7. Nyssa #2
“Oh really? Then explain why you thought it was a brilliant idea to go rolling down a hill?—”
The sound of shifting sand cut his sentence short as the creature from my nightmares crested the top of the drift.
“I was running from that ,” I said, conjuring my shadow blade once again.
“What the fuck is it?” The Lord of Lightning asked, his eyes widening as a note of the same fear I felt tainted his tone.
“A literal nightmare.”
“Care to elaborate?” he questioned, drawing his own weapon as the creature barrelled towards us.
“Amphisbaena. Giant, two-headed serpent.” My eyes flicked to him briefly, noting his solid defensive stance. “Can’t be killed by cutting it in half,” I tacked on.
“I take it you tried.”
“Yup.”
We both leapt aside as the snake hit the bottom, and I struck out, slicing its side as it rolled by. The beast relinquished its second head, both rising high into the air, hissing at us.
“What’s the plan?” Caelus yelled over the menacing sound.
“I have no fucking idea,” I replied sharply. “Outrunning it apparently doesn’t work either.”
Caelus dodged a striking head — the one with the injured eye — as the other leered at me, counterbalancing its twin.
“Your doing?” he asked, gesturing at the still-bleeding eye.
“Yes. It’s about the only thing that has worked.”
“Perfect! Let’s go with that!”
“With what?”
“Go for their eyes!” he yelled, striking out at his serpent’s remaining eye and narrowly missing. It lunged again, still trying desperately to eat him.
“Watch out for the fangs!” I yelled. “The venom will turn your skin to stone!”
“It won’t kill me, though,” he shouted back, but thankfully dodged the beast’s snapping jaws.
“Maybe not, but who the fuck do you think is going to come save your golden ass from the maws of this thing?”
“Well, you, hopefully!”
“That only works if I can actually kill it!”
Caelus darted forwards, stabbing at the underside of the serpent’s chin. His sword pierced straight through, poking out the top of its snout — only succeeding in making the beast angrier.
“That’s not its eye…”
“No, but I don’t see you contributing anything, oh dark one!”
My serpent head hung back, watching me hungrily, a keen intelligence in its gaze. It snapped at the other, hissing quietly, as though it were whispering.
“I think it can understand us…” I murmured.
“What?!”
“Look. They’re communicating.”
Unfathomably, the heads hissed in tandem, jerking towards us and then away. I didn’t know what it was saying, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t bode well for us.
“New plan. Do your powers work out here?” I asked quietly.
“Yes. Don’t yours?” He raised a single white brow pointedly.
And pointedly, I ignored it.
“Strike a head,” I whispered. “Do it now!”
“It’s not that easy to just hit a moving target!”
“Oh dear, does the princeling have trouble with his aim?” I taunted.
Caelus scowled.
A static buzz filled the air as electricity flickered at his fingertips. I smirked — my goading had worked.
Now if he could use that drive to prove himself and actually hit his target.
I willed my sword to shift into something smaller, something I could throw. Seconds later, I was palming a single black dagger in my right hand.
“Neat trick,” Caelus grinned.
“It comes in handy. Ten silver drachma says I can take down my head before you get yours.” I grinned right back.
“Ten gold says you don’t,” he winked, then flicked his right hand forwards, releasing a blinding white bolt of pure electricity at the beast’s injured head.
He missed.
“Oh, so that’s how we’re playing? Cheating?” I prowled sideways, never breaking eye contact with my own watchful serpent head.
“All’s fair in love and war!” Caelus called out, laughing as he dodged another vicious strike.
“I never understood that ridiculous mortal saying,” I shouted back, sidestepping a swipe. “And this is neither love, nor war!”
“Not yet,” he grinned at me over the scarred middle of the hideous beast.
I fought the urge to laugh. Fought to hide how much I was enjoying this dance of wit, albeit a dangerous one.
Then Caelus landed a direct hit. His lightning struck the exact same place I’d cut earlier, and his half of the beast dropped to the ground with a lifeless thud.
He preened, placing his hands on his hips with a pleased smirk, while I darted trying to avoid the thrashing of the remaining serpent’s head.
It hissed in agony, striking blindly. When it snapped at the empty air beside me with its eyes clenched shut, I stabbed down, fast and hard, putting the beast out of its misery.
My dagger faded into nothingness, no longer needed.
The amphisbaena lay still, its massive body strewn haphazardly across the sandy valley.
“I guess I owe you ten coins, then.”
“I guess you do,” he said with a mischievous grin, sidling up to me. “ Gold ones. I’ll come to collect at a later date.” He winked, leaning in far too close for comfort.
I backed up a few paces, wiping the crimson blood off my hands and glared at the storm-wielding god. Caelus’ brows flickered minutely, but the smile remained plastered across his maddeningly agreeable face.
“No need. I’ll have them sent to your palace when I return home.”
