A Shield of Fate and Ruin (Apollo Ascending Book 3), page 20
He plunged his spear forward, thrusting it hard enough that it impaled one man and struck another at the same time. He jerked it back, blood splattering his clothing, and then used the side of it to knock a dozen men down.
He moved like nothing I’d ever seen before, like a god bent on destruction.
I kept peeling arrows through my fingers.
The armies had reached each other, and we stood in the beating heart of thousands of soldiers screaming, fighting, clanging, crying, falling.
And then the weather shifted.
A wind blew in, cool and sweet. But terror swept through my blood.
It came from the west.
Zephyrus’ wind.
The gust picked up, hard enough that people on our side tumbled over, stumbling beneath startled horse’s hooves, their cries causing hair on my arms to rise. Other soldiers dropped, making them vulnerable to Ansair’s forces. They pushed forward with a vengeance, slicing into our men like the defenseless creatures they were.
Emrin’s expression rippled with something like guilt or maybe terror before he pulled back on his horse, trying to navigate the animal away from the front lines. But there was nowhere to go. We lay trapped in the middle of it.
The wind blew again, a hurricane of power. Orion dropped to his stomach, ducking, the gale sweeping over him. And Arion gritted his hooves into the dirt, bracing against it as I clung to him.
But Emrin, who had already started turning, tumbled from his horse and his head banged against the ground.
“Fuck,” I said, as I struggled against the weight of the gust that wished to shove me down. Arion snorted, the muscles of his shoulders trembling with his effort. “Don’t lose me,” I yelled, and jumped off him. His snout pressed against my shoulder as he followed behind.
Emrin lay only a dozen feet away.
I could reach him.
I just needed to press against the wind.
My muscles screamed, and the Hyacinth necklace and key swept backwards, strangling me. I gripped the leather of the cord and pulled it down, my stomach trembling with the ache of struggling against the wind.
Screams of death howled around.
Another step.
An enemy soldier stood before Emrin.
He raised his sword.
Blood rushed down me, leaving me prickling, my heart racing.
“No,” I breathed.
I couldn’t reach him in time.
The silver of the blade arced down towards him.
Delon jumped from his horse and landed on top of Emrin.
The sword sliced into Delon.
Blood gushed forth, a crimson fountain.
“Delon,” I screamed.
The wind died again, and I whipped blades out of my belt, running and stabbing them at anyone who stepped in my way, slicing through flesh, knocking feet out from under them, kicking and fighting and clawing my way ahead.
“Retreat.” Asher’s voice roared over the cacophony of the army. “Retreat!”
I ducked around a blade and sent my knife into the soldier’s leg, yanking it out and thrusting it forward again.
Orion sliced and cut and dashed his way in our direction.
Arion whinnied, a nervous, haunting sound. Like death breathed down his neck.
Emrin rolled Delon over, his mouth gaping.
Which is why he didn’t see the soldier behind him, the sword the man lifted.
“Emrin,” I screamed again, so loud it graveled my throat. But he didn’t hear me.
Orion reached them right as the weapon swept forward.
He knocked the enemy fighter down with a tremendous blow across the chest.
But the blade cut into the side of Emrin’s neck before the soldier fell back.
I arrived and dropped to my knees beside them both.
Emrin clasped his fingers up to the wound, blood splattering his skin. “Temi,” he said, his lip trembling. “I’m… I’m sorry… I’m…”
“Stop talking.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I reached for Arion and dragged my pack off his back before opening it. I had nothing to deal with this out here on the field. But the sword had nicked something vital, and the wound would have to be cauterized.
Orion continued fighting off enemies. He stood alone against a dozen men.
He could handle it.
I took out flint and cloth and snap, snap, snapped until a flame caught.
The rain still fell, and I leaned over the gentle spark, hoping to save it from the weather. “Emrin,” I said. His eyes, hazel pools of terror, darted to me. “This is going to hurt like fuck, and you deserve it. But, hear me, you aren’t dying right now. Try to stay with me. Okay?”
