The Unclaimed (University of the Gods Trilogy Book 1)

by Stephens, Alexandra

  The way up seemed endless and Cassandra couldn’t avoid thinking about the future that was all a big blank to her. For once she wished she could have some kind of vision that might tell her what was going to happen tomorrow, the day after or in one year but nothing came.

  The path was so uneven that Cassandra lost her footing on some gravel at one point and was caught by the Minotaur. She accidently brushed up against him and felt the softness of the black leather cloth that covered parts of his huge frame and felt a familiar tingle in her hands. But before she could make sure, he had detached himself from her and walked on.

  Before them, Mia stumbled and grazed her elbow on the sharp edges of the rocks but the girl didn’t even seem to notice. The blood dripping from her elbow left a trail and just when Cassandra started to wonder why it took Mia’s blood so long to turn to Ichor, it congealed and Mia seemed to walk a little straighter.

  When they finally made it to the mountain ridge, the view was breathtaking. The cliffs on that side of the island overlooked the whole university and offered a beautiful view of the sea at the same time. Cassandra saw Hector’s big bulk at the back of the crowd with Summer and Jim standing beside him with their heads bent.

  Before them, the little boat that held River’s body lay bobbing softly up and down in a calm, deep blue sea. His body had been covered by a black velvet cloth with a silver trident on it and he had been joined by Sol with his flaming red hair gleaming in the sun, Wolf with his long thin frame bent low and Beatrix, whose hair shimmered golden and whose shoulders were shaking with sobs.

  The people at the beach had formed concentric half-circles with the fifty descendants of Poseidon forming the inner ring. There was a single figure standing between the water and the first half-circle. It was Tiresia, who was standing barefoot in the sand with her blind, unseeing eyes turned towards the water. She was wearing a long, white dress and her dreads had been put up in an intricate bun. She didn’t move and it seemed like she was waiting for something. Then there was a low humming sound coming from deep within the sea. As if on cue, Wolf and Sol sat down and put the paddles into the water. Beatrix, turning around towards the rows of onlookers, touched her lips and then her heart and then she started singing. It was a strange melody, soothing and heart-breaking at the same time, and Beatrix’ voice, which was so high and bordered on unpleasant when she was speaking, was strong and pure when she was singing and carried all the way up to the cliffs on which they were standing.

  As one, the descendants of Poseidon touched their hearts and kneeled and so did everyone else.

  When she heard the sound of the paddles going into the water, Tiresia gave a high, unnatural cry and started following the little boat. The water had almost reached her chest when five Nereids appeared at a little distance from her. When they saw her, four of them turned to follow the boat while the fifth swam towards Tiresia, taking her into her arms and kissing her. It seemed like the Nereid said something to Tiresia that made the girl hesitate. When the Nereid followed her sisters, Tiresia sunk her head and then turned around to leave the water. Back onshore, Tiresia didn’t stop but continued walking until she disappeared from sight, just like she probably would have done in the water.

  Wolf and Sol stopped rowing and looked up to the sky and so did everyone else. There was a strange vibration in the air, something that felt familiar and utterly alien at the same time. Cassandra saw Mia clutching at Arissa who was looking down on the strange girl with a look of pure disgust until Mia reluctantly let go, whispering something to Arissa who only shook her head and seemed to tell Mia again to leave her alone but the girl wouldn’t budge. Then Cassandra saw everyone close their eyes and bow their heads in unison. She wondered why and then there was a light so extreme that she thought she might go blind and then there came the loudest noise she had ever heard. A strong wind almost blew them to the ground and then there was nothing but silence.

  When Cassandra’s eyes had readjusted, she gasped. Standing, or rather floating, before them on thin air were two beings that were so different that it was hard to look at them. Heracles coughed and the two beings transformed into something more recognizably human.

  “Zeus, almighty father, and beautiful Hera, be welcome”, Heracles said and managed to sound both devote and self-assured at the same time. “It is a sad reason to gather but we are glad to have your Presence here.”

