The Mighty Ones' Fall

Chapter 17: The Split

"Are you sure about this?" Alec sounded shocked, to say the least.

I gulped and answered, "Damien, Darius, and I are sure. Apparently no one else is, though." I glanced sheepishly back and forth between the other three Knowing members, who all wore furious expressions.

"Why didn't anyone tell us about this?" Layna and Brady demanded.

"Jace didn't want to," Hannah said snidely, and Brady and Layna just glared at me.

Damien shifted in place nervously. "Let's not go pointing fingers at anyone, now."

"Has it even occurred to you that we've nothing but the exact opposite of what Jan wanted us to do? She wanted us to help Alec fulfill the prophecy while preventing anyone else from being killed. Four dead Knowing Warriors just make the situation worse."

"Are you saying we should have let them kill you all?" Alec piped up, his blue eyes icy cold. "They killed a satyr, you know. About an hour ago, according to a nymph."

Hannah gulped as her gaze moved back and forth between him, Lady Athena, and Lady Artemis, who told her softly, "If the idea really bothers you that much, just think about what it means for the future. Now there are four less people to fight back at the Knowing camp."

Hannah shook her head, on the verge of tears. Tears of frustration, not sadness. "Forgive me, Lady Artemis, but how can you think like that? Like it's no big deal. Like they don't matter in the big scheme of things."

"Well, they don't."

"But what about morals?"

Here is where Lady Athena cut in: "Hannah, please. I learned a long time ago that if you want to do well in this world as a Sighted person, if you want to survive, then it's best to re-define 'good morals.' You may even need to do this more than once, depending on the situation." She radiated a calmness that only seemed to anger Hannah more.

The Knowing archer crossed her arms and said coolly, "I just want to know when Jace switched from wanting to overthrow Jason to wanting to kill him."

I threw my hands into the air in frustration. "I never said I wanted to kill him - I just said I wanted to end him. There's a difference. I'm not actively trying to murder him, but if that's what it came down to, I definitely wouldn't be opposed to it. We just found out Jason knew where the Forest Gods were the entire time but still refused to help Alec understand his vision last summer. That should change our whole view of him, as well as our whole plan to deal with him. Can't you see, Jason's a power-hungry psychopath!"

After a lengthy pause, Layna let out a scared and confused huff. "Jason's my dad." As if that made the decision easy for us. For some odd reason she just wanted him spared.

"Yeah," Brady said loudly. But that was all he had to say on the matter, and everyone but Layna looked at him blankly.

"Figures you would take her side," I mumbled, more to myself than to him, and crossed my arms. "You're always together."

Apparently I had uttered my private thoughts more loudly than I realized, because they all stared back at me with shocked expressions on their faces. Even Lady Athena raised her eyebrows.

"Are you jealous?" Layna exclaimed. I tried to hide my blushing by rolling my eyes and shaking my head at her. Pretending she had me all wrong, even though she didn't. Brady seemed pretty smug nevertheless.

Again, Lady Athena drew attention back to herself and to the past when she voiced her words of wisdom: "It doesn't matter how one of you might feel about another right now. What matters is that everyone is united, so the plan will work. You should have learned by now that love causes even the 'mighty ones' to fall." She put "mighty ones" in air quotes to be sure we got her point. We did.