Chapter 65
Lyssa
We’re going to win. I know it the second I see Artemis at the end of the gorge. My Rage has kept me higher and faster than any other crew, and now there’s nothing between me and victory. Excitement floods my system and I feel the boat pull beneath me, reacting to my emotion.
A high-pitched ringing sounds in my ears, followed by a loud grating noise. Apprehension clamps over me.
“What was that?” Alexios calls over the rushing wind.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter—we’re almost there,” I shout back.
Something is glinting off the canyon walls ahead of us. I squint, then spikes erupt from the rock as the stag gallops past them, growing in his wake and elongating.
Within a heartbeat there must be a hundred sharp metal points growing horizontally, straining to reach the opposite side of the gully.
“Shit, we can’t go over—the stag has gone through the middle.”
Alexios is right. And once those lethal tips meet in the middle, the finish line will be completely blocked.
“Then we’ll have to speed up,” I reply.
I grit my teeth, squeeze the mast, and once again open my mind.
I’m no longer the girl who ran.
I can win.
I will win.
This is a fair fight, head to head, and I will win.
My hair whips around my face as adrenaline pours through me. The wood beneath my fingers heats, drawing the Rage from my body and filling the sail with power.
The rock walls on either side of me are a blur as we speed after the stag, my eyes watering in the wind.
There’s a thud and the boat shudders hard, pitching me forward to land hard against the bottom on my knees. We slow, momentum preventing us from stopping completely, and I look up in dazed shock.
Hercules flies past, huge in his lion skin, Evadne holding a metal slingshot-type weapon and smiling. Time seems to slow as Hercules fixes his eyes on me, a laugh big and obvious on his lips.
Fury pulses through me so hard it hurts. I roar as I leap to my feet, thrusting both hands onto the mast and hurling my feelings into the boat.
It moves so fast that I barely keep my footing.
Alexios yells as he’s thrown backward, but I don’t care.
I fix my venomous glare on Hercules’s boat and let the hatred flow through me, like liquid fire.
My mother’s broken body flashes through my mind, and my muscles tense so hard that for a second I think I’ll break.
But then the pain morphs, cloaking me, lifting me.
I’m gaining on him.
“Lyssa, we’re too close to the spikes!” Alexios’s voice barely registers. “You need to stop—we’re not going to make it!”
We’re level with Hercules now. He turns to me, his smile gone, frenzied determination on his face. I know the shining spikes are approaching. I don’t care.
All I can see is him.
All I have to do is stop him.
Kill him.
“Lyssa, give up! Give up now!”
Deep red seeps into my peripheral vision, flooding what I can see, and pounding blood crashes in my ears. Alexios keeps shouting, but it means nothing. There’s nothing but power, enveloping me, elevating me, making me stronger than him.
Stronger than everyone.
The pounding in my ears is now a constant roar, my whole vision edged with dark, dark red. I can see me standing over Hercules, and it’s me holding the bloody poker, me raising the weapon and bringing it down toward my cowering father—
Something hits me, hard.
The boat jolts as I crash to the wood at my feet and kick out. As my leg extends, crippling cramps engulf my entire body.
I cry out in pain as the energy that was just coursing into the boat paralyzes my body, trapped with nowhere to go. I can hear Alexios through the confused haze of pain and anger.
“Lyssa.” He’s saying my name.
I curl up, my body shaking as my muscles constrict so hard I can’t breathe. I try to concentrate on anything except the pain. The boat has stopped moving. The spikes. Why aren’t we dead? I lost control. I couldn’t see anymore. I kept going when Alexios was begging me to stop. We should be dead.
Another wave of convulsing cramps rips through me. Is that cheering?
“A-Alexios?” I stammer.
“Once again, you nearly killed us.” His voice is quiet, and close. The pain in my body is subsiding. I roll onto my back and try to breathe deeply as he leans over me. “I had to get you away from the mast. We had to stop.”
“You… you tackled me?”
“Yes.”
“Why aren’t we dead?”
A small smile appears on his lips. “Because we made it.”
I sit up quickly, immediately bashing my head into his.
“We won?”
“We won.”
“Where’s Hercules?” I leap to my feet, immediately regretting it when a wave of dizziness hits me hard. I grip the side of the boat and look around.
“He’s not here,” I say, and my breath catches.
Alexios looks too. “No.”
I look down at all the spikes, hopefully. “I can’t see any bodies.”
