Chapter 29 Nyssa #3
“And,” he added with a grin, “we have certain resources that Kronos has never even heard of. Projects our tinkerers and technicians have been working on for decades—”
“Like tasers?” our resident taser-boy cut in.
Icarus chuckled. “Better than tasers.”
This time, I allowed my facade to crack open, hinting at what lay just beneath the surface.
Death smiled. “Excellent.”
King Crestos of Theris spoke next, eyeing Demeter with earnestness. “The Lady Demeter has chosen to ally with you and we shall do the same. I’ll not betray my goddess as long as I live, let alone while she sits mere feet from me.”
Demeter gifted the man with a rare, radiant smile, twisting my heart when I wondered if my mother’s had looked the same. “Thank you Crestos. Although, if anyone had reason to defy me, it would be you.”
Crestos’ suntanned skin wrinkled in amusement, cheeks reddening as he chuckled. “Yes. Well. A touch of frosted bollocks never did stop a farmer from harvesting what he is able.”
At this, Demeter snorted unceremoniously. “Crestos, I caught you — quite literally — with your pants down. One second you were enjoying a nice summer… release” — she clicked her fingers — “The next, you almost lost the entirety of your nether-regions!”
Muffled laughter sounded around the table, growing louder when one person locked eyes with another as each of them fought desperately to remain regal, while a goddess was referring to a king’s dick.
While I, too, found it eternally amusing, no laughter spilled from my lips. I was too absorbed in the mathematics of what they had said. My head turned sharply in Demeter’s direction when I realised.
Her green eyes were already on me, as though she had been waiting for that particular epiphany.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Almost thirty-one years ago, a winter so sharp and deadly exploded across the lands during the height of summer. Unfortunately, King Crestos was, at the time, exercising his proclivity to work with his people — harvesting crops of sorghum in a bid to beat the coming heatwave.”
“No need for that, in the end,” Crestos added. “Even more unfortunately, though, was the fact that I was mid-piss when it happened.”
“Crestos!” His wife, Queen Kassandra, admonished with a slap to his forearm.
“It’s quite alright,” Demeter intervened with a laugh. “This is not the first time such a conversation has been had.”
“And you’d be hard-pressed to find a more vulgar group than Olympians,” I quipped.
“Hey, now!” Aros cut in. “I think you’d find that gods of the Underworld can be even more lascivious than us. A certain queen, for instance, knowing the lyrics to a bawdy bard’s song,” he added with a wink.
Caelus chuckled, the sound warm and deep in his chest. “You know, I played a game of two truths and a lie with a ferryman recently.” His eyes glittered with the knowledge of what he was about to say next. “One of his statements was that he’d once had a foursome with two naiads and a demi-god—”
“Gross,” I muttered around the instant lump of vomit lingering somewhere around my tonsils.
“And I’m inclined to believe that was one of his truths.”
Aros belted out a laugh, overtaking Aph’s old wench cackle and Hestia’s surprised hum. Even Diana, as unfamiliar with Charon as the mortals, burst out with a dainty giggle.
“Knowing that particular ferryman, it was absolutely the truth,” I admitted with a grimace, my gaze snagging on the uncharacteristically bright blush staining the cheeks of the only demi-god in our midst.
Oh, I’m even more certain now. And horrendously curious how that particular scenario would play out.
Perhaps you should ask her, Vel chimed in.
A loud clearing of a throat interrupted the melee. Somehow, I’d actually forgotten about the one monarch who had yet to answer. The biggest of the mortals, and yet somehow smallest in character.
“Strathos remains neutral,” Arius began. When I raised a solitary brow, he cocked his jaw and continued. “We know not where our god is—”
“Makes two of us,” Aros grumbled.
“—and until such time as he is accounted for, we will not choose either way.” He rose, tucking his gilded helmet beneath one arm.
“And it is clear that you do not believe we are not providing him sanctuary.
So: we invite you to journey with us to our lands, to meet our people, to learn our customs. Get to know us.
“Our prayers have long since been unanswered. Perhaps you could alleviate some of them whilst you are there.”
“You mean to extort us,” I growled. “Our blessings for your warriors.”
The prickly bastard had the audacity to lift his chin. “We request that you consider granting our people certain commodities — as is within your power — in exchange for our consideration on which side of this war Strathos will stand.”
What do you think? I asked my storm-wielder.
I don’t think we have much of an option. We need their warriors if we’re to stand a chance.
And if we don’t?
Then they are who we will come up against in the battles to come. They are who our mortal allies will have to cut down.
No contest then.
No contest, he agreed.
Behind the king, an ink black shape appeared, flickering and shimmering in the waning light.
“After you, then,” I declared, gesturing to the shadowgate.
He spun around, jerking backwards in horror. “I’m not going through that thing! It probably leads to Tartarus!”
“As warranted as that option might have been, that is no gate to Tartarus. You’ll meet that one soon enough. It’s much prettier,” I added with a wink. “This one leads to the portal in the Temple of Ares.”
Arius’ toes curled visibly in his sandals, apprehension coiling his every muscle.
“If you cannot brave a doorway made of shadows, why then should we count on your warriors to be of any use against monsters dredged from your darkest nightmares?” I seethed.
