Achilles drove the spear toward Lee’s throat.
Lee moved on instinct.
He stepped back, raised one forearm, and turned his body away from the point.
The spear changed direction.
Its bronze tip slid past Lee’s guard and stopped against the center of his chest.
Achilles had not shifted his feet.
He had barely moved his arm.
Yet Lee stood frozen with the weapon pressed against his heart.
“Dead,” Achilles said.
Lee stared at the spear.
“You didn’t say we were starting.”
Achilles pulled the weapon back.
“Your enemies will be relieved to hear that.”
Milo laughed from the edge of the arena.
Ajax folded his arms, making no effort to hide his amusement.
Hermes stood between them, wearing the pleased expression of someone watching a lesson unfold exactly as intended.
Lee looked toward him.
“You could have warned me.”
“I introduced you.”
“That isn’t a warning.”
“It was more courtesy than Achilles usually provides.”
Achilles turned the spear in one hand.
The weapon’s leaf-shaped blade caught the golden light of the arena.
Its bronze surface was scratched and dulled in places, but Lee sensed something beneath the metal.
Not Aether.
Something older.
The spear seemed to exist with absolute certainty, as though the world had been built around the weapon rather than the other way around.
Lee summoned his divine armor.
Golden light crossed his body.
Greaves covered his lower legs.
Vambraces formed around his forearms.
The cuirass settled across his chest, followed by the small pauldrons at his shoulders.
His shield appeared in his left hand.
The nameless sword formed in his right.
Achilles watched without visible interest.
“Better?”
Lee adjusted his grip.
“Yes.”
“It should not be.”
Achilles lowered his spear.
“Again.”
Lee raised his shield.
This time, he focused.
Milo had taught him to watch the hips and shoulders.
Ajax had taught him to study distance, terrain, and the position of an opponent’s weapon.
Lee watched everything.
Achilles stepped forward.
The spear struck the shield.
The impact lifted Lee from his feet.
He flew backward and hit the marble floor.
Pain traveled through his shoulder.
His shield remained intact, but the arm behind it had gone numb.
Achilles waited.
“Dead.”
Lee forced himself upright.
“That would have broken through the shield?”
“No.”
Achilles pointed toward Lee’s legs.
“You crossed your feet while retreating.
You would have fallen.
I would have stepped around your shield and opened your throat.”
Lee glanced down.
He had crossed his feet.
Achilles returned to the center of the arena.
“Again.”
Lee reset his stance.
The spear blurred.
He caught the first strike against the edge of his shield.
A second snapped toward his knee.
Lee dropped the sword and turned his leg aside.
The spear changed course in mid-thrust.
Its shaft struck his helmetless head.
The arena flashed.
Lee woke on his back.
The divine armor had already repaired the damage, but his skull throbbed.
Achilles stood over him.
“Dead.”
Lee sat up.
“You could try explaining before hitting me.”
“You already possess explanations.”
Achilles gestured toward Milo and Ajax.
“They taught you to move, strike, defend, and endure.”
“Then what are you teaching me?”
“How little those lessons matter against someone better.”
Lee climbed to his feet.
Achilles returned his spear to a ready position.
“Again.”
Lee died forty-three times before Hermes called a halt.
Sometimes Achilles struck him through openings Lee did not know existed.
Sometimes the warrior used the spear shaft to break Lee’s balance before delivering the blade.
Once, Lee managed to close the distance and force Achilles to release the spear.
The victory lasted less than a second.
Achilles caught Lee’s sword wrist, twisted his arm, and drove him face-first into the arena floor.
Then he used Lee’s own blade against him.
Every defeat ended with the same word.
“Dead.”
By the thirty-seventh attempt, Lee hated it.
By the fortieth, he hated Achilles.
By the forty-third, he had started to understand.
Achilles stood in the center of the arena.
Not sweating.
Not breathing hard.
Not even mildly inconvenienced.
Lee remained on one knee several yards away.
His shield lay broken beside him.
The sword had vanished after Achilles knocked it from the arena.
