“Master Athena, we’re sorry for—” Rodrigo tried to say.

  “Of course, Ronaldo. Go on, tell me how devastated you are after losing two friends, and how that bitch just toyed with your plans,” Athena replied sarcastically.

  “His mother and friends died!” Ana shouted, furious.

  “Humans die all the time, Ana,” Athena answered coldly.

  “And their lives matter less, is that it?” Ana shot back, her expression burning with anger.

  Athena fell silent, resting her head on her right hand.

  “All right, I’m on edge. Forgive me, Rodríguez,” the goddess said.

  “If you don’t want to fight, I understand, Master,” Ana said. “But we will go to Mars and defeat that bastard.”

  “Yes. We’ll depart immediately,” Epona said, determined.

  “You’ll come with us, right, Rodrigo?” Epona asked.

  Rodrigo nodded.

  “Are you insane? They’re gods of war—extremely powerful even with their totemas dead. You won’t win alone, much less dragging around this boy who doesn’t even have a totema,” Horus scolded.

  “I don’t care,” Ana replied, staring him down defiantly.

  “If we can’t save a friend, then what the hell good are we?” Epona added, glaring at the Egyptian god as well.

  “You’re valuable assets to this group. Do you really think you can leave Palas and go wherever you want without our approval?” Horus replied.

  “Of course we can!” both goddesses answered.

  “Girls, saving a malak I don’t even know cost me two of my own—very dear friends,” Athena said as she rose from her seat.

  “We know,” Epona answered.

  “It’s simple math. We’re not risking more personnel to save one malak,” Horus said.

  “That’s right,” Athena added.

  The two goddesses lowered their heads, furious but quiet.

  “That’s why I will personally go along with Horus to kill that bastard and avenge Rikbiel and Samyaza,” Athena said.

  Horus froze, stunned. For a moment, he had no words.

  “What? Why me?” Horus protested angrily.

  Both goddesses stared, wide-eyed. Rodrigo couldn’t help but smile.

  “Because this was a direct attack against us, idiot. Don’t you care about the lives of our comrades? Are you going to tell their families that we just watched Ares smash their heads into the floor and said: ‘Well, that’s life’?” Athena snapped.

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  “But you said we shouldn’t risk—” Horus began whining, but Athena cut him off.

  “Don’t start, Horus. Do you seriously think those war-god rejects could defeat you?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Then?” Athena asked.

  “…Fine. But who will protect Palas?” he grumbled.

  “Let the council handle that. Don’t you trust their abilities?” Athena asked.

  “We will protect this planet if you leave for Mars,” Myrddin said, and Asclepius nodded.

  “See?” Athena said.

  “M–miss Athena… we… we want to fight too,” Sol said nervously.

  “Sol, Mitras, this will be extremely dangerous for you. Stay on Palas,” Athena replied.

  “We want to prove we can fight, Lady Athena,” Mitras said firmly.

  “Y–yes… that we’re… strong,” added Sol.

  “And we want to fight alongside our… disciple Epona,” Mitras said.

  Epona smiled.

  “I think they’ll do great, Athena,” she said.

  “…Fine. But don’t die,” Athena said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” both answered.

  “All right, we’ll meet in the main garden of the palace in… damn it, I hate doing time conversions,” Athena muttered, trying to calculate the difference between divine hours and Palas hours.

  “Isn’t this woman the goddess of wisdom?” Epona thought sarcastically.

  “Horus, if I want twelve divine hours to pass, how many hours is that on Palas?” Athena asked.

  “I already told you—make a rule of three,” Horus replied.

  “I hate math!” Athena complained.

  “It’s about twenty-four hours on Palas, Lady Athena. They use the same second as Earth, right?” Epona said.

  “See? It was a really simple operation, you useless bird-brain,” Athena said to Horus.

  “You could’ve done it yourself,” Horus shot back.

  Epona was stunned that neither could do a basic conversion.

  The gods of Lel used a standardized system of hours and days. Unlike humans—who based everything on increments of six—they used increments of five, which always created headaches when converting divine hours to normal hours.

  Thus, on Lel, a day had ten hours, each hour had 100 minutes, and each minute 100 seconds in their standardized system. That equaled roughly twenty human hours per divine day. Meaning that one Lel hour equaled double on Earth or Palas.

  “Well,” Athena said, “they’ve given us one full Earth day to reach Mars. So we’ll meet in the central garden in twelve Earth hours—or roughly one Palas day. Understood?”

  “Understood,” everyone answered.

  They began to leave. Rodrigo approached Ana.

  “These time conversions are such a pain,” he said.

  “And that’s nothing, Rui. In my homeland, days last seven hours and we use a base-seven system—though those seven hours equal thirty-six human hours,” Ana said, patting him on the back.

  “I have no idea what that even means…” Rodrigo thought.

  Tania walked behind them, distant.

  I must kill Rodrigo. In twelve hours I’ll have to decapitate him. I’ll lose Ana… but I’ll save hundreds of lives, she thought as she watched him walk beside her friend.

  And he’s… a tannin. I have to do it, Tania. Be strong. You’ve killed innocents before—you can do it again, she told herself.

  “Are you feeling sick, Tania?” Epona approached from behind—and Tania instinctively tried to attack her.

  “What?! What the hell is wrong with you?” Epona cried, startled.

  “I… nothing… I’m nervous about the mission, sorry Epona,” Tania said, retracting her fiery claws and walking away.

  “What the hell is wrong with her? She’s been awful for days. What happened to her?” Epona wondered.

  Outside the palace, Asclepius and Myrddin approached Rodrigo and Ana.

  “Listen, both of you,” Myrddin said. “I want you to rest today so you can recover all your ichor.”

  “We have very little ambrosia, and you won’t be able to carry much, so your ichor needs to be completely full,” Asclepius added.

  Rodrigo bowed slightly to them.

  “Thank you for your training. Even if it was brief, I’ll do my best,” he said.

  “No problem—and remember, win,” Asclepius said as he and Myrddin left.

  “Do you think we can win?” Rodrigo asked Ana.

  “With Master Athena on our side, this will be easy,” Ana answered with a smile.

  Tania left the palace with Epona behind her.

  “Tania, Epona—will you come to our room with us?” Ana asked.

  “I’ll come,” Epona said.

  “I… I’ll stay here,” Tania answered, still lost in her thoughts.

  “All right,” Ana replied, and the three of them flew away.

  “Forgive me, Rodrigo… forgive me, Ana… Baal Hammon, I’ll prove to you that I can protect lives—unlike you, you damned monster,” Tania whispered to herself as she remained sitting in the garden.