Chapter 27
Lyssa
“Jump!” I yell at Alexios as I fall, and hope to the gods that he times it right.
I tumble in the air, trying to right myself, and close my eyes, feeling power flow through my body. My Rage-fueled strength takes over my limbs, and my feet hit the ground with a thud. My momentum springs me back up, just in time to throw an arm out and slow the crashing fall of Alexios.
I do a poor job, and he smashes into the cages, splintering them apart, with a painful-sounding crack.
He gasps for air, and I haul him to his feet as the shrieking descends.
“Broken—rib—” he wheezes as I wrap my much-too-small arm around his waist. I take as much of his weight as I can and take off running toward the dense forest. Shadows whirl above us, beaks and claws close, then Epizon is on the other side of Alexios and I’m relieved of the awkward grip.
We sprint into the forest, a talon catching my shoulder as we dive into the thick foliage.
We don’t slow as deafening shrieks follow us, stumbling and leaping over boulders and roots in our way. The farther we get into the forest, the weaker the shrieks become, but we still don’t slow.
Only when I’m sure they’ve given up following do we stop, taking huge gulps of warm, sticky air. I have no idea which direction we’ve taken, and I swear loudly, kicking at a boulder, as we lay the dead weight that is Alexios down on the mossy ground.
“Bassari,” Alexios whispers, and his words sound wet.
“Shit, captain,” Epizon says as we look at his face. There’s blood filling his mouth, dribbling over his full lips.
“He said he broke a rib. It may have punctured something.”
If he dies, I experience crippling pain for the next month.
With a shimmer, his blue fox appears. It moves far faster than when I broke Alexios’s nose. It’s at his belt in an instant, nose pressed to a small purple vial.
“Make him drink it,” Bassari tells me as it glows bright.
I unstop it fast, and press it to Alexios’s scarlet mouth. He grunts and tips his head back with a wince, and I pour the liquid in.
“He’s going to need some time,” Bassari says as we all watch Alexios let out a long breath. The blood bubbles on his lips.
“How long? Will he live?”
“Yes. About an hour.”
Both relief and anger flow through me in intertwining waves, and I sit down hard on a boulder.
I’m trying to pretend it’s anger with him. I mean, what the fuck did he think would happen, binding us together like this for a series of deadly trials? If we can barely even fight harpies, how the fuck are we supposed to beat the actual monsters?
But the truth is, though, some of the anger is with myself.
I ran away.
I’m supposed to be the girl who doesn’t run anymore. And I just ran for my life from some mangy harpies.
This is a shit start to living by that mantra.
“If you weren’t saddled with him, you’d have escaped no problem. Your strength made that an easy jump,” Epizon says quietly.
“You know I can hear you,” Alexios mumbles from the ground. “So might others.”
I rub my face. “What matters is that he’s going to be fine.”
“And all of Olympus now knows I have a magical healing fox,” he adds. “That wasn’t my plan.”
“This isn’t about you.” I sigh.
“It sort feels like it is right now.”
“If you can talk, you can walk,” I say, but Bassari turns to me.
“No. His bones are knitting back together, and the hole in his lung is draining before it repairs. He can go nowhere for a little longer.”
“Then he can conserve his energy and stay quiet.”
Bassari nods at me.
“That’s quite a healing potion,” I say mentally to the fox. “Thank the gods.”
“Thank Dionysus in particular,” Bassari answers. “That is where this magic comes from.”
“I thought Hermes is the god of healing?”
“He is. But Dionysus is the god of all things alchemical, and you can choose what to do with that.”
“And Alexios chose healing?”
“Amongst other skills, yes.”
I fall silent, wringing my hands. We’re losing our lead.
But the evidence of how powerful Bassari’s healing is forces me to wonder for the first time if Alexios could genuinely be an asset.
Then I remember that I would have been out of that tree and would probably have found the fucking lion by now, if it weren’t for being physically bound to a complete and utter idiot.
