Chapter 16 Lyssa
Lyssa
“Explain yourself this fucking second or I’m tipping you straight over the edge of this boat and into the fucking void!”
My body is shaking with anger. There’s a part of my brain that knows fear is also part of the cause, but I’m doing everything I can to crush it.
We all just watched Hercules kill three powerful creatures and laugh, while nobody lifted a finger. He is still untouchable.
Unstoppable.
But I can’t think like that, not now, not here.
So I round on Alexios instead. Epizon grips my shoulders, stopping me from shoving him. The longboat is moving quickly, Len and Lucas making themselves as small as possible at the other end.
“When we are on your ship,” Alexios says, voice level. His eyes aren’t smiling anymore, but they are still boring into mine.
We’re moments away, and I have to calm down. I wrench free of Epizon once again, and turn so neither of them can see my face.
I have to calm down.
The screams of the centaur fill the silence in my head.
My mother screamed. My brother didn’t. Thank the gods he didn’t know what was coming.
Bile sears my throat.
How can we possibly win? How can anyone possibly stop him?
I’m aware that it is precisely people thinking like that that have allowed him to get this far without retribution. Have allowed him to kill for fun, and have the gods see it as entertainment.
Athena chose me, I tell myself desperately. I’m needed. I don’t know how yet, but I will make a difference. I have to.
The longboat bumps against the railings of the Alastor and I vault over without waiting. I need my ship, need to feel the wood of the mast under my fingertips.
But I’m only a foot from it when the pain starts again.
Crippling. Utterly immobilizing.
I fold in two, gasping for breath. Fire. My insides are on fire.
Epizon drops Len on the planks and runs toward me. Alexios strides behind him, and the pain vanishes.
I’m on my feet, my hand wrapped around Alexios’s throat the second he’s close enough. I slam him against the mast, dangerous amounts of power flowing through me. My vision is tinged red, the pain gone but the fuel it has given the Rage oh so present.
“What the fuck have you done to me?”
“I poisoned you.” His voice is a croak, but I still see no fear in his face.
My grip tightens as new fear floods me. “With what?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Captain, he’s purple,” growls Epizon. He has his huge blade out, and his face is filled with fury. “I’m not sure he can answer you.”
I let go of Alexios, and he slides a foot down the mast, sucking a breath in. “He can explain,” he heaves, and with a small flash of light, a fox appears on my deck.
It’s blue and white and shimmering, but I take little notice of its appearance.
“Engys serum,” a voice says in my head. The fox moves to Alexios’s feet and sits. “You two are bound now.”
My head is spinning, confusion only increasing the Rage.
“Explain!” I aim the shout at Alexios, rather than the fox. He straightens, still leaning against the mast.
“I need to be in the Trials. You were my best shot. I told you, I work with what I’ve got.” There’s no shame or remorse in his words. They’re matter-of-fact.
“Tell me what you’ve done to me, now!”
“I put engys serum into your drink. That means we are physically bound. If you move more than twenty feet from me, you will experience agonizing pain.”
The world tilts, and disbelief numbs my thoughts. “No…” I’m not even aware I’ve said the word aloud. Denial tries to take hold.
This can’t be happening.
But the pain was real.
“No. No, I need to stop Hercules. I need to be stronger than I’ve ever been. No. I can’t be… This can’t be…”
“I will make you stronger,” he says. “I will help you stop him.”
My fist snaps out without any restraint. Blood explodes from his face as I catch him square in the nose, and he slides down the mast again.
I whirl. I need to be alone, to be anywhere that’s not with this snake, this lying sack of—
Pain.
It lances through my stomach as I move, and I gasp and stumble back. The pain vanishes.
He’s telling the truth.
I turn slowly, my hands vibrating with fury.
Epizon is glaring at him as he tries to stay upright against the mast. Blood is soaking into his coat, running down his bare chest. The fox is looking up at him, tail flicking.
“Undo it.” My voice rings across the deck.
“I can’t.” His words are barely understandable through the broken nose.
