Dreamless

Daphne interjected with mild exasperation. “Is there any way for you to go down and check, Helen?”
    “Daphne, look at her. She’s suffered enough for one night. Stop pushing,” Castor said with his usual levelheadedness while he finished wrapping Lucas’s shoulder. “If Helen and Orion say it’s okay to close the rift, then let him close it.”
    Daphne threw up her hands and turned away, blowing air through her lips noisily, just to let everyone know that even though she had been overruled, she still didn’t agree. Hector rolled his eyes and shared a look with Orion. Apparently, both of them were familiar with this little display of Daphne’s, although it was the first time Helen had ever seen it.
    “Close it,” Hector said to Orion. The ground squeezed together with a grinding moan, and shut with a small boom.
    “Well, looks like we’ll never know now,” Daphne said in a snippy undertone.
    Helen really wanted to slap her, but she couldn’t stand up without Matt, and he had wandered off somewhere. She craned her head and found him searching the ground for something. He suddenly crouched down, sifted through Automedon’s ashes, and pulled out something shiny. The sheath to the blade, Helen realized, wondering why he wanted it.
    “Hey. You okay?” Orion asked her, jarring her out of her thoughts. Orion put a finger on her chin to make her hold still and stared into her injured eye. Still staring at it, he leaned to the side and called over her shoulder. “Hey, Luke. Have you seen this?”
    “Yeah,” Lucas said heavily, looking down and nodding. “Did you notice the shape?”
    “Yeah. Very fitting.”
    “What are you two talking about?” Helen said, her voice cracking.
    “There’s a blue-white scar running down your right iris, Helen. The kind of scar Scions don’t get rid of,” Lucas said quietly. “It’s shaped like a lightning bolt.”
    “Is it, like, freaky looking?” she asked Orion, paranoid that no one would ever want to look her in the right eye again. He started to laugh and then stopped abruptly, clutching his wounds and grimacing just as Lucas had moments earlier.
    “Actually, I think it looks kind of awesome. Not too happy about how you got it, though,” he said in a falling tone.
    “Me neither.” With or without a scar, Helen knew she would think about this night for the rest of her life. She just hoped Morpheus would be kind and not send her any nightmares about it.
    “We’ll have to call a summit,” Daphne said to Castor. “Of all the Houses. Atreus, Thebes, Athens, and Rome.”
    “I know,” Castor said, nodding. He looked over at Orion and shrugged. “When’s good for you?”
    Helen, Lucas, and Orion all laughed at that, but the moment of levity died fast when they considered why they had to have a meeting of the Houses to begin with. They needed to tell all the Scions that the war had started and come up with a plan to deal with it.
    “In the meantime, I think we should call everyone we can. Tell them to watch their backs,” Hector advised.
    “Do you think the gods would really try to pick us off one at a time?” Lucas asked dubiously.
    “No,” Matt said, rejoining the group. “I think they want a real war. Something big and heroic.”
    “More fun that way,” Helen said remotely, thinking of Ares and his twisted idea of playtime.
    “This isn’t a game,” Hector reminded Helen and Matt gently. “The gods have seen what Helen can do, and what they face is worse than dying. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend eternity in the Elysian Fields than in Tartarus. If I were Zeus, I’d make Helen my first target, but I don’t think Orion and Lucas are much farther down on the gods’ hit list. Like it or not, the Houses are united. We stick together from now on. No one wanders away from the fold.”
    Everyone nodded at Hector’s decree. He was, and always would be, their hero.
    For a moment Helen saw Hector wearing a breastplate and holding a spear as he addressed the troops. Jason stood behind him, holding Hector’s plumed helmet with pride. At the base of the castle walls, wave after wave of brave soldiers screamed Hector’s name, bathing it in glory.
    “Getting the right conditions to lock Ares in Tartarus was a lucky break,” Helen said, blinking until the vision of Hector, glowing red and gold in the sunshine, went away. “It’s not something that happens all the time.”
    “But it did happen,” Daphne said, turning toward