Chapter Text
When Zoë Nightshade wakes up in the Temple of Stars, back cushioned against the soft curves of a cloud nymph, the first thing she does is try to breathe, and white-hot agony replaces the blue-painted vaulted ceiling above her.
“OH! Oh dear, dying does do that to you, doesn’t it!” the cloud nymph yelps over her screams. Smoky arms pat her down, looking for an injury. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a new arrival. Of course, I’m not complaining about it—it’s my job not to complain, after all—and the new constellations always have such interesting stories to tell. So, how did you die? Affair with the God King of Olympus? You’re a pretty one, it wouldn’t be so far-fetched.”
“My injury,” Zoë grits out, blood pooling over her heavy tongue, “is internal. A rib has pierced my lung.”
“Well, this is beyond my means. I’m simply here as a couch in the reception area. Should I call for someone?”
“That would be much appreciated. My thanks.” Another wheeze. Ladon’s poison exits her body in the icy-cold sweat rolling down her temples.
“You’re bleeding and sweating all over the grass dryads!”
“Ah. I am poisoned as well.”
“Interesting! Five drachmas on a spiteful concoction made by our Lady’s daughter!”
Zoë means to ask which one of the Titaness Asteria’s daughters the cloud nymph is referring to, but the warm blood in her mouth suddenly surges up, its fierceness anew, to the back of her nose, and the next thing she knows, the blue vaulted ceiling comes back into sight. The cloud nymph beneath her shakes in excitement when the rich cobalt of the afternoon sky is ripped apart, and a night sky of gem-studded black velvet greets them by raining onto the reception area a million little lights.
Warmth, so unlike the searing discomfort that Ladon’s poison in her veins, cradles her, taking her from the cloud nymph’s embrace, and Zoë can feel her chest righting itself again. A shard of bone clicks back into its place on her sternum, the delicate sacs of her lung purge themselves of blood and close up. But most importantly, a feeling like nectar solidifying in her muscles crawls all over her—she gasps, and silvery light spills out of her mouth, catching onto the ethereal sheen of her skin, which looks like it was newly bronzed in her rebirth.
Her eyes quiver against the light, and shimmering droplets of heat trail down the sides of her nose.
“Congratulations, you’re officially a constellation! Welcome to the Temple of Stars!” squeals the cloud nymph when all that’s left is the vaulted ceiling above them, a friendly cobalt blue once more, and the unnatural glow on Zoë's skin. “That was magnificent to watch, truly magnificent! In the olden times, it would take the constellations fifty years after their deaths to be transformed—the line and paperwork was ridiculous, you see—so we cloud nymphs would have to watch them marinate in their own deaths… Now, though, the Lady receives not as many requests—”
Zoë struggles out of the cloud nymph’s embrace and falls into her own puddle of blood. It splatters onto her remade cheeks, still warm, but all she can think of is how large the reception hall of the Temple of Stars is. At least a hundred more cloud nymph couches, silent in their disuse, line her side of the hall; a hundred more line the other side. Leading up to the front of the hall is a carpet of grass—dryads, if she hadn’t hallucinated the cloud nymph’s words earlier in her feverish state—rolling as far as her eye could see.
And as a Huntress of Artemis, Zoë could spot the movement of a mouse in the thick underbrush of a rainforest from five hundred feet away.
Well. Not that she was one now.
Why? she thinks despairingly. Have I not served thee well enough to deserve a proper rest?
Without the cloud nymph’s chatter to fill her ears, the infinite sky’s deafening silence is her only companion. And to her chagrin, Zoë finds that no matter how hard she tries to will it, her absurdly shiny tears do not revert back into the human ones she’d grown familiar with over the course of her too-long life.
Constellations are bound by the same divine orders that restrain the gods of Olympus. They are not to interact with mortals unless mortals make first contact, and meddling in major events on Earth is looked down upon.
Zoë thinks back to the events leading up to her own death and snorts coldly. The divine laws do not restrain the gods so much as further excite them into breaking it, she thinks. For all the other constellations know, Asteria is off playing in Kronos’ war. Lady Artemis had whispered to her that Hecate had long picked sides; it would be of no surprise if Asteria lent a hand to her daughter.
Still, while the constellations are near-immortal by virtue of the permanence of their bodies in the heavens, to group them with gods and Titans would be faulty. All the constellations possess is time, and lots of it. Ganymede, the beautiful youth of the Aquarius constellation, spent his being flown between the Temple of Stars and Olympus on Aquila’s (the eagle whose constellation Zeus had placed in the sky for this exact reason) back. Amalthea, the ram of the Capricornus constellation, peacefully grazed on the illusionary hills rolling down from the back of the Temple. Perseus and Andromeda spent theirs arguing and making up repeatedly. Loudly. (Zoë wished to scrub her ears clean of the sounds a man made in the throes of carnal pleasure.)
To her relief, the two constellations she dreads meeting the most turn out to prefer spending time on Gaea’s territory: Heracles guards some entrance or the other, and no one has heard from Orion since he last left the Temple of Stars for a leisurely hunt some centuries ago.
On the other hand, those whom she might have gotten along with always seem to be lost within the Temple, its expanse tens of thousand times bigger than necessary to accommodate them.
"Let the world honor you, my Huntress," Lady Artemis had said. "Live forever in the stars."
Zoë had always known that she would fall in battle someday, and she’d had two millennia of waking, living, breathing for Lady Artemis to prepare herself for it. But now, with no prey to hunt in the skies and no sisters to turn to, Zoë allows herself the privilege of doubt.
What did Lady Artemis think she would achieve, wonders Zoë as she runs herself ragged across the heavens, making her a constellation? The clouds do not split beneath her footfalls, and her chest does not burn with exhaustion even as Apollo’s chariot touches the sky and turns the deep black into ribbons of coral. She runs for days until watching the sky change becomes monotonous; she launches arrows at unfortunate birds and shoots at non-existent bullseyes. Her arrows sail away and disappear, and yet the quiver permanently slung across her hip never seems to run out of them.