Blood ran from Lee’s nose.
The Void restored fatal injuries, but Hermes allowed the smaller wounds and exhaustion to remain.
Lee wiped the blood with the back of one hand.
“You’re faster than me.”
“Yes.”
“Stronger.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve had thousands of years of experience.”
Achilles tilted his head.
“You seek comfort in counting my advantages.”
“I’m trying to understand why I keep losing.”
“You lose because you enter every exchange expecting to win it.”
Lee frowned.
“That’s the point of fighting.”
“No.”
Achilles walked toward him.
“The point of fighting is to achieve your objective.”
“That usually involves winning.”
“Did you defeat the hydra?”
Lee remembered the swamp in the Trials of Heracles.
“No.”
“Did you reach the far bank?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill the Minotaur?”
“No.”
“Did you complete the trial?”
Lee looked down at the cracked shield.
“Yes.”
Achilles stopped before him.
“You believe strength is the ability to overpower whatever stands before you.
That belief will kill you.”
The words stung because Lee recognized the truth beneath them.
He had tried to overpower the Morvane.
He would have failed without Garrett, Michelle, and the Anunnaki warrior.
He had survived the Nyxreaver only because new shadow abilities awakened during the battle.
Even the fire-wielder in the alley had nearly killed him.
Lee climbed to his feet.
“What should I have done differently?”
“What was your objective?”
“To survive.”
“No.”
Achilles pointed the spear toward Hermes.
“Your objective was to touch him.”
Lee looked toward the god.
Hermes smiled and lifted one hand in greeting.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked,” Achilles said.
Lee stared at both of them.
“How does touching Hermes help me learn to fight?”
“It changes the battle,” Achilles replied.
Hermes stepped onto the arena floor.
“I will remain within the ring.
Achilles will attempt to stop you from reaching me.”
A circle of golden light appeared around Hermes.
It measured perhaps twenty feet across.
Lee stood at one end.
Hermes waited at the other.
Achilles positioned himself between them.
Lee summoned a new shield and sword.
“What happens if I touch Hermes?”
“You complete the first lesson.”
“And if Achilles kills me?”
Hermes’ smile widened.
“You begin again.”
Lee looked toward the spear.
“Of course.”
The first attempt lasted two seconds.
Lee charged directly toward Hermes.
Achilles struck his ankle with the spear shaft and drove the point into his back as he fell.
“Dead.”
The second attempt lasted longer.
Lee circled, used the shield to control the spear, and tried to slip past Achilles’s left side.
Achilles caught him behind the knee and threw him from the ring.
“Failed.”
“Not dead?”
“You survived while losing the objective.”
“That’s almost encouraging.”
“It should not be.”
On the fifth attempt, Lee threw his sword toward Hermes.
The weapon passed through the god’s chest without resistance.
Hermes looked down at it.
“Creative.”
“It didn’t count?”
“You must touch me.”
Achilles drove the spear into Lee’s side.
“Dead.”
On the ninth attempt, Lee released fire across the ground.
Flames rose between Achilles and Hermes.
Lee stepped into the shadows created by the fire and used his short-range shadow movement.
Darkness folded around him.
He emerged behind Achilles.
For the first time, the warrior’s expression changed.
But Lee saw it.
He lunged toward Hermes.
The spear shaft struck the back of his neck.
Lee hit the ground inches from the golden circle.
“Failed.”
Lee rolled onto his back.
“I almost reached him.”
“Almost is a word used by survivors and corpses,” Achilles said.
Hermes looked toward him.
“That was unnecessarily dramatic.”
“You invited me.”
“I am beginning to remember why I avoided doing so.”
Lee sat up.
Something about the ninth attempt had been different.
He had not tried to defeat Achilles.
He had forced the warrior to respond to fire, used the resulting shadow, and aimed only for Hermes.
He had still failed.
But he had controlled one moment of the fight.
That was more than he had managed before.
Lee stood again.
“Reset.”
The failures continued.
Lee used fire to divide the arena.