“No. He must have given up at the last second.”
I shake my head, praying. “No. Hercules would never give up,” I say.
Alexios shrugs. “Maybe Evadne did for the both of them.”
I look at him. “Why didn’t you? Why did you let me carry on?”
He stares back at me. “I knew you could do it,” he says eventually.
I swallow, but before I can respond, Artemis’s commanding voice rings across the cheers. “Well done, Hero Lyssa.”
I spin to face the goddess on the podium. The Rage is leaking away and now only my hands are shaking.
“As the only hero to finish this Trial, I will gift you these.” An enormous set of golden antlers appears above the goddess, spinning slowly. “Any ship with these horns at their prow is welcome on Sagittarius.”
I drop to one knee, my heart skipping. Access to a forbidden realm could change our life. Plus, Epizon will be thrilled—if we survive the rest of the Trials long enough to use it.
Wait, she just said we’re the only crew to finish the race? That means Hercules really didn’t make it through the spikes.
We won. We actually won a Trial. Hope blooms in me, spreading like a warm balm through my aching, vibrating body.
We might actually do this. The little underdog crew, with the patched-together longboat and no fame or fortune, might actually do it.
We’ve won a Trial before Theseus has, for Zeus’s sake. Theseus. One of the best-connected, most powerful and famous demigods in Olympus.
A beam is forming on my face, and I accidentally look at Alexios. His smile is as genuine as mine, and for just a second, I don’t want to break his nose.
I want something else from him entirely.
“Your next Trial has already begun,” Artemis says with a small smile, then vanishes. Immediately, I hear voices in my head.
“Captain? Captain!”
“It’s no good. She still can’t hear you—ship communication hasn’t been working since the start of the race—”
“Hey!” I shout across them. The voices stop. “I can hear you. I assume you want to congratulate your hero?” I give a mock bow as I say it. Nobody answers. I straighten, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“Captain, it’s Lucas,” says Epizon, his voice grave. “He’s gone.”
With a flash, I’m back on the deck of the Alastor. I don’t have time even to look around me before the flame dish flares to life.
“Citizens of Olympus, we have an unexpected turn of events for you!” the blond task announcer cries. “Here’s your next host to tell you more!”
He vanishes, replaced by the beaming face of the god Apollo.
“Good day, Olympus. The crews have probably noticed by now that they are one member short. Sorry about that.” He smiles and winks, his white teeth flashing. “But don’t worry, you’re about to have your chance to win them back—as long as you’re quick enough.”
My stomach lurches, and I look at Epizon. His lips are pinched tightly together, and his impatient concern is a mirror of mine.
“You’ve each been assigned a color, and a matching key will arrive on your ships momentarily.”
A shimmering metal ball appears in the image next to his face. An intricate pattern of vines and leaves is carved into the surface, and it’s shining bright yellow.
“You will need this key if you make it through my challenges.”
The image changes, his face and the sphere fading, replaced with an aerial view of a cross, with a circle in the center.
“Your crewmates are here, heroes,” Apollo says, and the circle glows. “Three from each crew will start where you see your color and try to reach the center.”
Each of the four ends of the cross glows a different color.
“The first to reach the center wins. And for some added incentive…” The image swirls, as though we’re diving down, toward the glowing circle in the middle, then focuses sharply. There’s a cage, maybe ten feet square, with four figures inside.
My fists clench, my whole body tensing as I recognize Lucas lying unconscious on the floor, a peaceful look on his slumbering face.
I watch him long enough to see his chest rise and fall, then scan the other figures.
The gold-skinned half giant takes up a third of the available floor space, and Evadne and Theseus sprawl across each other on the remaining ground.
Theseus? Apollo has taken the Virtus’s captain?
I look harder at the image, and see that the cage is made from ice. The image wobbles and the figures stir. The cage seems to get smaller, the scene around it growing, and I suck in a breath.
A massive boar is running at the cage. Enormous ivory tusks curve out of its snout, and its eyes flash red as it powers toward the prisoners. My heart hammers as it smashes into the ice. The enclosure holds, just quivering slightly as its inhabitants start to lift their heads.
“I’d say you have about two hours before the boar breaks through the cage. And I’m afraid he has a bad temper and a large appetite.” Apollo’s face appears, and I hiss an involuntary snarl. “Oh, and it’s winter in Capricorn. Very, very cold. Good luck.”
The god beams, winks again, and vanishes.
The End