Starcrossed: Goddess Part 9

"Sure you can." He grinned at her-back to his sweet, playful self again. "Now take off your clothes."

Helen laughed, but when he took off his s.h.i.+rt and she saw the scars on his chest, her laughter died away. After a brief moment she made up her mind and jumped to her feet. "Why not?" she said, kicking off her shoes and pulling her s.h.i.+rt over her head. "I killed a freaking Myrmidon. How bad can a shark be?"

"That's ma girl," he said, shucking off his jeans. Helen did the same and immediately started s.h.i.+vering in the cold air.

"Am I going to die of hypothermia in there?"

"Not with me. That water will feel like a warm bath," he promised, taking her hand. "Ready?"

"I can't believe I'm doing this!" Helen screamed joyfully, and they ran toward the dark ocean. Right before Helen met the first wave she stopped dead, nearly yanking Orion's arm out of its socket. She danced up and down on her tiptoes. "Nope. I can't do this!" she screamed.

The wave parted and went around her and Orion, like Moses and the Red Sea.

"Thanks," she said, smiling at him with relief. "I totally chickened out." She noticed that his face was frozen and his eyes were wide.

"I didn't do this," he said, watching the water flow back around them without touching their skin. "You're doing it."

Helen stopped mentally shoving the water away and instead imagined the water touching her. The invisible envelope that held back the water collapsed and a wave rushed in, covering Helen and Orion up to their waists. She looked up at Orion with an apologetic face.

"Yeah . . . so I forgot to mention that I sort of absorbed some of your talents when the three of us became blood brothers," she said tentatively. "At least that's what Lucas thinks."

"I'd say he's right," Orion replied, giving Helen a funny look.

"The one thing he didn't figure out was why," Helen said, biting her lower lip. "Any theories?"

"About why you're crazy strong?" he asked distractedly. "No idea. But I have a feeling the Fates are involved."

"What?" she asked cautiously. "Are you mad at me?"

"No. It's just that I have a talent that I wouldn't wish on anyone," he said softly. Another wave pounded around them. "Can you cause earthquakes, Helen?"

"I don't know. Where do you feel them?" Helen asked, knowing he would know what she meant. She felt lightning low in her belly. She felt gravity deep inside her individual cells at the smallest level and guessed that earthquakes had to be felt somewhere in the body like these other senses. Orion moved closer to her, his face serious.

"Here," he said, brus.h.i.+ng his hands up the inside of her bare thighs. "Like riding a horse the size of a continent," he added, his voice low. Helen put her hands on his shoulders, her knees suddenly weak.

The ground trembled.

Orion caught her before her legs gave out and pulled her tightly against him. "That's a yes," he whispered.

Helen ran her fingers across the scar on his chest, and then fanned her palm out to touch as much of him as she could at once. He lowered his head and kissed her, pulling her down with him beneath the next oncoming wave.

Helen didn't have a chance to freak out about being underwater-she was too intent on returning the kiss. She didn't even notice that she was breathing the water like it was air as she slid her hands across his shoulders and the back of his neck. The only thing that she could think was how amazing Orion felt. Amazing. But not right.

Orion pulled away suddenly. Helen opened her eyes and clearly saw the sad look on his face even though the water was dark. She knew she was making a mess of things. Her one chance to be happy with another guy-a guy who was pretty much perfect-and she was absolutely wrecking it. She reached for him again, desperately hoping to push past her ridiculous fixation on Lucas. If she was with Orion, really with him tonight, she hoped that maybe she would be able to leave Lucas behind.

Orion dodged her embrace, his jaw set. He took her hand firmly and kicked for the surface, towing her along behind him.

They had sunk deeper and drifted farther out than Helen thought. She realized that she might be able to control the ocean now, but she still didn't know how to swim. It didn't matter. In a few powerful strokes Orion had them both back to sh.o.r.e. He didn't say a word on the way. As soon as they stood on sand, he dropped her hand and headed directly back up the beach to where they had left their clothes.

"Orion. I'm sorry, okay?" Helen called out, trailing behind him. He didn't even slow down. She scurried to keep up, but he only went faster. "Will you just wait?"

"Why?" he said, spinning around. "What about you and me is going to be different five minutes from now, or five years from now for that matter? I could wait my whole life for you, and you'd still be in love with Lucas."

"But I love you, too," Helen stammered.

"I know you do," he said heavily. "But not like you love him." Orion sat down on the sand. Helen stood over him, fretfully wringing her hands.

"Maybe it's not the same, but that doesn't mean that eventually . . ." Helen trailed off.

There was no "eventually," and Helen knew it. Even after she'd touched the water from the River Lethe and couldn't remember her own name, she'd still remembered Lucas. She'd never get over him. Lucas was it for her.

