13 #4
Anansi nods, crossing his arms. “It certainly will.”
Concern creases Koda’s brow as he reaches out for August’s arm.
Aymes gives it to our friend without hesitation, then asks, “Do you need a seat?”
“I think the time has come for me to return home – if it’s okay with you, Anansi.” Worry mixes with Koda’s apology.
“I’ll go with you,” I volunteer, earning a grateful look from Koda.
“Of course,” Anansi allows. “August, will you stay?”
His question hangs heavy in the air. Anansi has his mortal, but Ogun is interested in Aymes.
I give my ally an encouraging smile. Ogun seems like he’ll be a good champion. He should stay and talk with him.
“I’m actually exhausted, too.” August smiles, carefully bowing out.
“You’ve been through quite the ordeal today,” Ogun agrees, then tells August that he enjoyed speaking with him. “Perhaps we can speak at the next feast.”
“Of course,” August agrees.
Before we say goodbye for the night, Anansi takes Koda by the shoulders. “Be sure to rest, my friend. The second trial will be very challenging.”
“Are you assisting contestants you do not champion?” a deep voice questions from behind me. Ares waits for Anansi’s answer.
“You should think carefully about the rules you’re insinuating I’m violating. I am speaking to my mortal, not to any others,” Anansi replies, his head tilting unnaturally.
“They can hear you,” Ares advises, gesturing to August and me.
Fear strikes my heart for Koda’s safety, as hot and sharp as a lightning bolt. Will he hold such innocuous advice against him?
Anansi didn’t give specific details about the trial. I doubt he knows exactly what it will entail. He wasn’t involved in their planning.
Anansi’s eyes glimmer in the firelight as they swivel to me and August. “Can they?” he asks Ares.
The god of war folds his arms. “You know they can.”
The trickster god grins. “I’ve adhered to your rules. I did not advise them of anything. I told my mortal to rest. A bland piece of advice any champion might give and mortals expect to hear after such a harrowing trial. That is all.”
Anansi doesn’t wait for any further words on the matter. He tells Koda he will visit him tomorrow. He and Ogun nod to Koda, then to us, before vanishing from the temple.
With a threatening glare, Ares follows suit.
Koda accepts my and August’s help down the staircase. “They should install a portal, or maybe a slide,” he suggests halfway down when we have to stop on a landing for him to rest.
When Koda is safely in his oikos, August and I start across the shore toward our homes.
“Why didn’t you stay and speak with Ogun?” I finally ask. The question has been rattling around in the back of my mind since the gods disappeared.
August shoves his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “I don’t know. With Ogun, I could better help Koda.” He’s quiet for a long time. “I think he would make a great champion.”
“So, why didn’t you stay and talk to him?” I press.
“When I thought about staying behind, something in my gut insisted I go with you,” he admits, staring ahead at the dark sky and matching waves. “It sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
I shake my head. “No. I’ve always been told to trust my intuition, but I’m not sure we have the luxury right now.”
“I’ll talk to him at the next feast,” he says resolutely.
The wind rolling off the water is steady and strong, clawing sand from the damp shore. It stings my arms and face, and I blink to keep it from getting into my eyes. We reach the thin walkways that lead to our homes. He takes his. And I take mine.
Standing at my front door, I hear, “Goodnight, Callalie.”
“Goodnight.”
He twists his doorknob the same time I do, and we step into our houses. His windows leak warm light, but my house is dark.
The oil lamp was burning when I left. It must be empty.
I push my door open wider, moonlight slipping inside.
There’s a scuff on the tile near the bathing room. The hair on my arms rises. My breathing shallows. “Cillian?”
Even as I say his name, I know it’s not him. My brother lit the lamps. He wouldn’t extinguish them, and besides, he promised to go straight home to Abuela. I turn to flee, but I only make it a few steps.
Someone stronger and taller than me wraps his arm around my neck and squeezes. My feet leave the ground and he hauls me farther into the house.
“Where’s the spear?” my attacker growls in a thick accent, his warm, stinking breath at my ear.
Torsten.