  The way he said presence made Cassandra think that they weren’t really there, that it was just a reflection of their true selves. Still, their aura of power was strong and Cassandra wondered what it would be like if they had really come down from Mount Olympus.

  “My dear father, Hera”, Alexander said and slightly inclined his head once more. “What an unusual way to present yourselves on such a day.”

  Zeus’s face, stern and fear-inspiring, softened a little when he looked at his son. He was clad in a toga that showed the body of a warrior, but his curly hair and beard were long and white and his face lined with grief and sorrow. His face grew stern again when he looked at Arissa who had her chin stuck out in defiance and refused to look her father in the eye.

  “Son”, Zeus said and his voice sounded like thunder growling in the distance.“It is good to see that you are doing well. Arissa, it has been a long time.”

  There was no doubt which of the two children was Zeus’s favorite. Arissa, pressing her lips together, bowed and murmured that she wished him well. Zeus raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  Hera watched the little interplay between her husband and his children with reserved calm. There was nothing motherly or loving about her. Whenever she looked at Alexander and Arissa there was a cold distance bordering on hatred.

  “Of course we would have wanted to be with you on this saddest of days”, Zeus continued, raising his voice so that everybody could hear him. “Unfortunately, we are needed elsewhere at the moment. Still, we decided to appear to you in our transcendent form, to accompany my brother’s son’s last journey.”

  He looked down at the little boat that was holding River’s body.

  “We never want to say good-bye to the ones we love”, Zeus said quietly. “Sometimes the choice is taken from us.”

  There was a tear glistening in his eye and he took a moment before he continued speaking.

  “River was a beautiful boy, always happy, never speaking a harsh word to anyone”, he said, his voice breaking a little when he said the words. “He could be wild and untamed like the sea during a storm at times but he was always the calm center, too, the friend you went to when you were in trouble, that helped you no matter what.”

  He looked at Alexander and Ben who were gripping at each other’s hands, grief for their friend once more crushing all over them, and nodded.

  “We will miss him so much”, the mightiest of the gods said and suddenly looked almost human. “Remember him well.”

  Hippolyta beside her reached for a tissue. Cassandra saw Alexander and Ben openly crying with Ben’s hand still resting on his friend’s shoulder and wished she could shed a few tears as well but there seemed to be no tears left in her. Her stomach was one big knot and she was afraid that this feeling of utter despair would never leave her again.

  She saw Zeus raise his in hand in farewell while Hera stood as if carved in stone, no emotion discernible in her face. But then Hera turned her head and gave Cassandra a look of such cold hatred that Cassandra involuntarily took a step back. Heracles, who stood on Cassandra’s other side, threw her an inquiring look but Cassandra was still reeling from the realization that Hera knew exactly who she was.

  Cassandra had a fleeting feeling of doom. She wasn’t sure whether this counted as a vision but suddenly she knew that this day wouldn’t end well. She reached for the knife at her side to assure herself that it was there but what good it would do against the wrath of a goddess, she thought and sighed. She held Hera’s stare until the goddess finally gave a small shrug and turned away just in time to see Wolf and Sol stand up in
the boat and walk over to River’s body.

  “Poseidon, my brother, your son’s soul has long gone on to the Underworld”, Zeus boomed and the sea began to froth and foam and stir around the boat then.

  The water reached greater width and height until it had finally risen almost as high as the cliffs they were standing upon. For a short moment, a face was visible in the column of water. It was Poseidon’s, roaring in grief, but when the water came crashing down beside the boat again, the little boat and the people in it were unharmed. Only River’s body was gone.

  Sol held a sobbing Beatrix and left it to Wolf to row them back to shore. The people down on the shore started to disperse while Heracles and the teachers talked to Alexander and Ben, shaking hands and embracing each other. Cassandra stood a little to the side, feeling forlorn and sad and hopeless. She was just about to turn around to start the long descent to the foot of the cliffs when again there was a loud noise coming from below.

