Chapter Thirty-Five
The air trembles with her demands, and with the men’s despair and rage. They remind me of the drugged priests of Nafplion, but this is a different kind of trance—the wild, unhinged fervor of those undone by loss.
Then one figure, blade drawn, catches my eye. He seems to be running in our direction, though his comrades are pushing toward the water, chasing a group of Cycladians to their boats. Does he see us? Is he really heading toward us? As he draws near, a small gasp leaves my throat. It’s Yiannis.
His face is different now. I do not know this face—I see no grief there, no pain. Still less do I see the boy I knew in Sikyon. What I see is emptiness. When his eyes meet mine, I flinch. The next moment he’s charging through what remains of the white haze, into our midst. He stands panting, his gaze traveling over the extraordinary sight before him. But he does not fall to one knee, or look even slightly humbled, still less afraid.
“It’s true, then.” His eyes are wild. “The gods. I knew I was not mistaken.”
I hear a noise of surprise from Dimitra. She has recognized him.
“Get back, boy,” Eros snaps. “This is none of your concern.”
“None of my concern?” Yiannis’s laugh is sharp. “When my brother lies dead? When children lie beneath rubble? They never asked to be in your war. We never asked for any of this. My battalion died,” he says. “All but me—swept out to sea like kindling.”
Ares relaxes his grip on the spear-handle long enough to growl: “Peace, fool. Before you draw my wrath.”
“Yiannis, please-” I begin.
“Which among you is Poseidon?” he demands, ignoring me completely.
“Poseidon is gone from here.” If he thought somehow to attack the sea-god, then he is a fool indeed, but grief can make a fool of any man. Now he looks as though he hardly knows whether to believe me—until his eyes light on someone behind me.
“But you ,” he says. “You’re his son. The one who conjured that river.” His voice grows wilder, more rage-filled, and my grip on the blade tightens.
“I saw you,” Yiannis continues, glaring at Nikos. “How you smiled. You’re cursed, boy. No child, but a demon.” He sheathes his sword, and instead slides an arrow from the quiver across his back.
“ Yiannis -” I say, but he’s already notching an arrow.
Dimitra pushes me aside. “Yiannis, wait!”
“Step aside ,” he growls.
The arrow releases, and I gasp—but as I turn, Nikos catches it easily with his shield.
“ I have no fear of him,” Nikos glowers. “I have dodged more arrows than his today.”
His agility is striking; I barely saw the shield move. But even so, Poseidon is no longer here to protect him. And he doesn’t realize what’s in Yiannis’s quiver.
“They are no mortal arrows!” I call. I see the flash of understanding on Dimitra’s face, and the shock on Eros’s as he understands what I have done.
Yiannis strings another arrow to his bow. Two in that quiver are enchanted arrows—but which ones?
“Father, take him!” Eros calls, and hurls Deimos away from him, back toward his father. He pulls his own bow and arrow.
“Behind me!” I hear Dimitra scream. But Yiannis’s next arrow goes wide. Nikos seems almost disappointed not to have had the chance to stop it. He has his shield at the ready, and he bounces on the balls of his feet, angry and bright-eyed.
I turn back to Yiannis.
“He’s a child !” I shout. For a moment, Yiannis’s eyes find mine.
“So was my brother,” he says. But then his eyes drift from mine, drawn by something on the horizon. I risk the briefest glance, and see what he sees: a gold band shimmering where the water meets the sky. I know what’s coming. Who’s coming.
“Father!” I hear Nikos’s gleeful voice behind me. “He’s returning!”
But I know in my heart it’s not Poseidon.
Nikos is still fixed in the wrong direction, on the golden light, the father that he expects to see. But my sister’s eyes see what I see.
“ No! ” I shout. It only takes a second for the two arrows to let fly: one from Yiannis, one from Eros. It only takes that second for Dimitra to step in front of Nikos, arms flung wide.
I see the arrow land in Yiannis’s chest, the unsurprised look in his eyes as it fells him. His unrepentant eyes on mine. I’m the last thing he sees.
And then I turn, and see his arrow has pierced my sister’s hand.
Right in the center of her upturned palm. She breathes deep, plucks it out and tosses it to the ground, light as a leaf. On her palm is one small, red circle. I feel my breath stop. My eyes find hers. An eternity passes. And then my sister’s eyes close and she sways, sinks to the ground.
My legs are weightless as I walk toward her. Sounds drop away, color leeches from my vision. I see as if from some faraway place Nikos sinking down beside her, his arms around her shoulders. He’s shouting, telling her to get up. I feel eyes on us, the eyes of the gods. I don’t care. Sympathy or vengeance, it’s all the same to me now.
