Aether's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Steam still curled off the gauntlets when Aether stepped out of the golden coliseum. Apollo walked beside him. Sophia trailed a pace behind, tablet tucked under her arm, cape folded over her wrist. The three of them crossed the bright stone toward the palace on the far ridge. Aether kept his hands open at his sides. He did not trust his fists yet. "I need to know what he already knows," Aether said. "Before I open my mouth in there." Apollo did not slow. "He felt the surge. That's all he told me. He didn't say how much he read from it." He glanced over. "If you walk in and confess to eleven seconds, and he only felt three, you've handed him a knife." Sophia caught up. "Then don't confess to anything. Let him ask. Answer only what he asks. Short sentences. No numbers." She looked at Aether the way she looked at a bad line of code. "You clench when you're scared. Don't clench in front of him." The palace doors were already open. Zeus stood at the far end of the throne room, not on the throne, but beside it, one hand resting on the arm. Lightning moved under his skin like slow water. He waved Apollo and Sophia back at the threshold. They stopped. Aether walked the length of the floor alone. He stopped six paces from the throne and waited. "You lit the sky over my mountain," Zeus said. "For eleven seconds. In a closed ring. With gauntlets and a lyre steadying you." He did not raise his voice. "I know what I felt. I know what my daughter built for you. I know Apollo was there. Tell me one thing, boy. Are you training to hold it, or training to throw it?" Aether's throat went dry. Zeus already had the number. He already had the room. The trap Sophia warned him about was closed before he stepped into it. He thought about lying. He thought about the spear a god could put through him if he lied wrong. "To hold it," he said. "I can throw it. I don't want to. I want to stop being afraid of my own hands." He raised the gauntlets a little, palms up. "That's why she made these." Zeus looked at him a long moment. Then he sat down on the throne. "Good answer," he said. "You will train here, in my sight, three days a week, until I say otherwise. Apollo will bring you. Sophia will measure you. If you lie to me again by leaving something out, I will know. Go." Aether bowed his head and turned. At the door, Sophia met his eyes and did not ask. She had already read his face. The training he had done in secret was no longer his. It belonged to Olympus now.