by D. S. Murphy
“In that case,” she said. “I guess there’s no reason to keep any of you alive. Like I told dad, we should have just killed you earlier. You’re no threat to us. I can’t say I’m surprised actually, though I am a bit disappointed. I heard about the shears centuries ago, and started some rumors. I knew Able would jump at the idea. A perfect weapon, something powerful enough to kill Zeus? But it was just a rabbit for him to chase. A distraction. He’s always been gullible, believing in rumors and fairy tales.”
“But then the rumors grew, until dad heard them as well. It started freaking him out. What if they were real? How did I know they couldn’t hurt him? He’s been growing paranoid. Honestly it’s a little annoying.”
“You started the rumors?” I asked. “You mean it really is just a myth?”
“You should see your face right now,” Athena smirked. “Did you think I didn’t know about Zetico’s painting? About this place? All I had to do is line things up, and you did exactly what you were expected to. Bravo. I wish everybody wasn’t so predictable.”
“Zeus wouldn’t want you to kill us,” Puriel said. “He wants her alive. I’m sure of it.”
“You dare to speak to me, torch? You’re nothing. You have no power of your own. Or is this the part where you get your antagonist to reveal her plans, so you can figure out your escape? I’ll go along with it, only because I know there is no escape for you. Does Zeus want her alive? I don’t know, and I don’t care anymore. We tried it his way. Stop making humans fear us. Teach them to love us by withdrawing, by disappearing. It kind of worked. But it’s boring. I’m tired of hiding, of waiting, while Zeus and Able plot a final confrontation that neither is brave enough to begin. So I will begin it.”
“And don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. I wouldn’t waste good minions on fools like you. So I butchered your birds and attracted the leeches. I don’t think there has been a feast this magical for centuries. They’re strong now, and powerful. I’ve fed them, and now they answer to me. So now, we’ll have some games. I want to see what all the fuss is about. Hopefully. Show me what you’ve got, thread-bearer.”
“We’re not going to fight for your entertainment,” I said boldly. “If you’re going to kill us, just get on with it already.”
Before I’d even finished my sentence, Athena’s arm lashed out. She moved so fast I couldn’t see what happened, until I saw the dark red stain spreading out across Max’s chest.
“No!” Jessie screamed. She and Madeline caught him and lay him gently on the ground.
“The wound isn’t fatal,” Athena said. “At least not yet. He’ll be dead within the hour though. So if you want to save him, you’ll need to hurry. Kill the leeches, and we’ll let you go.”
“She’s lying,” Sitri said. “She wants the leeches to kill us, so she can tell Zeus it was an accident.”
“You really are a dog with a bone,” Athena said, rolling her eyes. “I could just kill you all, if you insist on doing things your way. If you don’t want to fight, just lie still and let the leeches suck the marrow from your bones. Either way, it’ll be over soon.”
She signaled towards the leeches. They’d been watching us since Sarah screamed, and now licked their lips in excitement. The hunters spread out in a large circle, trapping us inside with the leeches. Athena leaped onto the remains of one of the outer walls and reclined against them, crossing her legs casually as the leeches moved in.
We were all going to die.
Puriel guarded one side of us, his long sword poised in front of him. Sitri had a curved blade in one hand and his gun in the other.
“We stay here,” he said. “The ruins offer some shelter. They can’t all come in at once. We take them out, one by one.”
“I’m in,” Madeline said, standing up pointing the shotgun towards one of the openings.
“Jessie, Sarah—you stay down,” I said. “Protect Max.”
“Can you really take them all out?” Jessie said.
“The leeches, maybe,” Puriel said.
He didn’t finish the thought, but I caught the implication. Even if we took out all the leeches, we’d never defeat all the hunters, or Athena. She was just too powerful.
But I’d learned a few things in the cave. Even if I hadn’t found what I was after, I was getting better at seeing the threads. The gnarled, smoky threads of the leeches were easy to see in the daylight. They looked messy and erratic. And I’d discovered something else in the cave, something I hadn’t told anyone yet. The Fates don’t need the shears to cut a thread. I’d used my teeth. Maybe any sharp object would work.
