Jade
The Strait of Scylla and Charybdis. This is our only way home.
Ever since leaving Circe’s island, Evie’s been running us through the details of Scylla’s reach, Charybdis’s pull, and the narrow window of time we’ll have to thread between them.
But when we round the final outcropping and the strait opens before us, my stomach plummets through the deck.
The channel’s maybe a quarter mile of water squeezed between two massive cliffs, which doesn’t seem nearly wide enough to give us space to evade two monsters. Although, I suppose being forced to choose which monster to face is the entire point.
It’s a shitty point, but as I gaze ahead, it becomes undeniably real.
“The barrier’s active.” Logan’s at the front of the ship, his eyes fixed ahead. “I can feel it pressing against the hull. There’s no going around it.”
Right. There’s a barrier surrounding the strait that makes it impossible to travel forward any other way than sailing between two monsters determined to kill anything that gets near them.
Because of course there’s a barrier. Of course we don’t have a choice.
Well, we have a choice between two monsters, but again, it’s a really shitty choice.
Kieran moves to stand next to Logan, quiet as he scans the cliffs.
“Quick recap.” Evie’s in mission mode, ticking points off on her fingers.
“Charybdis cycles every eight hours, but she also activates when boats pass directly over her. A faster ship could clear her zone quickly enough to outrun the pull, but we’re working with sails and oars—not an engine.
Which leaves us with Scylla. Six heads, each with an approximately twelve-foot reach beyond her cave opening.
She’s fast, aggressive, and will strike the moment we’re in range. ”
Callie positions herself at the wheel. “The oars are locked and ready in case we need to maneuver fast. We’re sailing just right of center—as far from Scylla as possible without activating Charybdis. The farther we are from her, the harder it will be for her to strike.”
Evie nods—she and Callie have been getting along surprisingly well so far this journey—then turns to the rest of us again. “I’ll maintain a heat shield to deflect Scylla’s blows, hopefully giving her some burns from Hell in the process.”
Kieran draws one of his swords, the blade catching what little light filters between the cliffs. “The rest of us stay ready to fight in case Scylla breaks through Evie’s shield.”
Nods all around.
“Full speed ahead,” Callie says, and we enter the strait.
The temperature drops like we sailed into a freezer, the spray’s so thick I’m breathing salt, and the roar of water between the cliffs drowns out everything else.
I keep my eyes on Scylla’s dark cave.
Show yourself. I know you’re watching us. Let’s get this over with.
We sail deeper into the channel, the ship rocking hard enough that I have to brace my feet to stay upright.
Callie’s at the wheel fighting the current, and I can feel the exact moment Charybdis’s pull starts making itself known, because the hull groans, the left cliff looms closer, and every instinct I have is screaming to get away from the monster sleeping beside us.
Luckily, we’re not close enough to trigger the whirlpool, but it feels like the pull’s warning us what will happen if we try.
Then, Scylla’s first head slides out of the cave like a nightmare made flesh.
It’s long and serpentine, covered with green scales.
The neck seems to stretch forever, weaving through the air with horrible grace, and the head itself is the size of a small car, with jaws that hang open to reveal row after row of teeth.
A second head follows, then a third, and by the time all six are visible, I’ve stopped breathing.
Evie raises her hands, and a shimmering orange dome encases the ship. The heat’s immediate and suffocating, and my electricity recoils from it, thanks to the trauma via heat shield I experienced a few days ago in the Fury Loop.
In less than a second, one of the heads rears back and strikes, the impact hitting the dome like a battering ram. The ship lurches sideways, but Evie holds her ground, keeping the shield intact.
Scylla screams from all six heads, the sound bouncing off the cliffs and drilling into my skull. It’s too many voices layered on top of each other, furious and hungry, clearly not planning on retreating until they have their breakfast. AKA: us.
Another attack hits the dome so hard the entire ship shudders. Evie’s arms are shaking, sweat streaming down her face, and the shield flickers for a half-second before she screams and forces it back into place.
“She can’t hold it,” I say, the words ripping out of me. “I have to help.”
“Jade, wait.” Logan reaches for me, but I’m already moving, even though my lightning is supposed to be a backup plan in case Evie’s dome actually fails.
But I’m more than a backup plan. I’m powerful. I’m star touched. Evie’s heat shield may have almost killed me a few days ago, but she would have pulled back before she did. Plus, unlike then, we’re working together now.
