Zeus announces the third round. Augustus and Kharon are brought out, having been drugged and beaten. The crowd chants for Alexis as an Olympian hero. Overcome by memories of their intimacy, Alexis cannot fight them.

Their marriage bond heightens, and the two experience what she feels and sees. Augustus touches her face and realizes that she is blind in her left eye, the same side as her missing ear. Both men are horrified that she never told them. Zeus threatens that all three will be branded if they refuse to fight.

Augustus tells Alexis to stab them both. When she refuses, Kharon tells Augustus to handle things as they agreed. Augustus uses his evolved power—the ability to project thoughts through their marriage bond—to render Kharon unconscious. He then stalks Alexis across the arena, cornering her below Zeus’s podium.

Augustus commands her to stab him, but she refuses, fearing that her blood will kill him. He grabs her wrist, forces the staff toward himself, and impales himself in the heart. After she pulls the rod out and tries to heal him, he smacks the glowing weapon away, telling her it is a privilege to be branded for her. He loses consciousness.

Zeus declares the round over, leaps down, and brands Augustus and Kharon before they’re carried away. As Fluffy Jr. stands protectively before her, Alexis vomits and then screams at Zeus that she knows what he did. The crowd begins chanting about the 12 labors of Hercules. Alexis collapses in the coliseum hall, clutches her calculator, and resolves to keep fighting.

Alexis awakens chained in a skull-filled crypt beneath the coliseum. Zeus appears and questions her. She confronts him with the conspiracy that she’s pieced together: He framed Medusa and orchestrated the Titan attack, sending a man named Vyco to murder Alexis as a baby in Montana. Zeus laughs and confirms everything, mocking her for knowing only this.

Zeus brings in Patro with Olympian guards, threatening Achilles to force compliance. Patro uses his truth-reading power and tells Zeus that Alexis knows nothing about Medusa’s whereabouts. Zeus leaves for the closing symposium, warning Alexis that any attempt to leap away will be treated as sedition. He orders his guards to torture her for information.

After they leave, the guards beat Alexis with electric batons. She orders Nyx to kill them. Once free, Alexis forms a blood rod, cuts her chains, and leaps to the symposium, arriving during a loud rock concert. She finds Augustus and Kharon bound nearby; they quickly break free. They then kill the five Olympian guards who were holding them.

Following instructions in siren language, left by her ally Lena on the speaker system, Alexis connects her calculator to the audio. The music stops. She stands on the speakers holding the glowing Rod of Asclepius and plays a recording of Zeus’s confession, which she secretly recorded on her calculator, for all of Sparta to hear. She reveals the scar on her chest as proof.

The symposium erupts in chaos. Hades and Artemis unleash their powers. Fate declares that Zeus has betrayed the federation and proclaims the prophecy fulfilled. Zeus leaps away to escape. Realizing that Patro and Achilles have just left—likely heading to confront Medusa—Alexis rushes to her husbands. Augustus leaps all three to Helen’s room, but they arrive to hear shouting from the adjoining bedroom. They are too late.

Alexis, Augustus, and Kharon enter the adjoining bedroom to find it in disarray with strange symbols on the walls. Patro has a woman pinned against the wall, while the muzzled Achilles stands guard. The woman punches Patro in the face after he calls her “snake scum.” They argue violently about lies and authority.

Patro yanks off her pink wig, revealing long, black hair and three Gorgon snakes. Ceres is actually Medusa. Patro furiously accuses Alexis of freeing her, feeling betrayed—he could read her mind and see that she already knew Ceres was Medusa, but he lied to Zeus for her anyway. Medusa and Patro continue trading barbs about their respective Houses. Achilles signs his anger at Alexis for endangering them all.

Feeling overwhelmed, Alexis begins to explain how this happened, starting with her unintended leap to the Underworld during the initiation hunt.

One month earlier, injured from the hunt, Alexis’s leap lands her in the Underworld prison. Following a woman’s screams, she finds a prisoner strapped to a table with an age-stasis device keeping her at 21. Two guards from the House of Hermes are assaulting her. Alexis and Nyx kill the guards.

Alexis unlocks the prisoner and removes the device from her head. Three snakes emerge—the woman is Medusa. After removing her life-support mask, Medusa falls unconscious. As Alexis carries her out, Hades confronts them. When Alexis tells him this is her choice, Hades proudly welcomes her to the family, saying that the House of Hades wages war for what they believe in.

Hades leaps them both to Crete, where Persephone and Charlie help. They agree to hide Medusa until Alexis devises a plan. Persephone assures them that the sentient island will violently attack any searchers. Hades takes Alexis to the medical center to establish a cover story.