Orion pulled her down next to him and sighed. "My parents are like you and Lucas, you know. They love each other more than they love anyone or anything else in the world-more than they love me. My whole life I've wondered what it feels like to be loved like that. To be loved more." He looked Helen in the eye, his gaze intent and hurting. "I know you love me, Helen. But don't I deserve to be someone's first choice for a change?"

Tears burned in Helen's eyes. The look on Orion's face was exactly like the one she'd seen on Aeneas' face when his mother chose the other Helen over him. All his life, in every life he'd lived, Orion had been the runner-up to someone else.

"I can't think of anyone in the world who deserves to be loved-loved more-more than you," Helen said, her voice breaking. "I thought being with you would make me forget him. But that's just a nice way of saying I was using you." She bent her head. "I'm so sorry."

Orion put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close to him. "Hey, I'm the one who kissed you. I put myself in this situation. And I ought to know better."

"But I want to love you more," she said slowly, afraid to continue. She steeled herself and pulled back to meet his eyes. "You could make me love you more, couldn't you?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Until the next time you see Lucas. But you already know this. You didn't just fall in love with him once. You fall in love with him every time you look at him."

"Then I'll stay away from him. Forever."

He glanced away and bit his lower lip, debating it. "But I'd always know," he whispered. "I'd always know that I forced you to love me, and that it isn't real. I think I'd rather never be loved than know that."

Helen nodded, staring at her hands without seeing them. She wrapped her arms around his chest and let the tears come . . . for Orion, for herself, and for Lucas, but mainly because she was so sick of it all. She had power over the most magnificent forces on Earth, but she still didn't feel like she had power over the most important thing of all-her own heart.

Orion lay back on the sand and pulled her down on top of him. He banished the water soaking their skin and hair so they were immediately dry, and stared up at the stars while Helen cried a few frustrated tears. When she'd settled down, he piled their discarded clothes over them, still holding her on top of him to keep her off the cold sand. She was too tired to think straight anymore.

"So are we friends?" he asked after a long silence.

"Doesn't seem enough, does it?" she said as sleep quickly set in and started to paralyze her. "We're more than friends. We're brothers. Blood brothers."

His chest shuddered with a little laugh under her cheek, and she felt him whisper "brothers" to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

The last thing Helen thought before she drifted off after him was that she'd slept on a beach like this before with another boy. But this time there was no Helen-shaped dent for her to fit inside.

"Uncle?" Helen called out.

"I'm here, niece," Hades replied kindly. Helen turned around and found him walking up the infinite beach in the Underworld-the one that never led to an ocean.

She smiled tentatively at him as he joined her. "Thank you for coming. I have a lot of questions." Her voice was quivering with uncertainty. "When I'm sitting across from myself, and other people are calling me names like 'Guinevere,' I'm having a memory, not a dream, right?"

"Correct."

"How?"

Hades' dark helmet glimmered. "The dead have choices. They don't have to stay in the Underworld forever if they don't wish to. But in order to leave, they must wash their memories away in the River Lethe, before they can be reborn."

"And when I touched a few drops of that river water?" she asked, following up on a hunch.

"Life experiences are never annihilated. The river remembers. Your soul called to those memories in the water, and they joined you in this life. It's rare, but it happens sometimes," he said, and then turned his cloaked head away. "Why don't you clothe yourself?"

"Oh. Right," she said. Embarra.s.sed, she crossed her arms over her lacy bra. "I don't know how."

"Yes you do. Think, Helen."

"I want to be wearing warm, clean clothes," she said distinctly. Helen pictured a st.u.r.dy outfit, complete with the lined galoshes that she usually wore in the Underworld, and it instantly appeared on her body. Helen raised her eyes to the place behind the shadows where she guessed Hades' eyes would be. "Okay, first question. How can I do this? How can I control the Underworld?"

"Because you have a talent in common with me, and with Morpheus and Zeus, to name a few," he said firmly. "Each of us can make one world. I made Hades. Morpheus made the shadow lands. The Furies made the dry lands. Zeus made Olympus, and Tartarus created Tartarus eons before any of us existed. And Tartarus left the boundaries of her land open for all who share in this power, although none of us have ever seen her."

"But what has this got to do with me?" Helen blurted out, feeling like she was in way over her head. "I've never made anything. I've never even made the honor roll."

"You haven't made anything yet. But you will if you choose to," he said with a small chuckle that was hauntingly familiar. "There have been other Scions with this talent before. You call them Descenders, but that is not the correct name, really, as it only describes the allowance I made for Scions of your kind to be able to come to me for help. What help I can offer, at any rate," he said, his voice heavy with regret. "So far, I have failed you all."

"My kind?" Helen's palms started to sweat. "What kind am I?"

"You are a Worldbuilder, Helen. You have the power to sculpt a land for whomever you wish to enter it. A world of your own that abides entirely by your rules. Eternal youth. Fulfillment. Or eternal trials and suffering-whatever you think will serve best."