This is his own damn fault.
Eventually, Bassari announces Alexios is healed enough to move, and he drags himself upright. Reluctantly, I offer him a hand, and he takes it.
“Can he run and fight?” I ask the fox.
“Not really, no. Not until he’s rested fully, overnight.”
I grind my teeth.
“I can see how much you want to kiss your lover in relief,” Alexios says to me, a tiny wince in his shining eyes as he straightens to his full height. “After all, I did nearly die.”
I stand on tiptoes and press my lips to his cheek. “If you weren’t bound to me, I would have let you,” I whisper before pulling back and giving him a huge, fake smile.
“I believe you.” He smiles back.
“Follow me, captain,” says Epizon, mercifully giving me a reason to turn away from Alexios.
He scouted our position while we waited, and now he has his knife out, ready.
“Let’s go,” I say.
We move slower than before, and energy is swirling through my body in pulsing waves.
I need to fight now. I almost want to go back to the harpy settlement, just to fight.
“So,” says Alexios, falling into step beside me.
“So, what?” I yank a leafy branch out of my way viciously.
“So, you can fall twenty feet and not break both your legs,” he says. “How?”
“Zeus’s granddaughter, remember? If you’re stronger than the ground, it can’t hurt you.”
“Right,” he says after a pause. “Didn’t know that’s how it works, but sure. Are we going to talk about the fact that you didn’t catch me?”
“I nearly caught you. You jumped too early.”
“You missed.”
“You went too early,” I repeat.
“You told me—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“Stop talking. Conserve your energy.”
He eyes me sideways, but falls quiet as he follows me through the trees. The disgusting smell is starting to clear from the air. A voice in my head makes me jump.
“Cap, you there?”
“Gods! Yes, Len, I’m here. What is it?” I ask, shaking my head.
“You were right about not going to that party on the Virtus,” Len says. “They just sent out a message on the flame dishes. It looked like a hell of a night. I could see some nymphs asleep behind Theseus, and if they were wearing anything—”
“Len! Get to the point, please.”
“Sorry, cap. Basically, they overdid it and never set off this morning. They apologize profusely to their supporters and will try harder next time, blah, blah, blah.”
The anger I’ve tried to settle rekindles immediately, and I kick the tree closest to me. Leaves rustle as it shudders.
“Theseus is a fucking moron! He’s Hercules’s biggest competition, if he’s not taking this seriously, Hercules is all but guaranteed to win!” Epizon turns to me at my outburst, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Theseus missed the start of the Trial. They’re not coming.”
Epizon gives a small hiss of annoyance, but Alexios just shrugs. “Nobody is guaranteed to win. The Trials are anyone’s game,” he says.
I glare back at him. “This isn’t a fucking game.”
“I think you’ll find that’s exactly what it is.”
“Don’t—” I start, but Epizon cuts me off abruptly.
“Get down!” He gestures to the ground, urgency on his serious face.
All three of us duck down, hidden easily by the haphazard boulders, moldy trunks, and enormous plants that make up the forest.
My heart starts to pound as I hear the distinct sound of someone else forcing their way through the unrelenting trees. We crouch silently, time stretching as the sounds grow closer.
I hear a slight muttering, and it sounds female. That means it’s a local, or Evadne from Hercules’s crew. There are no women on the Orion, and the Virtus isn’t here. My throat constricts slightly. If it’s Evadne, then Hercules won’t be far away.
The woman’s voice becomes clearer, and we all crouch even lower as the trees to our right begin to move a little, then a lot, as a figure pushes through.
My mouth falls open in surprise.
A girl not much younger than myself, with flaming-red hair, is dragging a huge, muscular man dressed in black across the forest floor.
The man must be unconscious or dead, because when she can’t pull him through the undergrowth, she’s lifting him by the waist of his trousers and heaving him over obstacles like a ragdoll, all the while cursing him for being so heavy.
I stare, agape, at the man’s lifeless form.
It’s Hercules.