I woke with a start. I sat up slowly, stretching my cramped limbs to try and free them of the discomfort. I didn't even remember falling asleep. Where was I?

My eyes cracked open finally and took in the scene before me. And I smiled.

Nighttime on Anusha's hill.

Flowers and grass danced below as the wind flowed over the earth. The stars were high and warm today, sparkling like fairy lights on a black velvet blanket. I was high up enough that the light pollution from Camp didn't affect the visibility of the night sky. I yawned and rubbed my eyes to clear them one more time.

"Took you long enough, my dear," joked a woman's voice. I screamed in shock and fell backward, catching myself before I hit my head on the base of the statue behind me.

"Who's there?!" I yelled, calling the green smoke of plague to my hands to hold off any possible attacker.

A woman wearing a chiton under Greek armor stepped forward from behind the statue and stood in front of me, a soft smile on her lips. She removed her red-tipped helmet and stood tall, letting her hair flow freely in the wind. The woman chuckled. "Put that away. I'm not here to hurt you." Only after she spoke again did I notice how her voice echoed even though there was little space between us. And her outline was fuzzy, almost unnoticeable. She seemed like she was shifting between this reality and another with how glowy and nearly transparent she appeared.

"You aren't?"

She laughed, shaking her head. "No. I am here to guide you."

I frowned. "My dad didn't say anything about that. You look nothing like my sister."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Obviously. No, I am not your sister. I am her namesake."

Uhhhh.

"Anusha means light or something. And it's an Indian name. You don't look Indian."

She sighed, rubbing her temples. "Just like your sister. Child, I am Epipole of Carystus. Your sister was called Travestí for most of her life because she chose to carry on my legacy. She used my knives and made them a family heirloom for generations of plague-bringers after her."

I stared. "You're supposed to be dead, though!"

She grinned. "Heroes aren't bound by the same laws of humanity as normal humans or demigods. Besides, this was Tlatoany Castillo's dying wish."

"Wait, what?"

Epipole hummed. "May I sit with you?" Nodding, I scooted over to give her space. She continued her explanation. "In her first summer at this camp, Anusha dealt with much suffering. Her mother stopped speaking to her, she had to deal with the embarrassment and fear of her powers, and she couldn't eat any real food for two weeks. After she got a handle on her abilities, she then attempted to bring Reginald leBlanc out of a coma. Things settled a bit, but someone tried to kill her best friend Tlatoany. She didn't take it lightly. You'll read about the event in the book she wrote for you and your other plague-bringing siblings. She lost her sense of right and wrong because of the murder attempt. Tlatoany asked that I be allowed to leave the Underworld to guide and protect you just like Zelos, her maternal grandfather, guided and protected her during her first quest."

I looked down. "Tlatoany asked for this?"

Epipole nodded, smiling softly. "Quite a kind young man. He feared her anger during that time. She was so hateful towards the person who tried to kill him. He wanted to ensure that the loved ones of her descendants never had to deal with that kind of fright. It's painful to be so hurt and angry."

It took a moment for me to understand, but Epipole just kept silent before speaking again. "She outlived them, you know. Anusha. Reginald died first. His speed abilities caused him many chronic issues, and he passed in his sleep. Tlatoany lived to the ripe age of ninety but eventually died due to sickness. Anusha was unable to heal him, and that haunted her until she died. I think it was just his time. Anusha lived to be one hundred and three years old when she died."

I gaped. "No way!" That surprised me. No one ever talks about the heroes after they get old (because they usually don't, which is sad), so this seemed crazy to me. "A hundred and three? Even though her powers were about disease and suffering?"

She smirked. "That which you can cause, you can also undo. She kept herself alive so she could finish the book and feel like she did everything she wanted to do in life."

I bit my lip. "How'd she die?"

Epipole hummed. "Peacefully. She brought her child and Apollo and her other living relatives to Delos and died in her father's arms, cradling her child in her own."

I nearly blacked out. No one said ANYTHING about her having a child!

The heroine chuckled. "Calm yourself, little one. She didn't tell anyone except her half-siblings from Camp about her baby. It's not odd that you don't know."

"I-Is her child still alive?"

"Mmhm. Indeed. Alive and healthy. She's turning one hundred years old next week."

My heart thundered in my chest, and hope lit inside me like a bonfire. "I need to meet her!"