Turning away, I started striding up the next dune, hoping there weren’t too many more hills to climb in the rapidly fading light. To my eternal disappointment, Caelus’ long, leather-clad legs caught up to mine easily, trudging beside me like this was a casual stroll and not a trek through hell.
“Let me guess, you’re also headed west?” I asked, disdain souring my tone. He was the son of a murderer. And my mother had been the victim. I would not let myself forget whose son he was.
“Yes. That was the direction I was going when you so rudely toppled me over,” he quipped, quirking that infuriating brow.
“I didn’t…” I huffed, throwing my hands in the air. My boots dug harder into the sand with each step.
“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” he said, lips pressed firmly together in a pitiful attempt to smother his amusement.
“I’m pretty all the time. You just happened to notice while I’m angry,” I snapped, frowning. Of all the champions to have slammed into, it had to be him. The cocky son of Zeus, with a smile that was a little too charming. A different kind of armour, but armour nonetheless.
Caelus huffed a small laugh, like it had slipped out before he could catch it.
At last, I crested the dune, squinting into the full glare of the sun. Raising a hand to shade my eyes, I tried to gauge just how far we had to go.
Far in the distance, I could just make out what looked like an enormous yellow pillar rising from the carpet of red sand. It was hard to determine exactly what it was — a building? A tree? A mirage?
Only one way to find out.
Grudgingly, I slunk down the back of the hillock, mouth dry as bone.
“Thirsty?” Caelus licked a stray drop of water from his sinful lip and held out a brown leather waterskin — an olive branch from a tree he had no business cutting from.
I sighed. None of this was his fault. He didn’t thrust the dagger into my mother’s heart — he would have been all of, what? One? Two? It didn’t matter.
But that didn’t mean I trusted him.
I couldn’t.
I narrowed my eyes at the suspicious offering, reaching for it slowly, carefully. Meticulously, I wrapped my pale fingers around the hide so as not to brush up against his. I raised it to my nose, sniffing at the contents.
He huffed another laugh, this time a little more on the exasperated side. “I’m not going to poison you.”
“That’s exactly what a poisoner would say,” I replied, raising a brow.
“Did I not just drink from the very same waterskin?” He mimicked my action and raised a brow of his own.
I pursed my lips, torn. I couldn’t smell anything untoward, and he had just drunk from it himself. Sure, he could have any number of antidotes writhing through his system, but my desperate thirst won out.
I tipped it back, taking only a mouthful before returning it with a muttered thanks. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it would have to do, at least until I made it out of this gods-damned desert.
“Shall we?” Caelus gestured towards the horizon, the sun perched like it was sitting happily in his palm.
“Fine. But only because it would be redundant to hike a mile sideways just to escape you, when we’ll end up in the same place anyway,” I snapped.
The heat and the brightness had already shoved me past any notion of comfort. My willingness to tolerate ego-driven gods and make small talk was well and truly below zero.
Hours of silence and miles of dunes later, the land finally began to level out.
It had been hard to see against the blinding sunlight, but as we got closer, it became apparent: Apollo stood enshrined in a pillar of golden light.
With the sun kissing the horizon behind him, he appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be its heart.
Light rippled off him in radiant waves, alive with power and heat we could feel even from a mile away.
The sun cast long shadows across the burning sand, but none dared touch Apollo.
“Guess we picked the right direction,” Caelus offered, inanely. I rolled my eyes and shuffled forwards with all the grace of an onocentaur.
My left forearm burned — a souvenir from the amphisbaena. I’d done my best to hide it from Caelus, but the longer we hiked, the more control I lost over my hand.
By the time we reached Apollo’s pillar, my arm was useless. The serpent’s venom had only sprayed my skin, but that had been enough. It seeped into my pores. Slowly and agonisingly, I felt the venom’s burn crawl up my arm, turning my skin to stone.
I had to get home before I was completely encased. Charon would know what to do and where to locate an anti-venom. I was running out of time, though.
We stopped directly before the column of light. It appeared unbreachable, save for the multiple sets of track marks leading through it, suggesting otherwise. Apollo remained still, eyes closed, brows drawn — like he was concentrating with everything he had… or like it was killing him to do so.
Was this his trial, then? Withstanding and maintaining his own power for as long as it took us to find him?
Guilt tickled the back of my neck.
I wished we’d been quicker, that we hadn’t wasted time duelling a mythical creature I hoped never to encounter again. The heat radiating from the pillar felt like a hearth fire — I didn’t even want to imagine the temperature within.
I turned my head, looking up into the silvery eyes of the storm-wielder beside me, his irises reflecting the glow of Apollo’s power. He met my gaze with the same guilt-ridden intensity.
“Together?” he asked softly, his breath brushing across my cheek.
“Together.” I nodded once, ignoring his outstretched fingers.
We each lifted a foot and passed through the resisting wall of light… into agony.