Achilles walked through it.
Lee summoned shadow tendrils to bind the spear.
Achilles released the weapon, closed the distance, and struck Lee unconscious with one punch.
Lee used the shield as a distraction and rolled beneath the spear.
Achilles kicked him from the ring.
Lee attempted Mimicry.
The connection formed for a fraction of a second.
It was unlike anything Lee had experienced.
Achilles’s movements were not a collection of techniques.
They were a lifetime of violence compressed into instinct.
Lee saw beaches covered in ships.
Bronze shields beneath a burning sun.
Men falling in rows.
A spear passing through armor, flesh, and bone.
Grief.
Rage.
A body dragged behind a chariot.
Then Achilles felt the connection.
His eyes hardened.
He broke it with a surge of will so powerful that Lee stumbled backward.
The spear stopped against Lee’s throat.
“Never enter my mind again.”
The arena became silent.
Lee swallowed.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You reached for what was mine.”
“Mimicry activates on its own sometimes.”
“Then master it.”
Achilles pressed the point closer.
A drop of blood ran down Lee’s neck.
“Warriors have killed for lesser violations.”
Hermes stepped forward.
“That is enough.”
Achilles withdrew the spear.
Lee touched the small wound.
The hostility in Achilles’s face remained.
Mimicry had always seemed like the safer half of his gift.
It copied.
It did not take.
But to the person being copied, the difference might not matter.
“I’m sorry,” Lee said.
Achilles studied him.
“Do not apologize with words.
Show restraint the next time power offers you an advantage.”
The lesson struck deeper than the spear.
Lee thought of Harvest.
Of Michelle asking whether he could take her weather affinity.
Of the fire he had stolen from a man in an alley.
Hermes moved beside Lee.
“Mimicry is not inherently malicious, but intent does not erase intrusion.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I wanted you to understand the ability before fearing it.”
“You keep deciding what truth I’m ready for.”
Hermes’ expression tightened.
“So do you.”
Lee knew he meant Lee’s parents.
Michelle.
Captain Garrett.
Everyone Lee protected with partial truths.
He looked away.
Achilles returned to his position between Lee and Hermes.
“Will you continue?”
Lee summoned his shield.
“Yes.”
“Then stop thinking about your guilt and use what it taught you.”
Lee reached Hermes on the twenty-sixth attempt.
He began by dismissing his sword.
Achilles noticed.
“You surrender a weapon before the fight begins?”
“I don’t need to beat you.”
“No,” Achilles said.
“You do not.”
Lee raised the shield and advanced.
Achilles thrust toward his chest.
Lee caught the spear near its point with the shield’s rim and rotated, guiding the weapon past his body.
He did not counterattack.
Instead, he released a thin line of fire across the marble.
Achilles stepped around it.
Exactly as Lee expected.
Two shadow tendrils rose behind the warrior.
They did not attack Achilles.
They struck the floor.
The impact threw Lee forward.
He flew over the edge of Achilles’s spear and crashed into the golden circle.
His outstretched hand caught Hermes by the ankle.
For one breath, no one moved.
Lee looked up.
Hermes looked down.
“You might have chosen a more dignified point of contact.”
Lee released his ankle.
“I made it.”
Achilles stood several feet away.
He could have struck Lee before the landing.
Lee was certain of it.
“You let me through.”
“I chose not to kill you after the objective was already complete.”
“That sounds like letting me through.”
Achilles approached.
“You used your shield to redirect rather than resist.
You used fire to determine my movement.
You used shadow to move yourself instead of attacking me.”
He looked toward the empty space where Lee’s sword would have rested.
“And you abandoned a weapon that encouraged you to seek a duel.”
Lee climbed to his feet.
Achilles planted his spear beside him.
“You did not defeat me.”
“No.”
“You did not injure me.”
“No.”
“You completed the objective.”
Lee nodded.
Achilles offered his forearm.
After a moment of hesitation, Lee clasped it.
The warrior pulled him closer.
“Learn the difference.”
