I dare a quick glance at the upturned faces of the crowd, picking out the people that matter: My parents. Lucy. Mr. Cross.
Anton pulls a black box from his tunic, no longer looking at the contest. Is he that unconcerned? What could he be doing that's more important than―
I hear a click and a whirr. Something shifts under my feet. My footholds vanish, retracting into the wall!
I call a warning to Mark as I swing my legs awkwardly to the next highest foothold. Across from us, Brenda yelps in terror as her handholds retract. Whatever Anton's doing, at least it's to both teams.
“The wall's not all real,” I tell Mark. “Some of it's fake, blended to hide traps. I think we should―”
Another click. A metal pipe sticks out from the crevice between two rocks. It's pointed at my face.
“Look out!” Mark warns.
I swing sideways as far as I can go, one hand flailing for a handhold as a jet of steam shoots from the pipe, scalding the air where my face was seconds before. A shrill scream from below tells me Brenda isn't so lucky.
The crowd gasps. They're beginning to understand this isn't an ordinary competition. This is something far more dangerous.
The steam fizzles to curling mist. I adjust my position to get a better grip. I need to get away from this pipe, need to make sure it can't hit Mark in case it decides to spray again. I climb above it and to the side.
Below me, Mark is trying to get up, but I warn him to wait. I don't trust that pipe. Sure enough, it blows again, right where Mark would be if I hadn't stopped him. There's no other way up for Mark then the way I've gone. “It's on a timer,” I tell him. “Go now, but be ready to move fast.”
Mark swings to safety right before the steam jet fires again. “That was close,” he says, visibly shaken. “We better take it nice and easy, watch where we're putting our hands.”
“Not to mention the rest of us,” I say. “Did you see Brenda's leg? It's boiled, man! Beet red.”
Her injury is slowing her team, not stopping them. Of course not. Nothing stops Blake except his own ego.
“You all right?” I call to Brenda.
“Fine,” she grunts through gritted teeth. Her leg is burned so bad I see blisters forming, bubbling her flesh ghost-white. She must be operating on pure adrenaline. I have to give her credit for not giving up. As big a bastard as Blake is, at least he taught her that much―or maybe she had it in her the whole time and Blake is just as surprised as I am.
“Andrus!” Mark says. “What are you doing? Waiting for them to catch up? We have to move!”
I take the hint. We're climbing again, angling up and away from Blake and Brenda as sudden thunder booms from hidden speakers. The gym lights snap off. A bright flash strobes across my vision. Lightning. I'm hanging off the side of Mount Olympus. Mark, the gym, everything and everyone is gone, except the mountain―the mountain and what waits for me above.
No, not what. Who. Someone I hate, and someone who hates me. But it's not just hate, there's love mixed in too, like poison, like acid burning in my veins. If I can just get to the top, I can see who it is. Face them. End this, the way it should have ended…
I am the mountain.
I am one with it.
I am one with the earth.
“Andrus!” Mark shouts. “Look out!”
I snap out of my dream to find the gym lights back on. Barbed spikes emerge from the wall, punching into my right hand. I feel them pushing, pressing, but strangely, there's no pain. The machinery behind the spikes strains. Smoke pours from the trap hole in a grinding screech.
I pull my hand away. The spikes should have skewered my flesh, left it a ruined, worthless mess and ended this contest. Instead, the spikes are bent, broken. There are angry pink spots on my palm from where the points tried to dig in, but no blood. As I stare in disbelief, the spots fade. Something moves inside my palm, shifting under the surface. It doesn't hurt. It feels weird, but good. Like it's part of me.
My lost rock! Could I have absorbed it and used it to block the spikes? I flex my hand, mystified. What kind of magic is this? What the hell am I?
“You OK?” Mark asks, and I realize from his vantage point he can't tell what happened. “How's your hand?”
“Great,” I say. “I'm not hurt. The trap must have malfunctioned. Let's keep climbing.”