She tries counting them on her way back to the Temple. Always three arrows. With a frustrated cry, she flings them all over the great threshold, watching them dissipate with a shimmer.
“It’s useless. They will come back.”
Zoë notches an arrow on instinct—her supply had indeed refilled on its own—and points it at the intruder.
Then guilt compels her to lower her bow. The Ursa Major had suffered enough at her behest in their previous lifetime.
“Hello, Lieutenant,” Kallisto says. “I hope your stay has been thus fulfilling.”
“Thou speaks as though I am of superior rank,” Zoë replies stiffly. “Thou wast once a Lieutenant as well.”
“That makes both of us, doesn’t it?” Kallisto heads back into the reception area, and Zöe, starved of conversation, follows her against good judgment. “How fares the Hunt?”
“Our—Their ranks are satisfactory. Though they have thinned considerably in the last few years, given the Great Stirring, I’ve never been witness to a more skilled batch of Hunters.”
“Ah yes, there’s talk of a Second Titanomachy.” They round their way into the courtyard, located at the Temple’s Center. Kallisto produces a goblet from the pouch at her hip and dips it into the fountain of nectar. “Artemis leads the infantry of the gods as usual.”
Zoë's brow furrows. “Does Artemis not visit thee?”
Kallisto offers her the goblet, and Zoë recognizes it for what it is: a peace offering.
When she takes it, Kallisto says, “Would you claim to understand the workings of Artemis’ mind?”
“No. Never.”
“Hm. Then it should be not difficult for you to accept that she has not paid me a visit nor summoned me since—”
“—I killed thee,” Zoë finishes. The nectar, tasting of the blood oranges that she once plucked from her sisters’ garden, sours in her mouth. “But Lady Artemis must have had a reason—”
“Maybe so.” Kallisto waves her concerns away. “Nevertheless, we stand here, and not in the Fields of Elysium nor Asphodel.”
It was by Zoë's arrow that Kallisto, transformed by Artemis into a bear for daring to deceive the Hunt’s oath of maidenhood, was slain. Zeus, for once in his life, felt guilty for having deceived the innocent Huntress and granted Kallisto and her son a place among the stars, making them into the Ursa Major and the Ursa Minor.
“Curious,” Kallisto snorts. “One would think that Artemis’ Lieutenant after two thousand years would have a guess at why she would be granted a place among the stars.”
“Lady Artemis is a goddess, and I was a mere Lieutenant. I would not dare.”
“And that’s the heart of the matter, isn’t it?”
Suddenly, Kallisto has her bracketed against the frame of the fountain, her beautiful face glowing in the Temple’s perpetual light. “I thought I understood Artemis, and that must have been my mistake, yes? I hid the rape from her, but never did I dream that she would turn me into a bear and give the rest of you free rein to hunt me down. For deceiving her, she said. Pah! What protector of young women? I loved her, you see, so when her father came to me in her form—well, what could I do but embrace her willingly?”
“Get off me,” Zoë says lowly, pushing at Kallisto.
Kallisto’s eyes shine with the effervescent tears unique only to them, the constellations of the skies, the ornaments of the gods. “My only sin was loving her. No,” she scoffs, “my only sin was daring to presume that she loved me back.”
“I have no such sin,” Zoë sneers. “I hunted thee down. I slew thee. Then and there as I looked into the black eyes of thy bear form, I knew that no matter how close Lady Artemis and I would grow, it would be futile.”
“We’re the same,” Kallisto whispers. “Even now, you defend her despite your doubts. I did the same thing when I carried my human son in the womb of a she-bear. I suffered the lowest humiliation possible at her hands, and I still love her.”
“Mama?”
They both freeze, and Kallisto’s face softens. She takes a moment to wipe her tears and turns around with a smile. “Yes, Arkas?”
Arkas, Kallisto’s son and the hunter of the Ursa Minor constellation, is lean and brown-skinned from his mortal days of surviving solely on hunting in the forest. Zoë averts her eyes—the set of his mouth resembles the downturn of Artemis’ lips.
“Who’s this?”
“A new constellation,” Kallisto informs him as he steps in front of her in a protective gesture. “Zoë Nightshade, the Huntress.”
Surprise, then fury registers on Arkas’ delicate face. “One of her followers,” he spits, and Kallisto soothes him with a pat on his back. “I think I recognize her face, even—”
One of Zöe’s hands flies to her bow. Kallisto hastily says, “How was your time in the mortal realm, Arkas?”
“Ah—Uh—Stinky, mostly. The pollution and noise have reached even the forests. It’s quite upsetting—”
Zoë is unable to stop herself. “Descending into the mortal realm is possible?” she blurts.
Mother and son turn to look at her in surprise. Arkas quickly recovers: “Why, would you rather spend the rest of your life being spirited away to Zeus’ bedchambers, like our dear Ganymede?”
Kallisto spares her son the indulgent chastisement of a tsk . “Watch how that mouth of yours runs, Arkas. And yes, Lieutenant, it is possible.”
“But—we are not to interact with mortals—” flounders Zoë. “I thought—”
“This is what two millennia of being Lieutenant does to you,” scoffs Kallisto. “Head filled with nothing but orders and rules. You’re a constellation, dear, you’re immortal. We may not be gods, but there is yet a repository of powers now available to you. Shroud yourself within the Mist, wear a disguise, what have you.”
“Oh.” The weight of the revelation floors Zoë, and she crouches, weak in the knees.
She could see Lady Artemis and the Hunters again—
“I know what you’re thinking,” Kallisto interrupts. “You cannot.”
“What?” Zoë springs to her feet, indignant. “Why not?!”
