Page 53 of Crown of Olympus
Dread pulsed through my veins, which were once again aflame. Sparking, searing agony struck me as the venom continued to course through my body.
“Soon, soon, daughter. You’ll be dead like me soon,”the shade crooned.
It was right. I was dying. The venom was killing me.
Terrified, I looked at Charon. His face mimicked my own, awash with fear. His boyish features were twisted in indecision — eyes wide, jaw locked — but they quickly hardened into grim determination as he unstoppered the vial and tipped the contents into my parted lips.
The liquid burned cold down my throat. I coughed and spluttered, but I’d already swallowed most of it.
I tried to scream, but the icy pain rendered me frozen, andall I managed was a strangled moan. Unbidden, my body began to thrash and seize. The dragon was thrown from my chest, roaring. Charon’s face filled with horror and guilt, though his body remained immobile.
Despite the panic, my eyes drifted shut. The darkness claimed me again. Perhaps, for the last time.
When they opened again,I was no longer floating in a warm bath with a dragon perched beside my head. No worried god crouched at my side.
Like Achilles, I had been brought to the water’s edge.
I stood on the shore of the River Styx.
A chorus of unearthly voices began to sing, the lyrics reverberating off the glassy water.
“Come down to the water,
Down where it’s deeper,
Here lies what you seek,
Beneath the surface,
No more, no more,
Then you shall be free.”
Unable to resist the lure of the song, I stared, transfixed, at the smooth, black water. Without conscious thought, I watched myself stretch out a hand and dip my bloodstained fingers into the icy cold river.
Awareness snapped back immediately, the cold as jarring as any alarm. I tried to snatch my hand free, but it wouldn’t budge — the river held me firmly in its grasp.
My breathing faltered as I fought against the liquid shackle, mywounds screaming in protest. Golden blood poured down my right leg, mingling with the onyx river.
The waters stirred. They rippled once in the distance. Then again. And again.
Skeletal hands broke free of the surface — hundreds of them — clawing at the air like it was their salvation.
I pulled on my arm again, and this time, it gave a little. But as I drew it partway out, I realised it hadn’t been the water that held me hostage. It wasn’t the river at all. A bony hand had locked tightly around my wrist. And as I gasped, that hand gave a tug of its own.
I fell into the river, inhaling a lungful of water as I was dragged down, down, down — so far down that I scarcely believed I could find my way back.
Is this why we were warned never to touch the river?
The glacial water burned like frosted fire, searing everything it touched — my lungs, my veins, every wound, and every scar I possessed. It ravaged me from the inside out, igniting every nerve.
It felt like it was destroying every tiny piece of me, bit by bit.
And still, the hands continued to claw at me in the pitch-black depths.
“Accept the darkness, child.” An eerie, tri-layered voice spoke softly. It came from everywhere — and yet nowhere. “Stop fighting your fate.”
I screamed, but it came out as little more than a muffled cry. The water burned through my torn-up leg, my clamouring heart, my fractured mind.
