I was nine when the compound fell.

  Stephen and I were inside the west wing—one of the older buildings used for training simulations. We’d just finished a run-through and were sitting by the windows when the ground buckled beneath us. The blast hit a second later—louder than anything I’d ever heard, turning glass and stone into flying teeth.

  A monster had breached the perimeter and detonated something near the foundation.

  The explosion should’ve killed us.

  But it didn’t.

  Stephen moved before I even understood what was happening. Fire erupted around us, bright and violent, but he raised his arms and the flames bent, curving around us in a protective arc. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t scream. He just stood there, holding the heat back like it answered to him alone.

  The ceiling cracked. The walls caved. But the fire never touched me.

  He kept us alive.

  The building collapsed around us in pieces. A support beam cracked above our heads, and chunks of ceiling came crashing down. One slammed into Stephen’s back, another clipped the side of my head. Everything went dark.

  When I woke up, the world was ash and silence. My lungs burned. Stephen was already moving, dragging himself upright, flames still flickering at his fingertips like they were afraid to leave him. He shook me gently, called my name until I blinked through the soot.

  We crawled out of the rubble together, burned but breathing. We didn’t know how many others had made it. We didn’t know if anyone was left.

  We thought everyone else was dead.

  I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. Something inside me had shut off.

  And then Cole found us.

  He didn’t appear like a monster. No growling, no threats. He walked through the ruins like he belonged there, his expression soft, his hands open. He didn’t look at me like I was weak. He looked at me like I mattered.

  And behind him…

  Stephen stiffened. I stared.

  Monsters. Not attacking. Just watching. Like they were waiting.

  At first, we were terrified—frozen in place, our minds still raw from the collapse. We didn’t understand why they weren’t ripping us apart, why they stood there like sentinels instead of hunters. Confusion and fear tangled in my chest, but Stephen stepped in front of me without hesitation. Always the shield.

  And then Cole spoke.

  “They won’t hurt you,” he said, his voice calm, like he was telling us the sky was blue. “The monsters listen to me. You’re safe now.”

  Stephen didn’t move. Neither did I. But something about Cole’s voice—it cut through the fear like it didn’t belong in the same world. Like it didn’t come from a man standing in the middle of ruin.

  “No one’s going to hurt you again,” he added, softer this time.

  Cole sat with us that first night. He gave us water. Food. Blankets.

  Then he told us the truth.

  He said Zeus had once admired demigods. That we were protectors. Warriors. Heroes.

  But power scares the gods.

  He said Zeus began hunting the strongest of us first. Whispers of betrayal. Quiet purges. Until only a few compounds were left. Ours was one of them. And now it was gone.

  “He’ll come for you too,” Cole said, voice low. “Maybe not now. Maybe not tomorrow. But when your power grows, when you become something they can’t control—they’ll kill you for it.”

  I didn’t believe him at first. But the way Stephen’s jaw tightened told me he did.

  Cole promised us protection. A plan. Not just for us—but for the others. The ones still out there. He told us the other ten demigods had survived, though he didn’t know where they’d gone. That someday, we’d find them again—and be strong enough to save them before Zeus could strike first.

  “If we’re strong enough,” he said, “we can stop it. We can save them all.”

  Something in me—something small and broken—latched onto that.

  Save them.

  That was all I’d wanted to do.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  So we followed him.

  And he trained us. Not just how to fight—but how to endure. How to think. How to forget fear.

  If I couldn’t go home…

  Then I’d build one—with Stephen. I’d survive. I’d be strong enough to protect everyone else. Even if they hated me for it.

  Especially if they did.

  We were older by then—stronger, faster, sharper—but still just kids clinging to a world that no longer existed. Stephen was fifteen. I was thirteen. Cole had already turned our training into something more brutal, more precise. But when we weren’t sparring or pushing our limits, it was just the two of us—me and Stephen, sitting near the fire or leaning against the stone balcony overlooking the forest below.

  “We’ll find them,” he said one night, voice low, his gaze fixed on the stars.

  “You don’t know that,” I whispered, hugging my knees to my chest. “Cole doesn’t even know where they are.”

  Stephen didn’t look at me. “I don’t have to know. I just have to believe.”

  He reached over, squeezed my shoulder gently. “You believed in me, didn’t you? Back in the fire?”

  I nodded.

  “Then believe in this too.”

  I never said it, but I think he blamed himself for not saving all of us. For not being fast enough. Strong enough. Every extra hour he spent training wasn’t about getting better—it was about not failing again.

  We were always looking over our shoulders, scanning every ridge, every shadow, hoping we’d see Zoe’s golden wings flash across the sky, or Peter’s calculating gaze catch ours from the trees. Hoping we’d hear Helena’s laughter or feel Damian’s warm teasing just around the corner.

  But the longer we waited, the more their faces faded. And so Stephen held tighter—to me, to our mission, to the idea that someday, we’d bring everyone back.

