Chapter 2 #2
"We go down," Kaelen said. "Into the lower districts. The slums of the gods. The architecture is denser; the magic is older. It’ll be harder to track us."
We scrambled to our feet. I was dizzy, my magic reserves once again feeling stretched, burned at the edges.
"Can you run?" Flynn asked, steadying me with a hand on my waist.
"I can run," I said, gritting my teeth.
We moved away from the palace, descending a winding staircase that hugged the cliff face.
The city of Olympus was a vertical maze, layers built upon layers.
As we descended, the pristine white marble gave way to older, yellower stone.
The smell of ambrosia faded, replaced by something earthier and ancient.
We ducked into an alleyway between two towering structures that looked like storage silos for thunderbolts. The shadows here were deep, untouched by the twin suns or the fires above.
"Rest," Kaelen ordered, leaning against the wall. He checked his sword, the blade glowing dimly.
I slid down the wall, clutching the hilt of Hades' sword. My hands were still trembling.
"You held the connection," Elias said, crouching beside me. "Under extreme duress. You didn't shatter."
"I wanted to burn her," I confessed, my voice quiet. I looked at my hands. "When I felt Kaelen's rage... it felt like mine. I wanted to burn the Queen."
"She deserves it," Flynn muttered, keeping watch at the alley mouth.
"That's not the point," I said. "I lost myself. For a second, I didn't know which anger was mine and which was yours."
Kaelen knelt in front of me. "That is the price of the bind, Aria. We bleed into each other. But you came back. You centered."
"Did I?" I asked. "Or did the fire just run out of fuel?"
Suddenly, the ground lurched violently. A tremor rolled through the city, far stronger than the ones caused by the battle.
"The storm," Thane warned, looking up.
But it wasn't the storm.
A sound echoed through the alleyways, a rhythmic, heavy thudding. Like giant footsteps.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
It was coming from the direction of the palace.
"That isn't a Sentinel," Flynn whispered, drawing his daggers. "That's too heavy."
Elias went still, his eyes glazing over white. "Statues," he gasped. "She woke the statues. The Colossi."
I remembered the plaza. The massive statues of the gods. Athena had animated them with a gesture. If Hera was animating the guardians of the inner sanctum...
"They’re made of star-metal," Kaelen said, his face pale. "Impervious to fire. Impervious to steel."
"And they are hunting us," I said, feeling the vibration in my teeth.
"How do we kill a statue?" Flynn asked.
I looked at the sword in my hand. Hades' sword. Shadow and starlight.
"We don't," I said, standing up, the exhaustion pushed back by a new wave of adrenaline. "We break them."
"With what?" Kaelen asked.
I looked at Thane. The Earth Prince. The breaker of stone.
"With gravity," I said. "Thane?"
Thane looked at the crumbling buildings around us, then at the sky where the void was waiting. A slow, heavy smile spread across his face.
"I can make them fall," Thane rumbled.
"Then let's go statue tipping," Flynn grinned.
But as we turned to move deeper into the alley, a shadow fell over us. Not from a statue. From above.
I looked up.
Perched on the roof of the silo, silhouetted against the burning sky, was a figure. It wasn't Athena. It wasn't Hera.
It was a man with wings on his heels and a staff entwined with snakes.
Hermes. The Messenger.
He looked down at us, his face unreadable.
"You really lit a fire under her ass," Hermes said, his voice light, almost conversational. "I haven't seen Mom that mad since the Trojan War."
Kaelen raised his sword. "Get out of the way, Herald."
"I'm not here to fight," Hermes said, holding up his hands. "I'm just the mailman. I have a message."
"From who?" I asked.
Hermes hopped down, landing lightly in the alley. He looked at me, his eyes gleaming with a trickster's light.
"From the guy in the basement," Hermes said. "He says you forgot something."
He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small, unassuming object. He tossed it to me.
I caught it.
It was a seed. A pomegranate seed. Or at least that’s the closest thing I could think of that it resembled.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Protection," Hermes winked. "He said if you're going to break the world, you might get hungry."
Before we could ask another question, the ground shook again. A massive stone hand smashed through the building next to us, debris raining down. A giant marble face peered into the alley, its eyes glowing with Hera's white light.
"Playtime's over," Hermes said, vanishing in a blur of speed. "Try not to die. It's bad for business."
The Colossus roared, a sound of grinding stone, and reached for us.
"Run!" Kaelen shouted.
But as we ran, clutching the seed in my hand, I couldn't shake the feeling that Hades hadn't just given me a snack.
He'd given me a weapon.
Why would the Lord of the Dead give me a seed of the Underworld in the City of Light?