Chapter 60
Poseidon’s Lock
LYRA
Evidently, the practice course paid off, because making it through Poseidon’s Lock was easier than I anticipated. Not that it was easy. I may develop a phobia of water between the Labors and the Locks.
“Congratulations!” Poseidon’s voice booms. “Your moral grounding helped you through the shaky foundation of my obstacle course.”
I huff. That is what we were being tested for? “That is a weak connection at best.”
“Well done, mortals,” Poseidon says from somewhere behind me. “This Lock is unsealed.”
Neither of us acknowledges the apparition of the god. “One more down,” Boone says.
“Thank you.” There was no way I could have done this one without him. He basically pushed me up the walls of the glass cage.
We finally figured that one out. I climbed in first and extended across, pressing my hands and feet against opposite sides, using the tension to stay in place above the eel-infested water.
Then I scooted up enough that Boone could do the same underneath me.
“Ready?” he asked. His voice didn’t even sound strained while I was already sweating. “Don’t forget to brace your toes on the backs of my boots.”
“Right.”
I had to feel and turn my feet sideways, so the arches caught the thick backs of his boots, but I eventually managed to get situated. This position kept my tension even when the top of the cage got too wide for me to fully stretch across on my own. It also added to Boone’s leverage.
The trickiest part was going up in tandem like that. We moved on the diagonal. Right hand and left foot first. Painstakingly careful, with a few bobbles and slips, but we managed to catch them all. Or Boone did. Damn, the man is strong.
Everything else was cake after that. Even the hammers.
Oh my gods. It finally hits me. Four down. Only three to go.
Like it’s ringing a creepy congrats, the damned bell goes off.
We swing to face the Titans, who are out in the chamber that surrounds the Locks.
The doorway has parted the solid wall—the arch is intricately carved with a seahorse, a golden chariot, a bull, his sea castle, and a wave-crested mantle.
All symbols of Poseidon. The Titans are scattered around the chamber beyond, where they wait for us. Some closer than others.
“Get in here!” I yell and run toward the door.
We stop at the threshold, ready to close it fast, when Boone suddenly mutters, “Oh gods. Persephone is out there.”
I think for a second that I’m going to have to stop him from running off to find her, but that’s when our powers decide to return. On a grunt of pain, I double over, breathing my way through the torture.
It takes long enough that, as soon as the sensation passes, I jerk upright in time to see that about half of the Titans have made it inside with us, but several of them are still outside.
“Come on,” Hyperion calls, waving.
Suddenly, Iapetus spasms like something struck him in the back.
“No!” Mnemosyne shouts from where she stands inside the Lock. She lunges like she’s going to run out to him, but Cronos grabs her around the waist, lifting her off her feet. The Titaness goes wild in his arms, clawing and fighting.
“You can’t help him!” Cronos yells.
As fast as she fought, she goes limp and looks out of the Lock just in time to see Iapetus’ face turn almost purple and his features contort with sudden rage.
Then he…changes.
I’ve only seen Theia this way once, and it was after she was struck. At the sight of the full transformation, horror crawls over my body, like a thousand of Athena’s bugs. Iapetus’ skin turns to flames encased in black crusts, like a lava flow. And he screams.
I clap my hands over my ears, trying to muffle the sounds of agony that rip from his throat. Iapetus is the Titan of pain. It’s as if the Pandemonium turned his own power against him in a physical manifestation.
Rhea and Crius make it inside.
Just as Iapetus turns frenzied. I mean beating at anything and everything—his chest, the walls, the floor. And everything he touches erupts in flames.
Phoebe, meanwhile, is still running for us, and we all see the second Iapetus clocks her. He takes off at a dead sprint, running so fast he turns into a distortion of fire and ash.
She’s not going to make it.
“Close it!” Cronos orders.
But Koios, Phoebe’s husband, grabs Hyperion’s hand. “No. Give her—”
“Protect Lyra and Boone!” Phoebe yells at him. Even as Iapetus bears down on her.
A yell comes from Koios that is guttural. Visceral. Then he shows us what two people bound by fate really look like. He steps outside the chamber. “Now!” he yells at Hyperion, who hits the symbol, sending the stone door shooting down.
As it reaches the ground, I hear Phoebe scream, and a splatter of golden blood hits the floor at Cronos’ feet.