9. Nyssa #2
And with those parting words, the goddess strode over to the portal archway, placed her hand upon its marble column, and summoned the location of her trial.
Unlike the first challenge, today every champion had been deposited in the same location: the outskirts of a dark and haunting forest. Fog clung to the barren trees like a lover’s caress, their pale, smooth trunks dotted with grey lichen.
Their branches, brittle and bare, home to neither animal nor fruit.
It was only when I paused to examine the skeletal trees — stepping closer and brushing my fingertips against their strange bark — that I realised just how accurate my initial assessment had been. There was no bark. Only an unyielding, smooth surface.
Each tree in view was made entirely of bones. Real, weathered, fragmenting bones.
Some stood like giant fingers stretching towards the sky. Others bowed low to the ashen earth. And some grew as ribcages, arching over the paths like pale cages.
“Please tell me they’re not what I think they are?” Aphrodite whispered to my left.
“She can’t, because they are,” Aros said, grimacing. His tone was grim and unusually sombre.
I nodded once. “Bones.”
Footsteps echoed softly around the forest as champions disbursed, each finding their own path to the Tree of Threnos. The forest offered no clues — paths branched off in every direction, and it was anyone’s guess which led to the right tree, or even what it looked like.
Once again, I locked eyes with a pair of silver ones. Caelus’ expression was unreadable, but he stepped forward as if to approach.
Nope. Not dealing with that lust-bucket right now.
I turned sharply and chose a path at random, my boots falling silently upon the grey earth. Unfortunately, I wasn’t alone. Heat prickled along the back of my neck and I knew someone was following me. I had hoped the storm-wielder could take a hint.
I halted abruptly, smirking when I heard a startled curse coming from the god who’d almost ploughed into my back.
Aros toppled to my right with a quiet ‘oof — fuck,’ landing on the soot-covered ground.
My lips pursed in an attempt to lock down my amusement.
Thankfully, Caelus was nowhere to be seen.
“Falling for me already, are you, Aros?” I teased as he stood, brushing himself off.
The god in question straightened. Unfortunately, this meant he had positioned himself a whole foot taller than me. His amber eyes flickered, lit from within, as he leaned in, his face mere inches from mine. I could feel the heat of his breath tickling the shell of my ear.
“Hmm,” he murmured. “I’d say it’s less ‘falling’ and more ‘surrendering to you like a good soldier.’”
A giggle, light and lyrical, trilled through the air before I could respond. It hadn’t come from my own lips, but from another who thrived in flirtation.
Aphrodite.
She covered her mouth with a dainty hand, her wide cerulean eyes flicking between the two of us. Though she sauntered over casually, I knew her too well to miss the tremor in her fingers. She was afraid. And she was alone — two things the goddess of love rarely had to be.
“Walk with me,” I offered.
A flash of relief crossed her face before her sultry mask slid back into place.
“Only if the surrendered soldier can tag along.” Her lips split into a crooked grin.
To my surprise, Aros mirrored her amusement, shrugging.
“If the lady allows it.” He sketched a jovial bow and moved aside to let us pass.
“As long as he’s quiet,” I sighed, knowing neither of them would leave me alone today.
He mimed the act of gagging himself, much to Aphrodite’s delight. She waggled her eyebrows at me suggestively.
“Forests aren’t the only places gags come in handy,” she winked, then gestured for me to go ahead.
I took the lead, following the untrodden path between the ivory bone trees.
Aros took up the rear, sandwiching Aphrodite between us.
We moved slowly through the forest for a while, but a growing sense of impending doom perched upon my shoulders, as if something might jump out and attack us at any moment.
My gaze darted between the trees, my pulse spiking every time I thought I caught movement within them.
When Aphrodite broke the silence sometime later, I startled, whirling on her with a shadow dagger drawn.
“It’s so silent,” she’d said, eyes widening when she noticed the blade inches from her eyeball. I grimaced, immediately withdrawing the weapon, mouthing an apology. A blush stained my cheeks and my heart pounded so loudly I could hear it in my eardrums.
“Dare I say… dead silent?” Aros quipped, breaking the awkward tension, and grinning with pride at his awful joke.
Aphrodite groaned, and I rolled my eyes.
“What? I get nothing for that?” he cried. My traitorous heartbeat continued thumping loudly, though its rhythm had slowed.
“It was good!” he tried again.
Now wait just a Furies-damned second.
“Shh!” I hissed.