Arkas rolls his eyes. “Why do you think? If mortals ever found out that they could rendezvous with their dead loved ones if they became constellations, the heavens would never hear the end of it. Although I do have to say, it might finally get Hades to revolt against Zeus.”
“Arkas,” Kallisto sighs. “And, Lieutenant, it is for our own safety as well. The Olympians are not a fan of their playthings running around and meddling in the mortal realm. Best to keep it an open secret among us constellations.”
“Please stop addressing me as ‘Lieutenant,’” mutters Zoë, already striding past them. “I am no longer one.”
“Once a Lieutenant, always a Lieutenant.”
Zoë whirls around, levelling a shaking finger at Kallisto. “We are not the same. Stop trying to make me doubt Lady Artemis.”
She flees the Temple, leaping off the bright threshold and down through the clouds. But even the addictive rush of her weightless stomach plunging to the ground cannot drown out Kallisto’s parting words, echoing in her ears long after they ceased to bounce off white columns.
“Are we not, Lieutenant? We’re both here because of her. As for doubt—only time will tell.”
If there is one thing the residents of the Temple of Stars possess, it’s time.
Lots of it.
Lady Artemis took her in when the Hesperides had cast her out of the garden and blotted her name from the records. To avoid the fury of Pleione’s water nymphs, Zoë sought refuge deep within the dense forests of Macedonia, away from the sunset and the sea. But run-ins with especially vengeful river nymphs were inevitable; she quickly learned to anticipate struggle whenever she would dip in a river bank to take a drink or wash herself.
On one such occasion, she barely managed to crawl back to the bank, and as she disgorged what felt like an entire ocean from her lungs, she thought about ending her shame right then and there. She held a bunch of nightshade berries she’d been keeping on her to her mouth.
And that was how Lady Artemis found her.
In the meantime, Zoë busies herself with helping young girls to shake off the encounter with Kallisto—because that’s what Lady Artemis does. Like this, she remembers why she had taken the nightshade berries away from her mouth and joined the Hunt. Unseen by mortal eyes, she whispers into the ears of downtrodden women, gives them the strength and wit to evade their husbands and fathers and boyfriends, lends them a soothing assurance on which their tears drip and dry up.
Sometimes, when she feels particularly brave, she takes on an unassuming form and casually offers them little gifts to get them by. A fallen dollar bill, a bag of still-warm and untouched sandwiches, a bottle of concealer for their bruises. For one especially young girl around the age of six, she buys a fur coat to drape over the shivering form and starts a fire in the January winter-frosted alley. Long after the child falls asleep, Zöe keeps watch, whisking the child away to a different location when suspicious figures and cruel-looking policemen approach.
But for all the help she affords girls from all walks of life, it’s fleeting. Zoë can only stay and operate in secret for so long. The frustration piles on her, and with each passing man that acts more like an animal, her restraint to not kill any one of them crumbles. After unintentionally compelling her latest victim to scratch out her brother’s eyes for taking yet more money for… e-gambling?—what did “e” stand for?—she ascends back to the heavens, too flustered for her liking.
Regardless, that’s when she hears cries from the sea. Halfway to the lowest clouds, Zoë pauses and strains her ears.
“What are two young ones doing so far from the land?” she murmurs to herself, flying in the voices’ direction.
In a few minutes, she sights a massive galley that belongs to an era five centuries past. The great bow slices through the glass-like waters, and the billowing sails sway against their masts. Zoë cannot make sense of it, so she heads straight to the ship’s hold, where the cries are coming from.
When she passes through the walls, the sight that greets her makes her blood boil.
In the dark corners of the putrid hold huddle around two dozen women, a handful of them still mid-adolescence and most of them in their early twenties. They’re all bound and gagged with rope as thick as Zoë's fist to wooden posts, and judging from the smell, they haven’t been granted any hygienic privileges for quite some time now. Screams fill the enclosed space as the captives struggle towards the center of the hold. There, about fifteen or so pirates, all built like colossal sequoia trees, crowd around two girls.
The obvious conclusion here is that the two girls are being mercilessly assaulted, one that Zoë might have come to if she weren’t so experienced in brawling herself. But despite being outnumbered and still being bound by ropes, it’s clear that it’s the ten grown men on their defense.
Amused, Zoë watches on as the smaller girl flings her bound hands around a pirate’s throat, effectively choking him. The taller girl snaps her head backwards against another pirate’s nose and plants her feet into the stomach of the man her sister is holding captive. When the poor bastard crumples to his feet, the smaller girl slices the ropes binding her wrists across the sword hanging from his hip.
Unfortunately, it costs her a precious second; the taller girl roars in rage as she watches the smaller girl get backhanded across the hold, blood spilling across the wooden floorboards. “REYNA!” —then a string of desperate curses in a foreign tongue Zoë hasn’t learned.
Zoë does not know what comes over her; perhaps it is the adrenaline from the earlier situation with the “e-gaming” brother, or the fact that she had grown to root for the girls in the few minutes she had watched them. Either way, anger deafens all her prudence, and the world erupts in a silvery flash as her energy knocks the pirates ten meters away from the girls.
The taller girl wastes no time rushing to her sister—for they look so alike that it is impossible for them to not be related. “Reyna, baby sister,” she breathes. “Wake up.”
Reyna’s dark brows scrunch together as she lets out a slurred, “Hylla…”
“Stay here,” Hylla hisses, crouching over Reyna’s figure like an impenetrable dome. “I’ll take care of them.”
A knot of dread settles in Zoë's chest. For all the sisters’ natural fighting prowess, the duo is down to one, and Hylla is clearly clinging onto the last vestiges of her energy. If she is to fight her way out of the hold, there will be untold waves of new opponents, all likely to be freshly rested and even more in number.
She should turn back. Leave the girls alone, pray fervently that they escape the situation.
