Page 23 of Crown of Olympus
“I guess I owe you ten coins, then.”
“I guess you do,” he said with a mischievous grin, sidling up to me. “Goldones. I’ll come to collect at a later date.” He winked, leaning in far too close for comfort.
I backed up a few paces, wiping the crimson blood off my hands and glared at the storm-wielding god. Caelus’ brows flickered minutely, but the smile remained plastered across his maddeninglyagreeableface.
“No need. I’ll have them sent to your palace when I return home.”
Turning away, I started striding up the next dune, hoping there weren’t too many more hills to climb in the rapidly fading light. To my eternal disappointment, Caelus’ long, leather-clad legs caught up to mine easily, trudging beside me like this was a casual stroll and not a trek through hell.
“Let me guess, you’re also headed west?” I asked, disdain souring my tone. He was the son of a murderer. And my mother had been the victim. I would not let myself forget whose son he was.
“Yes. That was the direction I was going when you so rudely toppled me over,” he quipped, quirking that infuriating brow.
“I didn’t…” I huffed, throwing my hands in the air. My boots dug harder into the sand with each step.
“You’re pretty when you’re angry,” he said, lips pressed firmly together in a pitiful attempt to smother his amusement.
“I’m pretty all the time. You just happened to notice while I’m angry,” I snapped, frowning. Of all the champions to have slammed into, it had to be him. The cocky son of Zeus, with a smile that was a little too charming. A different kind of armour, but armour nonetheless.
Caelus huffed a small laugh, like it had slipped out before he could catch it.
At last, I crested the dune, squinting into the full glare of the sun. Raising a hand to shade my eyes, I tried to gauge just how far we had to go.
Far in the distance, I could just make out what looked like an enormous yellow pillar rising from the carpet of red sand. It was hard to determine exactly what it was — a building? A tree? A mirage?
Only one way to find out.
Grudgingly, I slunk down the back of the hillock, mouth dry as bone.
“Thirsty?” Caelus licked a stray drop of water from his sinful lip and held out a brown leather waterskin — an olive branch from a tree he had no business cutting from.
I sighed. None of this was his fault. He didn’t thrust the dagger into my mother’s heart — he would have been all of, what? One? Two? It didn’t matter.
But that didn’t mean I trusted him.
I couldn’t.
I narrowed my eyes at the suspicious offering, reaching for it slowly, carefully. Meticulously, I wrapped my pale fingersaround the hide so as not to brush up against his. I raised it to my nose, sniffing at the contents.
He huffed another laugh, this time a little more on the exasperated side. “I’m not going to poison you.”
“That’s exactly what a poisoner would say,” I replied, raising a brow.
“Did I not just drink from the very same waterskin?” He mimicked my action and raised a brow of his own.
I pursed my lips, torn. I couldn’t smell anything untoward, and hehadjust drunk from it himself. Sure, he could have any number of antidotes writhing through his system, but my desperate thirst won out.
I tipped it back, taking only a mouthful before returning it with a muttered thanks. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it would have to do, at least until I made it out of this gods-damned desert.
“Shall we?” Caelus gestured towards the horizon, the sun perched like it was sitting happily in his palm.
“Fine. But only because it would be redundant to hike a mile sideways just to escape you, when we’ll end up in the same place anyway,” I snapped.
The heat and the brightness had already shoved me past any notion of comfort. My willingness to tolerate ego-driven gods and make small talk was well and truly below zero.
Hours of silenceand miles of dunes later, the land finally began to level out.
It had been hard to see against the blinding sunlight, but as we got closer, it became apparent: Apollo stood enshrined in a pillar of golden light. With the sun kissing the horizon behindhim, he appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be its heart. Light rippled off him in radiant waves, alive with power and heat we could feel even from a mile away.