The beat I could hear was far too slow to be my own. I pressed my fingers to my wrist. Sure enough, it still danced to a staccato beat — inaudible.
So, what was making the noise, then?
Another faint thump echoed through the forest, then another, five seconds later.
Th-thump.
Th-thump.
I tried to pinpoint the source, but the beat bounced off every pale surface.
Aph opened her mouth to speak?—
Th-thump.
Th-thump.
“Shh!” I said again, frowning as my eyes darted around the forest.
Aros stalked forwards, his own scanning the woods. I shot him a look that I hoped conveyed: “You can hear it too? ”
He nodded once.
Weapons drawn, and bodies tense, we crept along the path, primed to attack at a moment’s notice.
But nothing stirred within the Bone Field.
It was a place of near-silent death.
Nothing could live here.
Nothing — except the origin of that weary heartbeat.
The bone trees thinned as we walked, revealing a gloomy clearing. It was far from empty, however.
Standing squarely in the middle was a towering, black tree. Its trunk and limbs were crafted entirely from twisted bones, in an enormous, morbid imitation of an oak.
The Tree of Threnos.
Golden sap trickled down from its branches, flowing through the grooves between bones like tiny rivers of shining blood. It bore gilded fruit in the horrifying shape of anatomical hearts, each one the size of a honeydew, beating in time with the tree’s pulse.
And perched on one of the tree’s higher boughs was Demeter’s own son, Thallo. Somehow, it felt right that he should be the first of us to locate her tree.
We paused at clearing’s edge and watched as Thallo stretched his long, tanned fingers towards a heart fruit.
With a sharp tug, he plucked it from the narrowing tip of a bone branch, letting out a hoot of triumph despite wobbling precariously immediately after.
He scooted backwards gingerly along the branch, oblivious to our presence, and rested his back against the trunk, long legs dangling on either side of the limb.
Cautiously, he raised the fruit to his lips and took a tiny bite.
At first, nothing happened. Then his face reflected disgust, as though the taste physically pained him.
And then he screamed, lost his balance, and fell plummeting to the ash-coated field.
Aros and Aphrodite rushed towards him. He was sprawled out, body thrashing, still screaming, though seemingly uninjured.
I held back, wary of the god and the tree from whence he fell.
A flash of movement across the clearing caught my attention.
A glint of steel emerged as a largely-built god sprinted towards the commotion.
Archimedes. With Apollo right on his tail.
The son of Hephaestus swung his sword at an unguarded Aros, though its trajectory was promptly blown wide by the black dagger I threw with every ounce of my godly strength.
Archimedes’ head snapped towards me. To where I now stood a third of the way into the clearing, posture tense, stance defensive.
I didn’t care to put my body on the line for a god I barely knew, but I couldn’t stand by and let Archimedes accidentally cleave Aphrodite in two over a misunderstanding.
“It’s the fruit!” I yelled. “They didn’t hurt him. He ate the fruit.” I gestured towards the still-beating heart that lay in the ash a few feet from where Thallo had hit the ground — its side torn open by a bite.
Aros had leapt to his feet and over Thallo’s body the second my shadow dagger struck. Now he took a threatening step forward, a low growl curling from his throat. Archimedes froze for a full beat before promptly sheathing his sword and raising both hands in calm surrender.
“I’m sorry. It looked—” he began.
“I know how it looked. And that’s the only reason you’re still standing, boy. You’re one of few these days with any sense of morals or loyalty.” Aros growled then turned to help Aphrodite to her feet.
Thallo sobbed quietly, breaking the tension. He writhed in the ash, tear-streaked face twisted in anguish.
“No, no, no,” he chanted. “She can’t be dead!”
Apollo approached cautiously, gently placing his hand on Thallo’s shoulder, and closing his golden eyes. After a moment, he reopened them and turned towards us, gesturing with graceful fingers.
This is not something I can heal.
He must face it. What he feels is only within his mind. His body remains whole.
That familiar sense of dread reared its ugly head, causing my stomach to sink. I understood what Apollo had laid out, even without words: this pain, this vision, it was part of the trial. A test. And we must all endure it when we ate the fruit. Or forfeit our place in the Rite.
That wasn’t an option for me, and I doubted any of the others would give up just two trials in, especially on something that wasn’t actually harmful to us.
Thallo suddenly began beating his fists into the ground, like he was pummelling some invisible enemy.
“I won’t let you take her, Zeus!”