Athena didn’t seem the type to make mistakes, but in this case I think she’d underestimated me. Or maybe she was counting on me to underestimate myself. But I wasn’t going to, not this time. With or without the shears, I was tired of Zeus and his gang. I was tired of being forced into impossible situations. And I could not let Jessie or Sarah get hurt, not to mention Puriel or Sitri. Nobody is going to die, I promised myself.
I stood between Sitri and Puriel just as the first leeches rushed in. These ones were much bigger than the one we’d faced at the gas station, and uglier by far. A cross between men and nightmares; mutated monsters, wrapped in smoke and darkness. Almost like storm clouds with yellow eyes and long teeth. Some of them had horns, or extra sets of arms and legs. A few scuttled towards us like giant spiders.
Their threads moved so quickly, and were so close together, I had to be careful not to accidentally nudge Sitri or Puriel’s threads when I grabbed them. They screeched when I plucked their threads. One stumbled right in front of us. Puriel sank his blade into the massive creature’s eye, pushing until it broke through to the other side of its head. Sitri put two rounds in the forehead of another one, just as a third took a swing at him. He went careening backwards and smashed against the wall.
“Sitri!” I shouted. But I couldn’t lose my focus.
I found the next thread and grabbed for it, yanking down as hard as I could. The leech collapsed on the ground in front of me, looking dazed. Madeline put the shotgun to the back of its head and pulled the trigger, sending a splatter of black goo across our legs.
I heard gunshots, as Sitri fought another off, and rejoined our group. Then they starting coming in greater numbers. Four at a time, then six. I couldn’t stop them all. I plucked at their threads, like I was playing a complex song on an imaginary harp. I didn’t have time to see what happened next—I just struck any black thread I could find, and hoped it slowed one down long enough for someone else to finish them off.
A flash of light caught my eye; Athena waved her arm and called in her hunters. I risked a glance at her and saw her frown. This was not going as she’d planned. The hunter’s threads had been easy to see at night—they shone like golden stars. But in the early morning daylight, they were harder to pick out, especially as they mixed in among the dark black threads of the leeches. My brow started to sweat with exertion as I concentrated.
Instead of just swiping at threads randomly, I figured out if I could strum or pinch a hunter’s thread at just the right moment, they’d freeze when most exposed, and Sitri or Puriel could easily take them down. Several times I stopped a blow that looked fatal. But sometimes, I didn’t. I cringed each time I heard Sitri or Puriel grunt and knew they were injured. After we’d killed at least a dozen leeches, Madeline took a punch to the face and crumpled.
I shouted and grabbed the hunter’s thread, just as he was about to finish her off with his sword. Sitri spun and fired over his shoulder, narrowly missing me but taking out his target. Between us, we made a deadly team, but I didn’t know how much longer we could hold out. It was all happening too fast. My arms were getting weak and my eyes stung with dryness from keeping them open so long.
But then the last leech fell, and we were down to only five hunters. It looked like we might actually get out of this alive. Sitri turned back to both of us and grinned like he couldn’t believe it.
And that’s when Ath
ena’s spear pierced his chest.
“Sitri!” I shouted.
I turned back to Athena with fire in my eyes and saw her thread, sparkling like spun gold. I reached out to grab it. I didn’t care if I couldn’t kill her, as long as I made her suffer. Before I could get my fingers on it, however, she jumped over the three of us with an elegant flip. She pulled her spear out of Sitri, and with an impossible flick of her wrist, brought the flat edge down across my reaching arm. I felt the bones snap immediately. The pain came a few seconds later.
It all happened so fast, I was too stunned to move. I fell to my knees, cradling my broken arm.
“It’s pathetic, really,” Athena said. “You really are quite remarkable. But you let yourself get distracted so easily by your feelings for each other. It makes you weak and vulnerable. Worse than that, it makes you stupid. Give me a little bit of love, and I can topple kingdoms.”