We're halfway up the mountain―I mean, the wall―and it's surreal. I'm here and not here. I have to fight back the visions of Olympus, keep myself anchored in a world that feels increasingly less real, less important.
Try telling that to the people who are counting on me.
The thought rips through the dream, but does nothing to diminish the hate it puts in me, the anger. Anton, Vola, Nessus, Blake. All of them trying to cheat me. Trying to usurp me. They're taking what should be mine, forcing me to waste my time, my resources, when I should be… what, exactly?
At the top of the mountain. I must tear my enemies down, crush the traitors in the molten belly of the earth…
I shake my head, clearing it. Something's wrong. These thoughts aren't mine, are they? How could they be? I force them out. I've got to focus.
As I strain for the next handhold, my boot breaks through a fake stone, sends me scrambling to find a hold that suddenly isn't there. Then I'm falling, trying to relax for the shock of the rope that binds me to Mark. There's a heavy jolt on the line. I slam into the wall, the impact snapping the breath from my lungs. I spin on the rope, looking wildly up at Mark death-gripping the wall, then at the snowy summit looming overhead.
“Tough break,” Blake sneers as he and Brenda climb past me. “See you at the top, asshole!”
Brenda offers me a sympathetic look, but nothing more.
I take a shuddering breath, then climb.
35
FIVE FINGERS FROM DEATH
“Come on,” Mark says. “Hurry!” He takes his eyes off Blake to say it, and that proves to be a mistake. Blake avoided me when he passed by, staying just out of range of my flailing hands, but he's angled closer to Mark as he climbed.
“So long, Loser!” He sends a savage kick at Mark's ribs, catching him off guard. The blow knocks Mark off the wall.
I press myself tightly to the rock, bracing myself.
Mark sails by, eyes wide, too scared to scream.
My fingers dig into the wall, waiting for the jolt of his weight when he runs out of rope. It happens fast: the shock, the pain. My left hand loses its grip. With a mechanical whir, all my handholds and footholds begin to retract into the wall. It's a matter of seconds, but it's time enough to imagine Anton laughing, pushing buttons on his black box. Which doesn't make sense. He said he wanted me to win…
Instead, I'm falling. A low growl rips from my throat. Something cracks―not in me, but in the wall. The fingers of my right hand claw through stone, slowing our descent. Slowing, slowing, then stopping.
The crowd roars with excitement.
We hang there, five fingers from death. There's no time to think, only to do. My left arm swings up, fingers punching through the rocky surface. Ignoring the pain of bruised muscles and the frantic weight of Mark, I pull myself up, legs scrambling for a perch. Finding none, I kick out, imagining Blake's face on the other end of my boot. It punches through the rock. I do it again, imagining Anton. Now the wall's design doesn't matter. I can make my own custom handholds and footholds wherever I need them.
I peer at Mark's anxious face. “Don't panic. I'm gonna pull us up, all right? Use the hand holds I'm making; they won't be trapped.”
Mark fires off some questions, like how the hell am I making holds, but I ignore them. I focus on the climb, trusting Mark will do what I tell him. Trusting I have the strength―and the magic―to win.
As we catch up to the rival team, I call Blake's name. He looks down and I see surprise written in his eyes. Surprise that turns to fear, then hate. The two of us have been here before, many times in many contests, but the stakes have never been this high.
It's my mountain.
“What the hell is he doing?” Brenda asks Blake. There's a rising note of hysteria in her voice. All she gets back is a string of curse words and his demand to climb faster. Blake doesn't need to tell her twice.
As they climb frantically up the wall, Blake says, “You're a freak, Andrus! A damn freak! I always suspected you were cheating. Even if you beat me, I'll still win! You hear me? I'll turn you over to the Inquisition; I'll make sure you―”
Brenda's burned leg suddenly gives out, and the panicked motion cuts off Blake's threat in mid-sentence. Brenda scrabbles back toward the foothold she missed, digs her foot into it with a grimace of pain. Her entire body goes tense with effort. The effort to hold on, to hang in there, despite the pain. Despite the fear. Her eyes are screwed shut, her lips moving in silent prayer.
