Chapter 64
Hercules
The indifference I felt toward my daughter’s retained life when I began these Trials just a few days ago is gone.
I need her out of my way, permanently.
I never set out to kill her or her mother fourteen years ago.
Those actions were truly out of my control.
But this time, I know exactly what I’m doing.
This time, my mind is clear, my purpose singular.
Lyssa has proven herself more capable than I anticipated, more resilient, and therefore more dangerous.
She carries my blood, my strength, and that makes her the one obstacle between me and immortality that I cannot afford to underestimate.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I created this problem myself when I sired her. Now I must eliminate it.
Keeping the golden-horned stag in sight, I will my boat higher.
Lyssa is only feet ahead of me, her pathetic little vessel straining to maintain its lead.
I swerve around a rusty-colored rock spire, the boat still rising, but make no move to overtake.
Not yet. I want her to think she has a chance.
I want her to taste victory before I rip it away from her.
I hold my arm high as we draw up behind the smaller boat. The useless pretty boy she has as lookout is facing forward, in the same direction as her. Idiot.
“Shoot,” I say, and drop my arm with decisive authority.
I hear the bolt loose from Evadne’s crossbow at the same time Lyssa’s boat plummets toward the ground.
“What in Zeus’s name is she doing?” For a moment I think the bolt has struck her, sent her spiraling out of control.
Then I realize I’ve lost sight of the stag.
I launch my boat after hers, spotting the stag galloping headlong across the rocky ground far below. At the last moment, it pulls up, heading fast toward a dark hole in the face of the canyon. A cave.
Lyssa’s shining red sail dims in front of me as we both speed into the cave mouth, swerving immediately to follow the narrow channel winding through the rock.
The opening is barely wide enough for my boat, one of few disadvantages of my superior size and power.
Dust flies up around us as we shoot through the tunnel, and Evadne starts coughing behind me. The sound is distracting.
It’s pitch dark inside the rock, which makes the outline of the shining stag ahead crystal clear.
The glow of both boats’ sails shines off the stone walls as we fly through the passage after the creature, and I glance up at my already-dimming sail, acutely aware that with no light at all, it will start to lose power.
Solar sails, though brilliant in open sky, are useless in extended darkness.
I narrow my eyes at the red rippling across Lyssa’s sail in front of me.
That’s not solar power. That’s the power she inherited from me.
I’ve never channeled my own strength into a ship like that.
I’ve never needed to—my raw power has always been enough.
Perhaps it’s time I start. I assume it will be the same as wielding Keravnos, a matter of focus and will.
“The end of the tunnel,” Evadne says, around spluttering coughs. She’s right—I can see bright light growing in the distance.
“Get ready to aim again, as soon you are able,” I tell her.
“Yes, captain.”
Something whistles over my head, and there’s a clank as it hits the rock wall inches from my face. Rock chips spray across my cheek.
“What was that?” I pull my lion skin up over my head with my free hand, the impenetrable hide settling over my shoulders like armor, and focus on the growing passage exit.
There’s another whistling sound, closer this time, then a thunking sound as something strikes wood.
The boat lurches violently, scraping against the narrow tunnel wall.
“It hit the boat!” Evadne calls, her voice pitched high with fear.
“What is it?” I growl, righting the longboat with a hard pull, the passage too tight to risk turning to look.
“Some sort of spear. It looks—”
She’s cut off by another whistling sound, then the clatter of metal on rock as another projectile barely misses us.
“They’re coming out of the rock face!” she calls, her voice muffled now as she ducks low in the boat.
Artemis is testing us, seeing who has the courage to push through. Some lesser heroes might slow down, might try to dodge and weave. But I am Hercules. I don’t slow down for anyone or anything.
The next spear hits me square in the chest, ricocheting off the impervious lion skin. The power of the shot is strong enough to have punched through a normal man’s ribcage, and it knocks me sideways despite my braced stance.
The boat lurches with the movement of my huge weight, careening off the wall. I hear wood splinter, feel the vessel shudder beneath me, but I wrench us back on course. We bounce off the opposite wall, then I have us straight again, and we burst from the rock back into the twilight.
We’re in a narrow canyon, only a few feet wider than the tunnel we’ve just emerged from, and my sail snaps taut immediately, the solar panels drinking in the light, then shimmering with renewed power.
I look to Lyssa’s boat, just ahead and to my left.
Neither she nor her crewmate have been injured by the spears, I notice with disappointment.
She’s got her hands pressed to the mast, the infernal red sail blazing like a banner of war.
Her red hair whips around her face, wild, untamed, just like her mother’s.
A swell of anger washes through me.
“You’re supposed to be shooting,” I bark at Evadne, “not cowering in the bottom of the boat!”
She struggles to her feet, pointing ahead with one hand and scooping the crossbow up off the planks with the other. “The finish line!”
I follow her arm. At the end of the long, straight gorge are the tiered stalls from the start, loaded with waving spectators. I can’t hear them, but it’s obvious they’re cheering.
Next to them, standing on a floating platform with her gleaming bow over her shoulder and her silver armor catching the light, is Artemis.
She marks the end of the race.
I will the boat toward the goddess as fast as I can. It surges forward. Lyssa is still ahead, but barely. The gap between us is closing.
I bare my teeth in a savage grin. She’s going to lose. She’s going to watch me cross that finish line first, watch me claim victory, watch me prove that she was never strong enough, never fast enough, never good enough to stand against me.
I am Hercules. Son of Zeus. Slayer of monsters. And I do not lose to weak little children.