Then Achilles released him.
Hermes stepped between them.
“The first lesson is complete.”
Lee stared.
“That was only the first lesson?”
Achilles’s mouth moved slightly.
It might have been the beginning of a smile.
“You remain alive enough to complain.”
Milo laughed again.
Ajax walked onto the arena floor and examined Lee’s shield.
“You relied too heavily on the left side.”
Milo joined them.
“And your landing was embarrassing.”
Lee looked around at all four of them.
“Does anyone have something positive to say?”
Hermes rested one hand on Lee’s shoulder.
“You failed fewer than thirty times.”
Lee waited.
“That’s it?”
“For a first lesson against Achilles, it is exceptional.”
Achilles retrieved his spear.
“It is adequate.”
Hermes lowered his voice.
“From him, that is nearly a celebration.”
Achilles heard him.
“Do not mislead the boy.”
Lee returned to the academy dormitory shortly before midnight.
Only a few minutes had passed in the real world.
William slept on his back with one arm hanging over the side of his bed.
Emerson had fallen asleep at his desk, his head resting beside an unfinished assignment.
Declan lay beneath his blanket.
His eyes were open.
Lee became still.
“You’re awake.”
Declan sat up.
“You vanished.”
“I entered the Void.”
“I know.”
Lee crossed the room and sat on his bed.
The exhaustion from Achilles’s lesson remained in his mind even though the Void had restored his body.
Declan studied him.
“You look terrible.”
“I met Achilles.”
“The Achilles?”
“No.
A different immortal Greek warrior named Achilles.”
Declan ignored the sarcasm.
“What was he like?”
“He killed me forty-three times.”
Declan stared.
“In one night?”
“That wasn’t the entire lesson.”
“Of course it wasn’t.”
Lee removed his academy wristband and set it on the desk.
The silver device immediately flashed red.
He put it back on before it could send an alert.
Declan watched.
“Did you at least learn something?”
“That I don’t have to defeat every enemy.” New chapters come out on g.com first.
“You needed a legendary warrior to tell you that?”
Lee threw a pillow.
Declan caught it against his chest.
“Also, Mimicry can feel like I’m invading someone’s mind.”
Declan’s amusement disappeared.
“What happened?”
“I connected to Achilles without meaning to.”
“And?”
“He threatened to kill me.”
“I thought he already had.”
“Permanently.”
Declan placed the pillow beside him.
“Can you control it?”
“Most of the time.”
“That means no.”
Lee leaned back against the wall.
Mimicry had activated around Billy during combat training.
It had reached toward Captain Garrett more than once.
What happened if it formed a stronger connection with one of his friends?
Could they feel him inside their memories?
Could he take more than physical skill without realizing it?
“I need to be more careful.”
Declan nodded.
For once, he did not offer a joke.
A faint sound came from outside the dormitory.
Not footsteps.
A soft scraping against the window.
Both boys turned.
They were on the third floor.
The curtain shifted.
Lee raised one hand.
Shadow gathered beneath his skin.
Declan slid from his bed.
“What is that?”
The scraping came again.
Three slow movements across the glass.
Lee approached the window.
Hermes appeared beside him.
“Wait.”
Lee stopped.
A small shape struck the outside of the glass.
Declan flinched.
It was a bird.
A crow clung to the narrow ledge, wings spread for balance.
Its dark feathers were ragged, and blood stained one side of its body.
Declan rushed toward the window.
He unlocked it and pushed it open.
The crow fell into his hands.
Its breathing came in shallow bursts.
“What happened?” Lee asked.
Declan closed his eyes.
The bird’s fear washed across his face.
Images moved through the bond.
Trees beneath moonlight.
A yard surrounded by forest.
Buster sniffing along the edge of the grass.
A massive shape moving between the pines.
Antlers.
Purple lightning.
Blood-red eyes.
Declan’s eyes snapped open.
“Buster.”
Lee’s chest tightened.
“What about him?”
“Something is near my house.”
The crow struggled weakly in his hands.
