Chapter 49 Eryx
Eryx
Icough as light filters painfully through my half-closed eyes.
“Welcome back,” rumbles Antaeus.
“Captain?” I croak, unsure where I am. I raise my head gently, pain throbbing in my skull as I look around.
I’m in a bed that isn’t mine, but the wood-clad walls look like the Orion’s.
Antaeus is sitting in a big chair beside me, smiling.
“What…” My voice trails off as memories start to slam into me.
I was on the Hydra head over the burning swamp.
I smashed its eye and got that weird metal ball. “Did we win? I thought I saw Athena—”
Antaeus cuts me off with a deep belly laugh. “Yes, brother. We won. You won.”
Pride swells in me, and I try to sit up but my chest constricts painfully.
“Where are we?” I ask, wincing.
“My chambers. Don’t get used to it—it’s just until you feel better,” he says. “You had us worried. I really thought we were going to lose you for a while there, but Captain Lyssa’s medic knew about the poison in the Hydra’s horns and was able to treat it. He just left.”
Antaeus leans forward and clasps my shoulder, more gently than I knew he was capable of.
“You’ve been blue for the best part of the last hour. I didn’t know if you would make it.”
I look down at my bandaged chest, my head swimming. I was that close to death? My skin is so pale it’s almost white.
“Why did Lyssa and her crew help me?” I ask slowly. “I literally threw her into the fire. I mean, I aimed for the boat, but I’m surprised she didn’t finish the job herself.”
Antaeus’s eyes narrow. “I know. It’s strange.
She said that they were more interested in stopping Hercules than winning themselves, and it was the decent thing to do.
But I heard her say something to her medic about Athena believing you were important.
” My captain leans even closer into me, his bright blue eyes intense under heavy brows. “You know anything about that?”
I screw my face up. “I’ve never spoken to a god in my life,” I say. “Even Poseidon. You know that.”
Antaeus nods and then stands abruptly, his massive frame filling my vision.
“That’s what I thought. Get some rest. You need to drink all of that.
” He gestures at a blue, sludgy liquid in a glass on the stand next to the bed.
“The next Trial will be announced soon.” He strides to the door, then pauses and turns back. “Eryx, you did good. Really good.”
I beam.
When Antaeus has gone, I lay my head back on the pillow, enjoying how much nicer this bed and its sheets are than my own.
I did it.
I redeemed myself in my captain’s eyes and showed myself a hero to all of Olympus.
A slow, cramping pain rolls through my chest and I take a sharp breath in. I reach for the sludge and sniff it warily. Saliva fills my mouth at the sour smell, and I grimace.
But if what Antaeus says is true, I owe my life to the little medic and this sludge.
Athena told them I’m important, I muse, as I stare at the blue liquid.
I’m not surprised that they have the favor of Athena.
There was no way a ship that insignificant could have entered the Trials without the influence of a god, and Athena was always publicly against Hercules’s pardon. It had to have been her or Hera.
Did she pull Lyssa into the Trials for entertainment? Or are they all genuinely telling the truth about the goal being to stop Hercules from becoming immortal?
My face contorts again as I remember the centaurs at the Void feast. Stopping that man from living forever seems like a good idea to me.
But why would Athena say I’m important? I have nothing to do with her, or anyone in that arrogant human’s life.
My fingers are weakening around the glass, and I tip some cautiously into my mouth. I immediately begin to splutter, and have to force myself to swallow. It’s disgusting. But Antaeus said I have to finish it.
Barely moments after I’ve forced the rest of the foul stuff down my throat, the pain in my chest recedes to nothing. Fatigue, like a physical force, powers through my body, and the glass tumbles from my numb fingers.
Well, either the little satyr has poisoned me, or this is a very effective sedative.
A second later, I’m asleep.