Back at the villa, Alexis finds Ceres imprisoned in the dungeon. After confirming that Ceres—a traitor from the crucible—helped Theros murder children, Alexis kills her with her blood poison. Helen discovers her and offers to help with the deception. Alexis takes the body to Crete, where Persephone disposes of it. She returns to the villa with Medusa, now disguised as Ceres.

Two weeks after Alexis exposes Zeus, Medusa attends a federation meeting with Alexis. Athena, serving as interim speaker, officially pardons Medusa on one condition: She must attend Rhodes Olympian University and obtain a mastery in Fate studies. Medusa sees strange glowing lights above people’s heads that no one else can see, a manifestation of her power.

Hades objects, saying that it will not be safe for Medusa among Olympians. He proposes that two bodyguards attend with her for protection. He recommends the Crimson Duo, and the room erupts. Medusa realizes with horror that Patro and Achilles are the Crimson Duo. Despite Patro’s objections, Aphrodite orders him to accept.

Fearing for her safety with the two dangerous men, Medusa impulsively announces that Alexis also wants to attend. After objections, Alexis confirms her desire to enroll. Athena finalizes the arrangement: Medusa will room with Patro and Achilles at the university. Patro silently threatens Medusa, dragging a finger across his throat and mouthing that she will regret this.

That evening, relieved that Medusa is free, Alexis leaps to the villa alone, as Nyx and Fluffy Jr. have stayed behind with Helen and Drex. Augustus and Kharon appear, asking if she’s ready for the reward they promised before her labors. She agrees. After tense foreplay, she surprises them by leaping all three to the dining room, the scene of their first encounter.

They laugh, and Kharon and Augustus set up two chairs facing each other, as Kharon had previously described in a sexual fantasy. They engage in a passionate encounter. During the act, Kharon engages his powers, and Alexis feels a tidal wave of his possessive love and emotions through their marriage bond. They consummate their marriage fully.

Afterward, they carry her to bed. Alexis wakes from a nightmare to find Kharon leaning over the bed, watching her. He whispers that she is theirs. She defuses his intensity by calling him “Karen” and pulls him into her arms. Augustus pins them both with his leg as they sleep. She feels completely safe with her husbands.

The next morning, after spending hours making love, Alexis bathes with her husbands. Kharon asks how she was injured in her eye and ear. She explains how her foster parents threatened to kill Charlie during a storm; she threw a toaster at them in defense, and her foster father beat her, fracturing her skull and causing permanent damage. She feels a cathartic peace after sharing.

Her husbands are enraged. Augustus removes her wrist cuff and asks about the scars there. She explains that her foster father tied her up as a child and that she fractured her wrists escaping. Augustus and Kharon immediately get out of the tub, dress, and arm themselves. Alexis chases them to the villa’s dungeon.

She finds them standing before her foster father, whom they have imprisoned. Kharon explains that they found him and brought him as a gift for her to decide his fate. Her foster father begs for mercy, calling her a “gentle soul.” Alexis forms the Rod of Asclepius and impales him with it, coldly informing him that she murdered his wife. As he dies, she walks away with her husbands, telling him that she will not regret this.

The next day, Patro and Achilles are in a room when Augustus and Kharon knock. Patro lies, saying that he and Achilles are having sex to make them leave. Alone again, Patro reflects on his failed attempt to win Alexis and his dread of being forced into a political marriage that would separate him from Achilles.

As Patro and Achilles are about to become intimate, Medusa interrupts. Patro confronts her, insisting that she’s still hiding something. When he grabs her wrist, he is reminded of a traumatic memory involving his Gorgon tutor. Medusa tells him that his anger is misplaced and that he will only ever be a man in Achilles’s shadow. His truth-sensing power confirms that she’s telling the truth, shaking him deeply.

He taunts her about them sharing a room at the university. Flustered, Medusa runs from the room. Patro feels a strange urge to chase her. Achilles immediately grabs him, and they have frantic sex against the wall. Afterward, Patro dwells on how much he loves Achilles.

Achilles clings to Patro, filled with murderous rage toward all Olympians for torturing him. He thinks about needing to remove his muzzle so that he can kill them all. His possessiveness and anxiety have been extreme since he was tortured during the SGC.

Patro says that Medusa should be worried about their new arrangement. Achilles finds himself intrigued by Medusa and does not dissuade Patro.

The full text of Fate’s prophecy is revealed. It implies that Alexis will heal Drex, Lucia, Kharon, and the “Serpent of Lore”; that love between Medusa, Patro, and Achilles will change the “tides of war”; and that Alexis hears the “beastly roar” of a monster who will restore the world (513).