Zoë thinks back on one of her first conversations with Artemis: “Should I not dispose of these infernal berries, milady?” she had asked.
Artemis had only smiled at her, and for the first time, Zoë realized why the black night tides reach for the full moon. How could they not, in the face of such radiance? “It’s your choice, my dear Huntress.”
Zoë takes a breath that she no longer needs and lets her presence descend on Hylla. She notes the tremor of fatigue lining the muscles of Hylla’s shoulders and extending all the way down to her fingertips.
If you ask for help, Zoë whispers into Hylla’s ear, it shall be given.
Hylla whirls around, and the pirates who had just begun working up the courage to approach her again yelp and scramble backwards. She pays them no heed. Who is there?!
No god that thou knows of, Zoë snorts. A sympathetic spirit, if thou would be so kind.
What price am I to pay?
Which arm was it?
Hylla blinks. Which arm was what?
Which arm was your sister slapped with, dost thou recall?
An echo of laughter in their shared mental space. It was the right arm. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which one in particular did it…
Unnecessary. They all suffer, then. That would be payment enough.
Hylla’s laughter grows louder. Her mind opens up to let Zoë in, and Zoë feels the earlier bloodlust creep back in, dyeing their vision red and sharper than ever. I really like you, mysterious voice.
Hylla lunges at the nearest pirate, and Zoë seizes him with Hylla’s hands. Without much further ado, Zoë jerks the man’s right arm out of his shoulder then shatters the cartilage of his elbow in two swift strikes. The moment the pain registers enough for him to scream, Zoë decks him in the throat and kicks him back onto the next approaching pirate.
I’ll take it from here! Hylla snarls, snatching back control to break another pirate’s ulna clean in half. Next thing Zoë knows, Hylla’s fists are flying everywhere, resounding cracks trailing in her wake around the ship’s hold.
Bruises layer on her dark skin, but Hylla is unstoppable, seemingly unfeeling of her injuries. Red layers so thick on her knuckles that even Zoë cannot tell Hylla’s blood apart from the pirates’, and she marvels at the girl’s strength. Even when three men attempt to gang up on her, two holding her down while one runs at her with a cudgel, she does not give for a single second into fear. With a burst of strength that Zoë sends her way, Hylla plants her feet onto the approaching man’s chest and flips overhead. The two men stand no chance; before they can blink, Hylla uses her momentum to bash their heads into their third compatriot’s. The three of them fall into a grunting heap, joining the rest of the pirates who dared approach Hylla.
The daughter of Bellona huffs stray hair out of her face. Time for your tribute, mysterious voice? She looks for the pirates who still have their arms intact and quickly remedies that travesty. When the screams become bothersome, she dashes their heads into the side of the ship for good measure.
After they clear the level, Hylla takes into each of her hands a fallen pirate’s cutlass and takes a breather, leaning on the blades for support.
Do you even know how to use these? Zoë asks drily.
Not yet. In a moment; weapons have always come easy to me. These pathetic swords will be no exception.
Then the moment Hylla lifts her foot to walk forth, her knees give out under her.
“Ow,” she mumbles against the floor.
Zoë considers manifesting physically, but she has already both overstayed her welcome and revealed her powers, so she decides against it. Instead, she says, Let me take over.
“No,” Hylla grunts. “This is something I have to do myself. Just… give me a minute.”
Hylla inhales the foul air of the hold, and all at once, Zoë feels as if she herself is the air: Hylla has somehow latched onto her presence, draining Zöe of her energy to make it into her own.
What are you doing?!
Haha… How are your energy reserves so deep? I guess you really are a god.
If I were a god, I would have half a mind to incinerate thee by now! Zöe thinks furiously.
But you haven’t. Oh, that feels great. Perks of being the daughter of a war goddess; I’m capable of making my allies’ strength my own.
Hylla rises to her feet, brimming with Zoë's energy, and busies herself cutting at the captives’ ropes. “We will be free soon,” she promises them.
“You say this everytime you start a fight in the hold,” one of them says shakily. “You and Reyna might be the daughters of Bellona, but there’s only so much the two of you can do against a whole ship of pirates!”
“And the pirates that you do kill always come back the next day!” another cries. “Remember what Lady Circe told us? This crew was cursed by Poseidon to forever sail the seas. It’s a futile mission.”
“I suppose you’re fine with serving as their desk scrubbers and bed warmers for eternity, then,” Hylla sharply rebukes. “Suit yourselves. But mark your words, I will succeed this time, and I’ll know no greater pleasure than seeing you eat your words and beg for my forgiveness when this ship docks and I unboard with only Reyna in tow.”
The captive women glance at each other with unease. “... How are you so sure this time?”
“I’ve got a secret weapon,” Hylla laughs, earlier temper suddenly nowhere to be found. “Don’t worry, all you have to do is stay down here, not get in my way, and take care of Reyna. ¿Entendido? ”
Zoë has not felt so unnerved by another person in several centuries now. Something about the discomfiture Hylla brings her is familiar, but even as they head out to face the other pirates, she fails to put a name to it.
Thou reminds me of myself, millennia ago, she instead tells Hylla, for lack of anything else to say.
Oh? What a compliment.
Hardly. I sincerely hope thou hast never thought of ingesting nightshade berries to end thy own life.
… I have my sister to take care of. Still, you’re here, so I assume the berries either failed or you didn’t take them.
Thou art knowledgeable, Zöe says approvingly. As expected of an apprentice of Circe. They climb the wooden ladder to the next level: the forecastle. I crushed the nightshade berries, dipped my arrows into their essence, and slew my goddess’ enemies with them.
A Huntress of Artemis. Maybe you should teach me how to use a bow.
I may; you would make a fine Huntress, indeed. But learn to use these cutlasses first , Zöe replies.
Hylla kicks open the door to the forecastle and beheads the first pirate that comes near her. Way ahead of you.