His lips had paled, as the blood soaked through his shirt, but he nodded.
I held the flame against the tip of my knife until the blade of it gleamed orange. “I’m sorry,” I said, and pressed it against the wound.
Emrin gasped, his face turning as ivory as the moon, as if the death spirit wandering around had snatched him in her hands.
But no. His chest still rose with breath, and his eyes flew open. So he’d actually stayed awake. “Orion,” I screamed.
He looked back before swiping his weapons forward again.
“Can you get Delon?”
“Yes,” he said, ending the last of the surrounding combatants.
Orion hefted Delon over his shoulder as if he picked up a knapsack, before laying him carefully across his horse’s shoulders.
“Emrin, I need you to try to climb onto my horse.”
He nodded once but seemed to lack the energy to respond. Orion had already disentangled his steed and mounted, one hand resting on Delon. “Arion,” I called, and he trotted over. “Can you help me get Emrin on your back?”
Arion studied him for a heartbeat and then bowed down, his legs folding as he eased to the grass.
“Thank you,” I said, and heaved Emrin up, pushing him onto Arion’s shoulders. I climbed behind on him, and Arion rose. Emrin fell against me, his head lolling, and I wrapped an arm tight around his stomach. “Get us out of this, Arion. Return to Val.”
He whinnied and jumped, his hooves thundering into the earth. Orion followed, but his horse struggled to keep up with us.
We pushed along with the rest of the army as it retreated.
I looked back once, where the Ansair soldiers cheered, spears thrusting against the sky. And I swore I could hear a cackle of cruel laughter in the wind.
Arion pushed hard into the chaos of the camps, and we swerved through officers and horses and tents to reach the medical area. “The King of Niria is injured,” I cried out. “I need help.”
Physicians flooded towards me, taking Emrin into their arms, moving him into the tent. A sigh swept out of me from the relief of handing him off to someone who might know what to do to heal him.
I dismounted, patting Arion’s sweat-slicked side, and walked over to Orion, who eased Delon down.
“I can help you carry him into the physician’s tent.”
Orion raised his face. Blood coated him like he’d fallen into it, his pale coloring darkened with crimson. His eyes held so much sadness and regret it stole my breath. He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and gave his head a shake.
“No,” I said as Orion lowered Delon onto a stretcher. I dropped to my knees beside him. Delon’s golden-brown hair lay tangled in clumps of dried blood, his lips parted like he sucked in a breath. But his chest did not rise.
Soldiers separated as Len ran through the crowd. He caught my eye and jogged towards me. “Have you seen…” His gaze lowered to the stretcher. “Delon,” he whispered and eased down on his other side. “No, no…” He gripped his shoulders and gave him a shake like he might wake him. “No,” he said again, his voice whisper-quiet. “He can’t…” Len lifted his face and tears wobbled over the dark surface of his eyes. “He didn’t tell me he was leaving. He… he should have told me. I would have been with him.”
It was hard watching someone as stoic as Len fall apart. He tangled a hand into his hair, bunching it up, his gasping sobs filling the air between us. I gripped his arm. “You would be dead too if you’d followed, and he knew that.” Delon lay pale and broken on the stretcher, and Orion crossed his arms, his expression causing others to weave away from us, giving us space. “Delon was a lot of things, but he cared deeply for his friends.”
Len gave a couple of sharp nods and squeezed Delon’s shoulders once more. It was such an intimate gesture that I looked away.
Len rose, and I stood with him. He cleared his throat hard. “I’ll make arrangements to have him returned to his family. Could you stay with him for a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” he said, and then turned, before weaving out into the milling of injured and filthy soldiers.
Exhaustion hit me, swelling over me, and I took a deep breath of the smoke and filth and blood in the air. Gods, what I wouldn’t give for a moment to unweave my thoughts, but I did not have that chance. Orion didn’t leave either, standing with me, creating a clearing of quiet in the six feet Delon’s body rested in. How would Apollo react when he found out? I swallowed hard and crouched back down, brushing copper-stained hair away from Delon’s cheek.
