Chapter 15 Lyssa
Lyssa
Epizon stares at Len, then gives me a sideways look. “Do we need to worry about him?”
I understand his concern. I hadn’t realized quite how enthralled anyone could become with one woman, even the randy little satyr.
Hedone, from the crew of the Virtus, has collected a gaggle of admirers as the evening has worn on. Apparently she’s the demigoddess of pleasure, and it looks to me like she has quite a lot of power.
Len’s short stature has helped him to push between the legs of a lot of the other adoring creatures, both male and female, so that he can sit at her feet.
I can just see him through the group, gazing up at Hedone with his mouth hanging open slightly as she regales her admirers with a story about a party in her home realm of Pisces.
I can’t hear well enough to know whether the story is actually funny or whether everyone is just laughing uproariously because they’ve drunk so much fine wine.
Perhaps it’s because such a beautiful storyteller is telling the jokes.
Lucas couldn’t push through the crowd, so he’s standing behind the group, craning his head to see around people.
“I’m sure he’s fine. Let’s just make sure we don’t leave without him.”
“Speaking of which, before we head back to the Alastor, I want one last chance to speak to the centaur emissaries.” His eyes light up, and I give him a smile.
Centaurs are insular, unfriendly people, and Epizon has spent all night trying unsuccessfully to engage one of them in conversation.
“Go. Good luck. We’ll leave when you return. ”
Epizon is barely gone a few minutes before another large form takes his place.
Shit, the peacock smells great. I’m instantly annoyed.
“Why are you here?”
He beams at me and reaches across the table for a wine glass and the jug. “And a good evening to you too, mighty hero of Olympus.”
I roll my eyes. “Go away.”
He pours himself a drink, then pulls my empty glass over and refills it. “You did say you were special. I should have taken you seriously.”
“I did not say I was special.”
“That’s how I remember it.”
“Yeah? Well, folk in this world are real good at remembering shit wrong,” I snap.
I swipe up my glass, and he holds his out to me in a cheers motion. “To Captain Lyssa of the Alastor. I hope you do well.”
I take a glug of wine. “Why? And why do you keep watching me?”
“You’re interesting.”
“That,” I say, jerking a thumb over at Hedone and her crowd, “is what an interesting woman looks like. Not this.”
His bright gaze bores into mine, and I find myself trying to work out how he can get laughter into his actual eyeballs. How is that even possible?
“Hedone isn’t real. But you are. As real as they come. You genuinely don’t want fame, do you?”
My face screws up involuntarily, and I half slam my glass back down onto the table. “Fame? After they made my father famous for murdering my family?” I hiss the words through clenched teeth.
“Not every famous person in Olympus is a murderer, you know.”
“Very few of them are famous for doing anything good.” I fold my arms.
He opens his mouth to argue, then shrugs lightly. “There are fewer than I’d like for the purposes of this argument, I grant you. But there are some.” He turns a little on the bench seat. “Ah. See her?”
I roll my eyes again. “I’m not interested.”
“Don’t want to be proven wrong, special girl?”
I sigh and turn. “Fine. See who?”
“Her, in the purple toga.”
“What about her?”
“She’s famous, and well loved, because she created a cure for infections.”
“Is she magical?” I study the woman, interested despite my effort not to be. She’s young, pretty, and looks happy.
“Yes. A daughter of Hermes, with alchemical magic.”
“So she’s wealthy?”
“Yes. And she uses all her time and resources to help people who suffer.”
“Huh. Fine, you pointed out one person who’s not an asshole. What about the rest of the folk here who are?”
He shrugs again. “The gods created and rule this world, and we all have to work with what we’ve got. And what you’ve got, Captain Lyssa, is a chance to become immortal.”
Suspicion coils through me at the interest flashing in his face. “Is that why you’re talking to me?”
“What will you do, if you win it?”
I shake my head. “I can’t think of anything worse than an endless life,” I mutter, swiping up my glass again.
He takes a long, slow sip from his. “Then why did you enter?”
I don’t answer him, and his smile spreads.
“Ah. Silly me. To stop Hercules.”
I sip my wine and refuse to look at him.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’re very noble. The man is a colossal prick.”
I jerk my head around in surprise. “You… you think so?”
“Of course I do. But hey, do me a favor and don’t tell anyone else.”
He grins, and anger swirls inside me. “Two-faced, sycophantic bastard.”
He cocks his head. “Can’t argue with that. As I said, we all have to work with what we’ve got. And what I’ve got is charm.” He beams at me, and I only just stop myself from punching him in his stupidly perfect nose.
I stand up instead, draining my glass. “What you’ve got is an unjustifiably massive ego, and a shortage of shirts.”
I move to the crowd around Hedone, refusing to look back, even though I can feel him watching me. I tap Lucas on the shoulder. “Come on. It’s time we left.”
“But Hedone says they’re carrying on the party back on their Typhoon!” He gazes at me pleadingly.
“And you think we’re going?” I raise my eyebrows. “Not a chance.”
“Captain, you heard what Zeus said—we might die tomorrow! How can I die knowing I missed a chance to see Theseus’s Typhoon?”
“No, Lucas. We’re going back to the Alastor.” He looks so genuinely heartbroken that I find myself adding, “But if we survive, I’ll try to find another way for you to see it.”
Why the Fates did I just say that?
His devasted expression softens. “You will?”
“I’ll try.”
He smiles. “Thanks, captain.”
I’m about to send a mental message to Len when a loud crash snaps my attention to the middle of the platform.
Hercules is standing, the bench he was sitting on overturned and a large platter of fruit scattered across the table. In one hand, he’s holding a jug and waving it, laughing. Opposite him, on the other side of the table, are three centaurs.