Hylla’s ordeal on the Queen Anne’s Revenge lasts five days and four nights. Each morning, every single pirate who they had maimed or killed comes back freshly healed and recovered to face them, rushing Hylla in whatever part of the ship she is from back and front.
Thanks to Zoë's near limitless energy as a newly immortal constellation, Hylla outlasts them all. She’s a quick study of a warrior, immediately being able to correct the shift of her momentum and the angle of her wrist according to Zoë's instruction, and she slices through the never-ending pirates like they were the waters upon which they sail. Her hands change weapons like underclothes, given how much blood and bits of flesh collect on the handles every few minutes. Regardless if Hylla holds a mace, dual cutlasses, old-fashioned pistols, or even a wide butcher’s knife, all weapons came to her naturally.
She’d been born to shed blood, and watching her stride through rotting, blood-soaked wooden planks like it is her kingdom is magnificent. Still, Zoë mourns the thick scarring that quickly envelopes Hylla’s fine hands, once dedicated to pampering and being pampered in a peaceful land.
I thought Reyna and I would finally find peace and refuge on Circe’s island, Hylla confides to Zoë on the third night. They’d reached the deck, but Zoë had forced Hylla to rest for the night in a small compartment just beneath the floor, only accessible by a trapdoor. It is the first good night’s sleep Hylla had been convinced to take since she seemed to have little regard for how she took and took and took from Zoë's energy. I even became one of Circe’s favorite attendants. But then some… twerps on a quest showed up six months ago and undid Circe’s enchantment on the pirates. They used to be adorable guinea pigs we attendants fed for fun during our breaks but now… well.
Zoë has a horrible inkling of the identity of the said “twerps.” Percy Jackson.
You know him? Well, he got turned into a guinea pig, too. It was his blonde friend that got him and the rest of them changed back. I’ll kill them if they ever cross my path.
Perhaps Zoë had been wrong in her assessment of Percy Jackson. It seemed that however decent heroes seemed to be, they would always recklessly leave behind a trail of casualties that they gave not a second thought to. Men, she says derisively.
Hylla laughs. It suits her; it’s sharp, loud, and it demands . Just like how Hylla demands so much: for freedom, for bloodshed, for Zoë's energy.
The more glorious a hero is, the higher the mountain of bodies that he stands upon. I learned that early on.
Zoë ponders Hylla’s words, then her thoughts turn back to male heroes, and a horrible realization about Hylla strikes like the arrows that had earned her her title.
… Mysterious voice? Have you left me?
Zoë is still reeling, but she answers back, No, I have not. I will see you and your sister to the end, until you gain freedom. I guarantee it. I am a woman of my word.
I would accept nothing less, replies Hylla, as though Zoë's given help was her birthright.
The next morning, when Hylla publicly demands for a duel with Blackbeard himself, Zoë remains silent, only piping up to point out various weaknesses in his left flank. It hardly stops Hylla from taking her fill of Zoë's vitality when her strikes start to slow or when Blackbeard manages a good hit on her. Blood and sweat splatters all over the deck, and by the time Hylla slits Blackbeard’s throat, the sun is just about to set.
“I will see your captain in the morning then,” she declares to the first mate. “By noon I expect to be on my knees kissing the sweet, sweet ground.” Hylla pauses, then smirks. “Something you pendejos won’t ever be able to do.’
And that starts up another round of fighting. Zoë sighs as she feels Hylla siphon yet more energy from her. Thou art being reckless , she snaps.
Breathless with thrill and exhaustion, Hylla whirls with her blades, forming a circle of destruction. You were so silent the whole day, is the coy reply Zoë receives. Ah, so Hylla had noticed. Maybe I just want to spend more time with you.
Zoë's frustration implodes in a blinding burst of starlight. The remaining pirates fall to their knees, clutching their eyes and screaming. ENOUGH! It is already bad enough that they are being beaten by a nineteen-year-old mortal girl. It is in thy best interests to prevent grudges.
But—
“Hylla!” Just as the pirates get on their feet, another figure joins the melee. “How—”
“Reyna!” Hylla shouts in horror, leaping to her sister’s side. “I told the manicurists to keep you in the hold!”
“And leave you?” With a grunt, Reyna swings the machete in her hands down on a woozy pirate’s skull. “I don’t know how you managed to do this all on your own, but we are not in Father’s house anymore. You can’t keep shielding me from the world!”
“FUCK!” Hylla shouts in frustration. “I shouldn’t have started another fight—”
Told you so.
“SHUT UP!” Hylla plunges her sword into a man’s stomach and cuts so deep into another’s thigh Zoë thinks she sees a flash of white bone. “Not you, Reyna—get out of here—”
“Hylla,” Reyna insists. “Listen to me. We can keep fighting these pirates forever, but as long as they hold power over us on this ship, they have no reason to let us go.”
Hylla pauses for the briefest second, then grabs Reyna to hurl her into the small compartment she (and Zoë) had spent the night in. Once in the dark room, the two sisters work fast to secure the rattling door with various layers of knotted ropes and a blade holding them together for good measure.
“Open up, you little bitches!” shouts a pirate, spittle dripping from behind his yellowing teeth. His ten or so mates all echo his call, pounding their bulging fists on the door. Inwardly, Zoë clicks her teeth and floats out of the small compartment.
“Men,” she seethes disdainfully with a physical mouth, a tangible tongue. The pirates just about jump out of their skin to look at her.
Unfamiliar and unassuming as Zoë's human disguise might be, they have learned these past few days that even frail-looking girls are capable of monstrous things. Zoë's lip curls up to bare her teeth.
“Leave them alone,” she mocks. “Perhaps then you would recharge sufficiently enough to be a legitimate threat by the morrow.”
She disappears in a flurry of stardust, and the men scatter like the cockroaches they are. Zoë is pleased to note that she has not lost her affinity for intimidation, judging by the smell of urine that twirls into the air.
