Chapter 32 #2
She stopped, the rough sand crunching beneath her feet as she raised Ancaeus’s sword. Someone was nearby. She could hear their breath, slow and steady, devoid of the panic around them. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Trust your power. The voice was calm, confident, certain.
She knew what she must do. She dropped the sword and felt for the energy surging through her veins.
She took a step forward, then another. The outline of a figure came into focus.
It was wearing golden armor, topped with a blue-plumed helm, unlike the kind worn by any soldier or general Danae had ever seen.
From the neck down, it covered the figure’s entire body, down to gauntlets that capped their fingers.
Suddenly, the figure raised its arms, golden gauntleted hands piercing the mist. Danae flung out her own arms and cast her life-threads into the fog.
The wind howled like a thousand wolves as she whipped the air into a torrent, slicing a path of clarity through the mist. As it recoiled and daylight poured in, she caught a clear glimpse of the figure, their golden armor so dazzling they shone like the sun itself.
There was something familiar about the face beneath the helm, but she had no time to rack her memory, as the figure was sent sprawling backward onto the sand from the force of her gale.
She advanced, but the figure raised its arms once more, and the mist surged back around them.
The golden stranger must be controlling it.
Danae redoubled her efforts and drove the fog back for a second time.
But the figure was gone.
Danae whipped the wind left and right, clearing swathes of the isthmus, but the golden stranger had vanished.
Roaring in frustration, she turned her efforts back to banishing the rest of the fog.
Had the being fled? If it was powerful enough to conjure an all-consuming mist, why would it run from her?
She had no time to dwell on it. Despite having cleared a good deal of ground, she still couldn’t see Hylas or Heracles.
Her vision was crackling at the edges. She knew she didn’t have much strength left; she’d drained her life-threads dangerously low.
The wind required much more energy than the fire on Lemnos.
Her next gust uncovered Jason, blindly battling an Earthborn.
The captain was in the process of wrenching his blade from the belly of the beast when Danae’s wind blew the mist away.
He stared around wildly, swinging his sword as the creature tumbled to the ground.
Then, out of the retreating fog behind him, someone lunged forward.
Jason spun around, driving his blade upward.
Cyzicus stumbled into the light. Danae dropped her arms and stared in horror at the King of the Doliones impaled on Jason’s blade. Jason’s mouth moved wordlessly as Cyzicus slumped onto the sand.
Danae tried to reach them, but her legs buckled. She’d overspent herself. She didn’t know her limits yet and had used too many life-threads.
A scream pierced the air. Cleite was standing on the rocks at the far end of the isthmus, her mouth stretched open long after the sound left her throat. Then she half slipped, half ran down the rocks, pausing only to take up the sword of a fallen Doliones.
She hurled herself toward Jason. “Murderer!”
Jason tugged his sword from Cyzicus’s chest and parried her blow.
“I couldn’t see him, I—”
Cleite swung at him again. Jason pushed her back, but she continued to throw herself at him.
“Doliones, your king is slain! Murdered by this monster in man’s flesh! Avenge my husband, kill them all!”
All around the now clear isthmus, the Dolionian soldiers retreated from the few remaining Earthborn and turned toward their queen.
They saw Cyzicus slain and Cleite rounding on Jason.
Like wildfire, her wrath leaped from man to man, igniting them all.
Despite having to defend the isthmus against the remaining Earthborn, several of the Doliones turned on the Argonauts.
These people had promised to save them, but instead had murdered their king.
Jason locked blades with Cleite. They struggled for a moment, but his strength outweighed hers, and with a shove he sent her crashing to the ground.
“Argonauts, back to the ship!” he yelled, while sprinting along the isthmus toward the rocks where the Argo was tethered.
Danae clenched her teeth and managed to heave herself onto her knees. Then an Earthborn came charging toward her, ropes of spittle flailing from its gnashing jaws.
The next moment, she was lifted from the ground. Hylas slung her over his shoulder and ran along the stretch of sand. He slowed as he reached the rocks and attempted to clamber one-handed toward the Argo. She could feel his muscles straining and lungs heaving. She was slowing him down.
“Leave me,” she croaked.
“Never.” Hylas tightened his grip around her waist.
Argonauts scrambled past them, pursued by incensed Doliones and raging Earthborn.
“Heracles!” Hylas shouted as the hero’s huge frame appeared beside them, battering away two Earthborn as they clawed their way up onto the rocks. “Help her.”
Danae became weightless in Heracles’s arms. He bounded across the last stretch of rock and passed her up to Atalanta who stood ready with the rest of the archers to haul the fleeing crew members aboard.
The warrior dropped her onto the deck and stretched an arm back to Hylas, as Heracles leaped over the side of the ship.
Danae grasped a bench and heaved herself upright. Atalanta pulled Hylas up to the ship’s rail, and Danae’s eyes met his. The feeling that blazed from him hit her like a sudden summer storm. She wondered how she’d never seen it before.
He loved her.
An Earthborn reared up from the rocks. The surprise had barely registered on Hylas’s face by the time two sets of blood-smeared claws closed around his torso.
To her credit, Atalanta held on, but she was no match for the beast’s strength, and her fingers slipped from Hylas’s as the creature yanked him backward.
Before the scream had left Danae’s chest, Heracles launched himself overboard and ran across the rocks after them.
Jason, seemingly oblivious to what had happened, leaned over the stern feverishly undoing the tether. “Row!” he yelled, as the rope slithered free of its knot. “Gods damn you, row!”
The remaining crew rushed to take up the oars.
“Heracles, Hylas, we can’t leave them!” Telamon shouted.
Jason’s eyes were wild as he glanced back at the shore, still crawling with Earthborn and enraged Doliones. “I’m not risking the rest of the crew for two men.”
“But Heracles—” Tiphys began.
Jason pushed the navigator aside and grabbed hold of the tiller. “If you want to live, row!”
The men didn’t need to be told a third time.
The mist had turned the tide of the battle, and with the Doliones now on the attack as well, they knew the fight was lost. The Argonauts grabbed the oars and pushed the ship away from the rocks.
Atalanta launched herself at Jason but was brought thudding to the deck by Pollux before she could reach him.
Telamon drew his sword. “Jason! Order them to turn back, or I will make you.”
Without a word, Dolos sprinted across the deck, his healer’s bag secured across his torso, and dived into the sea.
There was a clash of metal behind Danae as Castor’s blade met Telamon’s, but her gaze stayed with Dolos as he swam back to the rocks that moved further and further away with every heartbeat.
She desperately wanted to follow the healer. But she didn’t move.
She remembered now where she’d seen the face of the golden stranger before. In a city far away, cast in a likeness over eight times her size.
Athena.
She, a mortal, had conjured a wind that knocked a goddess of Olympus to the ground. Not only that, Athena had fled rather than fight her. The Twelve were not untouchable after all.
When the prophet falls, and gold that grows bears no fruit, the last daughter will come. She will end the reign of thunder and become the light that frees mankind.
She saw Delphi, the burning bodies, the screams of terror, all those people massacred and unburied. She had a chance, she could stop that from ever happening again.
You know what you must do, said the voice.
Tears streamed down her face. She had to stay with the Argo, no matter who got left behind.
Her destiny was greater than her desires, greater than the sum of every person aboard the ship.
Reaching Prometheus had to come above all else.
And no matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t let anything, or anyone, stand in her way.