Blood of Hercules (Villains of Lore, #1)

Eons before humanity existed, hundreds of immortal Spartans inhabited the archipelago of modern-day Greece, along with their animal protectors and local creatures that included various sentient beings and peoples with special powers. Humans eventually discovered that the Spartans could be killed. As the humans turned against them, the Spartans hid in the Italian Dolomites. However, tension grew between the two Spartan factions, the Olympian Houses and the Chthonic Houses. The Olympians circumvented their fertility issues by having children with humans: so-called “mutts” who were half Spartan and half human. Because the human offspring of Chthonics were rarely capable of handling their inherited powers, their numbers remained small.

During the 21st century, the Chthonics attacked the Olympians, and by 2045, only eight Olympian families remained. With Sparta on the brink of collapse, a ceasefire was called, and the Spartan Federation was established. Five years later, monstrous, immortal creatures called Titans appeared and slaughtered humans. The Federation emerged from the Dolomites. To punish the Chthonics for the war, the Federation conscripted them into the Assembly of Death, an organization dedicated to fighting Titans. Now, decades later, the Chthonics are slowly increasing their numbers, and the Olympians’ power is failing. To mitigate the Chthonics’ growing power, the Federation enacts a controversial marriage law.

In Montana, 10-year-old Alexis Hert has fractured her wrists during her escape from her abusive foster parents, who had tied her up. She meets and befriends Nyx, an invisible snake (an echidna). When they return to Alexis’s trailer, they find her foster parents drunk from their “special drink.” Later, an elderly woman later comes to deliver a second foster child, a nine-year-old boy named Charlie. Alexis’s foster parents grudgingly take him in and make him sleep with Alexis in her box. Alexis promises Charlie that she will take care of him. She considers herself lucky to have made her first two friends that day.

A year later, food has become scarce, and Alexis overhears her foster parents planning to kill Charlie. She directs Charlie to the bathroom and then confronts her foster parents, who beat her severely, drawing blood. Suddenly, Nyx bursts through the window, and a mysterious pain erupts in Alexis’s sternum. Her foster mother screams something about a red devil. Alexis drags Nyx back to the bathroom while her foster parents are distracted. As the pain in Alexis’s sternum escalates, her foster mother screeches in pain. Her foster father begs to use the phone in the bathroom to call the emergency number typically reserved to declare a Titan attack. However, Alexis and Charlie do not move. Their foster mother dies, and government officials and medics arrive. Alexis tells them that her foster father killed their foster mother, and they take the man away. When Alexis next looks in a mirror, she realizes that the beating she received has caused her to lose the use of her left eye and ear. Her damaged eye has a discolored white iris, while her undamaged eye remains black. An official comes that day and takes the trailer away, leaving Alexis and Charlie without a home.

Eight years later, Alexis is studying during homeroom. She aims to score in the top .001% on the Spartan merit test so that she can attend one of the Spartan universities, which will give her and Charlie a chance at a better future. A girl in her class, Jessica, bullies her. One day, their teacher has them watch a video in which the Spartan Crimson Duo, Patroclus (“Patro”) of House Artemis and the muzzled Achilles of House Ares, fight against the Titans. The brutal video makes Alexis squeamish, and she heads toward the library. Josh, one of her former tutoring students, approaches and propositions her for sex. Horrified, she declines. She then gets called into the principal’s office because Charlie got into a fight with a boy who shoved him. Later, she and Charlie go home to the cardboard hut in the forest that they use as a makeshift home. Alexis signs to Charlie because he is nonverbal; she reassures him that she will take care of him. They tap their matching forearm tattoos and go to sleep, staving off their hunger.

Alexis nervously finishes the Spartan merit test and pricks her finger, watching her blood sample fill the two designated bubbles on her booklet. She then hands the booklet to her teacher. Suddenly, the bubbles containing Alexis’s blood turn yellow, and all the teachers scramble to call the Federation to report this, as a yellow bubble indicates Spartan blood. Two Olympian Spartans arrive and question Alexis. They forcefully inject excessive amounts of adrenaline into her veins to test her; if she lives, she is a Spartan. (Because female Spartans are so rare, they would never be abandoned, so the Olympian Spartans believe that Alexis is trying to trick her way into Sparta.) Alexis survives, and the two Olympian Spartans “leap” (or teleport) her to the Spartan War Academy. There, a crowd of Spartans awaits in the Dolomites Coliseum, and Zeus makes a commencement speech, welcoming her and the 50 other initiates to the “initiation massacre.” Before the initiates can be declared Spartan citizens and given immortality, they must survive the massacre.

Hades arrives with Persephone at his side. He unleashes his power, and an inky fog takes hold of the stadium. He instructs the initiates to fight to the death, and Alexis is immediately faced with young men who are trying to kill her. Nyx helps her by poisoning her attackers as Alexis is battered and runs away. Hades announces that 20 competitors remain, but only 10 can be admitted to the next stage, the crucible. Three boys corner Alexis, knock out Nyx, and beat Alexis bloody. Suddenly, the same mysterious pain stabs at her chest, and she notices a fourth boy in the fog. When he extends his hands toward the three boys, they cry out in pain, and Alexis believes that the fourth boy must have Chthonic powers. As Alexis’s chest pain abates, Hades announces that the massacre is over. The remaining initiates will move on to the crucible. An old woman tells Alexis to snap out of her shock since the Fates are backing her and she shouldn’t dare to make them regret it. Zeus assigns Spartan mentors to the initiates. To Alexis, he assigns the Crimson Duo, Patro and Achilles. They are not pleased with their assignment because their promotion to the position of general hinges on Alexis’s survival of the crucible, and they do not believe her to be capable of this feat. Patro leaps them home, and Alexis promptly faints.

Alexis is force-fed drugs and nutrient pills to help her recover from her injuries. Doctors attend to her injuries and new fractures and comment on her old fractures. Days pass as Alexis recovers, and she dreams that Death is hovering over her. She overhears Death speak with Patro as they belittle her. When a male doctor tries to remove her bandages, Alexis worries that others will see the scars left by her foster parents. Patro assigns a female doctor to take care of her. When they are alone, this doctor cautions Alexis about Patro and Achilles. She also explains that the new marriage law has a clause restricting Chthonics from marrying anyone on the list of the 10 known Chthonics; because the new law forces Chthonics to marry Olympians, their blood will be diluted. Patro and Achilles barge in and demand that the doctor leave.

As Alexis showers, she thinks about Charlie and has a panic attack. Nyx calms her down, and Alexis wonders if her power is the ability to speak to creatures like Nyx who are otherwise incomprehensible to Spartans and humans alike. Nyx disagrees. Alexis then wonders if Nyx is her animal protector, but Nyx is already bonded to an unknown person. Later, Patro theorizes that Alexis is of Zeus’s lineage. He asks what her power is, but she tells Patro and Achilles that she has none. Furious, they retrieve two books on the crucible. She reads them, and Patro explains that she will have four classes: Thagorean, or advanced math; Lost Classical Lore; Discipline and Power (“D and P”); and bonding with an animal protector. Patro warns her to be mindful of his brother, Augustus, who will be her D and P professor. However, Patro claims that Augustus will be fair to Alexis because of their sister, Helen. Patro then declares that he will only give her a strategy if she survives the first two weeks. The next day, they give her a toga uniform and leap her back to the Dolomites Coliseum, where the other nine survivors wait for the crucible to begin.