“Love isn’t stupid,” Puriel said. “And sacrifice can be noble.”
“What do you know about love, torch,” Athena said. “You loved my father, but you betrayed him anyway. You were made perfect. Obedient. Loyal. That was the purest love of all. You owed him everything. But at least you’ll experience heartbreak, as I slowly kill all of your new friends, one by one.”
Puriel hung his head in shame. His shoulders were moving and I thought he might be sobbing. But then I realized, as he held up one bloodied hand and stuffed something red into his mouth, he was eating. He bent down over the body of a fallen hunter and slurped the silver blood into his mouth.
“No!” I yelled. Puriel’s eyes were dark when he turned back to me.
“Twice fallen, in so short a time,” Athena laughed. “Have you no shame, torch?” She moved in for the kill, with a pair of short, curved blades she’d pulled from sheaths strapped across her back.
Puriel lifted his sword and flexed his arm. I could see the magic rippling through his system, his veins were thick and black beneath his nearly translucent skin. His neck bulged look a tree trunk, and he grew in height until he towered above us. I gasped as I realized what he’d done.
Athena flashed her swords, but Puriel blocked them with his own. She attacked him with her two blades, slicing him again and again, but still he grew bigger. With his other hand he continued eating, ripping off juicy pieces from fallen corpses and scarfing them down.
The whole area was practically soaked in magic. The bodies of the dead leeches oozed the potent energy they’d stolen from the minokawa, and the bodies of the hunters sparkled with vestiges of Zeus’s potency. Instead of being drunken greedily by the earth, it floated above the rocky surface like clouds of glitter. The hunters didn’t need it, and Athena had her own power, but it gave Puriel an immense advantage, and he’d seized it. By turning into the one thing he hated most.
Puriel rampaged around the open field, sucking in the magic like he was pulling helium out of a balloon. He drank it greedily, growing larger while fighting off Athena’s advances at the same time. When he was twice her size, he wrapped his massive arms around her. He pinned her arms to her side, then bit into her neck with his unnaturally large mouth and sucked a beam of blue light straight from the source. For the first time, Athena looked afraid. She buried her swords to the hilt into his shoulders and he roared, tossing her away.
She rolled to her feet and charged, ducking out of his grasp and slicing Puriel to the bone again and again. But with so much magic in him, his wounds sealed themselves up, leaving crosses of dark scars over the burns that had previously obscured his tattoos. Soon he would just be a massive wound.
He swung his sword at her, but she was too fast and ducked behind one of the walls of the ruins. He pursued her, crashing through the wall like it was just a child’s set of toy blocks. She darted between his legs and slashed at his ankles. He roared in frustration, and sparks flew out of his mouth. There was so much magic in him now, I was afraid he’d burn himself up. I reached for Athena’s thread with my left hand, as Puriel’s sword burst into yellow flame. I was too weak to do another but pinch the string, but it caused her to falter. Just for a second, but it was enough.
With one massive swing, Puriel cut Athena nearly in half, from her collar bone to her belly button. Then he collapsed onto the ground next to her body.
12
Pain and adrenaline moved me forward. My brain felt like someone had turned the power off. All I could feel was the anxious twisting of my gut, and the throbbing pain from my broken arm. I winced as the bones shifted with every step, grating together.
We descended around the rock cliff and back into the cool shadows of the caves below. Sisters arrived like a school of fish, to retrieve the injured and claim their dead. I’d counted at least six bodies, but there were probably more.
Max and Sitri were lifted onto stretchers, and the procession continued through the dark tunnels until we entered the large cavern with decorated rock slabs—the ones that looked like tombs. They were both pale and cold like marble, but according to Amaratha, they still had a chance.