More images passed between them.
A bear larger than a truck.
Thick brown fur crossed by veins of black corruption.
Antler-like horns rose from its skull, charged with violet lightning.
The creature followed a scent through the trees.
Buster’s scent.
Lee stood.
“We call your parents.”
Declan grabbed his academy tablet.
“No signal.”
“The campus network—”
“Not the tablet.
My parents’ house.”
Declan tried again.
The call failed.
Lee checked his own device.
No connection.
Hermes looked toward the academy walls.
“The external communication network has been severed.”
“By the creature?”
“Perhaps.”
Lee moved toward the door.
Hermes stepped in front of him.
“You cannot simply leave.”
“Buster is in danger.”
“You are inside a fortified campus under lockdown protocols.
Your wristband tracks your position.
The surrounding forest is patrolled.”
“Then get me there through the Void.”
Hermes did not answer.
Lee stopped.
“You can take me into other realms.”
“The Elysian Void is connected to prepared locations and unstable realm boundaries.
It is not a doorway to any destination you choose.”
“You brought me back to my yard before.”
“I returned you to the location from which you entered.”
Lee’s frustration sharpened.
“Then how do I get home?”
Declan climbed from his bed and began pulling on his shoes.
“We get permission.”
“At midnight?”
“My ability is registered for animal communication.
I tell them I received an emergency warning.”
“And when they ask how a crow crossed the academy defenses?”
Declan looked toward the injured bird.
“I don’t know.”
The crow convulsed.
Declan caught it carefully.
A final image passed through the bond.
Buster stood near the rear porch.
His ears were raised.
A low growl came from the woods.
Violet light flickered between the trees.
Then the connection vanished.
The crow went still.
Declan lowered his hands.
Lee felt something inside him harden.
Buster had been with him before the lightning.
Before Hermes.
Before the Aether Soul and Lilit and the academy.
The dog belonged to the life Lee was trying to protect.
He would not leave him to die because the academy had rules.
Lee opened the dormitory door.
William woke at the sound.
“What’s happening?”
“Buster’s in danger.”
William sat upright.
“What?”
Declan held the dead crow.
“There’s a corrupted bear near my house.”
Emerson lifted his head from the desk.
“A bear?”
“Twenty feet long,” Declan said.
“Antlers.
Lightning.”
Lee stepped into the hallway.
The silver wristband vibrated.
CURFEW VIOLATION DETECTED.
A second message appeared.
RETURN TO YOUR ASSIGNED ROOM.
Lee kept walking.
Hermes followed.
“Think before you act.”
“I am thinking.”
“You are angry.”
“I can do both.”
“Not as well as you believe.”
The door to the girls’ wing opened.
Lilith stepped into the connecting common room.
She wore academy sleep clothes, and her blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders.
Silver light filled her eyes.
“Lee.”
He stopped.
Ella and Michelle appeared behind her.
Lilith gripped the doorframe.
“I saw you leave the academy.”
Lee looked toward the stairwell.
“Good.
Then there’s a way out.”
“You don’t understand.”
“What did you see?”
Lilith’s breathing quickened.
“The bear.”
Violet lightning flashed behind her silver eyes.
“Buster is still alive.”
Relief struck Lee.
Then he saw Lilith’s expression.
“What else?”
“You reach him.”
Lee waited.
Lilith looked directly at him.
“And that is what the creature wants.”
The hallway lights went dark.
Every wristband on the floor flashed red.
A new message appeared across Lee’s band.
PERIMETER FAILURE: SOUTHERN SECTOR
An alarm began to rise through the academy.
Not inside the western wall where the Morvane had attacked.
At the opposite end of campus.
The direction of Stump Lake.
Hermes looked toward the dark window.
“This is not a hunt.”
Lee summoned his divine sword.
Golden light formed around his hand.
Hermes’ expression became grim.
“It is a trail.”
Far beyond the academy walls, thunder rolled beneath a cloudless sky.
The Thornreaver had not found Buster by accident.
It was leading Lee home.