Chapter Twenty-Six
Farah
Inky black loomed in every corner before them. The labyrinth opened to nothing more than darkness of a cursed abyss. Beneath, the floor trembled with the footsteps of titans, pushing Chloe and Farah closer to the edge of nothingness.
A thin pathway curved along the cliff to their right. Wide enough for only one. Jagged rocks lingered below, spiraling down into nothingness. With each pound of the titans’ gaits, chips from the pathway broke off, making the one way out less viable by the second.
“Go!” Chloe screamed, shoving Farah toward what remained of the sheer cliff. “I will find another way out.”
Tears stained Farah’s cheeks and her throat swelled as she managed to speak. “I am not leaving you!”
“I can handle myself, I am a god. It will take more than a few titans to kill me.” But that look—the glassy-eyed wolf stared back at her with such a sense of finality.
Farah gripped Chloe’s hand, pulling her in close so their foreheads leaned against one another. “I. Am. Not. Leaving. You.” The ground rattled once more. They were close, the grunts and heaves of the creatures from Farah’s nightmares—from the seer’s visions—flooding reality around them.
A whimper escaped Chloe’s lips. “Do not make me do this…” she whispered, desperation sliding off her tongue with every word she spoke.
“We come out of this together, or we do not come out of it at all. I have seen what the Mysteries do—the destruction they reap on the lives of those most loyal if abandoned.” Farah gripped the sides of Chloe’s face with her palms, fiercely at first, then more delicate, letting her eyes search for belonging and trust.
All that stared back was ice. Piercing light blue eyes, dilating as the wolf spoke. “You will go. You will leave me and cross whatever pathway you have to and you will not look back.”
Light tears no longer stained Farah’s cheeks, but a full storm of emotion. The flood gates had been let loose on her heart and she tried to claw at every inkling of happiness they had shared before crashing into the tempest that followed.
“You will live your life as it was always meant to be. You will love, fiercely and without burden.”
“Chloe.”
“You will go. You will leave me. You will save yourself.” A single tear managed to slip from the corner of Chloe’s eye. It was the first time since the trials began that she showed any semblance of fear or weakness.
“No.” Farah leaned in and locked her lips with Chloe’s, letting herself sink into every memory and taste of her. The noise around them faded as threads of smoke bound them together. Braids of hope and promise for a life they may never live. “I will not leave you.”
“But…I…my…” Chloe’s eyes flipped back and forth, dilating once again to no avail. Her lips parted, and she stumbled back a step.
“Your tricks have never worked on me, little wolf. I cannot tell you why—whether it is sorcery or the Fates themselves.”
“Never?” Chloe stammered, inching back closer toward Farah.
“Never.”
The screeching echoed against the walls of the cavern. There was no way back, and with every breath they took the pathway crumbled more and more.
“Do you trust me?” Farah asked, beginning to weave her hands in and out of the motions she learned from her elders many years before. A pattern she had forgotten until Acacius pushed her off the cliff just days before.
Do not make the same mistake I did. He had sacrificed himself for Kalliope in these very tunnels, but the Mysteries were never about sacrifice. They were about trust. When all else was stripped from you, could you trust that the person walking beside you in life was enough.
Placing a hand on the small of Farah’s back, Chloe nodded.
It was all Farah needed, the brief connection, a way to tether them together with smoke and fire the world of Odessia thought had long since perished.
Farah linked their fingers together, squeezing tightly as the air around them thinned and three monstrous beings stepped out of the labyrinth behind them.
“Then jump.”
Without another thought, Farah stepped over the edge of the cliff, wrapping Chloe in her magic as they tumbled toward the everlasting darkness below.
The plunge stole the breath from Farah’s lungs. For a single, endless second, there was nothing but the rush of air in her ears and the violent pull of gravity yanking her downward into blackness. Then there was only water. The crisp feel of ice cold waves swallowed her whole.
The impact was bone-rattling, cold seeping into her skin like knives as she sank beneath the surface of the pool.
The world went silent except for the muffled roar in her head, the last remnants of panic clawing at her chest. For a moment, she did not know which way was up.
Darkness pressed in on all sides, thick and suffocating. Then a hand wrapped around her wrist.
Farah’s eyes snapped open beneath the water to find Chloe, pale hair drifting like silver threads around her face, eyes wide but focused. She tugged hard, pulling Farah toward the surface. They broke through together, gasping. Air never felt so sharp.
Farah coughed, dragging in breath after breath as she shoved wet hair from her face. “Gods.” Her voice cracked, her chest heaving as she treaded water. “That fucking man.”
“Acacius,” Chloe finished, equally breathless, scanning the cavern around them. “We can discuss how much you want to kill him later.”
Farah huffed out something between a laugh and a curse. “If you’d believe it, he actually warned me of this…in his own peculiar sort of way.”
She elaborated no further because the water glowed.
Not brightly, but enough—an eerie, pale blue light emanating from somewhere deep beneath the surface, illuminating the cavern walls in wavering patterns.
The stone around them was jagged, ancient, dripping with moisture that echoed in slow, hollow plinks.
It felt older than the rest of the labyrinth. Older than the mountain itself.
Then, as if summoned by their awareness, flames sparked to life along the cavern walls. One by one. A line of fire ignited, trailing away from the pool in a narrow path deeper into the cave.