She cannot bring herself to go back to the Temple of Stars just yet, however. She instead runs the path that the stars of her constellation form, alighting from one to the other with divine ease as the night deepens, right before the rays of Eos split the sky.
That is how the fourth night transpires. By the fifth morning, Zoë hovers at a distance as the two daughters of Bellona drag out chests of Blackbeard’s riches and hold it over the side, all the while coolly negotiating for their freedom. By noon, Hylla threatens Blackbeard where it hurts: he is to grant them their freedom lest his crew suffer an eternity of dying and resurrecting at the sisters’ blades in between their hard-earned loot being pillaged.
Faced with such a threat, Blackbeard directs his crew to make haste for the nearest piece of land with civilization. By nightfall, all twenty-four of the former attendants of C.C’s Resort and Spa are crying in jubilation on the grounds of San Francisco, and Zoë makes her way back to the Temple of Stars.
(She may have dallied a bit leaving Hylla to herself. Against her good judgement, she perched at Hylla’s side as the women disembarked the Queen Anne’s Revenge , waiting for Hylla to perhaps reach out and ask for assistance or even just wonder where the mysterious voice in her head had gone.
Hylla smiled and cheered and went along in group hugs with the rest of the freed captives like nothing had happened.
The taste in Zoë's mouth soured, much like the nectar Kallisto had offered her.
But Reyna, sharp as a silver arrow even at thirteen years old, pressed her sister: “You had help. What demonic deal did you make?”
The smile faded from Hylla’s lips. “I… do not know,” she confessed.
“What do you mean you do not know?!”
“She called herself a ‘sympathetic spirit.’ So maybe she’d been in our situation before and just wanted to help.”
“No one offers help for free, Hylla.”
Hylla smiled and ruffled Reyna’s hair. “That was what I said, too, Reynita. But she seemed to genuinely not desire any form of reward or payment. She would not even reveal her identity.”
“But you have bits of information about her.”
“Of course. What do you think of me?”
“ I came up with the idea of blackmailing the pirates instead of just using brute force against them,” quipped Reyna.
“Yes, yes, and I’ll never forget it.” Hylla took a breath, and her eyes gleamed. Zoë swore those eyes darted up to her constellation for the briefest second, but it was dark, and the night often played tricks on even the visions of huntresses. “Anyway, I do intend to find her and thank her as she deserves. And maybe scold her a bit for leaving me so suddenly.”
The rest of the conversation that followed, Zoë did not hear. At that point, she’d fled, once again flustered beyond what she knew to do with.
Heracles had never thanked her, or shown her any sign of his gratitude, for that matter.
So perhaps she’d been wrong to associate helping Hylla with helping Heracles. Hylla did have the same bloodlust, the same greed for glory and victory, but beneath all her disillusionment with the world… she had a good soul yet.
Zoë's cheeks warm in shame.)
She finds Kallisto sitting on the threshold upon her return. “Lieutenant,” Kallisto greets, voice tired and resigned.
Zoë bites back the bitterness surging in her heart at the sight of her. “What are you doing out so late?”
“Ah, don’t mind me. This… This is just something I do everyday,” she sighs. Kallisto tries for a smile and fails. “A pointless habit, really… I’d appreciate it if you don’t poke fun at me for it.”
Kallisto looks like a child with the way her knees are tucked under her chin. Her fist is tightly clenched around a glint of silver. The very portrait of longing, anticipating. Waiting.
As potent as her dislike for the former Huntress is, Zoë has no more energy left in her to be resentful. “Of course not,” she says, moving to stride past her. “Good night, Kallisto.”
“Good night, Lieutenant,” Kallisto mumbles, gaze once more distant and yearning at the shrouded half-moon.
Zoë tries to avoid demigods and fellow mythological beings after Hylla. She should help as there is an imminent war, she knows, but despite her opinion of Percy Jackson having fallen slightly, she is still confident in the boy’s and his friends’ competence and courage. If there is anyone who can defeat the Titan Lord Kronos and his allies, it is him.
The moment Zoë detaches from the mortal realm, time passes by in the Temple of Stars in the blink of an eye. She meets some of the other constellations (Ganymede, in particular, stuns her like he does everyone else—his beauty truly transcends languages), and discovers exactly what “e-gaming” is, thanks to the twins of the Gemini constellation, Castor and Pollux. Olympus knows where they had procured their supplies from, but they proudly show off to her their “gaming system” when the topic comes up.
“—and thanks to Hermes, we’ve got pretty good Wi-Fi even up here in the heavens, so the multiplayer options allow us to connect with anyone from Olympus all the way down to the Underworld. Lady Persephone herself does some e-gaming, and she absolutely slays at Tekken,” rambles one twin.
“You should see the way she pulls off those combos with Lili, it’s so cool!” cries the other. “I’ve never seen someone move so fast, like BAM! BAMBAM! Then flying overhead kick, POW! She beat my avatar in fifteen seconds flat, I was absolutely crushed.”
“I see.” In fact, Zoë does not see, but either way, the twins shepherd her to the nearest chair, shove a strange machine in her hands, and start talking about pressing certain buttons to kick, punch, whatnot.
Zoë frowns. “If I want to kick, I do not have to press a button. I can merely do it with my own legs.”
Castor and Pollux stare at her before bursting into laughter.
“What’s so funny?” grunts Arkas, lifting up the gossamer curtain that separates the twins’ bedchamber from the Temple’s corridors. His gaze darkens at Zoë, who politely acknowledges him with a nod. “Why are you trying to teach her how to play Xbox?”
Zoë's patience frays. “Since my presence here seems to be so undesired, I will take my leave from you three unseemly men,” she retorts.