Fighting to free myself, I claw his gritty forearm and hear his hiss of pain when I open his skin. But he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t even loosen his grip.
I pry his finger back, trying to snap the bone.
He jerks me to the side and my toes barely graze the tile before he straightens.
Blood rushes to my face and head. I try to lower my chin, my jaw grating against the sweat and dirt coating every inch of him, but he only squeezes tighter and drags me across the floor toward the bottom of the bed.
He’s torn the blanket off the mosaic. Moonlight limns the wrath in my sister’s eyes.
“Where is your spear?” he asks again.
Choking, I struggle and kick my legs, trying to catch his knee or shin. Something.
I can’t… breathe. Can’t reach the ground.
Carina watches me being suffocated from the mural.
I claw out at him again, and he twists from one side to the other so I can’t hurt him. And when he does, I see my ruined, destroyed room.
“Where is it?” he growls.
Even if I wanted to tell him, I can’t because he’s crushing my vocal cords. The sounds that squeak from my throat are ones I recognize from that chorus of the dying. I don’t want to sing this song. Not again.
Darkness swarms my vision. I buck and swing my legs, trying to throw him off balance, but it’s weaker.
The strength in my hands and arms starts to seep away. I still fumble, desperate to break his hold.
He’s going to kill me.
I finally croak a noise, begging him to stop. He eases his grip and my toes, then the heels of my feet find the tile.
“Tell me where it is and I’ll let you live.”
But I know he won’t. He’s a liar. And a thief. And a bully.
He almost died today. He’ll do anything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
I plant my feet, pray my next actions don’t damage the prosthesis Daedalus just gave me, and throw my head back into his face with a last, wild burst of energy.
There’s a sickening crunch, followed by a sharp burst of pain in the back of my skull. His loud howl and blistering curse thunder in my ear.
I stop trying to pull on his arm and instead twist my body to the side, then bring my balled fist backward, between his legs. He grunts as his knees buckle. I tear out of his grip as he drops to the floor.
“You son of a bitch, I hope you taste your balls in the back of your throat!” I seethe.
“Callalie?” August stands in the doorway, panting and wild-eyed.
The moonlight reveals Torsten on his side, hands shielding his groin, moaning and retching as he curls forward.
My neighbor’s eyes take in my mottled face and ruined hair. The top of my dress where it buttoned at the neck is torn. I clutch the silken fabric against my heaving chest and gulp in as much air as I can, coughing because it’s too much and not enough at the same time.
One of my feathers is missing. Ripped out at some point and likely scattered among… all this. I turn, trying to find it in the moonlight. Failing at that, too.
August storms across the room and drags Torsten out of my house by his filthy, braided hair.
I hear a splash and walk to the doorway just as Torsten surfaces. He slams a hand onto the top of the water, cursing August as he tries to tread. I don’t know how he didn’t drown in the river he described. Busted balls or none, he’s a terrible swimmer.
Torsten suddenly tenses and then stills, searching the water around him.
It’s as black as the night sky as he swims in a frantic circle.
A shrill scream tears from his throat and he takes off, cutting as fast as he can through the narrow channel.
He makes it to Niall’s island and scuttles onto the shore just as a tentacle breaches the surface, scraping his shoulder to rake him back in.
Torsten twists away, bellowing at the beast. Then he points at me. “That spear is mine.”
Tense from head to toe, his fists balled at his sides, August roars, “The fuck it is! Come near her again, and you won’t live to see the next trial!”
Torsten spits in our direction, then roughly dusts the sand off his wet clothes and body. His nose is crooked and still bleeding. He shoots a malicious glare toward us before stomping down the path to the main island.
When he’s out of sight, I sink against the doorframe.
My throat aches inside and out – the skin is already bruising – and the back of my head stings. It’s tender to the touch when I bring my shaking fingers up to it.
But I’m alive.
I lived.
My sister didn’t have to watch me die.
Breathing becomes easier.
The stars glitter overhead like a coded message I haven’t deciphered.
Carina used to spend hours tracking them across the sky. She said their movements mirrored ours.
I search for one that’s battered and bruised but still burning.