Chapter Seventy
“She is gone.” That was all I told the group when they rose the next morning to find Iphinone and her steed missing. “She has gone.”
They did not ask me any more. Perhaps they sensed there was no more I could say. So with Iphinone’s name stripped from our tongues, we packed up our belongings and continued the journey, following Damaris and her horse, which Erebus was not fond of.
The feel of the land was entirely different from that of Ninniya.
The trees were closely packed, the leaves deeper in color, and the ground springy beneath Erebus’s hooves.
For hours, we rode through dense foliage, so thick that only faded and filtered light could reach us.
Yet only once did Damaris stop to gather her bearings.
“We will camp here,” she said. “Then make the final part of the journey in the morning.”
Something shifted in the air as we lay upon our backs and gazed up through the canopy of leaves that night.
I could have believed we were lying at the base of Olympus, for that was how close to the gods I felt.
It was as if they were no longer watching us from afar but there, in the shadows, waiting for what was to come.
The next morning, we were awake with the first birdsong, ready to continue our journey. Only when the forest began to thin did Damaris slow.
“Otrera, you go ahead,” she said. “Thalassa too. Sotiria and I have seen this already.”
I will admit to being more grateful for the gesture than perhaps I showed, for finally, Erebus did not feel the urge to push forward.
I had barely kicked him into motion, however, when we stepped out into the bright sunlight and I drew him to a stop.
Or perhaps he halted himself, for I do not believe I moved. Instead, I gasped.
For a moment, I believed the sky had stretched into a great expanse of blue, bigger than I had ever seen.
Light glinted upward, and birds dipped and dived in front of a shimmery mass that fractured and faltered, sending the sun’s rays outward in a manner I had never seen before.
Only then did I realize my mistake. It was not air I saw but water: a great sea, which reflected the brilliant blue that shone from above.
The river in which we had filled our flasks meandered gracefully out of the forest, gurgling as it went.
I noted the way the forest curved around, encapsulating the green steppes that were thick with grasses and flowers.
I could only imagine the life that teemed there, enough food for every one of us to eat fresh meat every day.
Not to mention the fish that likely filled the water.
This was the perfect place to build a settlement.
So perfect, it could have been created by the gods.
The grasses and the water and life all paled into insignificance, however, compared to this one sight.
I held my breath, certain that I was hallucinating.
But the thunder of their hooves rattled in my ears and shook the ground beneath us, and I knew this was no vision.
There were indeed horses here. Hundreds and hundreds of horses.