“Your wine?” booms Hercules, and the remaining guests all fall quiet. Even the band stops playing, their attention fully on the massive man in the black shirt. “I think you’ll find it’s my wine now!” He waves the jug at them again and takes a glass from the table.
The centaur in the middle takes a step forward. His muscular human chest rises out of the body of a sleek black stallion. He’s taller than Hercules, at least seven feet from head to hoof. His voice is soft when he speaks, but it carries across the silent platform.
“That wine has been brought from Sagittarius. It is all we centaurs may drink, and only centaurs may drink it. I ask you again not to insult our people by indulging in something so personal to us.”
Hercules stops pouring wine from the jug into his glass and looks at the centaur.
Slowly, he begins to tip the contents of the glass onto the marble platform at his feet.
The two centaurs behind the black male stamp their hooves, their tails flicking.
“I find it insulting that you will not share it with me,” hisses Hercules, and puts the jug to his mouth. As he begins to tip the jug back to drink the wine, there’s a roar, and the pale brown-and-cream centaur leaps over the table.
Hercules catches the creature around his human waist before his back legs have landed, and flings him backward into the table. There’s an almighty crash as the force collapses it, and the other two centaurs spring forward.
The group I’m standing with is suddenly animated, some scrambling to get out of the way and back to the longboats, and some trying to get a better look at the action. I duck under the table in front of me and stand up on the other side, unable to take my eyes from the fight.
The first centaur is lying in the wreckage of the table, unmoving. The other two are either side of Hercules, the black centaur facing away from him as he tries to land kicks from his stronger back legs on his opponent’s body.
Hercules’s eyes are alive, a maniacal smile on his face as he swings at the horse-people, ducking their flying hooves. The jug lies broken on the platform, red liquid spilling slowly across the white marble.
There’s another roar, and it’s impossible to tell whether it comes from Hercules, or the black centaur that he has managed to grab by the back leg.
Hercules pulls hard, and the powerful front legs of the centaur give out.
His torso crashes to the floor as he’s dragged backward.
Hercules begins to swing the creature up into the air and then carries on in an arc, around and around, like the centaur is a toy.
My stomach lurches as I realize what he’s going to do.
Hercules lets go as he comes to face the edge of the platform.
The centaur’s arms and legs scrabble as he seems to hover in the air for a moment, and then he’s falling. I see people on the other side of the platform rush to the edge and look over.
I have no desire to see. My body is numb, my muscles not responding to commands, my vision narrowed to only him.
Hercules turns to face the last centaur standing. In contrast to his easy, solid stance, the horse-man is shaking. I don’t know if it’s through fear or anger. To hear about Hercules’s superhuman strength is one thing, but to see it in action…
I can see sweat rolling down the snow-white flanks of the centaur, his hooves clicking frantically as the pair face each other. At that moment, I want nothing more than this magnificent creature to back down, to disgrace himself but to retain his life.
There’s no way he can best Hercules.
With another roar, the white horse-man rears up on his back legs and tries to bring his front hooves crashing down onto Hercules.
He’s too fast, though. Ducking under the centaur’s huge body, he takes hold of a front and back leg.
He pulls hard as he stands up and the creature is flipped, his human chest and head hitting the marble hard.
There’s a sickening snap and a scream of pain.
Hercules laughs as he takes another leg in both hands and twists.
The centaur’s screams get louder, and the paralyzing fear inside me breaks.
I have to stop this. Someone has to stop this.
Memories of that horrific night assault me as I try to step forward. My vision swims.
He’s too powerful. He’s too strong.
He’s literally able to rip a creature apart with his bare hands. What in the name of all the gods in Olympus can I do to stop him?
I have to try, though. Don’t I?
Why is nobody else doing anything?
I force my head around, looking for the giants, for Theseus, for anyone strong enough, or powerful enough, to help me.
But there’s hardly anybody left. The guests have filled the longboats, the tortuous screams of the centaur playing to nobody. Even the band have disappeared.
I see Lucas and Len being moved quickly into a longboat by Epizon.
“You can’t stop him, Lyssa,” Epizon says in my head.
“I have to try.”
I take another step forward as Epizon curses, but agony explodes in my center.
I’m barely able to swallow my cry of pain as I crumple to the marble. I’m on fire from the inside out. My stomach is made of liquid flame, and I can hardly breathe around the pain.
A figure appears beside me, yanks me up by the shoulders, and starts to drag me toward the longboat. I’m aware it’s Epizon, but the agony is making my vision blurry and I’m unable to stand straight.
As abruptly as it started, the pain vanishes as I reach the platform edge.
I gasp down breaths, tears streaming down my face as the Rage soars inside me, freed from its prison of pain.
“Are you all right?” It’s the peacock’s voice, and I whirl to face him.
Epizon tugs my arm. “We need to leave. Now.”
The centaur has fallen quiet, I realize. All I can hear is laughter. Hercules’s laughter.
“But what if I can end this now? Before it even starts?”
“How?” Epizon says. “How in the name of Hades do you propose to kill him now?”
He never, ever speaks to me like this in front of others, and I realize that there is true fear in his eyes as he stares at me.
Hercules just killed three powerful, innocent centaurs. And nobody stopped him.
“I—” I’m cut off before I can finish.
“You can’t kill him now.”
“Fuck off, Alexios. This has nothing to do with you,” I spit at him.
“On the contrary, it does now. That pain you just felt?”
I freeze, staring at him.
Without a hint of fear or shame, he speaks again. “I did that.”
I advance on him, yanking my arm free from Epizon’s grip. “Explain yourself,” I hiss, my teeth clamped so hard together my jaw hurts.
“Sure. But on your ship, not here.”
“Now!” I shout, and Hercules’s laughter stops abruptly.
I look over, and when his eyes lock on mine, I know that for once, I have to do as I’m told. I have to get off this platform.