27
Apollo
The god we’d landed by sauntered up beside us, his gray-green eyes tracing over me. “I wonder how Zeus might react if I bring him news of his wayward son?”
I snarled, and the silver glow surrounding me expanded. “You will not tell him, Phaunos.”
He crossed his arms, the tension a physical thing that slunk around the olive trees in the grove, weaved into the green grasses, thickened the air. He chuckled, light shimmering over him like he might travel.
My magic exploded, gold flashing so bright for a moment it flooded every sense I had, and Hyacinth winced away from the heat and power of it. Phaunos startled and pressed his fingers against the weaving golds lacing around us, a shell that had trapped us in. The malice in his expression shifted to something like awe. “So, the rumors are true?”
I swiped a knife out of my belt. “What rumors?”
Phaunos scoffed. “That you come to unseat your father. That your powers equal his.”
My muscles stiffened, and I side-eyed Hyacinth, who watched me with an uncertainty in his gaze. Did he worry about what Phaunos said, or my display of magic? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I had to put a stop to Phaunos, or our entire plan was on the line. “Gossip is just that, gossip.” I stepped in closer, my blade reflecting the surrounding light. “But he cannot know that we are here. And I’m going to need you to vow to me that you will not tell him.”
Phaunos pressed his body against the shield, as if he might dissipate it or slip through the magic. He licked his lips. “Crossing your father is a fool’s choice.”
“Maybe crossing me is similar.” I whirled the blade and snatched it with my fingers before driving it forward, just missing the side of his face as I slammed it into my magic. He shuddered, his silver eyes widening.
“Apollo,” Hyacinth said, his tone heavy.
I kept my gaze on Phaunos. “You’re not a high god. I could end you now. Vow to me you will not tell my father.”
“Apollo,” Cyn said again, his voice raising.
I didn’t break my focus from the god before me. His nose wrinkled, but he thrusted his arm up. “I’ll do it.”
I sliced his forearm and mine and pressed them together as he hissed. “I vow it.”
The magic whipped back to me as I released it, flooding through me like the warmth of the sun. Phaunos growled. “You’ll regret crossing me, Apollo.”
I scoffed and turned towards Hyacinth.
The ground shuddered, shook, cracked. A chasm sliced open and sucked Hyacinth and me down into its belly. I reached for my powers, for the ability to leave. But I couldn’t do so without making sure Hyacinth could follow me.
And before I had a chance to even touch him, we both landed with a thud against the hard stone bottom of a pit. Phaunos looked down at us, his form miniature from where we sat. I could barely make him out as the sun silhouetted the wild tangle of his hair. “Best of luck to you both.” And then he shifted into the fluttering of his magic, dust flying up, and swept away.
“Bastard,” I hissed, before righting myself and walking over to Cyn. “Are you okay?”
He cradled his arm. “I think I might have broken my wrist.”
I reached out towards him but didn’t want to touch it. “I’m so sorry.”
“My powers are already healing it. I can feel it. I just need a minute.”
I dropped beside him. “We can wait as long as you need. Now that we’re in Pasus, we should make it into the city in a day if we don’t lose more time.”
Hyacinth nodded and rotated his hand around, flexing his fingers.
Gods, it was a relief for him to have a divine’s magic at that moment. He lifted his hazel eyes up. “Would you have killed him?”
My breath caught, and I scratched my nails into the brassy dirt by my feet. “I… I don’t know.”
Hyacinth’s brow furrowed. “You might have had to, though?”
My stomach sank. He wanted to believe me better than I was. “I mean… we’re in my father’s territory now, Cyn. We can’t let him find out we’re here. This is the riskiest part of our journey so far.”
“After the trip we’ve had so far, I hate you saying that.”
We remained quiet for several heartbeats. In the far corner, a dark hole opened through the side of the earth, and a whistle, like air sweeping through a tunnel, echoed from it. The sound sent a chill down my spine. Hyacinth stood. “Let’s use our powers to get out of this pit, and then I’ll shield you and we won’t utilize any magic again.”