Dimitra’s face is almost bloodless against the grey sand. Nikos’s hands are on her cheeks. I kneel beside them and he looks up at me, stricken, disbelieving. In the distance the sound of battle continues, metal against metal, and waves thrashing on the shore. My sister blinks. I can tell it takes what strength she has left to keep her eyes open.
I take her hand in mine. Her gaze rolls toward me, the irises dark as ever, the pupils wide and hungry as though drinking in the last of this world. For the first time in many years, there is no anger in those eyes, just a great, soft longing.
“Mother.” Nikos’s voice is a whisper. “Please! You have to come back . ”
Her eyes fall on him. I see her chest rise—a laborious, deliberate breath. Her hand quivers as she raises it from her side and places it on his chest.
“You will be a great man, Nikos,” she says to him. “You already are. I will be with you, always.”
She breathes in again and her eyes slide back to me, glassy now. Perhaps in some other realm they are already gazing on the River Styx, on the boat that will ferry her across the great divide. But then they clear for a moment, and I feel her hand pulse in mine, a squeeze so weak I could have imagined it.
“Look after him, sister,” she breathes.
I nod. I have no words. They are lost to me—gone, perhaps, to the same place she travels to now.
When she closes her eyes, the world grows a little colder. After a while I become aware of Eros beside me, his hand on my shoulder.
“They are coming,” he says, his voice a million miles away. It feels as though he’s trying to drag me from a deep sleep into a new world I’m not yet ready to face. But I have to.
They : the Olympians. Nikos is under my protection now, and he is Poseidon’s son: the son of a traitor, a god who plotted against Olympus.
“Nikos,” I manage. “Stay behind me.”
“Give me the blade,” Eros says. I turn my head; he’s looking at me with urgency in his eyes, willing me to comprehend.
“I will take all the blame.” His eyes spark with pain and regret. “Please, Psyche. It must be me. There is no choice.”
Choice. It had not occurred to me that I would have one. But as the blazing figure walks toward us out of the gold light, I realize I do. At the very least, I have the choice I’ve always had: give in now, or die standing.
I grip the blade tighter.
“Psyche-”
“No,” I turn back to Eros, to his bright gaze, a fire that seeks only to protect me. “I am not afraid.”
The king of the gods strides toward us, and I see there are other figures behind him too, though they’re misty still, ranged against the water’s edge like a halo of light. Zeus—I know without question it is him—moves toward us like a mountain come to life. The world shifts in his wake: light, sound, even time itself seem stretched and warped by his presence. There is a hum in the air, and the smell of scorched earth. I feel the hush fall over everything, even the warring armies.
“Cycladians: your god has abandoned you. Begone from here, or face my wrath.” A voice like nothing I’ve ever heard booms across the rocks, and out across the water.
The other gods draw back to make room. As they kneel Eros follows suit, and tugs me down again beside him.
“ Psyche ,” he hisses. “The blade!”
I don’t look at him; I cannot. Those eyes will undo me. Instead I stare at Zeus as he approaches. Power radiates around him, the kind that can belong only to the king of the gods. I find that my head feels strangely clear now, almost empty. Is it strange that I am not afraid? That I feel so little of anything at all?
Finally in our midst, he comes to a halt and looks at me.
“So—after all this, I find my blade in the hands of a mortal girl.” When he speaks, I seem to hear not one voice but many—a hundred voices from ages past and future, all speaking together.
“But there is something else that I must deal with first.” His eyes skim over me, moving to land on Deimos.
“There is a cell for you in Tartarus. I hope you are ready for it.”
The color drains from the young god’s face.
“I wanted justice, my lord,” Deimos protests. “Not to unseat you. I would have brought the blade back.”
“Perhaps.” I feel the vibration of that great voice in my bones. “And yet I find I doubt you.”
Someone else steps forward: it’s Ares. “He grieves for his brother, my lord,” he says. “Please: have mercy on him.”
Zeus glares.
“And since when,” he answers, “have I claimed to be a merciful god? Hermes!” he calls, and another god takes shape against the golden haze.
“Bind him,” Zeus says.
Deimos tries to back away, but Hermes is faster. Dark chains seem to appear from nowhere, lashing around him: his ankles, his wrists, his neck. Deimos gasps for breath. Zeus takes another step forward, standing face to face with him, and all I can think of is hunter and prey. A flash of red light courses over the sand, a molten crack appearing out of nowhere. Eros pulls me away, dragging Nikos with the other hand. I step back, but I cannot leave my sister’s body. The red line thickens, widens, splitting the earth in two. A chasm opens: red at the top and black below, too deep to see the bottom of.
Tartarus , I realize with a bolt of horror. Zeus is opening a passage to Tartarus.
The great abyss from which none return.