Fine then. I shall send them out to face the Daimons unprepared. If they die, well, who cares for a human? I can just make more of them to fight.

It was a trick.

And yet in his gut, Acheron knew it wasn’t. She probably had made more Dark-Hunters and if she truly had, then she would definitely do it again.

Especially if it would make him feel guilty.

Damn her. He would have to go to her temple again.

Personally, he would rather be disemboweled.

He looked to his demon. “Simi, I need to see Artemis now. You return to Katoteros and stay out of trouble until I summon you.”

The demon grimaced. “The Simi don’t like Artemis, akri. I wish you’d let the Simi kill that goddess. The Simi want to pull out her long, red hair.”

He knew the feeling.

Simi had only met Artemis once, back when Acheron had been mortal.

The event had been disastrous.

“I know, Simi, which is why I want you to stay at Katoteros.” He stepped away, then turned back to face her. “And for Archon’s sake, please don’t eat anything until I get back. Especially not a human.”

“But—”

“No, Simi. No food.”

“No, Simi. No food,” she mocked. “The Simi don’t like this, akri. Katoteros is boring. There’s nothing fun there. Only old dead people who want to come back here. Bleh!”

“Simi…” he said, his voice thick with warning.

“I hear and obey, akri. The Simi just never said she would do so quietly.”

He shook his head at the incorrigible demon, then willed himself from the earth to Artemis’s temple on Olympus.

Acheron stood on top of the golden bridge that traversed a winding river. The sound of the water echoed off the sheer sides of the mountain that rose up all around him.

In the last two thousand years, nothing had changed.