Chapter 26 #2
Then the full weight of reality crashed over her. She was alone on a hostile island, mortally wounded, and those who could help her were drugged out of their minds.
A swell of panic erupted into a sob. She was going to die on this island, and Manto’s sacrifice would be for nothing.
She would be left to rot unburied, and so her soul would be condemned to wander the banks of the Styx for all eternity.
She would never meet Alea in the Asphodel Meadows or see any of her family ever again.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as her memories leaked out like the blood pumping from her leg.
The smell of the goat pen, her mother making cheese, her father walking up the track, his nets slung over his shoulder.
Alea, by her side, her sister’s fingers woven between hers.
The joy of it hurt so much she thought it might kill her before the wound did.
“Hades,” she moaned. “Please let me see her again, just for a moment.”
A deep, body-crushing ache was beginning to spread up her thigh. She waited. The river rushed, the birds chirruped and insects clicked their wings. But the ruler of the Underworld did not reply. She should know better by now. The gods couldn’t hear her. And even if they could, they wouldn’t help.
“Fuck you,” she whispered.
There was a rustle behind her. Slowly, she turned her head.
A pair of yellow eyes loomed from the undergrowth, followed by the head and sinewy shoulders of a black panther. She almost laughed. Death had come quicker than she expected. Then she noticed the shudder of the creature’s movements, the ragged wheeze of its breath, stilted with pain just like hers.
The large cat eyed her warily as it dragged itself toward the lagoon. Now it had fully emerged, she could see three broken arrows protruding from its hide, two in its left flank and one between its ribs. Rivets of dried blood matted its fur.
She knew then it wouldn’t hurt her. There was no point. They could each sense the other was dying.
The panther slumped down beside her, its face almost at the water.
It turned its head and fixed her with its yellow gaze.
There was a stillness to its sun-like eyes.
Something like acceptance. After a while their shallow breathing fell into a rhythm.
They were together, she and this creature, at the end. She was not alone.
She blinked. She thought she’d seen a flicker in the panther’s eye. A tiny thread of light dancing through its iris. It must be her blood-starved mind conjuring illusions. But then she saw it again.
The panther let out a low, guttural moan. She reached across and placed a hand on its fur, just below the arrow wound. It looked at her, then closed its eyes for the last time.
She could suddenly see threads of light weaving beneath the panther’s fur. Then the creature’s hide became translucent. She could make out every vein, every muscle, every sinew the threads ignited with life. She could see them in her own arm too, ribbons of light darting under her skin.
They were the same glowing threads that made up the tapestry of life in the oracle’s vision. The same life-threads she had cast into the ground to shake the earth.
Hunger roared inside her, a desperate need to consume the energy beneath her fingers. Some of the panther’s life-threads were already leaving, fleeing into the ground. She couldn’t let any more escape.
Breathe them in, said the voice.
Concentrating on the tingling in her palm, she took a breath and willed the panther’s life-threads into her hand.
She shuddered as streaks of light shot up her arm and energy flooded her veins.
Her vision exploded with clashes of color and light.
She felt as though she was not a whole thing at all, but a collection of tiny moving parts, small as a glint of sunlight and large as the ocean, all at once.
She was made of energy, of joy, of pure ecstasy.
The air tasted sweeter than honey, and there was no pain.
She couldn’t even remember what pain felt like.
Perhaps she was dead after all.
Then the sound of her ribs knitting together confirmed she was very much alive.
She looked down at her body and gaped. The bone in her leg had moved back beneath her skin and her torn flesh was healing. Once the process was complete, she tentatively moved her leg. It was as though it had never been broken.
Sucking in deep lungfuls of air between her freshly mended ribs, she pushed herself to her feet. A ripple of laughter escaped from her chest. Her body barely ached.
She sobered at the sight of the dead panther. Sinking down beside it, she placed a hand on its fur. It was cold, and she knew that its warmth was now in her. Its parting gift was the only reason she was still alive.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She didn’t know where animals went when they died; they didn’t have an Underworld like mortals. But she hoped wherever it was, it was at peace.
She stood and set her sights on the waterfall. She had to get back to the Argonauts. Gods knew what the Lemnians were planning to do to them.
She set off at a run around the edge of the lagoon and when she reached the base of the shallow cliff next to where the water tumbled into the pool, she began to climb.
The moss-padded rocks would have floored an inexperienced climber.
But she had been clambering over the sea-slicked crags of Naxos since she could walk.
She’d almost reached the upper bank when she saw something she had not noticed before.
It looked like there was a cave behind the waterfall. She stretched out an arm and thrust her hand behind the torrent. Rather than brushing stone, her fingers met air. She almost fell as she leaned forward, her arm pinwheeling through the rush of water into nothing.
Bracing herself, she inched across the rocks and stuck her head through the cascade. Behind the waterfall was a passageway. She squinted through the gloom. What looked like a burnt-out torch was lying on the stone floor below.
Go inside, said the voice inside her mind. It was louder than before, as though it had been fed by the panther’s life force.
She paused for a heartbeat, then clambered back down to the ground and leaped through the stream of water.
She skidded on the stone floor, before tumbling to the ground with a wet slap.
Pushing herself to her feet, she looked around for the torch.
Picking it up carefully, so as not to dampen the end, she held it against a dry section of wall.
Then she took out her knife and struck it against the rock.
Eventually, she was rewarded with a spark.
She blew, hoping there was still some flammable liquid left on the hessian-wrapped tip.
The spark stuttered, then a tiny flame licked across the end of the torch.
She lifted it high, illuminating a rough passageway hewn from striped layers of rock. Accompanied by the crash of the waterfall and the dripping of her clothes, she took a step toward the darkness.