“You did it; you can undo it.”
The fox replies to me, “It’s time based. It will wear off in one month. There is no other way.”
I close my eyes. “You idiotic, vain, glory-seeking fucking fool,” I breathe. “Do you know what you’ve done? What your selfish desire for immortality will do to the rest of the world?”
I open my eyes. He’s taken off his coat and is holding it against his face. His bright eyes fix on mine.
“I’m the only one who can stop him,” I say. “And now you’ve deliberately screwed me. You’ve helped set a monster free in Olympus for eternity. When he wins, he can never die. There will be no end to his cruelty—it will be limitless.”
He doesn’t answer me. Just stares back. Shirtless, covered in blood, and not a shred of remorse in his eyes.
“Everyone, leave.”
“Captain—” Epizon starts, but I put up my hand and he stops.
“Killing him won’t break the bond,” the fox says quickly. “It will just leave you in permanent pain until it wears off in a month.”
“I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to talk to him. Alone.”
“Let me heal him first.”
The fox jumps up on its back legs and pulls something from his belt with his small snout. It glows, and then Alexios takes it and tips it into his mouth. The blood-sodden coat drops to the floor and I kick it.
“You get any blood on this deck, you fucking scrub it,” I shout. I’m so close to losing it.
He tips his head back and takes a long breath. When he looks back down at me, his nose is straight again. Blood is no longer flowing down his chest.
“You have Hercules’s strength,” he says. His voice is normal again, though his lips are crimson.
“When I’m angry, yes.”
“You can stop him.”
“If he finds out that he can completely incapacitate me by just removing, or apparently killing, you, then no. Not anymore. I can’t stop him.”
I flex my hands, then shove him hard off the mast. I lay my palms flat on the wood. I can’t fly anywhere. We don’t know where to go. I’m trapped. But I have to channel some of the Rage into the ship. I’m so angry that every part of me hurts.
I let some of the fury trickle into the wood. The sails above me glow. The tension lessens, just the tiniest bit. The desire to smash him into tiny fucking pieces lessens just a bit.
“Why? Why did you do this to me?”
“It wasn’t my plan at the start. But you were chosen. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You want immortality?”
“I want to be part of the Trials.”
It’s not an answer, but I don’t turn to him. I press my head against the mast and let a little more anger flow from me into the wood. I’m aware of the glow turning red. I breathe deeper.
“I will make your crew stronger,” he says.
“You’ve fucked up everything.”
“I’m an asset. You can use me. I’m an alchemist. Healing serums, poisons—I can make all sorts. And my fox, Bassari, was a gift from my father. He gives my potions magic, makes them even more powerful.”
“You fucking poisoned me. And now you’re expecting me to be happy about it?”
“I’m rich, too. You can’t tell me healing magic and money won’t help your crew in this competition,” he says.
My fists ball. “Both those things would be great, if they didn’t come with me being fucking poisoned!” I yell.
A bone-deep resignation is warring with the anger. Everything is out of my control. Everything. I didn’t choose a single thing that has happened to me today.
And I can’t fight it.
I grip the mast harder, and feel my ship heat under my skin.
Losing my temper won’t help. The goal hasn’t changed. Hercules must die.
I’m going to have to work out how to fit this lying fuckwit into everything now, but I’m still going to kill Hercules. He can’t take that from me. He won’t.
I twist my head, keeping contact with the wood, and look at him. I instantly have to douse the urge to hit him again. “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. If you die, I’m fucked? Endless agony?”
“Until the poison wears off, yes. But I can take care of myself.”
“And same if I move more than twenty feet from you.”
“Yes.”
“So, genius, what do you think my opponents are going to do if they realize they can completely remove me from the competition simply by separating us?”
“We have to stop them realizing. And I have an idea about that.” He puts his hands on his hips. Blood has seeped into the waistband of his trousers now. Loathing rolls through me.
“You are an entitled, lying, greedy prick. I hate you.”
“Yes. Now, my idea is that we pretend to be in love.”