  All heads, including those of Zeus and Hera, turned to see what was going on. The sea was once again raging and roaring but this time it was more like a wave approaching, like something big was coming towards the shore at high speed.

  Down at the shore the people stopped to see what was going on, thinking that this might still be part of the ceremony. Cassandra ran to the edge of the cliff, shouting at them to get away from the shore but the noise down there was just too loud. She saw Ben bending down and screaming at the crowd, too, but it was too late. The wave had almost reached the shore and no one would be fast enough to escape it now.

  They had to watch helplessly as it crashed down on the shore and tons of water flooded the beach below them. Alexander was talking to Mia who had finally taking her hands out of her pocket and was blowing on something small that looked like some kind of musical instrument. Behind Mia, Arissa was holding on to her shoulder with her eyes closed as if she was in some sort of trance. Alexander screamed at them to stop and made a move to reach Mia but his wheelchair had gotten stuck on a rock and he couldn’t move.

  Ben and the others up on the cliff were still too preoccupied with what was going on down on the beach to notice what was happening up here and seemed to be frozen in shock; only Bear was calmly drinking something from a bottle in huge gulps. Once he was done, he threw it away, his eyes glowing red. Zeus, realizing what Mia was holding, screamed at her to stop but again Mia didn’t seem to hear.

  She kept blowing the magical object called the Pipe and then raised her hands and pushed them upwards. A huge tentacle shot up in the air, slashing right through Zeus and then the world turned into utter chaos.

  23 Scylla

  Cassandra immediately recognized the monster rising from the water: the moment Scylla raised herself out of the water and slashed through the projection of a maddened Zeus without harming him, Cassandra knew that there would be more than one casualty that day.

  Tons of water came crashing down as Scylla continued to raise herself from the water, revealing a body covered in fish scales and tentacles the length of several ships. The latter were dripping with slime and even from up there, Cassandra could hear the ugly sucking noise the suction cups made. Then there was a high-pitched yapping sound and three doglike creatures attached to Scylla’s stomach barked wildly when they ascended from the water.

  But the worst thing about Scylla was her head. Or rather the lack of it. Scylla had no eyes, no nose, just an enormous round, grinding mill with thousands and thousands of teeth mashing and grating against each other. She bent to the side as if looking for something and then roared with spittle flying. She was angry, disoriented but most of all she was hungry.

  Ben screamed at Sol and Wolf to get out of the water but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t row away fast enough. The dogs, picking up their scent, went crazy. Beatrix lay on the bottom of the boat, pale and unconscious, and with one abrupt movement, Scylla turned away from the shore, ripped open her mouth and went down on the little boat. Ben cried out in helpless anger and Cassandra felt sick at the thought that their friends had just been swallowed alive.

  Scylla slumped down in the water and with one swift movement raised herself again, moving towards the shore, again pushing an enormous wave before her. There was movement in the water from people trying to swim away but more than one head disappear under water never to come up again. Cassandra desperately tried to get a view of her brother or Summer or Jim but there was too much chaos.

  Except for Heracles and Hippolyta, all the other teachers had fled the plateau. Hippolyta tugged at Cassandra, indicating towards Mia and Arissa, who were still in that unnatural position at the edge of the cliff with Mia chanting and Arissa holding on to her. Beside them, Heracles was checking the Minotaur’s pulse. It seemed like the beast had tried to separate Mia and Arissa and had somehow been immobilized doing so or worse.

  At the same time, Ben was kneeling at the edge of the cliff, clutching at Alexander who was bleeding from a deep gash at the side of his head. She guessed that Alexander had been pushed out of his wheelchair and lost consciousness. Ben was looking desperately between the creature approaching from the beach below and Bear and Sam going at each other like they were crazy.

  Or rather it was Bear who was attacking Sam with blows so heavy it looked like he would crush every single bone in Sam’s body with his hammer. Sam was a seasoned fighter and he hadn’t grown so old because he was easily surprised, but it seemed like Bear had caught him completely off guard. Sam was hurt in a bad way and barely able to ward off the heavy blows raining down on him by the son of Hephaestus who once again received unnatural strength from that terrible drug that made him wild, uncontrolled and unstoppable.

