Herman Cavendish had blacked out a Manhattan skyscraper the last time he lost his temper. Now the gods wanted him to do it on purpose, in front of an audience, without killing anyone. He stood at the center of a golden arena on Olympus, marble under his boots, sunlight spilling through carved arches. Above him, tier after tier of gods leaned on gilded rails. He was twenty-nine years old, the adopted heir of the Cavendish banking family, the lead software developer at their New York tower, and, according to everyone in this arena, the demigod son of Zeus. He needed to prove he could hold a bolt in his hand without cooking the god standing next to him. If he passed, he earned a permanent seat on Olympus. If he failed, they sent him home, or worse. Gianna found him behind the target dummies before the demonstration began. His twin sister wore a long coat and boots that had no business in a coliseum, and a gold thunderbolt at her throat that matched the one under his shirt. "Breathe through your nose," she said. "Count to four. You spike when you rush." He nodded. She tapped the lightning bolt at his collarbone, the Hellenistic chain their mother Eliza had given him at sixteen. "Hold this when it slips. It's just metal. Let it be heavy." She did not hug him. She never did. She walked back to her seat. Apollo was already in the front row, laurel crown crooked, lyre across his knee. He winked. That was the extent of the support. Herman felt the familiar ache and pushed it down before it could reach the sky. A wet cloud was already gathering above the open roof. He wrapped his fingers around the pendant under his shirt and counted. Zeus stepped onto the sand. He did not announce himself. "You will call the bolt," Zeus said. "You will hold it. You will release it into the pillar. Not the sky. Not the crowd. The pillar." He pointed to a marble column at the far end of the arena. "I am your father. I am the king of this council. I will stand beside you. If you cannot control the strike, it will find me first." Herman opened his hand. The cloud above the arena thickened. His pulse climbed. He thought of the blackout, the elevator full of screaming interns, and the pendant burned cold against his skin. Four counts in. Four counts out. The charge came down his arm clean, white, and quiet, and settled in his palm like a held breath. He looked at Zeus. Zeus did not move. Herman turned his wrist and threw. The pillar split down the middle and fell in two neat halves. The gods did not cheer. They went very still. Zeus studied the broken marble a long moment. Then he looked at Herman with an expression that was not pride. "Again," he said. "Tomorrow. Against Ares."

Herman left the arena before the crowd finished filing out. He walked until the marble turned to sand, and the sand turned into a wider ring cut for Ares. The war god's sparring ground sat under a golden dome, bronze foundations sunk deep, white columns ringing an empty floor. A bronze spear stood upright at the center, planted like a claim. Dark stains ran down the shaft. Herman stopped at the edge and counted them. He did not know Ares. He did not know how the god moved, what side he favored, whether he closed fast or waited. Tomorrow he would find out with a crowd watching. He went back to the guest rooms and locked the door. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the gold chain out from under his shirt. The lightning bolt pendant was warm from his skin. He turned it between his fingers the way Gianna had taught him. Just metal. Let it be heavy. His hands were shaking anyway. A thin sheet of ice formed on the water pitcher beside the bed. He closed his eyes and counted to four. A knock. Apollo did not wait for an answer. He came in with his lyre under one arm and a small clay jar under the other. He set both on the table and looked at the frost on the pitcher without comment. "You're going to freeze the bed," he said. He sat down beside Herman, close enough that their knees touched. "Ares fights left. He feints high and cuts low. He talks the whole time to make you angry, because angry men swing wide." He tapped Herman's chest, right over the pendant. "You already know how to hold still. That's the only trick you need." Herman looked at him. "You could have told me that in the arena." "I'm telling you now." Apollo took the pendant out of Herman's hand and closed Herman's fingers around it. "Keep this on tomorrow. Under the armor. When he talks, don't listen. Watch his left foot. When it slides, the cut is coming." He picked up the lyre and played four low notes, slow, matched to a breath. He played it again. "Breathe on that. Not faster." Herman breathed. The ice on the pitcher cracked and slid off in one clean sheet. Apollo did not kiss him. He rested his forehead against Herman's for a count of four, then stood up. "Sleep. I'll be in the front row." He left the jar of oil for the bruises he expected Herman to earn, and shut the door behind him. Herman lay back with the pendant in his fist. He ran Apollo's four notes in his head until his pulse matched them. The frost on the pitcher did not come back. He was still afraid. He was no longer alone with it. He set an alarm for dawn, and for the first time since Zeus had said the word tomorrow, he slept.

