Forge of the Gods 3 Read online

  “You ready?” Hailey asked me with a serious gaze.

  “Not in the slightest,” I said honestly.

  Mom waved her hands enthusiastically upon seeing the pair of us. She threw the car in park and zipped out, jumping up and down with excitement. On her way around, she pulled open the back door so the dogs could get out. They tumbled over one another, and once they got to their feet, Khryseos and Argyreos bounded up for me, but Mom managed to run right past them.

  “Get out of the way, you two! You’ve seen him all year. It’s my turn.” Mom reached out her arms and pulled me into one of the tightest hugs. “Oh, honey! I missed you so much. It’s so good to see you.”

  I let my mom hold me for a minute, took in her smell, and let myself be home. But being my mom, she knew something was off with me the minute she could get a good look at my face.

  She pulled me away from her and held me by the shoulders with a suspicious eye. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I took a big breath. I had no idea how I was going to say this or what exactly I was going to say, but I knew it was too important to ignore. And ultimately, I owed it to my mom to tell her what was going on with me, as I had always done in the past.

  “Mom,” I said, “we need to talk.”

  2

  “It’s here!”

  My mom’s shout came from the front door, but it seemed to echo through the whole apartment, like a fire alarm. I couldn’t tell if she was excited or nervous. It didn’t help that when I came around the corner with Khryseos and Argyreos at my heels, her face was plastered with a smile.

  I cocked my head to one side. “You okay, Mom?”

  The two dogs at my side copied my movement, each of them tilting their head to one side as if looking at my mom a little crooked would help us diagnose her mood.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?” Mom said, her words tumbling out in a rush. She stood with her back against the door, a white rectangular box in her hands. My mom held the package out from her, with straight arms, as though it contained a ticking time bomb.

  “Because when you say ‘fine’ that many times in a row, it’s usually not ‘fine,’” I said as I used my fingers as quotation marks. Then, I held out my hands, offering to take the package from her. “Do you want me to open it?”

  “No,” Mom said as she yanked it closer to herself. She glanced down at it and decided against holding it so close. “Yes. I mean, I do want you there. With me. When I open it.”

  “I was planning on it,” I informed her, trying to keep my voice nice and even to encourage her to do the same.

  “Right,” Mom said with a sharp nod. However ready her voice might have seemed, her body hadn’t quite caught up. She, instead, stood at the door as though her back was glued to it. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at something in the upper corner of the living room. A memory from the past or a stray cobweb, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I did know was that she was distracted from the current task at hand.

  “Mom?” I prompted.

  “Yes, Cameron?” She blinked down at me. “What is it?”

  “The box?” I held out a hand and gestured to the white cardboard. “Why don’t we sit down and open it?”

  “I don’t--” Mom began, but then I stopped her by reaching out and putting my arm through hers.

  “I’m not giving you a choice,” I said with force, though it was coated in a kind tone.

  Together, we walked towards our lumpy and faded couch, where we sat down next to each other. Khryseos and Argyreos pranced over and hauled their large bodies up on either side of us. There wasn’t really enough room for the Doberman pair, but they made their own spots, seeming to shrink before our very eyes so that they would inhabit the same space as us. The dogs book-ended my mom and me, a comforting presence as we prepared for one of the most nerve-wracking moments of our lives.

  We had ordered the test weeks ago. It had been Mom’s idea originally. She was adopted and had never met her birth parents. She wasn’t even sure if they were still alive. However, with the advances in genetic technology, where you can literally order a “do-it-yourself” kit and then send it in for analysis, we didn’t really have an excuse. Especially not when we needed to know where she came from so we could find out why she could predict the future.

  At the beginning of the summer, I bucked up the courage and told my mom everything I learned this past year about my powers and, consequently, hers. Upon finishing, she burst into panicked laughter.

  “That’s… that’s not possible,” she choked out through chuckles.

  “That’s not what Aphrodite said,” I rebutted with a shrug.

