I was twelve when Angelina became my shadow.

  She was only nine, small for her age but fast, always darting between corners and laughing too loud in the quiet hours. I had been one of the older kids—stern, focused, training harder than anyone because I thought it would keep the sadness away. But she broke through that like sunlight through fog.

  She’d braid flowers into my hair and say I looked like a queen.

  I’d pretend to groan but secretly never took them out. Even when the petals dried up and fell apart, I kept the little green stems tucked in my drawer.

  When training got hard and bruises lined her arms, she’d find me. Not for comfort—but to sit beside me in silence, just breathing together until the ache dulled. She never asked me to fix it. Just wanted to be near.

  We used to sneak out of the dorms late at night, bare feet slapping against tile as we raced through the compound hallways, trying not to get caught. We never got far, but the laughter made it worth it. One night, we ended up in the training hall, lying on the mats, staring at the ceiling in the dark.

  “Do you think we’ll ever get to leave this place?” she asked.

  I hesitated. “Someday. When we’re strong enough.”

  She turned on her side, propping her head up with one hand. “I want to be strong like you. You never get scared.”

  That made me laugh—short and soft. “I get scared all the time. I just don’t let anyone see it.”

  “I’ll always find you,” she told me once. “Even if the world ends.”

  I’d smiled.

  “Promise?”

  She grinned. “Promise.”

  We were broken.

  The desert was cruel—wind-whipped and empty, the kind of empty that crawled under your skin and stayed there. Thalos had left us here, in what was supposed to be a new home. A place to be safe. Leander and I had been on our own for at least another year.

  And then he came.

  Cole didn’t arrive with monsters or magic. He walked out of the heat shimmer like a mirage, dressed in soft clothes, his hands open. And behind him—

  My breath caught.

  Angelina. Stephen.

  They looked different—older, tired. But they were alive. I ran to them before I realized what I was doing. Angelina caught me, and for a second, everything else fell away.

  “I missed you, I thought you were dead,” I whispered.

  “I know,” she said, holding me close. “I told you I’d find you, remember? I keep my promises.”

  I pulled back just enough to look at her, the edges of my vision already blurring with tears. “You did,” I whispered. “You really did.”

  Stephen rested a hand on Leander’s shoulder, and for a moment, the mask of calm cracked. Leander looked up at him, eyes filled with so much weight—grief, relief, something in between—and Stephen nodded, voice rougher than I remembered. “You’ve survived. That’s what matters.”

  Leander pulled him into a sudden hug, tight and unspoken. Not like warriors reuniting. Like brothers who thought they’d never see each other again.

  Then Cole stepped closer, his voice smooth as silk. “You thought you were alone. You were abandoned. But you weren’t. They chose to forget you. I didn’t.”

  I didn’t understand then. Not really. But I listened.

  That night, he told us about the gods.

  Not the versions from our childhood lessons. Not the distant deities who gave us powers and then turned away.

  He told us what they really were: selfish, afraid, and fading. They’d locked themselves away, hidden behind Olympus’s gates while the world burned. Leaving the world to be defended by us when we got old enough.

  He spoke of their abandonment like it was fact. And maybe it was. Because once he said it, I couldn’t unsee it.

  We were their children—and they left us.

  Leander didn’t say a word that first night, but I saw the way he clenched his jaw. The way he stared at the fire too long. Something broke in him. Maybe the same thing cracked in me.

  We followed Cole. We stayed. Angelina and Stephen were already his. Already changed.

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  They didn’t say it, but I saw it in the way they watched him. Trusted him. Deferred to him.

  Cole never shouted. He never forced. He just… understood. He asked questions that turned my heart inside out. Showed me pieces of memories I thought I’d buried. He didn’t demand loyalty—he let it grow.

  And somewhere in that slow unraveling, I stopped wondering if we’d made the right choice.

  I started wondering if we ever had one at all.

  The wind scraped through the trees as we walked, cold and sharp.

  Before the march began, Leander and I had stood back, watching as the others fled. The demigods piled into the rusted truck, monsters snarling behind them, and for a moment, I wondered if they’d make it. If they’d leave us behind the same way we once believed they were gone.

  Stephen and Angelina didn’t chase. Neither did most of the monsters. They turned back, circling Hector like predators scenting a cornered beast.

  But Hector didn’t run.

  He looked at us—at the monsters, at Angelina and Stephen—and saw that we weren’t following. That we had let the others go. And then he raised his hands.

  He surrendered.

  Not out of fear. Out of choice.

  I watched him walk toward Helena, where she lay unmoving on the battlefield. He dropped to his knees beside her, gently brushing her hair away from her face. His expression didn’t change, but there was something in the way he moved—a reverence, a fire that hadn’t dimmed even in defeat.

  I admired him for that. For the way he stayed loyal, even now.

  And I hated myself for how much I’d forgotten what that looked like.

  We began walking toward the ridge. Angelina and Stephen had gotten here somehow—moved through the desert as if they’d always known the path—and Cole told us that was how we would leave too. I didn’t know where it led, only that it would bring us back to him.