Castor and Pollux have the look of spectators at gladiator games on their faces as Arkas groans. He grabs a plastic case depicting a burly mercenary hoisting a sniper rifle. “First-person shooting RPGs might be more suited to the Huntress, then.”
Testosterone-driven as Arkas seems to be, he turns out to be right. Zoë… ah, “wings” the game called “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” once she learns which buttons to press to shoot at the on-screen enemies.
“How are you doing that?!” Castor demands. She knows it is Castor because he has stopped playing, his in-game lives having been used up five rounds ago. Pollux has his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, his avatar barely hanging on by a thread.
She tries not to sound too smug when she says, “I have not missed a shot in a thousand years.”
Arkas, who has a deep scowl lining his features, jabs at his console’s buttons harder. But after Zoë emerges as the undeniable victor among them, having the most kills, he offers her a begrudging handshake.
“Normally I don’t shake hands with men,” she sneers at him.
“Normally I don’t shake hands with Huntresses,” he sneers right back, but he drops the topic afterwards in a rare show of respect. Castor and Pollux give her simultaneous thumbs-ups with identically broad grins.
Zoë is baffled, more than anything. “You men seek validation from such asinine sources.”
Really, she has no choice of companion here, up in the Temple of Stars. Glory back in the days, after all, was mostly given to men. And the women that do reside here… well. Zoë is hardly inclined to speak to Kallisto of her own initiative; Andromeda seems to be constantly occupied in marital bliss; and the seven Pleiades are simply not an option. What thousands of years might have done to ease their hatred towards her for betraying Pleione was completely undone by Zoë's final actions, which sealed their father once more under the sky. When Zoë has the misfortune of running into her half-sisters, their glares burn into her back long after she hurriedly rounds the corner, away from them.
The loneliness from her earlier days comes back, not quite in full force, but present, nonetheless. There is only so much running and gaming one can do until things become monotonous.
But she cannot bring herself to descend on the mortal realm. Not so soon after the run-in with Hylla had ripped open anew the fear of becoming a tool in a hero’s quest for glory.
And there’s still the ever-nocked arrow of the question that grows more tense with each passing day: Why did Lady Artemis put her here?
The answer should be obvious, and yet Zoë cannot bring herself to accept that to Lady Artemis, she is nothing more than a trophy to be shown off for eternity. For over two thousand years, Zoë had dedicated every waking breath to her without question.
Was she to spend the rest of her afterlife in the same manner? Zoë winces at the afterimage of Kallisto, perched on the threshold, eternally waiting. How fitting that the two Huntresses in the skies would teach different lessons: one as a warning against disobeying Artemis’ contract of maidenhood, and another as a paragon of unwavering loyalty. But even Kallisto had her son to keep her company, just as Castor and Pollux had one another in brotherhood, just as Perseus and Andromeda warmed their marriage bed with much enthusiasm. Hades, Andromeda even had her parents in the Temple, and Perseus, averse to them as he was, would do anything to make his wife happy.
Zoë had no one, except perhaps the memory of her goddess. She could try to sever their bond, but that would mean returning to the state she was in during the days after her exile: melancholy and rage and nightshade berries. Not that they would work anymore; her body would just heal her right up.
Kallisto had been right about one thing. Why else would she be thinking these thoughts, if not to make excuses for Lady Artemis? If not for love?
“Huntress,” calls out a voice one night, and Zoë breaks out of her spiralling reverie. She looks over her shoulder from where she is perched on the balcony of her open terrace.
Perseus maintains a respectful distance from even her front door. Percy Jackson could not have had a better hero to have as a namesake, she thinks. “Huntress, HephaestusTV is live-streaming the Battle of Manhattan, if you are inclined.”
The Battle of Manhattan. Zoë purses her lips. The final stand for Olympus. The constellations know that should the demigods fall, they are expected to defend the home of the gods as well.
She follows Perseus out of her bedchambers and into a facsimile of a modern mortal theater. However, instead of a big flat screen plastered at the front of the room, a smoky sphere is located in the center. Around it run concentric circles of plush leather seats, much like an amphitheater.
As a cloud nymph Zoë does not recognize fiddles with some remote control or the other, she makes a conscious choice to sit beside Kallisto.
Zoë now recognizes what the glint of silver Kallisto had been holding that night is. The silver circlet of a Lieutenant of the Huntresses of Artemis. Kallisto now clutches the broken half of one such circlet, likely her own, tightly in her fist.
They do not exchange a word, but a mutual understanding passes between them. The Huntresses of Artemis are likely to join the battle to aid the demigods.
And they are likely to suffer high casualties.
Zoë takes a deep breath to steady herself and tries to prepare herself for the inevitable carnage and the grief that will follow.
Oh, she hopes that Phoebe had been made Lieutenant.
In the wake of all the violence on Mount Othrys, Hylla had never felt more at peace . Urging the previous Amazonian queen to ride to Camp Jupiter’s aid at the Titan’s stronghold proved to be a high-reward gamble; within hours, the secretaries’ phones had been flooded with bulk orders from New Rome for the new weaponry they had proudly rolled out against the dracaena, as well as profuse thank you’s and discreet IOU’s from relatives of certain legionnaires whose families had served Camp Jupiter for generations.
She would be right in the fray, handling paperwork with the other Amazons, if she hadn’t just been gifted Hippolyta’s Belt a few hours prior. “You’ve proven yourself today, Hylla,” the previous queen said with a weary smile. “Both in battle and in business. I trust that I’m retiring with the Amazons in good hands.”
Just as well, too. Hylla privately thinks that sooner or later, she would’ve made a challenge for the queenship. The Amazons’ operations had been moving too slowly for her liking, not developing quickly enough beyond forklifts and warehouses. If they had wanted to stick so badly to business, they should’ve just taken on Hermes as their patron god, and not Ares. The corners of her lips quirk up at the thought.