  “They’re just songs, Cameron,” Mom countered with a scoff. “I make them up on the spot. It’s not some life-altering prophecy thing.”

  “I’m telling you, Mom,” I persisted, “you predicted the whole thing.”

  I proceeded to relay the entire semester to her while picking out the clues she mentioned in her song. She collapsed on the couch, sucking into it like a missing sock or a lost quarter. Her face transformed into something like astonishment mixed with utter horror.

  “I don’t even know what to tell you, Cameron,” Mom said when she finally managed to string a sentence together. “You know I’m adopted. I never met my birth parents. I don’t know if they had this… what did you call it?”

  “The Sight,” I filled in.

  “The Sight,” Mom repeated, as though it were a naughty word, all whispers and low tones. “I couldn’t tell you anything. I’m sorry.”

  That was how we ended up here, twelve weeks later, with the results of my mom’s genetic kit to tell her her family’s origin. It took some convincing, but I saw no reason why we shouldn’t use modern technology to help us out. Considering that Mom had no interest in finding her birth parents, and I didn’t want to violate that wish, this seemed like the next best thing.

  We sat on the couch, side by side, and stared at the box. Mom’s gray eyes focused so intently on the piece of mail, as though she were willing it to open of its own accord.

  “You know the Sight only lets you predict the future, not move things with your mind, right?” I whispered as I leaned over and gave her an encouraging nudge.

  “I’m still not convinced that your goddess was right,” Mom said as she shook her head slowly. “It’s just so impossible.”

  I groaned and slapped my thighs. “First off, she’s not my god, and second, you lived with a son that couldn’t get burned, and you think it’s impossible that you might be able to predict the future?”

  “Your father had those fantastical abilities, not me.” She waved me off with a flick of her wrist, as though that made my logic inconsequential. “It makes sense that you would inherit some from him but me? I’m just ordinary. I’m nobody.”

  “No, that was Odysseus,” I joked. But from the blank expression on my mom’s face, I could tell that she didn’t get the reference.

  “That was how he tricked the cyclops,” I explained. “When they were trapped in the cave. He said his name was ‘Nobody’ so that when the cyclops asked who blinded him, he said ‘Nobody!’ It was a trick.”

  “Honey, I love you with all of my heart, but I swear when you speak in Greek myths, I have no idea what you’re saying,” Mom said with a mix of honesty and sincerity.

  I decided to change tactics. I took her hands in mine and forced her to look at me. Khryseos laid his head on her knee reassuringly.

  “You’re my mom, that’s not nobody,” I said with a small smile. “Look, whatever this test says, that you’re descended from Salem’s witches or just a normal couple from New Jersey, you’re still special to me. With or without the Sight.”

  Mom’s eyes welled with tears, but she blinked furiously to keep them from falling down her face.

  “Cameron,” she said, her voice coming out as a croak. “I don’t know if I can look. I don’t even know what this is going to tell us.”

 
“Everything or nothing,” I said with a shrug. “I don’t know Mom, but I just need some sort of answers. Don’t you want answers?”

  “I’ve never cared about my past,” she said as she shook her head. “I’m too much of a free spirit. I went wherever the wind took me. I thought if I looked back, I was wasting time. Plus it hurt too much when I thought about losing my parents and your father. It was better to focus on my time with you.”

  She reached up and put a hand on my cheek. While the gesture was sweet, I wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily.

  “Do you want me to open it?” I offered, although I really thought it was her journey to take, her discovery to make and not mine.

  “That didn’t fool you at all, did it?” she asked with a chuckle.

  “Not in the slightest,” I replied with a smirk. “Because I really want you to open it, but if you don’t, I will.”

  “No, no, no, I’ll do it,” Mom said as she pulled away. She reached out and slapped the box on her lap. “It’s like a band-aid, right?”