A thin silence wreathed around them as Helen absorbed this.

"But . . . that's . . . just . . . terrible!" she stammered, the air knocked out of her lungs for a moment. "Have you seen my pottery? I can't 'sculpt' a new world-it'll be a disaster! Can't you find someone who can at least draw or something?"

"I'm sorry, Helen, but the Fates do not dole out this particular talent often." Hades smiled before he grew serious again. "In fact, there have only been two Scions before you who learned how to use the talent well enough to create their own lands, and even then those worlds only lasted a short while."

"Who were they?"

"Morgan and Atlanta. One created Avalon, and the other Atlantis. Both their worlds dissolved into the mists or beneath the waves when their creators were defeated, but Scions remember those lands to this day. Especially Atlantis. They die for it still."

"Wait. You're saying that Atlantis doesn't exist?"

"Not anymore. Every Worldbuilder must be able to defend his or her lands against any challenger. Morgan and Atlanta both lost."

Helen sat down on the seeping wet of the damp sand, her head in her hands. She'd shouldered a lot of responsibility because she'd had no other choice, but this was beyond her.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I can't do this. I've done a lot, but this is too much."

"And what's that?" Hades asked. "What can't you do?"

Helen raised her head and regarded Hades with blank, desperate eyes. "I can't go back to rest of the Scions and tell them that all this murdering they've been doing so they could get to Atlantis has been for nothing!" Her voice took on a hysterical edge. "What was all that c.r.a.p from the Oracle about there being only one House left, and that 'One House' being the key to Atlantis? They've been killing each other off for decades now, and you want me to go back to them and tell them it was all a lie, that there is no Atlantis? I can't do it!"

"It's not a lie. Just a misinterpretation of the prophecy," Hades said calmly. She stared up at him, numb with shock.

"That's not good enough," she replied in a surprisingly level voice. "You need to tell me more."

He sat down next to her on the sand, near enough that the shadows parted a bit so she could see the bright green of his eyes and a familiar beauty mark that hung like a dark tear high on the slope of one of his perfect cheekbones.

"The prophecy has been fulfilled. The Houses are one, Helen." Hades took her hands between both of his, cradling them in warmth. "You will raise Atlantis, or Avalon, or Helena-whatever you wish to call it-and once your world is made you can decide who may enter, who must stay or go, and how each inhabitant experiences your land. It really is all up to you."

"That's too much for one person," Helen said, shaking her head like she could keep her responsibility at bay by rejecting it vehemently enough. "It's too much power."

Hades pushed back the cowl covering his head, removed the Helm of Darkness, and banished the shadows that clung to him. Staring back at Helen was a face she knew and loved dearly.

"There will be many Scions who will agree with that statement. Many beings, both mortal and immortal, will stop at nothing to keep you from claiming your true power." Hades' bright green eyes were dimmed by sadness. "If you build a world, many forces will try to rip it down. You and your Scion alliance will have to fight to defend it, and many of you may die, just as the G.o.ds want."

"So I won't build a world."

Hades took her hand. "The Fates will make sure you have no choice."

"No," Helen said, shaking her head stubbornly. "I refuse to believe three crones run my life. I won't build a world if the cost is that my friends and family must go to war. If I never build my own world, the G.o.ds won't challenge us, and no one has to fight."

"You are brave and compa.s.sionate, as a Worldbuilder should be, and I am very proud of you. But a war is coming to your sh.o.r.es, niece," Hades said sadly. "You, like your namesake before you, must decide how to meet it."

SEVEN.

The shrill chirp of a cell phone parted Helen's reluctant eyelids. It was still dark out, and dawn was a long way off. Underneath her, Orion shook himself awake and reached for his jeans that were draped over Helen's back like a shawl. His fingers fumbling with cold and sleepiness, he finally managed to dig his cell phone out of his pocket and answer before it stopped ringing.

"'Lo?" he grumbled, his voice still half asleep. "Hey, bro. Yeah, she's safe. She's right here with me."

Helen focused her hearing so she could listen in.

"Oh. Good," Lucas said over the phone in a leaden tone. "Can you both come back to my house? Ca.s.sandra is about to make a prophecy. She's been asking for you specifically, Orion. I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

Helen's eyes met Orion's as they flared in understanding.

"We're on our way now. Luke, wait. . . ." Orion said, but it was too late. Lucas had hung up. Orion gave Helen a sheepish look. "Sorry 'bout that."

"Why? Maybe it's better if he thinks we slept together. Maybe he'll . . ." She trailed off when she saw the doubtful look on Orion's face.

"He's not going to get over you, Helen. Doesn't matter how many men you spend the night with."

Helen nodded, accepting this. Orion looked Helen over and changed the subject.

"Where'd you get the clothes?" he asked.

"I sort of called them into existence in the Underworld."

"How long were you down there for?" he asked, starting to get concerned. "What happened?"