But logistics and marketing plans could wait. She should be jubilant, celebrating with her compatriots—she had seen Reyna (and a blonde boy, but he was irrelevant) raised on the backs of the Romans’ shields as praetor today, too. As much as it hurt to be separated from her baby sister, it was good to see that Reyna was making a life of her own in Camp Jupiter.
So she decided to grant her sister some space and sip at her goblet of mead at the edge of one of Mount Tamalpais’ many cliffs. The celebrations would commence with or without the new queen of the Amazons; her absence might even help in creating an intimidating reputation.
The weather is not all that bad. The summer night wind is crisp on her face, the rolling tides make for an entrancing lullaby, and… oh. There’s a beautiful woman approaching her.
Hylla puts on the smile she’d learned at Circe’s island. To be a favorite of both customers and boss, one had to be charming—flirtatious, and even seductive, if need be. “Can’t say I’ve seen your face before. And you’re not a face I’d forget, I assure you.”
The woman somehow manages to make an eye roll elegant. Hylla’s heart pounds in her chest. Hylla can’t focus on any single part of her without feeling heat rush to her face; for her molten onyx eyes and the silky black hair starkly contrasting the soft white chiton that wrapped around her lean body—beautiful would be an understatement.
“I live here,” the woman says pointedly. “Thou oversteps.”
“You’re a Hesperide,” deduces Hylla. “What are you doing out of your garden?”
“So crass,” mumbles the Hesperide. “My curiosity was merely piqued at seeing the Queen of the Amazons stargazing by her lonesome. Here is not so far from home.”
“They’re out in full force tonight. Would be a shame to miss them.”
“Thou seems particularly interested in that constellation.”
The Hesperide doesn’t have to point for Hylla to know what she’s referring to. “I have a particular attachment to it.”
“Do tell.”
Hylla turns to the Hesperide. “I’m beginning to think that you’re the one overstepping here,” she says.
“Very well then.” The Hesperide cocks a dark eyebrow at her. “What does it look like to thee?”
“It’s obviously a girl running and shooting arrows,” Hylla replies flatly.
“Mm. Thou would be correct. She—It is one of the most elaborate constellations there is. My sisters and I have history with it, too.”
Hylla sighs. The Hesperide seems to truly be curious about Hylla’s answer.
“Two years ago,” Hylla starts, “my sister and I were held captive by pirates, but we managed to escape. The constellation was the first thing I saw when we finally gained our freedom and stepped foot on land.”
A lump forms in Hylla’s throat. “It was shining brightly over our heads, like it had been put there just to watch over me and my sister. Perhaps it was a sign that—”
She cuts herself off. Other than Reyna, she’d never told anyone else about that mysterious voice in her head, the seemingly endless wells of energy from which she drew strength to escape Blackbeard’s ship. She didn’t need to be branded as crazy, or worse, undeserving of her current position.
The Hesperide is staring at her. “Shall I tell thee a story, my Queen?”
Hylla nods.
“There were once five sisters. They lived harmoniously in a sort of paradise safeguarded from the iniquities of the world, from men. The poor souls who dared disturb this paradise were quickly dealt with by the sisters, for they knew better than to court temptation.
“But one sister was taken in by the charms of a hero, and she betrayed the trust of all her family. For the first time in eons, the paradise was tainted by the touch of a man, the poison of greed. The traitor was cast out of the garden and erased from all memory and record, but the damage had been done.
“Eons passed, and through the different turbulences that shook the world, the paradise once more remained untouched—until the fifth sister returned, and much blood was spilt on sacred ground.
“But the fifth sister had found a new mistress to follow, and the blood spilt had been in her mistress’ name. And so her mistress granted the fifth sister an eternal life amongst the stars, as a reward for her loyalty, while the four sisters remained bound to the blood-soaked garden and their newly wounded pride. In tending to their duty, the four sisters had become the villains of the story, a mere obstacle overcome by the fifth sister, who now lives among the great constellations of myth.
“So, tell me, my Queen. Doth one need to experience the vileness of the world to become a hero? Must one be tainted to be able to lay claim to the triumph of washing oneself of filth?”
“You talk just like her,” murmurs Hylla in an epiphany.
“Like who?” the Hesperide says in irritation.
The story was quite clearly referring to the Hesperides themselves, the “paradise” their garden. The fifth sister, who had a mistress—
Hylla barks out a laugh. The Hesperide flinches. “Restrain thyself,” she hisses.
“Right,” Hylla coughs, smoothing over her amusement with the new cool facade that she vowed to affect as queen. “Well, as they say, the healthy don’t need a doctor. The sick do, and when they heal, their journey is of course more interesting and gritty than that of the healthy.”
“Hmph.” The answer doesn’t seem to appeal to the Hesperide.
“I’m curious,” chimes Hylla, “did the fifth sister have a name?”
“Tsk.”
“Oh, please. Humor me. I’ve kept you entertained with my answers and company.”
“I should dance with thee until breath takes leave of thy body,” the Hesperide spits out. “Her name was Zoë. She also had an epithet of ‘Nightshade,’ for Olympus knows what reason. Horrid thing, to be associated with such a repugnant plant.”
“ I crushed the nightshade berries, dipped my arrows into their essence, and slew my goddess’ enemies with them.”
Hylla smirks. “I can conjure up a few guesses, if you’d like.”
“Pah! I’ll not sully my ears with them.”
In one graceful move, the Hesperide turns and leaps off the edge of the cliff. Hylla follows with her gaze as that lithe body breaks the surface of the sea with hardly a splash.
She sips at her mead, waiting for the Hesperide to resurface and unsurprised when she doesn’t.
“Zoë Nightshade,” she sighs into her goblet. “I’m looking forward to reuniting with you, then.”
With a toast to the brightly sparkling constellation above her head, Hylla downs the rest of the mead before making her way back to the celebrations, head buzzing with plans and dreams.