So, I call on my magic, reach for the dome, and push.
Electricity rushes out of my fingertips in a crackling burst, silver-white against the orange-gold of Evie’s heat shield.
Hopefully I don’t fry the dome out of existence. Hopefully the two magics can co-exist, separate and parallel.
Instead, her shield and my electricity merge, heat and lightning weaving together into a dome that crackles and pulses with power I’ve never felt before.
Scylla’s next strike bounces off like she hit steel.
Then, Evie’s emotions slam into me.
It’s like Pyropsychology class, when Nina accidentally projected her fear into me. Except the raw, ragged grief that steals the air from my lungs right now is a thousand times more overwhelming, and from the way Evie’s arms are shaking even more than before, it’s too much for her, too.
Scylla screams again.
Another one of her heads rears back, and then it’s slamming into a weak spot of the dome, directly into the forward mast.
Wood explodes, showering the deck with splinters that sting my arms and face.
The mast tilts and begins to fall in what feels like slow motion as the connection between me and Evie shatters, and then I’m hitting the deck hard, my palms scraping splintered wood as electricity fizzles out of my fingertips.
The mast is falling toward Evie, who’s on her knees with her hands still raised, too focused on maintaining what’s left of the dome to see the massive beam plummeting toward her.
Logan’s across the deck in a second, barreling into Evie and rolling her into the clear. The mast crashes down where she was kneeling, slamming into the deck and sending debris flying everywhere.
He jumped back. There’s no other way he could have known exactly where to be, and exactly when to move.
How many minutes did that cost him?
Meanwhile, the heat shield’s down, and Kieran’s sending two daggers flying at another head—one for each eye—blinding it in seconds.
The head shrieks and rears back, and Kieran’s hands shoot out, reaching for weapons that are no longer there.
But then his fingers are flexing, as if he’s pulling on invisible strings, and the daggers are ripping free and flying back to him, hilts slapping into his palms like they’re magnetized.
What the hell?
Blood gushes out of the ruined sockets where Scylla’s eyes used to be, her neck flailing as she screams out in pain.
Kieran stares at the daggers for half a second, his eyes wide. Then his jaw sets, and he’s moving again, blades ready.
I glance around, checking if anyone else saw what he just did.
Callie’s frantically trying to control the wheel. Logan’s helping Evie to her feet after the near fatal incident with the mast. All of them were occupied, leaving me as the only witness of Kieran’s… whatever the hell he just did.
I don’t have time to unpack it, because one of Scylla’s other heads moves in, and I pull lightning from the sky, throwing it into her ugly face.
She roars, electricity webbing around her head and down her neck, flailing around as the jolts fry her skin.
But the head doesn’t fall into the water or turn into ash like I wanted.
It simply slithers back into the cave, as if Scylla can heal from a lightning strike by retreating to safety and licking a few wounds.
Another head pulls back as well, as if to help its sister-head. I strike it with lightning before it disappears into the cave, but we’re clearly playing on hard mode now, because she also doesn’t turn to ash.
Evie’s shield is back up in time to protect us from another attack, and then Logan’s lunging for the frontmost rowing yoke midship and wrenching it back. The twin oars swing in their iron locks, blades carving into the dark water as he puts everything he has into propelling us forward.
One stroke. Two strokes. Three.
A horrible, groaning roar comes from behind us on the left, and I spin around so fast I nearly trip over a coil of rope.
The whirlpool’s expanding outward into a churning spiral of death, water that was calm seconds ago spiraling inward and sucking debris to the center.
“That’s not possible,” Evie calls out as she continues maintaining the shield. “Charybdis activates every eight hours, and we’re too far away to have triggered her.”
“The cycle’s wrong.” Logan rows faster, the muscles in his arms coiling in a way I really shouldn’t be stopping to admire when death is coming at us from both sides.
Callie’s fighting the wheel, her body straining against the current. “I can’t hold her!” she cries out. “The pull’s too strong!”
“Stop trying to outrun her by going straight.” Logan rows faster, sounding eerily calm. “Turn right instead. We’ll use the oars to propel us faster.”
My brain short-circuits.
“I’m sorry, what? We barely survived Scylla trying to eat us and now you want to head straight to her?”