  Before I knew what was happening, Mom took out her keys and sliced through the tape on three sides. The box flipped open and revealed an assortment of confetti paper strands, colored blue and white. I leaned over, trying to get a better look, but she twisted the box so that the back flap blocked my view.

  “Oh, come on!” I complained lightly. “One minute you’re telling me you can’t do this and the next you’re hogging the box. What does it say?”

  Mom paused, and then, with a dramatic flourish, she pulled out a mini Greek flag. “Guess I’m Greek?”

  “Wait, really?” I balked. “Weren’t your adoptive parents Greek?”

  “Yes,” Mom confirmed, continuing to rifle through the box. “Hence the ‘Alpin’ last name. But where is the…? Oh, here it is.”

  Mom revealed the piece of paper that read off more specifics from her genetics test. She held it close to her nose, trying to read the small font. I kept trying to convince her to get some of those cheap reader glasses, but she refused to succumb to any admittance of aging whatsoever. So I waited patiently as her older eyes interpreted the words. She mumbled some of them aloud until she came to a particularly stunning part and then stopped talking altogether.

  “We received your test… you're 72% Greek… blah blah blah, ah, here, specifically from the region of…”

  I waited, but she seemed caught in her own words. They were trapped in her throat. I did what I could to dislodge them.

  “What? What region?” I asked eagerly.

  “I don’t…”

  “You don’t know how to pronounce it?” I guessed. I threw out my hand, empty palm up. “Let me read it, I can--”

  “I know how to pronounce it,” she replied as indignant as ever. “I just… it’s going to be a coincidence, right?”

  “Not if you don’t tell me what it is!” I said, not bothering to hide my impatience any longer. “What region is your family from?”

  “Delphi,” Mom said as though she were pronouncing a death sentence.

  My mouth opened up and stayed there. At first, I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. But there was no mistaking what she had said. They traced my mom’s DNA all the way back to Delphi in Greece.

  In disbelief, I yanked the paper out of Mom’s hand, and she let me. My eyes scanned over the words until I could confirm her declaration. I looked up and met her eyes, my bright blue ones boring into her terrified gray ones.

  “Delphi,” I repeated, the word coming out as a whisper. “As in, the Oracle of Delphi. The one blessed by Apollo and one of the most famous congregations of Seers in all of history.” I clicked my tongue and then held out the piece of paper to Mom, although she didn’t take it. “Yeah, that’s no coincidence.”

  Mom released a heavy sigh and set the white box on the coffee table, pushing it all the way to the very edge as if to put it as far as possible away from her. When she didn’t take the paper I offered, I threw it back on the box. It fluttered off to the side and landed face down on the coffee table. Argyreos hopped off the cushion beside me and stuck his neck out in order to sniff the box.

  “What else was in the box?” I wondered.

  The Doberman answered the question for me when he proceeded to pull out a thick amygdalota cookie and swallowed it whole.

  “Argyreos!” I scolded as I stood up and pulled his collar back from the table. Mom promptly followed my lead and scooped up the box. Khryseos trotted alongside her, jealous of his brother for getting a sweet when he didn’t get one. But Mom didn’t relent, thank goodness. She set them down on our small two-person dining room table. Then she gripped the top of one of the chairs, her shoulders hunching over it, making her look much older than she really was.

  I was too busy scolding Argyreos to notice right away. But it was my dog that alerted me to my mom’s despair. He whined and jerked his nose in her direction until I looked up and spotted her. After giving Argyreos a sharp point of my finger, I approached my mom and rubbed my hand on her back in circles.

  “It could be a coincidence,” I offered, though my voice gave away my lack of confidence in my own words.

  She released a heavy sigh. “We both know it’s not.”

  “It’s probably not, but if you want it to be, we can keep pretending that it is,” I said gently. “I just needed to know. For my own abilities and heritage, to see if it was real.”

  “I think there’s a 72% chance that it is,” Mom said with a half-smirk that didn’t reach all the way to her eyes.

