Page 122 of Crown of Olympus
Caelus just held me as I stared at that distant patch of ocean where our friend had disappeared. He didn’t let go when Apollo signed something I didn’t care to interpret. He held tight as the waves pounded again into the ship’s side.
I didn’t know how much time passed. Eventually we stood, and Caelus left to rig the sails. Arch and Apollo busied themselves, probably readying the ship to sail on — with one less sailor.
But still I stared at that spot.
So, when the waters churned and bubbled once more, I was the only one to witness the miracle. I shouted, forgetting none of them could hear me. I lunged to grip the railing, fingernails digging deep gouges into the timber as I stared intently at the whirling water, unblinking.
Then I saw it.
Red.
A fleck of colour, moving steadily closer.
I leaped back as the ocean surged up over the railing, drenching me again. Water crashed onto the deck, leaving two figures as it receded. Caelus and Apollo reacted instantly, unsheathing weapons as fast as their next breath, but Arch had been knocked sideways by the force of the water.
The first figure was one I knew well: Aros, waterlogged and wounded. His shirt had been shredded, and deep gashes from the serpent’s teeth covered his entire upper body. His breathing was ragged, his skin pale, painted in blood and saltwater.
Somehow, impossibly, the god remained conscious. Though, a haunted look lingered in his warm, amber eyes.
The second figure stood protectively over him. Her fair, ocean-tinted arms were thrown wide, delicate fingers splayed, but her azure gaze was steady — unyielding.
Pale blue locks flowed around her as if caught in an unseen current, and her gown shimmered with the same subtle movements. It was crafted not with fabric but woven from the sea itself. It clung to her form like a tide grasping at the shore, appearing strangely translucent, shifting with the subtle colour variations of water — aqua, jade, seafoam green.
She was a nereid — a goddess of the sea.
Her lips moved, though with Apollo’s block still in place, I could not hear her words. Her gestures, however, were slashing and violent. The goddess was clearly furious.
I gestured to my ears, shaking my head. She paused, thenturned to Aros. The sea goddess crouched down to his level, delivered her message, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. His face softened as she stood.
Without looking back, the nereid dove gracefully over the railing and disappeared back into the ocean, leaving five speechless gods in her wake.
CHAPTER 37
Nyssa
Poseidon was a hateful bastard.
Shortly after Apollo returned our sense of hearing, we dropped anchor to discuss tactics. We’d been able to see the Olympian shore for over an hour now but had come to an impasse: how to get the antique vessel there in one piece.
The short answer? We wouldn’t.
Directly ahead of us stretched a narrow channel between two sets of enormous cliffs. There was so little distance between them that by the time we skirted the first obstacle, I wasn’t sure the ship would fit between them.
Fronting the cliff face on the left was a gigantic, swirling vortex inhaling the ocean: Charybdis.
And to pass her, to skirt her edges, would put us directly in snapping distance of obstacle number two: Scylla.
Once upon a time, Charybdis helped her father in one of his many feuds against Zeus — none other than the dick-stick-wielding Poseidon. A powerful sea goddess, she enraged the King of Gods by engulfing whole islands in water, claiming them as Poseidon’s domain.
Zeus retaliated by striking her down with a thunderbolt.
Charybdis was cursed to remain impaled on the ocean’s floor forever, cursed to feed three times a day and never be sated — creating whirlpools as she drank. Now, she existed as a maritime legend, a warning of what happens when you fuck with egotistical gods.
Because this was one of her feeding times, we ran the risk of passing too close and being pulled into her swirling, gaping maw. But if we waited until she expelled her watery diet, we’d end up in the path of her companion instead.
Scylla was undoubtedly the more dangerous of the two. Also a cursed sea goddess — though stories are skewed as towhodid the cursing. My money was on Hera.
Scylla was said to possess the upper body of a woman and tentacles for her lower half, with the mind of a cunning predator.