Blake growls at her. “What are you doing? They're gaining. Move it, you stupid bitch!”
Brenda moves, but we're right behind her. I'm just pulling myself level with her legs when a brutal buzzing fills the air―a buzzing attached to a spinning saw blade. It slides from its concealed partition between the rocks, a flash of silver ready to cut through Brenda's legs and my face.
Brenda screams.
Pink mist blinds me. I blink away the blood, watching Brenda's legs fall away at the knees. She slumps, unconscious, the rope tying her to Blake the only thing keeping her from tumbling to the gym floor.
The blade slashes toward me. I throw out my right hand. The buzzing grows higher and higher-pitched, then stops. I pull my hand away. Not even a scratch. I can't say the same for the blade; its teeth have dulled to nubs.
“I don't believe it,” Mark says. “What are you? How are you doing that?”
“I don't know. Just be glad I am.”
Above us, Blake struggles to hang on. There's nothing any of us can do for Brenda. The summit is close now―the summit and victory.
With Blake struggling not to fall, Mark and I make good time. Soon, I'm right next to him.
“I don't need… to bring… all of Brenda to the top,” Blake says through gritted teeth, “just enough to beat you!”
I don't say anything.
“You were never better than me,” Blake snarls. “How could you be? You're not even human! You're nothing but a monster.” He kicks me. It hurts, but I take it. He kicks me again. Harder.
Something snaps free.
Something beyond my control.
Thunder booms, and this time, it's not just a sound effect, it's a low rumbling from above. Part of the mountaintop crumbles, forming an avalanche.
Black stone.
Blinding snow.
“Hug the wall!” I warn Mark.
I will the avalanche to pass over me, over us. It plows into Blake instead. He has time to scream before the first boulder hits, then he's falling, taking Brenda with him, and it's a long way down, long enough there's time for me to look away.
I hear the distant crunch, the pop of two red balloons bursting on the gym floor. The crowd goes wild, as crowds always do. This is the blood they've been waiting for.
36
IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING
I chin myself up and over the snow-dusted summit, then reach down to help Mark up. We've won. But at what cost? Below us, the slaves clear away the bent, broken bodies of Blake and Brenda, leaving a sticky red smear on the gym floor. I'm not sure if the crowd is cheering for us or howling for more blood. There's no time to feel remorse, no time to feel anything but empty.
“I can't believe they're gone,” Mark says. “Was that avalanche another trap or did you…”
“It was me.”
Mark nods, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. I know he's got a million questions, but I don't have anywhere near that number of answers.
“What are you?” he asks.
“I don't know, but we'd both be screwed if I wasn't what I am. You know that, right? You know I'm on your side?”
“Yeah, man. I know. But it's not me you should be worried about.”
“You think anybody noticed what I did? We're pretty high up.”
“They may not have noticed the small stuff, but I'm sure they saw the avalanche.”
“I'm so screwed! That priest down there is with the inquisition.”
Mark frowns. “OK, I say we play dumb, that we thought it was another trap. When the inquisitor says it wasn't, I'll pin it on the pipes.”
“The steam pipes? What do you mean?”
“Steam requires pressure to vent, so the boiler must have malfunctioned. The steam got trapped and that's what caused the wall to explode.”
“Seriously? That's awesome. You're a genius!”
“I have my moments,” Mark agrees. “So what should we do now?”
“Only one thing to do: Act like they expect.”
We raise our hands in victory. The crowd breaks into a riot of applause. We did it. We won.
There's a flutter of black from the pipes in the ceiling above us. Hannah's raven, Shadow, croaks at me, telling me it's time to go, to leave Axios behind. What's weird is I feel ready, more ready than I thought I would. After all, I did what I set out to do and more. I won. I saved Mark. I made up with my parents. And maybe, just maybe, I fell in love with Lucy…
Mr. Cross has left a pair of nylon ropes attached to the pipe. We can use them to rappel down the back of the wall, away from the traps. We clip our belts to the ropes and get ready to descend.