  “If I had known this would trouble you so much, I wouldn’t have asked you to do it,” I said as a pang of guilt punched me in the gut as I looked into my mom’s sunken eyes.

  “No, honey, this is good,” she said as she reached out and tapped my cheek with her hand. She left it there for a moment, and I leaned into her touch. “The truth is always the best option, even if it hurts or is hard.”

  “I don’t ever want to hurt you, Mom,” I said, my voice softer than I intended it to be.

  “Oh, baby, I know,” Mom said. She pulled me down into a hug and kissed the top of my head. Being taller than her, she had to tug me down to be able to kiss the top of my head, but I didn’t mind being wrapped up in my mom’s arms for comfort and security. I felt the chuckle against her chest as she said, “I just really didn’t want your goddess to be right.”

  “Again, not my goddess,” I said, pulling away so I could look her in the eye and really get the point across this time.

  “You said that you became friends when you built her girdle,” Mom reminded me.

  “But then I insulted her and evened the playing field again,” I added with a wince as I thought back to the moment when I nearly got smote when I insulted the goddess of desire at the peak of my frustration last year.

  “Well, that would also be your father’s hot-headedness in you,” Mom said as she tapped my nose affectionately. “I hope you don’t get that way with Hailey or any of your other girls.”

  I knew she was changing the subject for her sake, and as much as I wanted to change it back, she knew my weakness when it came to talking about my girlfriends.

  My heart lifted at the thought of seeing Hailey soon. She was supposed to pick me up to go back to school in a little less than a week. I didn’t want to tell my mom how excited I was to get back to the Academy, but I wanted to see my girlfriends and friends and get back to the smithy. Slowly but surely, the Academy was becoming a second home for me. When I wasn’t there, a part of me was missing. But I couldn’t say anything to Mom because I didn’t want to sadden her.

  “She’s the one that explodes, remember?” I joked. “Not me.”

  Hailey had control over her father’s sun fire, whereas I could control Prometheus's Eternal Flame. They were two different elements, each unruly in their own way. The Eternal Flame seemed to have a mind of its own, whereas the sun fire harnessed the literal power of the sun, and sometimes it was a lot for Hailey to handle. Because of my heat
resistant abilities, I was one of the few people who could get close enough to calm her down before she went supernova.

  Mom rolled her eyes at my joke. “Very funny, Cam.”

  “I thought it was clever,” I said with a cheeky grin.

  “Just don’t be like Icarus, okay?” Mom said with a warning tone that threw me off.

  “Wait,” I paused. “What do you mean by that?”

  Before Mom could respond, there was a knock at the door.

  We looked at each other curiously, a clear sign that neither one of us was expecting someone. Since Khryseos and Argyreos didn’t explode into a series of annoying barks, that meant that it had to be someone we knew. But then, who would be paying an unexpected visit without calling first?

  Mom broke the ice and stepped forward to unlock and open the door. As if by magic, Hailey stood on the other side. She wore her black military uniform with her official orange Enka sash draped across her chest, proudly. The fabric pulled at her well-toned muscles and strained against her breasts as she stood up straight and official. She had gotten a haircut earlier in the summer, and while I wasn’t a fan of the shorter golden hair, I did like that I could see her chiseled cheekbones and sharp chin and vibrant green eyes easier.

  My face broke out into a smile the moment I saw her and expected her reaction to match my own. When she only offered me a small half-smile, I instantly knew something was wrong.

  “Well, speak of the devil,” my mom said, her voice suddenly cheery. “Were your ears ringing because we were just talking about you.”

  “Mom,” I groaned, annoyed by her lack of tact as she didn’t notice that something was clearly bothering my girlfriend.

  “What?” she shot back at me. “It’s true.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as I widened my stance and crossed my arms, as though preparing myself for an attack.

  “Cameron,” Mom scolded. “That’s not any way you--”

  “It’s okay, Ms. Alpin,” Hailey interrupted her as she took a step into the apartment. “Unfortunately, I haven’t come with good news.”