My heart froze in my chest when I heard that. There was only a chance that Sitri would surive. We left Puriel behind, on the surface above. I’d protested at first, but Eumelia insisted. Sitri and Max were in critical condition, and Puriel—at the moment—was too large to carry. She said she’d leave a sister to keep watch over him, and I could check on him again in the evening.
They made me drink something bitter from a wooden cup, and after that my body felt so heavy I could hardly move. They set the bone and wrapped my arm, then bound it against my chest. I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. The stone bedrock below me felt cool and soothing. I felt like I was falling through it, sinking deeper and deeper into the earth. Then I saw a point of light, and followed it until it enveloped me.
In my mind, I was back in the cave again. But this time the walls were carved in symbols and prophecies. I traced the groves with my fingers. I heard a whisper and spun around, but the cave was still empty.
“Look beneath,” the voice said.
“I did that already,” I answered. “I looked beneath the painting. I found the message. It brought me here.”
“Only those who live without can look within,” the voice said. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“Live without what?” I asked.
“Empty yourself. Let go. Journey through.”
I looked again around the small cave. There were no passageways or secret doors. There was nothing here except the well.
“Journey through what?” I asked. But this time the voice was silent. I approached the well cautiously, peering into it and expecting to see my own reflection. Instead, I saw blue sky and white clouds. And then I was flying.
I woke up in almost total darkness. The pain had lessened, and my mind was sharper. Suddenly all my thoughts came rushing back and I remembered everything. I sat up quickly when I heard sniffling nearby.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Oh thank god, you’re awake,” Jessie said, wiping away her tears. She was sitting next to Max and holding his hand. “I’ve been freaking out.”
“How are they? Max and Sitri?”
“Amaratha comes in every hour to check on them. She says to just give them space and let them heal.”
“They’ll be okay then?”
“No. I don’t know. Her bedside manner sucks. She says things like ‘we just need to wait and see.’ Like what the hell, right? I thought this was a hospital or something.”
“Kind of, but I don’t know if they’ve updated their practices in the last few thousand years. We should get them to a real hospital.”
“They’re too weak to travel,” Jessie said. “I asked that already. How do you feel?”
“My arm hurts,” I said. “But it’s nothing. I got off easy.” I actually couldn’t believe any of us were still alive. And Athena was dead. That shouldn’t have even been possible.
“It’s not fair,” Jessie said. “He
didn’t even have a chance to fight back. And now—”
She choked back a sob and I reached my hand towards her shoulder. I pulled back when I saw my pale skin, and realized I didn’t have my gloves on. They must have taken them off while I was sleeping. I found them next to my bed, but realized I couldn’t put them on with only one hand. I’d just have to be careful not to touch anyone for awhile.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” I said, hoping I was right.
“You’re guessing,” Jessie said. “Can you check for certain?” She glanced at my hand and nodded towards Max’s bare chest. It was covered in white bandages. My blood ran cold at what she was suggesting.
“You want me to find out if he’s going to die?” I asked.
“I just, I have to know. I can’t handle the uncertainty.”
I thought back to what Stephanie had told me at Nevah, about the bird in the box, being both alive and dead—until the box was opened. If I found out that Max was going to die now and announced it, in some way I’d be responsible for his death. I glanced over to Sitri, lying alone on a slab near us. I saw his chest rise and fall in the visible darkness. I imagined touching him, and finding out that this was it, that this was the moment where he met his death. After being alive for who knows how many centuries, he’d die here. Because of me.
My breath stuck in my throat and my pulse raced. Suddenly my skin was warm and it felt hot and stuffy in the cave. I needed to get outside.
“I can’t,” I said, backing away. “I have to check on Puriel. I’ll be back soon.”
I went outside quickly, leaving Jessie inside with Max. The cool evening air and the smell of pine trees hit me when I stepped outside the cave. It was dark already but I wasn’t sure how late it was. I couldn’t see any stars. The sky was a black void.
I cut around the cliff and climbed the path leading up to the top. The sisters had cleaned away the carnage, but in the moonlight I could see the dark stains on the ground where the bodies had fallen.