The hit landed as intended. The Strathos king’s ego had his posture straightening and fists clenching. He shoved his helm down on his head and unsheathed the sword hanging at his waist.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “But I’ll not do it unarmed.”
I bit my lip to contain the laugh that threatened to undo me. One thought about how badly he would startle the priests on the other end of the gateway and I almost dissolved in a fit of amusement.
The king marched through and vanished from sight. His warriors jolted after him but Aros only allowed two to pass.
“Tsk, tsk,” he tutted. “The rest of you will have to take the long way home. Someone has to man your warship, after all.”
After a moment’s hesitation — and a glare from the war god whose amber eyes blazed to life as he waited — they turned on their heels and fled, which broke the dam of my restrained laughter.
I giggled watching them go, stumbling over their own sandals and tripping each other with their spears.
Just when the laughter had subsided, I mistakenly locked eyes with Aphrodite across the table, and it burst free anew. With both of us snorting and cackling like mad old women, the mortals seemed torn between reluctant amusement and sheer horror at the ungodliness of the sounds.
Laughter like that — loud and with reckless abandon — was like wildfire. Kindled by an instant, by one small flicker of mirth, it spread little by little, catching one soul at a time until everything was alight.
As Aphrodite and I both tried and failed to rein it in, it inevitably spread.
First with one, then two, then all. Even the beasts could not resist — not when Aphrodite was issuing out waves of desire laced with relentless hilarity.
The only thing that could bring a halt to the madness was a hefty dose of reality. And with divine timing, it came.
With all the subtlety of a minotaur in lingerie, Charon blinked into existence two feet in front of me.
“Nyssa!” he bellowed, flickering between various states of transparency.
“Fuck!” I shouted, moving into an ingrained defensive stance. With fists still raised before the lower half of my face and shadow serpents twined around them ready to lend their strength, I cursed again. “You startled me!”
A ghost of a smirk pulled at his lips, but he didn’t allow it to settle. “We need you at the arches.”
I dropped my hands, sending the shadows slithering across the ground to form a doorway instead. Princess Kallista squealed as an errant serpent slithered across her toes before angling back around and melting into the gate.
“What is it?” I asked quietly, aware of several sets of piercing gazes, probably questioning the state of my sanity at this very moment.
“They’ve finished the repairs, and our strength is waning. I hope you’ve got that solution you promised. And mind your feet,” he added, shooting said feet a dirty look. “Your stance is too narrow and your weight is too far back. If I was corporeal, I’d have you on your ass already.”
I glared right back. “If you were corporeal, you’d beg for the reprieve of the ground once I was done—”
“Insult later, arches now,” Charon interrupted, a sense of urgency lacing his tone. He shooed me toward the shadowgate, hands passing through my skin, leaving only an odd coldness behind.
I turned to Caelus, torn between two warring, time-sensitive tasks.
“You go with Charon, I’ll go to Strathos. We’ll meet back in Athenos afterwards,” he offered, resolve straightening his spine even as reluctance tempered the bond between us. It hung like a dark cloud behind my sternum, interlaced with my frosty indecision.
Caelus grasped my face with a gentle hand, bringing his head closer to mine. “You have to go, Nightshade. No one else has the power or the mind to fix those arches. And someone has to join King Arius or he’ll see it as a slight and go off to Kronos just to spite us.”
I bit my lip, unwilling to say the words and make the declaration that would separate us in the middle of a war.
He responded by kissing them. Deeply and entirely uncaring of our audience.
“Go,” he whispered.
Reluctantly, I nodded. “Aros, go with Caelus.”
“But—”
“Aros. If anyone is going to win over the warriors of Strathos, it’s going to be their next ruling Primal. We need them.”
He inhaled deeply, undoubtedly about to launch into a tirade when Evie cut in before he could utter so much as a syllable.
“I’ll go with our queen.” And though she shared almost every characteristic as her brother, no joviality split her face into a grin.
No mirth shone in her eyes. “I meant every word of my oath, too, brother. I’ll not let you down.
Go with our king” — she shot Caelus a wink startling him so badly I almost lost it again — “and win over our people.”
Aros still looked unconvinced — torn between two opposing sets of duties. In the end, though, he relented, opting to take Haras, Erato, and, strangely, Diana with him.
“I’m coming with you,” Aphrodite announced as she walked to my side.
“Aph—”
“Nyss. Don’t coddle me. I’m old enough to be your grandmother.”
Demeter — my actual grandmother — raised one blonde brow.
“If things go wrong, this could be the last chance I get to see Archimedes and Hephaestus alive.” Her sapphire gaze pierced mine. “I need to see hi— them. I need to see them.”
And as if genealogy played a part in subconscious physical responses, just like my grandmother, I raised a brow. “Alright, then.”
Charon dissipated before my eyes.
I squeezed Caelus’ hand thrice before relinquishing it and approached the shadowgate, Aphrodite and Evadne in tow.
I love you too, he sent. Be safe.
You as well. I swear to the Fates, if I have to come and save your ass, I’ll do it, but I’m going to be very pissed at them.
He chuckled. As if you aren’t already.
Valid point. I’ll see you soon, Golden.
I miss you already, Nightshade.
And with one final glance over my shoulder, we parted, in the middle of a titan-damned war, unsure when — or even if — we would see each other again.