“The sun?”
“I think we’ll just have to deal with the weather.” He frowned up at the blue sky. “If issues come, I mean. Revealing ourselves is too dangerous now.”
I swallowed but nodded. Hyacinth brushed my cheek with his thumb and then he disappeared, a floral essence perfuming the damp, loamy smell of the cavern. I pressed into my powers, too. But nothing happened.
Hyacinth stood at the top of the cliff and crouched down. “Are you coming?”
“I… I can’t.”
Hyacinth reappeared before me, his features scrunched in a frown. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.” The silver glow of my powers still slipped around the curves of my arm as I lifted one to inspect it. I had my magic. The heat of it glittered through me. I flicked my fingers out to create a flame. Nothing. “Can you use any of your magic here?”
Hyacinth shifted towards a wall. A vine grew from the dirt, flowers unfurling on them.
I bit my lip. So Cyn still had access to his magic, but I didn’t. The wind from the breathing darkness of the corner picked up, a crackling sound joining it. Blood drained from my face. “Oh, shit.”
“What is it?”
“These must be the tunnels of Tartarus.”
“What are those?”
I thrusted my hands towards the shadows, frustration bubbling in me as words wouldn’t form quickly enough. “It’s connected to the realm where Zeus punishes the high gods who have angered him. That’s why my powers don’t work down here. Zeus has made it where no high gods can use their magic in this place.”
Hyacinth lifted his fingers, studying them, his ring glimmering. “But low deities can?”
“Zeus doesn’t punish the low-gods, he just kills them.” The crackling, whispering sound of something moving through the tunnel increased, and I pointed at the cliff side. “Could you make more plants so I could climb out?”
“Of course.” Vines swept forward, massive ones that crisscrossed the wall like a fisherman’s net, lilac and ivory and peach-colored blooms brightening the cliff alongside them.
I scrambled over to them, grasping some and pulling myself up.
Damn… this was a long way up.
I made it a few steps up and then looked back over my shoulder.
Oh shit.
The ground suddenly seemed a hundred feet down, Hyacinth minuscule where he stood watching me from the bottom of the cavern. “Go, Apollo.”
My hand trembled as I raised it to grab the next vine.
Gods, what if I fell? My stomach lurched into my throat.
Hyacinth gasped, and I turned around.
Two glowing eyes lifted behind him, and he stared at them, transfixed.
“Hyacinth.” I released my hold, letting myself tumble towards the ground. Heights be damned. Cyn was in trouble.
The creature slithered out of the shadows and into a mottled patch of light. Its elongated body, heavy enough to crush the rocks it coiled around, moved sinuously, its tongue, long and forked, darted into the air. Scales covered the length of it in mottled patterns of gold and black. The immortal python. I’d heard of this creature that possessed venom, unearthly strength, and deadly precision.
I reached Hyacinth and grabbed his arm. “Cyn, move.” He trembled, his eyes glued to the creature. “Use your powers and get out of here.”
He jerked his head towards me. “And abandon you to die?”
“It can’t kill me… I’m a high deity.” Though it could strike me and harm me… That was the punishment Zeus sent gods into Tartarus to experience… eternal torment, but with no relief of death. “You, however, it can kill. Please leave.”
Hyacinth shivered and shook his head. “I won’t abandon you. We get out of this together.”
I sighed, frustrated with his stubbornness. “Gods damn it.” I dropped the fabric I’d tied for a knapsack and unwound it, drawing my bow and arrow out. “If I shoot this thing, I will piss it off.”
“I would imagine so.”
“I mean… it will try to strike. Here, take this.” I thrusted the bundle of our supplies at him, as I tucked the arrow bag over my shoulder. “I’m going to climb out. You wait at the top.”
“But…”
“No, ‘buts’… we don’t have time. If I need help, I’ll let you know.”
He nodded and swept away, making it to the top of the cliff, his gaze glued on me.
