[Trial of the Gods] Chapter 36.5

*** SPOILERS. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU ARE FINISHED TRIAL OF THE GODS. ***

Trial of the Gods

Bonus Chapter [Chapter 36.5]

The Other One

In the name of everything holy – I was so fucking bored.

There were only about a hundred rooms in this gods-damned mansion and I had somehow managed to traverse every single one of them, twice, and it was only noon. 

Up and down the hallways - clop clop clop.

In and out of rooms - clip clip clip.

I hated the sound of my own feet and the pace of my breathing by the time I was halfway through, content to storm out of the building once and for all. The book beneath my nose – possibly the only thing capable of saving me from the torture of boredom – was some tome written in the late twentieth century, layered with a fictional tale where the main characters made me, quite simply, want to gouge my eyes out. But alas I was forever stuck pacing these hallways, so I was perfectly prepared to drown the majority of the day away through words on a page.

With all of the trial contestants, or guinea pigs, in their fifth trial, the mansion-staff came out of the shadows. Men and women of all ages, scattering themselves across every floor and into every room as they cleaned and prepared for the possible return of those left in the trials.

I pushed down the mainfloor, intentionally light on my feet out of utter annoyance of the sound of my loafers, and made for the entertainment room. As per usual, when I placed myself in the grand space, the dozen-or-so cleaners within it scattered out of the room as if I was capable of flaying them alive with my gaze alone. With how much I knew about myself, how much I remembered of myself, that seemed like quite an appropriate response to my presence. 

I waited for them all to finish tearing from the room like mice beneath a grain-bin, until the room was empty and filled with as much hollowness as I was. Releasing a deep sigh, pushing one hand into the book and letting my fingers forever be a bookmark, I crossed the space and dropped myself down into one of the vast couches.

Hooking one knee over the other, I let my head fall back until it was cushioned by the rear of the couch. There, I would watch.

Closing my eyes, I let the world around me melt into a variety of colours, over and over, until it was as if I was in a solid-black cave and the only sight before me was a puddle. It rippled continuously, distorting and disturbing the faint image within. But I managed.

I was looking at a mountainous cliff-side. Evidence of a recent blizzard, from the tremendous peaks of snow that bordered a narrow pass, complete with the near iced-over entrance of a broad cave.

Willing the image to still some more, I finally made out some sort of body on the edge of that cliffside, cuddling their arms around themselves as they shivered against the frigid winds that tempted their too-pale skin. Then, another – emerging from the depths of the cave with a head full of brown hair and a trembling body of her own. I’d know her before she opened her mouth, before she lifted her face and revealed two overly-pink cheeks.

Zoe.

Which meant that stiff-backed pouting fool must have been her dark-haired friend. I narrowed my eyes against the image, wishing I could do more than simply stare at the two of them.

Did I feel bad for eavesdropping? Not really. It was my job, after all. Dave wanted to know how they were all performing, how each of them were holding up. That’s all I was doing. Even though my sudden, gripped handprints on the couch suggested otherwise.

They were shouting. The winds that whipped around the image were ever so slightly too strong for me to get a clear script of their exchange, but it was heated. There was desperation on the brown-haired ones face, and sorrow on Zoe’s. A look that should never have graced her face, yet had been stuck to her features for as long as I knew her.

It was there, seeing her like that, that I couldn’t help but think back to my last conversation with Dave. His forewarning of the trials to come, the brink at which they would all be pushed to. I couldn’t give less of a shit about the rest of them, but Zoe would need to push through. 

She was strong – I could see it, even if she doubted it in every single choice she made. But strength would not protect her from what was to come. Physical nor emotional. Zoe needed something else. Zoe… Zoe needed to break. Only then would she have what it took to survive more and more of the shattering of her soul, something that I was already far too familiar with.

I knew what I would have to do. I knew which trial I could do it. And sure, she’d hate me for the rest of her far-too short life, but at least I’d help her win that life. It was a trade-off that I was comfortable making.

A voice from that mountainside, shrill and vomit-inducing, was enough to snap me back into reality and focus once more on the argument I was listening to. But it wasn’t an argument, not really. It was a declaration.

My fingernails tore through the first few layers of the couch beneath me just as I registered hearing footprints towards me. I zoned them out, listening instead to Zoe’s useless friend bellow some absurd truth about his deep-love for her. 

Even though my eyes were shut, I rolled them. To my surprise, Zoe didn’t. Her face had melted into something else, something soft and caring that I doubted I would ever get to see. In a way, it felt wrong to see it this way, to look at her face as if it was an expression that she might ever offer me. 

