Orion suddenly clutched his chest and bent double with pain. Hector jumped up to grab him before he fell down—but not before everyone saw. Orion had two fresh wounds on his chest and stomach from his fight with Automedon. They were an angry red, but healing fast and in a few days they would disappear completely and leave him unmarked. But what caught everyone’s attention wasn’t the new wounds, it was the long scars that marred his otherwise perfect physique.
One cut across his chest, and another was on his left thigh. As he slumped against Hector, his strength spent, they all saw the worst one on his back. Helen stared at the ghastly bone-white seam that ran parallel to his spine. It looked like someone had tried to hack him in two from the top down. She felt Lucas take her hand and she clung to it, squeezing back.
“Everyone out!” Hector barked when he noticed the shocked silence and the stares. Tilting his shoulders, he tried to hide Orion with his body. “You too, little pest,” he said softly to Cassandra, still crouched on the floor.
“No,” she protested. The thick, black braid that snaked down her back was coming undone in wild ruffles, and her face was a stubborn mask of alabaster skin, wild eyes, and bright red lips. “I’m staying here. He might need me.”
Hector nodded, giving Cassandra his reluctant assent, and folded Orion’s fainting body back into bed. “Get out,” he said over his shoulder to the rest of them, quietly this time. Everyone turned at once.
Passing through the doorway, Helen and Lucas leaned toward each other, both of them feeling their injuries again and needing support now that the adrenaline rush had passed. But instead of letting the two of them help each other, Pallas caught Lucas, and Daphne propped up Helen, pulling them apart.
“Did you know about those?” Lucas asked before they were led away in opposite directions.
“No. I’ve never seen him without his clothes on,” she answered, too shocked to be anything but blunt. She had seen Morpheus as Orion half-naked, she reminded herself, but not Orion himself. Lucas nodded, his face shadowed with concern.
“Back to bed, Helen,” her mother said sternly, and urged her to turn.
Helen let her mother lay her down next to Ariadne’s slack form. As she shut her eyes and tried to fall back asleep, she heard Noel and Castor speaking to each other in the next room. For a moment, Helen tried to block it out and give them some privacy, but the urgency of their voices wouldn’t allow even a mortal with normal hearing to ignore them.
“How did he get those scars, Caz?” Noel asked, her voice trembling. “I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen plenty.”
“The only way for a Scion to scar like that is for it to happen before he or she comes of age,” Castor said, trying to keep his voice down.
“But our boys fought all the time when they were little. Remember Jason’s javelin pinning Lucas to the ceiling that time? They don’t have one scar between the three of them,” Noel snapped, too upset to take Castor’s cue to be quiet.
“Our boys always had plenty of food and a clean place to heal after they beat each other up.”
“And Orion didn’t? Is that what you’re saying?” Noel’s voice broke.
“No. He probably didn’t.”
Helen heard the sound of rustling fabric, followed by deep sighs, like Castor was pulling Noel close against his chest.
“Those scars mean that Orion was very young when that was done to him. And afterward, he must have starved through his heal without anything to eat or drink or anyone to care for him. You’ve never seen those scars on a Scion before because most wouldn’t survive what it takes to get them.”
Helen gritted her teeth and turned her face into her pillow, knowing everyone on the top floor had heard the exchange between Noel and Castor. Her face got hot as she thought about how they were all probably judging Orion—pitying the abused and abandoned little boy that he once was.
He deserved better than that. He deserved love, not pity. Helen also knew that her mother was watching her while she tried, and failed, not to weep with pity for that little boy herself. She pulled the covers over her head.
Daphne let her cry herself back into a deep sleep.
Helen saw her other self getting kicked down a dusty street by an angry mob.
The other Helen’s dress was torn, covered in dirt, and smeared with stains from the rotten food that had been thrown at her. Blood leaked from a huge gash on her head, from her mouth, and from the heels of her hands where she had scuffed them on the ground as she fell repeatedly. The mob gathered around her, picking up stones from the side of the road as they closed in.
A blond man, twice her age and more than twice her size, ran forward to beat her with his fists—as if his anger needed a more immediate outlet than just hurling a stone. It seemed he had to use his own body to hurt her in order to feel satisfied.
“I loved you more than anyone! Your foster father gave you to me!” he screamed, half out of his mind as he hit her. His eyes bulged and spittle flew from his mouth in a white spray. “I will beat the child out of you and love you still!”
Helen could hear the mob murmuring, “Kill her, Menelaus!” and “She may carry the Tyrant! You must not try to spare her!”
The other Helen did not fight back or use her lightning to defend herself against Menelaus. Helen watched her other self get knocked down so many times she lost count, but each time the other Helen got back to her feet again. Helen could hear the thumping of his fists against her back and hear the man grunting with exertion, but the other Helen did not cry out or plead for him to stop. She made no sound at all, except for the huffing of her breath as it was knocked out of her lungs by the blows he dealt.
Helen knew what those fists felt like, she even knew what Menelaus smelled like as he beat her. She remembered it.
Finally, Menelaus fell to his knees, unable to beat her any longer. The other Helen was simply too strong to die by his hand, though it was clear to Helen that dying was what the other Helen had intended to do all along.
When the first stone struck her, she did not cower or try to cover herself. More stones followed, battering her from all sides, until the mob ran out of stones to throw. But still the other Helen did not die. Frightened now, the mob began to back away.
A sickened hush fell over the crowd as they watched the gruesome spectacle they had created. Still alive, the other Helen twitched and flailed amid the piled-up stones, her skin pulpy and ragged over her broken bones. She started humming softly to herself—a groaning tune sung in desperation to keep her mind off the unbearable pain she was in. She rocked back and forth, unsteady as a drunk. She was unable to find relief in any position, but she swayed as she hummed to comfort herself as best she could. Helen remembered the pain. She wished she didn’t.
The crowd began to whisper, “Behead her. It’s the only way. She won’t die unless we behead her.”
“Yes, get a sword,” the other Helen called out weakly, the words garbled in her ruined mouth. “I beg you.”
“Someone have mercy and kill her!” a woman shouted desperately, and the mob took up the cry. “A sword! We need a sword!”
A young man, hardly more than a boy, strode out of the crowd, tears streaming down his pale face at the sight of the other Helen. He unsheathed his sword, swung it high over his head, and brought it down on the gory mess at his feet.