A month of clandestine training transformed Donatos in ways both subtle and profound.
Each night, he slipped away to his secret sanctuary by the river, pushing his evolving body to increasingly impossible limits. Each morning, he returned to his mundane duties, the perfect illusion of servitude masking the growing divinity beneath.
"Higher," he demanded of himself, leaping from the riverbank to a towering pine. His first attempts had left him grasping at lower branches; now he landed gracefully atop the very crown, the slender trunk barely bending beneath his weight.
"Again. Faster."
He dropped to the ground, the impact creating a small crater that he immediately smoothed away with a gesture. No evidence could remain of his nightly activities.
"One hundred," he counted, completing a set of one-armed handstand push-ups, his body perfectly vertical, not a tremor in his extended arm despite the boulder balanced on his feet.
"Two hundred." The numbers continued, his voice never straining despite the extraordinary exertion.
The Blood of Atlas flowed through him with increasing potency, granting him strength that would have been legendary even among demigods. Boulders that once required effort now felt like pillows. Trees that once served as challenging obstacles became convenient javelins.
"Still not enough," he muttered, hurling a massive oak across the river with a casual flick of his wrist. "Not nearly enough."
His physical transformation continued beneath the perfect illusion. His divine form grew more refined, more idealized—the gold in his hair more lustrous, the blue of his eyes more hypnotic, the perfection of his features more absolute.
Aphrodite's heritage expressed itself with increasing confidence, as though his very cells remembered their true nature and rejoiced in returning to it.
Yet Donatos was careful never to exercise his more dramatic abilities. The pink lightning remained unleashed, contained within his fingertips where it occasionally made them glow subtly in moments of heightened emotion. Other powers—gifts from his divine mother that had once made him formidable even among immortals—remained dormant by his choice.
To awaken them fully might send ripples of divine energy that more sensitive gods could detect.
"Patience," he reminded himself nightly. "Power without purpose is merely spectacle."
*
By day, he cultivated a different kind of power—information. The servant's halls hummed with gossip, each whisper potentially valuable to one who knew how to listen.
"They say Lord Zeus dismissed three nymphs from his chambers yesterday," murmured a kitchen maid as she kneaded divine bread. "All because they reminded him of Lady Hera."
"Lady Athena hasn't left her workshop in six days," offered a page boy. "The guards say she's crafting something that makes the walls glow blue at midnight."
"Lord Poseidon and Lord Apollo have made some sort of wager," contributed an elderly servant who maintained the records room. "Something about the next great hero and who will claim him."
Donatos absorbed it all with the focus of a general gathering intelligence before battle.
To others, he seemed merely attentive, a pleasant servant who listened more than he spoke—a quality that made him increasingly popular among the staff, who found his silent attention flattering.
Most valuable were the fragments concerning the Olympian Academy—the prestigious institution where godlings, demigods, and other supernatural beings received their formal education in divine arts.
"All the young lords and ladies will attend this year," confided Myrto as she and Donatos folded ceremonial cloths together. "It's not optional anymore, not even for Lord Poseidon's youngest, who they say can barely control his tempests."
"Is that unusual?" Donatos asked carefully. "Making attendance compulsory?"
Myrto shrugged. "Something about standardizing divine education. Lady Athena's initiative, they say. But others whisper it's because of what happened to Lady Aphrodite's son."
Donatos's hands stilled momentarily. "Lady Aphrodite's son?"
"You haven't heard that old tragedy? Seventeen years ago, her only true-born son vanished without a trace. Some say stolen by a power even the gods fear. She's never been the same—still beautiful beyond comprehension, of course, but there's a sorrow beneath the beauty now."
"How terrible," Donatos murmured, his mind racing. "And no one knows what happened?"
"Not even Lord Zeus with all his sight could trace the child. It's why Lady Aphrodite retreats to her island so often. They say she searches still, though most believe the boy long dead or worse."
Donatos continued folding, his expression betraying nothing while his thoughts whirled with implications. A lost divine son. Seventeen years missing. The timeline aligned perfectly with his regression.
"And this relates to the Academy somehow?" he prompted gently.
"Protection, of course," Myrto said. "Gather all the important children in one place, under the combined watch of multiple deities. Safer than scattered across realms."
The conversation shifted to other matters, but Donatos's mind remained fixed on this revelation. The more he learned about his current vessel, the more the pieces aligned into a disturbing pattern.
This body—this "Donatos"—wasn't merely a random mortal shell the Forbidden Time artifact had thrust him into.
*
That night, as he trained beneath the stars, the truth crystallized with perfect clarity.
"I am him," he whispered to the silent forest. "I am Aphrodite's lost son—or rather, my soul occupies his body. A body with divine potential sealed away, waiting to be awakened."
It explained everything—why the divine essence responded so readily to his efforts, why his transformation followed patterns he recognized from his previous existence. He wasn't merely claiming divine power; he was reclaiming his birthright, though through a convoluted temporal paradox he couldn't fully unravel.
"The academy," he mused, balancing atop a slender column of stone he'd erected through sheer strength. "The perfect cover. Resources, knowledge, allies... all while hidden among other developing godlings where my growing power wouldn't seem unusual."
But how to gain entrance? As a forgotten servant, he had no standing to apply. His true identity remained hidden beneath layers of illusion and temporal displacement. Direct approaches seemed doomed to failure or, worse, exposure.
"I could reveal myself to Mother," he considered, then immediately dismissed the notion. "Too dangerous. In my previous timeline, she died protecting me. This time, I keep her ignorant for her own safety."
Night after night, as his body grew stronger and his powers more refined, the question of the academy plagued him. It represented the perfect next step in his ascension and revenge, yet the path to its hallowed halls remained obscured.
*
On the twenty-ninth day of his transformation, Donatos was assigned to clean the rarely-used eastern courtyard in preparation for an upcoming festival which was months away but perfection was to be ensured. The task was menial but isolated—perfect for contemplating his academy dilemma while maintaining his servant façade.
As he swept ancient marble steps, footsteps approached from behind—light, measured, deliberate. Not the tread of another servant, but someone who commanded space rather than inhabited it.
"You work diligently," observed a cool, feminine voice. "Most mortals would have taken the opportunity to rest when unsupervised."
Donatos turned slowly, keeping his movements appropriately deferential, his illusion firmly in place. His eyes widened slightly as he recognized his visitor.
Lady Athena stood before him, her form both militant and scholarly—armor over robes, spear in one hand and scroll in the other. Her grey eyes held the calculating intensity that had intimidated gods and heroes alike throughout the ages. Those eyes now studied him with uncomfortable thoroughness.
"My Lady honors me with her notice," Donatos said, bowing low to hide any reaction that might betray him. "I live to serve Olympus."
"Indeed." Athena circled him slowly, her expression unreadable. "You are called Donatos, yes? You've developed quite a reputation among the servant class. Efficient. Intelligent. Observant."
Warning bells clanged in Donatos's mind. No god, much less Athena herself, took notice of individual servants without purpose. Her presence was deliberate, her attention focused. Had his careful concealment somehow failed?
"I am merely one among many who serve the divine," he replied carefully.
"False modesty is a form of deception," Athena noted, her tone neutral but her gaze piercing. "My brother Apollo mentioned something curious the other day. A servant who spoke with unusual eloquence when Zeus nearly smote him for a spilled goblet. A servant who quoted Heraclitus while believing himself alone."
Donatos's mind raced. He had indeed murmured the philosopher's words during a moment of contemplation, thinking himself unobserved in an empty corridor.
A careless mistake.