Goddess (Starcrossed)

baby. My baby brother. But which is which? I know I killed one of them. Who did I choose?”
    Leda started rocking back and forth, quietly chanting the words, “My baby. My baby brother,” over and over as Daedalus and Daphne tried to soothe her. Each time she repeated this pitiful mantra, her volume raised another notch until she was screaming.
    “Get me out of here, Helen,” Orion said in a shaky whisper. Helen looked at him and saw tears streaming silently down his face.
    She immediately wrapped her arms around him and they shot into the air, leaving behind the sound of Leda’s inconsolable wailing. Orion buried his face in Helen’s neck. She could feel his hot tears streaming across her skin and quickly turning cold in the thinning air as they gained altitude.
    Shivering, they hovered high over the ocean, clinging to each other. Orion didn’t make any noise. After what Helen guessed was years of practice, he’d gotten good at silencing the sound of his own crying until there was nothing—not even the flutter of his diaphragm—just the fast and deep throbbing of his heartbeat. Helen pulled him closer and flew him away from this nightmare, even though she knew she’d never get him far enough away to make it any better.
    Heading south along the coast, she brought them to a pretty little beach somewhere around Cape Ann in Massachusetts and lowered them to the ground. They sat next to each other on the sand, him staring out at the water and her staring at his profile.
    “They were close. Adonis and my mother,” he said finally. “They loved each other very much—until she fell in love with my father. All the Houses, but especially the House of Rome, don’t allow for Scions from different Houses to have children together out of fear that it will create the Tyrant.” Orion paused here and gestured to himself ruefully. “When my mom got pregnant with me, Adonis came to kill me—and her, I guess, since she was still carrying me. But my mother killed him instead.”
    Helen leaned against Orion’s shoulder and looked out at the dark waves crashing on the beach. She’d figured it was something like that, but sensed there was more to the story. The dull colors crawling out of Orion’s chest were heavy and leaden with guilt and regret.
    “The worst part came later,” Orion continued in a strained voice. “You know how the members in each House have certain physical characteristics? There’s always some variation, like Lucas, Jason, and Ariadne who don’t look like the other members of their House. But in general, Thebans are blond and look like Lucas’s dad.” Helen nodded. “Did you also know that every generation has a handful of specific characters who get repeated over and over? They are almost exact replicas of the main characters who fought at Troy. As soon as one of these main characters die, another is born to take his or her place.”
    “No, I didn’t know that.” Helen bit her lip, processing this. “I don’t think the Delos family knows this, either, or they would have explained it to me.”
    “The House of Athens figured this out a long time ago, but the House of Thebes may not have. The Thebans have always had a lot of variation in their line, and probably haven’t been able to spot the pattern yet. Your House, the House of Atreus is the only exception. You hand down the Helen archetype mother to daughter, but for the rest of us, an exact look-alike can only happen if a main character dies first.”
    “Like the Fates have to recast the play with a baby when one of the lead characters dies,” Helen said musingly. “You look exactly like Aeneas, you know.”
    “Yeah, I remember Automedon calling me ‘General Aeneas’ right after you electrocuted him,” he said, smiling a little at the memory. His face scrunched up momentarily. “Wait. How could you know what Aeneas looked like?”
    “Long story,” Helen said, waving a dismissive hand. “Keep going with yours first.”
    “Well, apart from Aeneas, there’s someone else I look like exactly.”
    “Your uncle Adonis.” Helen didn’t even have to mull that one over. She knew how cruel the Fates were, and for some reason they seemed to be particularly cruel to Orion. Like they had it out for him.
    As soon as she thought this, she made a guess at the reason why. Aeneas was one of the only male survivors of Troy. He’d escaped fate. Somehow, this one character had gotten away from his destiny. Helen wondered how in the