Nike's smile widened. “No, Gwendolyn, you don't have to bow to me. But we do need to talk about some things.”
“Like what?”
She nodded at the sword in my hand. “Like that.”
I realized that I was still holding the sword. I held it up. The single gray-purple eye regarded me with a skeptical gaze.
“I don't know about this, goddess,” the sword said. “She doesn't look like much to me.”
I felt the cold, metal mouth move underneath my palm, tickling my skin. I shrieked and dropped the sword. The weapon clanged to the ground.
“Oh, bloody hell,” the sword grumbled, its face on the marble floor. “She can't even hang on to me.”
“This is Vic,” the goddess said, bending down to pick up the weapon. She rubbed at a spot on the blade just above the hilt. “He's going to help you face what's ahead, the danger that's coming.”
Danger? I didn't like the sound of that. A minute ago, I'd been in plenty of danger already, what with Jasmine trying to kill me and everything.
Vic almost seemed to preen under the goddess's gentle touch, like he was her favorite pet that she was giving all of her love and attention to.
“You know about the Chaos, don't you, Gwendolyn?” Nike asked in a soft voice. “About Loki and his Reapers?”
I nodded.
“Well, Loki is closer to returning to your world, to the mortal realm, than anyone thinks. His prison is weakening, and his followers are gathering strength every day. Which is where you come in, Gwendolyn. You're going to help me fight the Reapers and keep Loki from plunging the world into a second Chaos War.”
“Me?” I squeaked.
Nike nodded. “You, Gwendolyn Frost. For thousands of years, the women of your family have served me, acting as my Champions, helping me keep the order of things, helping me keep the world balanced between good and evil, between victory and defeat.”
I remembered what Daphne had said about Champions, how they were people chosen by the gods. To help other people.
To be heroes.
I thought of the images that I'd just seen of all the women and all the battles over the years. I was a part of that? It didn't seem possible. It just didn't seem
right,
much less
real.
Sure, my Grandma Frost was the strongest person I knew, and my mom had been the same way before she'd died. But me? Not so much. I couldn't even make any friends at Mythos, and I wasn't some great warrior like the other kids were.
“Why me?” I asked. “I'm not like the other kids here. I'm nobody.”
I winced as I repeated what Jasmine had said to me moments ago in the library, the real library. Or wait, maybe this was the real library now? My head
definitely
hurt.
“You're not nobody,” Nike said in a sharp tone. “You are Gwendolyn Frost, and you are my Champion.”
Eyes wide, I stared at her, wondering what I'd done to make her angry. After a moment, the goddess's face softened once more.
“When everyone else ignored Jasmine's death, you were the only one who cared, Gwendolyn,” she said in a serious tone, as if that was something of great importance.
“But I didn't
do
anything,” I protested. “Not really. Nothing important anyway. I just kind of fumbled around and followed people and used my Gypsy gift to pick up vibes. It wasn't anything that anyone else couldn't have done.”
“No,” Nike agreed. “But you at least cared enough to try. That was something. Just like when you told your mother how that other girl was being abused.”
“You saw that, too?” I whispered.
She nodded. “I see many things, but most of all, I see the strength and the goodness in your heart. But I can't make you do anything you don't want to, Gwendolyn. This has to be your choice.”
I stood there, thinking about things. I didn't believe I was Champion material at all. But who was I to argue with a goddess? Especially the goddess of victory? But I wasn't just going to go into this blindly either.
“What happens if I say no?” I asked. “In the library right now?”
“You mean to the Spartan boy?” Nike asked.
“Why, he'll die, of course,” Vic, the sword snapped, staring at me with his one eye. “If the prowler doesn't kill him, the Valkyrie surely will. What do you think will happen?”
Grief filled me, and my knees trembled.
Logan.
I lurched over to one of the library tables and leaned on it for support.
“That won't be your fault, Gwendolyn,” Nike said. “The Spartan boy made his own choice to come into the library. It was what was always going to happen to him.”
What was always going to happen to him? What did that mean? That it had all been fated or something from the very beginning? I wondered if the goddess knew that this was what was always going to happen to me, too, but I didn't ask.
Now that I knew Logan would die, my choice had been made for me. Yeah, I was still totally pissed at him for—for everything. But he'd come after me tonight, had followed me to the library for whatever reason. I couldn't ignore that or the feelings I had for him. I just ... couldn't.
“All right,” I said. “I'll be your Champion, Nike.”
A smile spread across the goddess's beautiful face, and her wings twitched behind her back. “Then hold out your hands, Gwendolyn Frost, and accept all the gifts that I can give to you.”
I did as she asked. Nike placed Vic, the sword, into my hands. The weapon stared up at me with his one eye.
“All right then,” he said in a slightly more satisfied tone. “Can we get on with killing things then?”
“Um, I don't actually know how to kill things,” I said.
“She doesn't even know how to kill things properlike? What kind of girl have you given me to, goddess?” Vic protested, fixing his eye on Nike once more.
Nike let out a laugh. “Vic is a little bloodthirsty. You'll get used to it.”
I kind of doubted that.
Nike stared at me another moment, then did a most curious thing. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
Immediately I felt a cold power flow through me, as though my blood had turned to ice. I braced myself, waiting for the flashes to kick in, although I had no idea what I would see by touching a freaking
goddess.
But the icy sensation vanished, and I didn't get any vibes off her. Still, I felt different, like something inside me had shifted into a new place, like a switch had been turned on. I exhaled, and my breath frosted in the air in front of me, even though I didn't feel cold anymore.

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