“I might have to take off for a while after this,” I tell Mark. “I need to figure out what I am and what I can do. I can't do that here. But once I figure it out, I'll be back.”
“What am I supposed to tell people?” Mark asks.
“Tell them the truth: You don't know what I am or where I've gone. I'd tell you more if I could, but it's better you don't know. I'm only giving you this much because I don't want you or anyone else to worry.”
“Anyone else?”
“You know, like my parents.”
“Or my sister.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Her too.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yeah, man. I do.”
He nods. “I know she spent the night with you.”
“She did, but we didn't―I mean, it wasn't like that.”
“I don't need details,” Mark says. “I just need your promise: Don't hurt her.”
“I won't.” That seems to settle the matter, and we both break into stupid grins.
“By the way,” Mark says. “Thanks! You really saved my ass back there.”
“You saved mine too. I fell first, remember?”
“Yeah, you did. Guess I got my upgrade; I'm a full hero now.” He laughs and kicks off the ledge toward the gym below.
When we reach the floor, there's a small group waiting for us. Mr. Cross is there, my parents, and Lucy. They don't look as happy as they should. That's because Anton is with them; his gold mace is in his hand and now he doesn't just have his two bodyguards, but a squad of ten warriors. They form a circle around the group, cutting off any chance of escape.
“Congratulations,” Mr. Cross says sadly. “You won.”
Anton barks laughter. “Yes, congratulations! Your victory was more spectacular than I could have hoped for.”
I frown. “If you're so happy, why all the guards?”
“Why to arrest you, of course!”
“On what charge?” my dad demands.
“Blasphemy, for a start.”
“Blasphemy?” Dad shakes his head. “That's impossible! My son has never said a single word against the Temple or the Titans.”
“Perhaps, but it's not by his words that I bring the charges; it's on his vile, blasphemous nature. Andrus is not human. You saw him use magic. He's an abomination! One the Eye of Cronus has been seeking for
a long time.” His mouth twists into a smirk. “Oh, I had my suspicions the moment we met, boy, but Archieréas Vola said I had to be sure, so I took advantage of the renovations to the wall… and made a few improvements of my own. A rather clever way for you to reveal your true nature in a manner that cannot be denied. It's amazing what fear can bring out in people… and hate.” He gives a short swing of his mace to emphasize the last word.
“The boiler exploded,” Mark says, putting himself between the inquisitor and me. “It wasn't magic! Did you hear me? I said it wasn't magic!” But no one's listening to him. Dimly, I hear Mark trying to convince Anton, telling him about steam pressure and boiler failure, but none of that matters now. All my focus is on my parents.
“Mom? Dad? What's Anton talking about?”
My parents faces crease with worry. They're wrestling with something, something they know will hurt me. Could it be the secret Dad hid in the safe?
Lucy steps forward, more beautiful than ever. “Whatever Andrus is, it doesn't change anything with me. I love you, Andrus. And I always will.” She stands in front of Anton as the inquisitor sneers in disgust.
“How touching!” he mocks. “A Loser in love with an abomination. You saved your brother once, my dear, but do you really think you can save this… this creature?”
“Yes,” she says. “I do.” A thin blade slips out of Lucy's robe and into her hand. No one notices but me. We exchange a look, so much emotion passing between us that there's nothing I can do, nothing I can say except, “I love you.”
It's enough.
Lucy smiles, and in one fluid motion, she plunges the knife into Anton.
37
A LITTLE BLOOD
Anton reels from the blow, the violent motion tearing the slim knife from Lucy's hand. The blade sticks out from his chest like an accusing finger. Blood stains his tunic. He lashes out with his mace, crashing it into Lucy's head. She goes down.
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