Herman woke before the alarm. The jar of oil sat where Apollo had left it, but there was something new on the table beside it: a laurel crown woven tight, the leaves still green, and a folded note under one edge. The note said only, Come to the theatre before you dress for the fight. He put the crown on the table's center and stared at it. Apollo did not give gifts. Apollo gave advice and left. Herman pulled on a plain tunic and went. The theatre stood at the far end of the guest wing, small and bright, gold columns holding up a white marble ring. Apollo was inside, alone, standing on the bronze floor with his lyre across one arm. He had built a shape on the floor in chalk: two footprints, a line for a spear, an arc for a cut. "You said you'd never fought a war god," Apollo said. "So we practice him now, without him." He set the lyre down. "I'll be Ares. You watch my left foot. When it slides, you move." They went slow first. Apollo talked the whole time, ugly things meant to bait, and Herman kept his eyes on the foot. The first three passes, Herman moved wrong and Apollo's palm tapped his ribs where a blade would have opened him. The fourth pass, Herman saw the slide before the shoulder dropped. He stepped inside the cut. Apollo stopped mid-motion and nodded once. They ran it faster. Herman failed twice more, then caught it four times in a row. The frost did not come. His hands stayed steady. Apollo pushed him harder, cursed at him, called him a banker's boy, and Herman did not swing wide. Apollo picked up the laurel crown from where Herman had carried it in and set it on Herman's head. "This isn't for winning," he said. "It's mine. I want you to wear it under the helm." He held Herman's face in both hands and kissed him, slow, not casual, one full count of four. Then he stepped back like the kiss had not happened. "Front row," he said. "Left foot. Breathe on the notes." Herman walked back to his room with the crown pressed under his arm. His plan for the fight had been a guess the night before. Now it was a drill his body knew, and a promise pinned to his head. He fitted the laurel under the helm's padding so no one would see it. The pendant went under the armor. He tested Ares's cut once more against empty air and caught it clean. He was still going to walk into the arena, and Ares was still a war god. But he was not guessing anymore.

Herman walked the tunnel under the arena with the helm tucked under his arm. The laurel sat inside the padding, green leaves woven tight in a ring, the stems still wet where Apollo had cut them. He pressed the crown flat with his thumb and settled the helm on his head. The pendant lay cold against his chest. He heard the crowd above him like weather on a roof. At the mouth of the tunnel, a page in a white tunic stopped him. The boy would not meet his eyes. He said Ares had been watching from the high gallery since dawn, a small marble room above the arena floor where the war god studied fighters before a match. The page said Ares had asked twice which row Apollo would sit in. Herman thanked him and kept walking. His hands stayed steady. He understood what the question meant. Ares planned to open on Apollo in the front row and break Herman's head with grief before the first pass. Herman stepped onto the sand and looked up. Apollo sat exactly where he had promised, front row, lyre across his knee, gold robe bright in the sun. Ares came out of the far gate with his spear low and his shield turned in. He did not walk to the center mark. He walked toward the wall under Apollo's seat. The crowd went quiet. Herman saw the left foot slide, not toward him, but toward the stands. Ares cocked the spear back to throw at the front row. Herman did not wait. He moved the way Apollo had drilled him, inside the line of the cut, but this time he cut across the sand instead of into a body. He reached Ares before the throw released. He caught the spear shaft with his left hand and drove his shoulder into the shield. The gold rim rang. Ares turned on him, fast, and the spear came around low, the exact cut Apollo had described. Herman stepped inside it. He set his palm flat on the breastplate and let the sky answer. A single bolt went through his arm into Ares and dropped the war god onto one knee. The spear fell in the sand. The crowd made no sound for a long count. Then it broke open. Ares pushed himself up slowly and looked at Herman with something that was not respect and not hate, only attention. He picked up his spear and walked back through his gate without speaking. The match steward called the bout. Herman pulled the helm off. The laurel had held. Sweat had darkened the leaves but not crushed them. In the front row, Apollo stood with the lyre in one hand and did not smile. He nodded once, the same nod he had given in the theatre, and Herman understood that the gods on the higher tiers had all seen him choose the front row over the center mark.