  He never let anyone touch me. In battle drills, he always positioned himself between me and danger. When I stumbled, he was there. When I faltered, he steadied me.

  We were each other’s world.

  And we promised that when we found the others again, we’d be strong enough to protect them this time.

  No matter the cost.

  Because deep down, I believed Cole was right. The gods had turned their backs on us once—and they would again. I didn’t know what Zeus was planning, but I knew it couldn’t be good. We were becoming too strong, too dangerous. That kind of power wouldn’t go unnoticed forever.

  I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t lose anyone else. Not Zoe. Not Peter. Not Helena or Hector or any of the others.

  I made myself a promise that night, one I never told Stephen or Cole or anyone else: if protecting my friends meant siding with the monsters, then I would. If it meant becoming something sharp and terrible—something the gods feared—then so be it.

  Better to be feared than forgotten. Better to fight than vanish.

  I would protect them.

  Even if they never understood why.

  The stronghold looked just as it always had—cold stone, long shadows, and monsters lingering just out of view. But it wasn’t the walls that made this place feel like home. It was Stephen, still standing beside me. And Cole, waiting at the center, calm and patient.

  I’d grown up here. Trained here. Learned what it meant to survive here. Every memory I had that didn’t belong to the compound lived in this place.

  Now Ella and Leander were here too.

  It felt like a victory. Like our family was coming back together, piece by piece.

  I helped Cole as he spoke with Helena and Hector, trying to show them what we’d seen. What we believed. We didn’t threaten. We explained. We told them the truth—or at least the version of it that had become real to me.

  Hector never let Helena out of his reach. Even shackled, even bruised, he moved with purpose—always between her and Cole, always ready to defend her with his last breath. When we entered the room, he took a single step in front of her, as if his body alone could hold back everything we represented.

  And Helena… she didn’t glare. She didn’t argue, not at first. She just looked at me. Really looked. And the pity in her eyes burned worse than any blade. Her expression wasn’t filled with hatred or anger—it was worse. It was grief. Like she was looking at someone she used to know, someone she’d loved once, and now couldn’t save. It made me want to scream, to shake her, to force her to understand. But all I could do was stand there and absorb it, that quiet, devastating look that said I hadn’t just lost my way—I’d lost myself.

  Like she still saw me as someone worth mourning.

  Like I was already gone.

  “Zeus is planning to kill us,” I said. “He’s done it before. He’ll do it again. Cole’s the only one who’s ever tried to stop it.”

  But they wouldn’t listen.

  Helena’s gaze cut through me. “This isn’t about saving anyone. This is about control. About power. Cole wants to take Olympus for himself.”

  “He’s using us,” Hector added, voice calm but full of steel. “He’s building an army, and we’re the weapons.”

  I wanted to argue. To shout. To say they were wrong.

  But something in their eyes made me hesitate. Doubt crept in, soft as a whisper.

  Then Cole stepped forward. He placed a hand on my shoulder—just lightly, just enough.

  And the doubt vanished.

  He was trying to protect us. That was all. To protect me. To protect Stephen. To protect the others who were too blind to see the truth.

  I stood straighter.

  If Helena and Hector wouldn’t join us, then they’d just have to see. They’d understand eventually.

  They had to.

  Because I would do whatever it took to keep my friends alive.

  Even if it meant losing them first.

  Cole’s voice cut through the thick silence that followed. “Go help Leander and Ella get settled in,” he said gently, though there was no mistaking it as a command. “I’ll keep talking with our guests.”

  I nodded and stepped back, glancing once more at Helena and Hector. Hector’s eyes stayed locked on mine, unreadable. Helena looked away.

  I left the room, but not the weight of it.

  Leander and Ella were waiting down the hall, already seated in the common room—one of the few warm places in the stronghold, with its stone hearth and quiet shadows. Stephen joined a few moments later, and we all sat together, the silence stretching until Leander finally broke it.

  “What now?”

  Ella looked down at her hands. “We need to find the others.”

  Stephen nodded. “Cole has a plan. But for it to work… all twelve of us have to be together.”

  I swallowed hard. “He says it’s the only way to protect everyone. From the gods. From Zeus.”

  Leander shifted, his brow furrowed. “Do you believe that? That Zeus would come for us?”

  I didn’t answer right away. The words felt heavier now, harder to lift. “I don’t know what else to believe. But I do know this—we’ve already lost too much. If there’s even a chance we can stop it from happening again… then we have to try.”

  Ella’s voice was soft. “Even if they don’t want our help?”

  “Especially then,” Stephen said. “Because we know what’s coming. And they don’t.”

  The fire cracked in the hearth behind us.

  For a moment, we just sat there—four demigods, caught between the weight of the past and the uncertainty of what was coming.

  But one thing was clear.

  We would find the others.

  And when we did… we’d be ready.