  Hector fought like a man possessed when they tried to take Helena from him. The monsters closed in, claws grabbing, but he swung his hammer with reckless force. He didn’t care about the odds. Didn’t care about the pain. He just kept repeating the same thing—

  “Don’t touch her.”

  Over and over.

  “I’ll go,” he growled, shoulders heaving. “But I carry her. You don’t lay a finger on her.”

  Angelina and Stephen stood off to the side, watching. Angelina’s eyes flicked to me—just once. She hadn’t spoken yet.

  I remembered when we were girls, giggling in the halls after training, racing through the garden paths, whispering secrets after lights out. When I found out she was alive… I cried. Really cried. I’d missed her so much it made my chest hurt.

  So why couldn’t I meet her eyes now?

  I gave the monsters a nod. They backed off.

  Hector scooped Helena into his arms, her limbs limp, her head resting against his chest. The line of his jaw was carved from stone. He walked forward, never looking at me. Never flinching.

  That’s when the march began.

  Helena stirred not long after. A twitch of her fingers. A small gasp. Her eyes didn’t open, but she shifted, curling faintly into Hector’s hold. He whispered something I couldn’t hear.

  And we kept walking. Leander walked ahead of me, his shoulders rigid, one hand curled loosely around his bow. I kept my distance. Not because I didn’t trust him—but because I wasn’t sure I trusted myself.

  Behind us, Hector carried Helena in his arms, refusing to let anyone touch her. The monsters had tried again, but he held her tighter, teeth clenched in silent warning. She was stirring more now—her fingers twitching against his shoulder, her breathing shallow but steady.

  He looked at me once, his eyes dark with something I couldn’t name. Then he looked back down at Helena, brushing a bit of her hair from her face with a tenderness that cracked something in my chest.

  Then he spoke, his voice rough but clear.

  “You don’t have to do this, Ella. You know this isn’t you.”

  The words hit harder than they should have.

  I clenched my jaw. My fingers twitched around the blade I didn’t remember drawing.

  That was the problem.

  Sometimes I didn’t remember when I drew my weapon. Or when I looked at my friends and saw threats instead of people I loved. Sometimes I blinked, and the world looked… wrong. Off-color. Hazy.

  Cole said it was clarity.

  He said we’d been blind before.

  But when Helena groaned—my name a whisper on her lips—I nearly stumbled.

  Leander said nothing. Just kept walking.

  We’d been with Cole for two years. That number always startled me when I remembered it. It didn’t feel like two years. It felt like time had stopped the day we thought we were forever abandonded by Thalos and the other demigods. Like the world cracked open and swallowed everything soft and good.

  Cole found us. We were broken. Alone. And he was kind.

  That’s how it started. Not with power. Not with promises. But with sympathy. Gentle truths. He didn’t twist us all at once—he let the doubt creep in like water through a crack. Slow. Patient.

  By the time we realized what he was doing, we didn’t care.

  Or maybe we couldn’t care anymore.

  I didn’t know which was worse.

  The six demigods boarded a helicopter that waited just beyond the ridge, its blades slicing the night with dull, rhythmic thumps. The monsters began to scatter into the desert, their part done—for now. Many would meet us back at Cole’s home, waiting to see what came next.

  Inside the cabin, Hector held Helena until the last possible second. Only when the pilot motioned for everyone to strap in did he gently set her in the seat beside him. She stirred more forcefully now, her breath catching as she blinked up at the lights overhead. Her eyes widened, wild and full of panic.

  “It’s okay,” Hector murmured, his voice so low I almost missed it. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him at first. Her hands reached for something, for someone—maybe trying to place where she was. Hector caught her hand and held it gently, steadying her, grounding her.

  Watching them hurt more than I expected. Something in the way he stayed so calm, so focused on her—like nothing else in the world mattered—gnawed at my insides.

  I had once believed in something that strongly.

  I wondered if I ever would again.

  The stronghold came into view—its shadow stretching long across the ground. Cold settled deeper into my spine. I glanced at Leander.

  “Do you still believe in this?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer right away.

  “It’s too late not to,” he said.

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  He didn’t reply.

  When we passed through the threshold, Cole was waiting.

  He didn’t speak at first. Just looked at us with that calm smile, the one that made you want to believe he’d never hurt you. That he couldn’t.

  Then his hand settled on my shoulder.

  And it was like everything inside me dropped.

  The haze returned. Warm. Familiar. A weight settling behind my eyes. I felt the steel of my mind go soft. My fear drained away. My doubt. Even the echo of Helena’s voice.

  Leander flinched beside me. Cole’s hand shifted to his arm. I saw the light dim in his eyes.

  And I knew.

  He was still holding us. Still weaving us like threads in his web.

  Cole turned toward Hector and Helena.

  “Let’s begin,” he said.

  And I stood there, silent.

  Because if I didn’t believe this was right—then everything I’d done was wrong.

  And I didn’t know how to live with that.