  Ben, who couldn’t lift Alexander by himself, cried at Heracles to carry Alexander to safety and then started to run towards his brother. But Scylla had already made her way half-way up the steep wall of rocks towards them and was slashing her long tentacles towards them, making it difficult for him to move.

  Cassandra could smell Scylla’s rotten stink and knew that Mia was making the creature go against its natural instincts out of the water and up a vertical wall. Scylla howled and screamed when the sharp rocks pierced through the skin on her stomach but still she wouldn’t stop.

  Cassandra, throwing a quick look down at the creature, decided to go for Mia and Arissa, because it was the only way to stop this mess. Suddenly Arissa ripped her eyes open and Cassandra thought twice about Arissa orchestrating the whole thing.

  The daughter of Zeus looked like she wanted to scream but couldn’t. Her mouth was wide open but no sound came from her lips and her eyes, usually cold and ice-blue, had turned entirely white and looked like they were about to pop from their sockets. She moved like she tried to let go of Mia but Mia clutched at her hand and Arissa froze and shut her mouth. From one second to the next, Arissa’s hair turned white and her skin started sagging and shriveling as if Mia was drawing the life source directly from her.

  Running towards them, Cassandra wondered whether it was really possible that Mia was that strong or whether it was just the object in her hand that made her so powerful. When one of Scylla’s tentacles thumped down beside her, Cassandra stumbled from the impact and almost fell. She ducked just in time to avoid another tentacle and hit her knee hard on the stones. She risked a quick look at Ben and Sam and knew it was a mistake the moment she did.

  Sam was lying on the ground, unconscious, and Ben was fighting Bear. The huge son of Hephaestus was beyond crazy. He seemed like an automaton, bent on destruction. Cassandra had seen him fight on drugs before but never like that. There was nothing human about him anymore but before Cassandra could finish the thought, she was lifted off the ground and swung towards the open sea by one of the tentacles.

  Cassandra caught a brief glimpse of Scylla from behind and saw that she was bleeding black slime from her stomach. Then all air was pushed from her lungs and she lost consciousness for a moment. When she regained it, she felt herself being hurled towards the cliff
s. She heard the creature’s panicked cry when it slipped and fell but drew no satisfaction from the thought that the huge monster probably wouldn’t survive the fall. Because she wouldn’t survive the impact either.

  Cassandra smashed sideways into the ragged rocks and felt her left shoulder shatter, then her head smashed against the wall and several ribs broke with an ugly popping sound. Her fall towards the water was abruptly stopped by a ledge sticking out. The pain on impact was so immense that Cassandra immediately passed out.

  When she woke up a few moments later, she was in a world of pain. She tried to move but her body wouldn’t let her. It was threatening to shut down entirely when something wet touched her lips. Cassandra didn’t hesitate and drank. A small fire started in her stomach and took away some of the pain. All she wanted to do was curl into a ball but she knew that she couldn’t.

  There was a reason that she was still alive. And she needed to get back up there.

  “You’ll be better soon”, Sam whispered hoarsely, his voice full of exhaustion that went beyond being hurt.

  Cassandra drank again, greedily, feeling the divine nectar treat most of the lighter cuts and bruises and helping her body heal itself. Some of the less severe breaks mended almost immediately but Cassandra knew that it wouldn’t be enough to heal the shattered bones in her shoulder. Ambrosia and divine genes only went so far.

  When the pain subsided to a bearable level, Cassandra gingerly opened one eye and met Sam’s gaze. If possible, he looked even worse than he sounded. His skin was ashen and his eyes, usually full of grim sarcasm, were dim and bloodshot. She moved a little to see where he had been hurt but all she could see was a little cut above his neck. Then he moved and the smell from the black pus coming out of the wound hit her in full.