Chapter 6 Envy
Envy
No. Fucking. Way.
Masculine shouts erupt as the river swallows their boat. The females are the only industrious occupants, seizing the ends of the star-shaped vessel and fighting to steer it forward.
While that should be Envy’s job, he’s too busy staring.
White fire shoots from the pole, tongues of light thrashing against the sky.
The universe explodes into a tempest of sound, sound, sound.
Obscenities and bellows from the crew, plus a great lashing roar from the river.
Towering walls of fluid strike the boat, shoving them off-route, only for the transport to collide with another curling wave, which flings them in the opposite direction.
Water thrashes over the side, dousing everyone and flooding the deck.
The world spins in a vortex, a blur of staggering bodies, raging seascapes, and jagged cliffs. Envy’s vision goes rogue, producing a collage of unsteady images. Everything veers from side to side in an erratic mutiny of motion.
Mist sprays his neck. Foam slides down his arms. Liquid clogs his throat.
The rapids snatch the vessel and give a forceful yank, tossing them one way and then another, then another, then another. The boat tilts at an incline, lifts out of the water, rides the tail of a star-spangled wave, and plunges into the brewing flux.
While the females try maneuvering the vessel, the males fight to keep everyone’s weapons from disappearing over the rim.
Arrows, longbows, and quivers scatter, slick and impossible to grab.
Anger dives to catch shafts of iron, then neon.
Andrew crushes someone’s archery against his chest, wrestling to hold on.
Malice hurls several quivers over his shoulder.
Whipping open the lower compartment, Envy hollers for them to dump the weapons inside. Stumbling across the deck, they secure the items into the cubicle. All except for Love, Sorrow, and Envy’s archery because the fucking rapids are too powerful.
The goddesses stand vigil at their respective ends of the conveyance. Together, they heave on the vessel, steering without knowing their orientation.
Sorrow bellows something, but the crash of breakers against the bluffs drowns out the words. Everybody careens, grappling to stay balanced. Immortals can last for a while, submerged without oxygen. But not forever. And that’s assuming the looming cliffs don’t flatten them like crepes before then.
A blotted silhouette traverses the divide. Sloshing through the water, the figure draws near and cuffs Envy upside the head, knocking him out of his stupor.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Sorrow spews. “Get your ethereal ass in gear!”
With a backhanded swat of his arm, Envy knocks the harpy goddess aside. “Then kindly move out of my way.”
As their transport crashes down the river, he snares the pole and executes a deft twist. They dodge a wave, Envy driving the boat through the turbulence.
Up ahead, the range swells larger, closer.
Just then, a scanty weight barrels into his side, hauling him off balance.
His back rams into the floor as a lanky body lands on top, her sodden thighs astride his waist. Between the seaweed of her hair, Sorrow’s silver eyes pop out at Envy, the pupils flashing in exasperation.
Simultaneously, their heads swing toward the pole, where an ice arrow has lodged itself.
Shit. The waves must have caused the boat to launch a few renegade projectiles that escaped her quiver.
If Sorrow hadn’t seen it happen, his head might be a pincushion by now.
She doesn’t look interested in his gratitude, doesn’t act like it either when she fists his shirt collar and drags him upright.
Tottering to her feet, she darts back to her position without a backward glance.
Envy lets the mortification roll off his shoulders and resumes his grasp on the pole. Dawn leaks into the firmament, slathering the canopy in lapis lazuli. This conflict becomes a push and pull, a battle without an ending.
Envy’s muscles contract as he manipulates the forsaken pole. “Bear north!”
The females grasp and exert pressure on the transport’s edges—a less common way to steer—whirling them out of harm’s way, then skating another onslaught. The river splits, one route spilling toward the summit and an abutting shoreline, the other extending toward a colony of homes on stilts.
The residences of their people. A guaranteed path to imprisonment, if not death.
Envy opens his mouth to howl another command, but a vicious sheet of water slams into the boat. Then another belt of liquid whips through the air, slams into the stomach of a passenger, and launches the body overboard like a ragdoll.
Like it weighs nothing. Like it means nothing.
Love screeches, Wonder gives a cry, and Merry bawls the figure’s name.
Andrew storms into motion, Malice jets forward as well, and Anger thrusts out his arms. All three males snatch their mates, dragging the goddesses backward and preventing them from being saviors.
The females keep shouting a name, the moniker swallowed by the rapids.
Yet Envy doesn’t require silence to hear.
He knows who they’re calling out for. He knows who went over.
The boat thrashes in the wrong trajectory. Correction, in the very fucking wrong direction. His head dices between one route and the other, eyes cutting from the crew to the sinking puddle.
It’ll be okay. She’ll be okay.
She knows how to swim. She’ll live, and they’ll find her later. She’ll live, she’ll live, she’ll—
“Motherfuck!” Envy gives a final jerk on the pole, veering the boat off course.
Then he releases the shaft. Then he mutters another oath.
Then he stalks to the nearest ledge. Then he fucking dives.
The depth snatches his limbs, consuming him whole. A funnel sucks him down, plugging his ears and battering his clothes.
His clothes, which are ruined. He will blame her for this. He will blame that goddess for forcing him to abandon their crew, not to mention his weaponry, the latter of which will likely go overboard.
Yes, he’ll do a thorough job condemning that spitfire. Meanwhile, she won’t give a shit.
Too bad, because he’ll make her give a shit. That will become his life’s purpose.
Envy pumps his limbs, descending into an abyss void of sounds and smells. Down here, it’s all satiny texture and metallic tastes.
Those sensory details, in addition to sight. Underwater plants glint like rubies. A flash of multicolored, serpentine scales ripple past him. Diaphanous fins flap through beams of starlight.
Envy floats in place. His gaze skewers through the deep, dashing here and there, hunting for unmistakable traces.
The shredded skirt, bloated from the current.
Those boots, scuffed and old because she refuses to enchant new ones.
The vest, accented with a stitching needle, a tool not meant for sewing but mending gashes.
If she were as flexible as Wonder, as spry as Love, or as alert as Merry, this wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t be down here, with bubbles spurting from his goddamn nose and his mane a nest of knots.
Envy’s shoes stifle his progress. Fumbling, he wrenches them off seconds before a wave pounds into him. The impact blasts his body backward, pain detonating beneath his ribs. Groaning, he clutches his throbbing side and kicks his legs.
Why, why, why? Why the fuck did he jump?
The goddess would agree, this crew needs Envy more. Yet his gaze scours the murky depths, swerving left to right before landing on a shape floating nearby. Like an eel, the slender female glides his way in a swirl of black. The more distance she covers, the deeper her victorious leer gets.
She’s in one piece. She’s fine.
Whereas he’s a foolish bastard for thinking otherwise. Smarting from his wound, Envy growls. Foam spills from his mouth, which only intensifies that feminine smirk.
But no, it’s not a smirk. It’s a wince.
And she isn’t gliding, she’s paddling. Her arms toil, wrestling the current to her last, stubborn breath, and her ice weapons are nowhere to be seen. The rapids must have consumed them.
Abreast of him, Sorrow’s joints give. She droops and goes limp like a drowning star.
Envy catches that drowning star before it sinks. His wounded side cramps, protesting her weight, but there’s nothing for it. Hefting the female onto his back and linking her arms over his shoulders, he shoots upward.
Breaking the surface, Envy wheezes for air, which magnifies his injury. Blinking the water out of his face, he searches for their transport, but it’s gone.
All he sees is a coastline. And the homes of their enemies.