Jennifer Estep - Kiss of Frost

"Do you know where the dagger is?" I asked. "Where my mom hid it?"

Nike shook her head. "After the last battle of the Chaos War, all the gods made a pact not to become involved in mortal affairs. We would have torn the world apart otherwise until there was nothing left. That's why the seals and other safeguards were given to our Champions and other trusted warriors to hide and protect as best they could. The seals were designed to stay in the mortal world, so no god could touch or break them. But, of course, the Reapers have been relentlessly searching for them ever since Loki was imprisoned. One by one, they've found the artifacts, and now, only the dagger is left."

"And nobody knows where the Helheim Dagger is but my mom, and she can't tell anyone because she's dead." Bitterness filled my empty, aching heart.

"I'm truly sorry, Gwendolyn," Nike said in a sad voice. "But Champions are often called upon to make sacrifices. Your mother gave her life to keep Loki imprisoned, and she saved countless other lives doing that. Every day Loki remains trapped is another day the world isn't on the brink of war. Your mother died protecting others, which is the bravest, noblest thing a Champion can do."

I understood what my mom had done and why, but that didn't make it any easier to bear. It didn't make my heart hurt any less.

"What am I supposed to do now?" I whispered, feeling like I was coming apart from the inside out.

"These things never stay hidden forever," Nike said, once again not quite answering my question. "There's too much power attached to the dagger, and there are too many Reapers looking for it. One of them will eventually find the dagger and use it to free Loki."

I looked at the goddess. "You want me to find the dagger first, don't you? And what, hide it somewhere else? What good will that do? Won't the Reapers just keep looking for it?"

Nike nodded again. "They will. Even now, they are using their blood sacrifices to try to break through the cloaking spell your mother put on the dagger to hide it. Once the spell is gone, they'll be able to divine its general location and start searching for it. You need to find the dagger, hide it somewhere else, and put a new, stronger cloaking spell on it. Your Professor Metis should be able to help you with that, along with the Spartan librarian, Nickamedes."

Well, that made sense. If there was anyone here at Mythos who could help keep the dagger out of the Reapers' hands, it was Metis. But Nickamedes? Really? And he was a Spartan? My brain rattled around inside my skull a little at that revelation. But then, I thought about seeing Logan and Nickamedes together at the ski resort. If they were related like I suspected, it made sense that Nickamedes was a Spartan, just like Logan was.

"Your mother hid the dagger well, and every day the Reapers don't find it is a small victory for the members of the Pantheon-and the world," Nike continued. "But time is running out, and the cloaking spell won't hold much longer. The Pantheon needs more time to prepare for what's coming."

"And what would that be?"

The goddess stared at me with her twilight eyes. She didn't say anything, but somehow, I knew the answer to my question. Chaos. War. Death. Destruction. Loki breaking free of his prison and trying to take over the world again. Bad, Bad Things all around.

"But how am I supposed to find the dagger?" I asked. "My mom was smart-the smartest person I knew. If the Reapers haven't been able to find the dagger where she hid it, what makes you think I can?"

Nike smiled. "Because you're my Champion, Gwendolyn, and I have faith in you, just as I did in your mother before you."

As much as I appreciated the goddess's confidence, it wasn't exactly the most helpful thing in the world right now. "But can't you help me at all? Give me a clue or something? Someplace to start at least? What am I supposed to do now?"

It was the same question I'd asked her a minute ago, and for the third time, she didn't exactly answer me.

"I can't tell you that. All I can do is appear to you now and then to advise you, Gwendolyn. Nothing more. That is the agreement the gods made with respect to our Champions. The battle is between you and the Reapers. The rest is up to you. The choices are yours to make. Neither I nor any of the other gods can ever make you do anything you don't want to," Nike said. "Every creature, mortal and god alike, has free will. It's what we choose to do with that will that defines us, that makes us who we are, good or bad. Remember that."

It was the same speech Metis had given a few weeks ago in myth-history class, but it didn't make me feel any better now than it had then. Yeah, free will was great and all, but I didn't see how it would help me defeat a Reaper-or Loki, if the evil god ever got free.

By this point, we'd circled all the way around the balcony. The goddess stepped back up onto the pedestal where her statue stood in the library's pantheon.

"You have served me well so far, Gwendolyn Frost," Nike said. "You have used your wits and your magic wisely. I hope you continue to do so-for all our sakes.

The goddess leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. For a moment her power washed over me-that cold, beautiful, terrible power that made her who and what she was. My own blood turned to ice, just like it had the last time she'd kissed me here in the library, and I felt something shift inside myself. Something settling into a new place, bringing new strength, courage, and determination along with it. The feeling didn't frighten me like it had before. Not anymore.

The goddess stepped back. She gave me a final, soft smile before her body started shimmering and melting like early morning twilight being banished by the breaking dawn.

I blinked, and Nike was gone, replaced by her white marble statue once more.

"Gwen?" a soft voice called out to me. "Gwen, wake up."

A hand gently shook my shoulder, snapping me out of- of wherever I'd been. I opened my eyes to find Logan crouching in front of me, his ice blue gaze full of concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked. "Nickamedes told me what happened with Preston. He and the others were worried about you. They're out looking for you, along with Daphne, Carson, and Oliver."

I let out a bitter laugh. "I must have really freaked them out if Nickamedes was worried about me."

I leaned my head back against the base of Nike's statue. Logan looked at me a second, then sat down on the cold floor beside me.

"You want to tell me what happened? What you saw?" he asked in a quiet voice.

I needed to talk to someone about what I'd seen when I'd touched Preston, when I'd looked into his horrible memories. I couldn't think of anyone better than Logan. After all, I'd seen the Spartan's memories, too, when I'd kissed him-I knew he'd understand.

"Yeah, I'd like to talk about it," I said. "But to really understand it, first I have to tell you some other things about me. Things you don't know."

"Like what?"

I drew in a breath. "Like the fact that I'm Nike's Champion."

I sat there and told Logan everything, starting from the first time I saw Nike that night in the library when we'd both been fighting Jasmine and her Nemean prowler. The Spartan didn't say a word while I talked. He just sat there and let me get it all out, let me get all my fears, feelings, and hurts out there in the open. And I told him everything - about seeing my mom's murder through Preston's eyes, that Metis and my Grandma Frost had known about it the whole time, that they'd kept the truth from me, what Nike had told me about the broken seals on Loki's prison, how my mom had hidden the Helheim Dagger, and that Nike had asked me to find and protect the dagger from the Reapers who were looking for it.