She hummed. "Ask your father. Apollo will certainly take you to her. But I'm not sure how willing she would be to meet you. The girl resented her mother for not telling anyone of her existence when I saw her fifty years ago, but she may have changed." That was not okay. Maybe it was just my personal bias, but I was upset that Anusha's only daughter resented her mom. Why would anyone resent the reason they exist?

"Of course, maybe it was because people only knew her as the daughter of the plague-bringer, but Anusha never let people say that around her. She made sure everyone knew her baby's name."

A weird thought popped into my head then. "So, Anusha, Tlatoany, and Reginald were all together in one relationship, right?"

Epipole raised a curious eyebrow. "Yes."

"And they did do the adult things, right?"

She snorted. "Yes."

"Then who was the dad of Anusha's baby? Because there are two men in that relationship."

Epipole laughed hard, tossing her head back. "Oh goodness. Tlatoany was the father. The conception was something of an accident in early adulthood. I believe Anusha was in her early twenties. The boys knew she had never planned on having kids. She made that clear to them early on. But when she discovered she was pregnant, she claimed it as her responsibility. Even if she didn't want to go through with it, she knew it was important. Tlatoany had no living relatives left, and it was important to her that his bloodline lived on. She herself had cousins who were married with kids, and so did Reginald. But Tlatoany had no one, and she felt it was her duty to make sure the pregnancy continued to give him that opportunity and maintain his bloodline. The pregnancy itself was a huge stress for the three of them. I do not believe they were naturally suited to being good parents. But they learned and tried their best, and their daughter grew up to be a wonderful woman. And yes. Reginald also raised her. It was a three-person effort."

I grinned. "That's kinda cute."

She smirked. "Just make sure you don't do any 'adult things' this early in life."

My face heated up as if I'd just eaten a chili pepper. "I am fourteen, and I don't like adult things! You don't need to advise against it." She snickered and patted my back.

"Of course, of course. Forgive me for the mistake, little one," the heroine teased with a grin.

I looked away and sighed. "Besides. Not really that easy to find love when I don't know if I even want it."

She hummed and nodded. "Understandable. Valid. Is this from fear of the unknown? Residual trauma or discomfort from past experiences? Or from actual lack of attraction? Because all three are fine if those apply to you."

I gazed at her carefully, raising an eyebrow. "Aren't you just a guide?"

Epipole wrapped an arm around me gently. "My dear, think of me as a relative or lifelong friend. I'm here to help you through life, and that means all of it. Whether it's relationships with friends, issues with finding a career, or how to handle crises as a plague-bringer."

I smiled softly. "Thank you. And how are you so updated with modern knowledge? I thought you died a really really long time ago."

She snorted. "Your predecessor and her beloveds made sure they spent as much time as possible teaching me about the new world. And it's hard to not learn when so many people in Elysium come from all years and periods and places of human existence."

"That's cool." I looked down and spoke softly, trying to rein in my anger. "But I have a deep question for you." Epipole merely smiled. I met her eyes, trying to express as much of my confusion and upsetness as I could manage. "How could Anusha's daughter hate her? Anusha did so much for her and for everyone else. She's a hero. And her mother. How could her daughter hate the reason she exists?"

Epipole smiled more sadly. "Anusha was, to her daughter, a bigger-than-life kind of character. Since childhood, the girl idolized and adored her. Anusha wanted to be the best mother she could be because the woman who raised her was actually abusing her and wasn't her real mother. She only knew how to handle kids from that experience, and she feared becoming that woman. She avoided many things to not hurt her daughter. She avoided the child, for a few months out of sheer terror. Her darlings cared for the baby as best they could. But she figured she couldn't handle things by running away, something she learned from Reginald, and she faced the whole issue headfirst. She was active in her self-checks and parenting. And her daughter loved her dearly. It was when her daughter was in her twenties that she began resenting her. Anusha did her best, but her daughter felt like she didn't have any chance to find out who she was because everyone only knew her as 'the plague-bringer's daughter'."

I frowned. "She avoided her own kid? Yeah, that's not okay. I get why her daughter disliked her. I don't think I would love my dad if he avoided me.."

"Indeed. It is wrong. But she was afraid, and when she's fearful, she runs." The heroine hummed, chuckling to herself. "Anusha, Tlatoany, and Reginald fought and argued for several years because their daughter preferred her fathers to her mother because she didn't feel overshadowed by her fathers. Anusha was always heartbroken about this. But she died happily, knowing her daughter was the greatest woman she had ever met."

"What?" This was weird to hear. I really couldn't understand what was going on in this story.