Farah stilled. “That doesn’t feel like a trap at all.”
Chloe didn’t respond immediately. Her gaze had gone distant, fixed on the path as if she could see something Farah could not. “Not a trap,” she said finally, quieter. “It feels like an invitation.”
That was worse.
They hauled themselves from the water, soaked clothing clinging to their skin, boots squelching softly against the stone. Farah’s fingers tightened around the haft of her axe, her body already coiling with anticipation for whatever waited ahead.
The path twisted only slightly before ending in what appeared to be a dead end—a sheer stone wall, unremarkable at first glance.
Farah exhaled sharply. “It’s a dead end.”
But Chloe had already stepped forward.
“There,” she murmured, brushing wet strands of hair from her face as she leaned closer to the wall. “Look.”
Farah followed, squinting at the stone. At first, she saw nothing. Then the faintest etchings, nearly worn smooth with time. Symbols carved into the rock, shallow and deliberate, stretching across the surface in a pattern that was almost too precise to be natural.
Recognition flickered in Chloe’s eyes. “My brother’s letter,” she said, voice tightening. “These are the same markings he described.”
Farah’s pulse quickened. “The relics.”
Chloe nodded slowly. “They’re here.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Chloe drew one of her blades. Without hesitation, she turned the edge toward her palm and sliced.
Farah’s breath caught. “Chloe—”
But Chloe only winced slightly as blood welled in an unhealed wound, dark and vivid against her skin. She stepped forward and pressed her hand to the carvings, dragging her blood along the grooves of the symbols. The reaction was immediate and the stone hissed.
A low, guttural sound echoed through the cavern as the blood seeped into the engravings, filling them like veins coming to life. The air shifted until it carried a scent that made Farah’s stomach twist.
Rot. Decay. Death.
“Old magic,” Farah muttered, stepping beside her. “Very old.”
Chloe didn’t look away. “It needs both of us.”
Farah didn’t question it. She mirrored Chloe’s action, slicing her own palm and pressing it against the wall. Their blood mingled in the carved lines, and for a moment the entire cavern seemed to hold its breath before the wall creaked open.
Not with a crash, but with a slow, grinding shift, stone pulling away from stone as if reluctantly yielding to their presence. Darkness yawned beyond, deeper and heavier than the labyrinth they had left behind. They stepped inside the vast chamber beyond.
Farah’s breath caught as her eyes adjusted, taking in the towering space carved from the mountain’s heart. The air was charged, reverent, like stepping into a place that had not been touched in centuries. At the far end stood two statues, massive and unyielding.
The first Farah knew without question. Zeus.
His form was carved in striking detail, muscles coiled with power, his expression carved into something both wrathful and divine.
In his hand, he held a staff—the kiste—its surface etched with lightning-like veins that seemed to flicker faintly even in stillness.
Beside him stood Artemis. Graceful and deadly. Her stone gaze was fixed forward, bow absent but something else held in its place—a sleek, curved weapon resting in her grasp. The calathus.
Farah exhaled slowly. “Well,” she murmured. “Your brother wasn’t lying.”
Chloe didn’t respond. She was already moving.
Farah matched her pace, every sense sharpened as they crossed the chamber. Her grip tightened on her axe, waiting—for a shift in the ground, for a hidden mechanism, for something to leap from the shadows.
Nothing came until they reached the statues. Chloe hesitated only a fraction of a second before reaching for the kiste. Farah stepped toward Artemis, her gaze locked on the calathus.
“On three?” Chloe said quietly.
Farah huffed. “When has anything we’ve done been that coordinated?”
Chloe’s lips twitched faintly. “Must you joke at a time like this?”
They moved anyway. The moment their hands closed around the weapons, the world broke. A deafening crack split through the chamber as the ground beneath them trembled violently. Stone groaned, fractures spidering across the walls and ceiling in jagged lines.
“Of course,” Farah snapped, wrenching the calathus free as debris began to fall. “Now it’s a trap.”
“Run!” Chloe shouted. But there was nowhere to run.
The chamber collapsed inward, massive chunks of stone crashing down around them as the air filled with dust and the roar of crumbling rock. Farah barely had time to register the surge of power that ripped through her arm from the weapon before the ground gave way entirely.
Light exploded. Blinding. Everlasting. They were falling again.
Farah hit marble hard enough to knock the air from her lungs for the second time that day.
She rolled instinctively, clutching the calathus as she skidded to a stop across the polished floor.
Sucking in a sharp breath, Farah blinked rapidly as the world came back into focus.
They were no longer in the caves below the mountain.
They had been thrown—no, delivered—back into the castle itself, sprawled across the cold marble beneath towering columns and vaulted ceilings.
Farah pushed herself up onto her elbows, wincing as every muscle protested. A few feet away, Chloe lay in a similar state, the kiste still clutched in her hand. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Farah let out a breathless, disbelieving laugh. “Well,” she rasped, dragging herself to her feet. “That went…surprisingly well.”
Chloe glanced at her, chest still rising and falling rapidly, but there was something in her eyes now—something sharp. Something certain.
“We have them,” she said. Farah looked down at the weapon in her hand, feeling the faint hum of power beneath her fingers.
Weapons that could kill a god.
Above them, the castle loomed—unchanged, unaware, as if nothing beneath it had shifted at all.
Except everything had.