Grumbling beneath my breath, I finally pulled out of that image right as she moved towards him, right as she went to kiss–

“Forever brooding, old friend?” a voice echoed from behind me. But I had heard their approach, I had felt the way the air had shifted to accommodate their body.

I said nothing. I did not open my eyes nor drop my leg. Instead, I kept my chin pointed to the ceiling high above and let out a deep sigh.

“Then again, you would not know me–”

“I know you,” I sighed. She gasped, muffling it quickly with a clearing of her throat. 

“How?” she breathed, stepping further into the room. Each press of her boots against the stone floor was like a mallet against my skull, forcing a low groan from my throat as I peeled my eyes open to stare at the ceiling.

I was sure I knew how. I just would not breathe it into the world.

“It’s only been…” she trailed off, another few echoes of boots ringing across the space. “What? A month? You cannot know me yet.”

I was far too tempted to slip back into my mind, to gaze into the tear between places and see what Zoe was up to. Then again, after how I had left them, perhaps I didn’t want to see what she was doing. Inadvertently, my grip on the couch tightened.

“Then let me make this quick — I knocked out everyone on the way in here,” my companion declared, her voice malicious and smooth just as it always had been. “Now is our chance to get you out. Come on, Alec–”

“No.”

I listened as the marble beneath me cried with every press of her to it, until she was at my side lingering at the edge of the couch, staring down at me with centuries worth of judgement that I was glad my eyes were shut to.

“No?” Then she cackled, a noise so thoroughly hers that I couldn’t help but feel the corner of one of my lips curl upwards. 

The couch rebounded as she slammed herself down next to me, followed by the groan of the wood in front of me as she kicked two boots up onto the table.

Being in this shithole of a place had driven my loneliness to a height I was incapable of reaching, forcing a flooding of warmth across my body as my oldest friend found her place at my side once more. Enough so that I finally lifted my head and peeled the eye closest to her open.

Black high-tops were dripping mud - and what I hoped wasn’t blood - on the table in front of me. I shook my head several times as I snorted at her.

“You wear human clothes?” I chuckled as my eyes skimmed two powerful, slender legs bound in leather pants at my side. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

Her hands crossed in her lap, the long lengths of her black-tipped nails threading against one another. “I was too quick to judge your adaptation to their style. The pants are uncomfortable as fuck, brother, but I cannot say I don’t enjoy the way I look in them.”

I laughed. Truly laughed. It felt like it was centuries since the last time I laughed in such a way, but it wasn’t. It was not so long ago, across from her yet again. 

“Now, tell me why you wish to stay? Let us run, Alec. Don’t let him use you as some tool.” Her snarling was another thing that I had come to accept. 

“I must remain until the trials are over.”

She scoffed, adjusting her boots until it was the other ankle atop the previous. All the while, she began to twirl some of that raven-black hair around one of those sharpened nails.

“Who gives a shit about these trials? Word of them spreads across Olympus like a disease. Zeus basks in the glory of it all. It makes me sick.”

“Not surprisingly.” I grinned, not quite ready to see her face. “There is work to be done here.”

“Oh, spare me,” she hissed, “you care just as much about the mortals as I do.”

There was no stopping the sudden flickering of my jaw, combined with the twitch of my eyebrow.

“Or am I mistaken?” she purred, placing her weight over one hip as she turned completely to face me. “You have a vested interest in them? Do not tell me the mightiest of us has gone soft?”

We both chuckled at the same time.

But my humour simmered as I refocused on what mattered. “Only one.”

She let out a low hum as I felt her eyes flicking across my face repeatedly. 

“Only one… So what? You wish to sit here and watch them come to their fruitful end?” 

The couch tore some more as my grip adjusted. 

“Don’t give me that look, Alec. You know what these trials are designed to do. If a single one of them survives it, it will be a miracle. And then there’s the problem of–”

“She will survive it,” I snarled, shocking even myself at the gravel of my own voice. Then once more, softer and quieter for fate to hear. A threat and a promise to those who dared to challenge it. “She will survive it.”

My friend let out a deep breath, letting her back fall until she was enveloped completely by the couch. “I cannot stay here with you. I must run once more. My attempted saving of you will mean punishment.”

“You’re not going to run.” With a smirk, I finally found the strength to turn to her. That midnight-black hair of hers was as unruly as ever, scattered in lengths down her shoulders and bordering the paleness of her face. But it was her eyes, a purple so deep and haunting, yet excitable and alive with chaos and mischief, that it never failed to make my breath hitch. 

“You and I have a job to do,” I beamed. "How do you feel about tracking down the rest of the bloodlines with me?"

Her face, forever gleaming with havoc and twitching with pandemonium stretched into a wild grin.