Epipole nodded, rolling her eyes. "I do think the fighting was petty and childish, but those three were navigating new ground. They figured it out eventually, but the feud between mother and daughter lasted so many years. Nearly thirty." I choked on my spit. "Now, that was on and off, but it still was thirty years before they got along again, I think. I feared what would happen between the girls, but Anusha loved her daughter more than life when she passed. And it was her daughter that shed as many tears as Apollo upon her death. Apollo mourned with his grandchild, mourned the loss of his eldest plague-bringer to date."

I had to take a breath and then speak. This was so much to hear. "You said she died with her daughter in her arms, right?"

She nodded.

"Then they got along. I think they did." I wanted to think they did. But actions can be just as deceiving as words or appearances. After many minutes of silence, I asked the one question that plagued me (pun intended!) since I learned about Anusha. "Why do they always call her the plague-bringer? There were others before her, so why do people act like she's the first one or the most important one?"

My guide and mentor stiffened, hands wringing together. She sighed and let out a slow exhale. "It's not a good story, dear. But I won't sweeten it for you. It's because the ones before her were killed. Savagely."

My heart froze. "What?"

Epipole's face turned to steel in the starlight. "Anusha was the first plague-bringer to be born in nearly seven hundred years. The ones before her lived until the Black Death began. People found out the plague-bringers were the source of it and slaughtered all of them. Any time one of them discovered their powers, they would die. The youngest was six. The oldest was eighteen. No plague-bringer lived over the age of eighteen. All of them were gone by the time the Black Death began spreading."

I felt the bile rise in my throat. My stomach churned. I dared to ask another question. "Why didn't anyone stop this?"

She laughed humorlessly, darkness and depression filling her tone. She didn't even look at me when saying this. "Who would? Olympus let this happen."

A sob forced its way out of my throat. "And Apollo…?" I amended my words. "And my dad?"

The woman took a calming breath of air, which seemed unnecessary. Why would a ghost need to breathe? "He suffered. He inspired the Renaissance out of pain. As an attempt to heal after all of his depression."

Tears streamed down my cheeks before I could stop them. "How could they do this to him?"

She whispered back, "Because they chose humanity over his happiness and his children."

I cried in the silence of her heartache, and I didn't know what to do with myself. I wiped away my tears like I read Anusha would do. It did make me feel better. My eyes wandered up to the sky. The same sky she watched every night on her quests, during her rests, in her joy and sadness and peace. "Did Olympus ever try to kill her?"

Epipole's dim smile became a proud grin. "Once."

Her excited expression confused me. "Uhhh, why are you so happy about that?"

She laughed. "Not happiness. Arrogant pride. I loved what she did that day."

My interest was piqued. "What happened, exactly?"

Epipole nodded. "Of course, you'll read about it in the book, but I'll tell it to you shortly. They wanted to accuse her of a crime she didn't commit. She gave them an ultimatum."

I gaped.

"No way."

"Yes way." Epipole smirked. "She told them that if they tried to smite her right there in the throne room, her death would kill Tlatoany and Reginald who were right beside her. And if they tried to smite her on Earth, her death would cause a global epidemic bigger than the combination of all the plagues of human history. Because they allowed humans to kill off the previous plague-bringers, none of them had any idea if it was accurate or not. So, out of begrudging fear, they let her go."

I snickered through the tears. "Beautiful. Poetic justice."

"Truly. Well, I'd better leave for now. Sunlight is not my friend, even if it is yours. I'll see you again soon, little mouse." And with that, she disappeared into the night, leaving me at the foot of my dead sister's statue, her autobiography/memoir laid beside me. I looked up at her form and sighed. "Please tell me you were good to Apollo."

It said nothing, obviously, because it's marble and steel and paint, but I felt a familiar warmth wash over me. And I cried again. Because I knew exactly what it was. I knew exactly what had happened. Anusha was still with me. She had seen me as a baby. She saw me grow up. And she was with me now, if not physically, at least emotionally or spiritually. And that made me cry. My sister had never left me, even though I never saw her.

How could fate be so cruel? It took her from me before I could meet her, and now, it prevents me from ever meeting her, assuming she was in the Underworld.

But one thing was clear to me when I looked up at her form, the shadow of the statue falling away as the morning sun kissed its head and face slowly. Anusha was in my life now. She was a part of me that wouldn't leave. And if I wanted to do good in my life, I had to keep her close to my heart. I had to let her legacy live on, just like she let Epipole's legacy live on in her.