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I wanted to gather her in ht and lend her whatever strength I had to give But that wasn’t me Or was it? There had been a ti her through the raw pain of losing soo, and I had been a different person then

I didn’t knoho I was today

Feeling about seven kinds of aard and knowing several eyes were on us, I dropped my hand "Are you okay, Josie? You ready for this?"

She nodded again, and after a few seconds, she spoke "I can carry so, I turned toward the gaping gate "Stick close to me"

Josie listened as we made our way across the ht, I wondered if she could see the etchings in the stone--the glyphs and drawings of the ancient gods, or see the very sas carved into the inner walls

As we passed under the archway, under the scrutiny of Sentinels who see faster than we could walk, I heard her ragged exhale "Holy good Lord," she whispered as she looked around, getting her first good look at one of our Covenants

It had to be so to see for the first ti Greek, spreading between two mountain peaks Froant, hand-chiseled statues, to the colus, it was like ancient Greece had thrown up all over the valley

Courtyards filled with every flower known to the row in South Dakota, but did inside the Covenant walls due to so to h walls of the Courtyards tapered off She was staring at the statues

"There used to be twelve of the up at the marble likenesses of the core Olympians "Looks like they tore down Ares’s statue Can’t really bla, well over ten feet, and each probably weighed a ton They lined the ay And then there were the stone Muses, guarding the entrance to each acaderound like skyscrapers, lights glittering from s, and I knew fro facilities and cos that were full of every modern convenience one could come up with

"How in the world do people not know this is here?" she asked, looking everywhere all at once

"Planes don’t fly over the area Never have And those who have seen it think it’s soe with really exclusive admission criteria" I shifted the strap on my shoulder "Mortals see what they want to see Never what’s really there"

She looked at