Page 167 of Crown of Olympus
Kronos thrust his sword up through the ferryman’s back, piercing straight through his heart with a sickening crack.
A cry of pain sprang from Nyssa’s lips as she caught the tip of the bone blade through her shoulder, her brows dipping in alarmed confusion.
Charon did not scream. He did not cry. He did not give anyindication of agony. Ichor spat from his lips as he coughed once — just once — eyes dropping to the blade protruding from his chest, then back up to Nyssa’s horrified gaze.
Kronos lifted his arm high, dragging Charon’s body with it. The Ferryman’s limbs dangled uselessly as his head bobbed, but his gaze never wavered from Nyssa. His Queen. His sister. His best friend.
A scream rent the air, haunting and desolate.
I rushed to catch her.
The sound ruptured into a million fragmented pieces as my arms closed around her icy form.
Too late.
I was too late.
CHAPTER 48
Nyssa
Charon slidoff the end of Kronos’ blade, crumpling in a heap on the debris-covered floor. He lay motionless, gleaming ichor pooling around him like molten gold. His lungs exhaled with a rasping heave — but did not rise again.
No.
The scream intensified, slicing through the air like a knife.
Charon’s grey-blue eyes stared blankly at the storm-filled sky through the jagged openings in the caved-in ceiling.
No!
When Kronos smirked in triumph, I realised the scream had torn from my own battered throat. He cackled — a haunting sound I’d never be able to unhear, mingling with my tormented chorus.
I broke free of the arms holding me upright, threw my own out wide and willed any power to come forth — a sliver of a dagger, the slither of a serpent, anything.
But I was spent.
Little one…Vel whispered into my head, her toneunusually broken.
“Come!” I shouted at my wretched powers, demanding their obeisance.
But nothing lingered within my veins. Not a drop.
My knees gave out, and I collapsed beside his body — his name suddenly too painful to even think. A hundred scattered memories played on a loop through my mind. He had shaped every facet of my being, had played a part in every aspect of my life, for almost thirty-one years.
And now I was expected to go on without him?
To accept that if I hadn’t saved Caelus, I might have savedhiminstead?
That Kronos would never have escaped if I’d chosen differently?
That if I had altered my own thread of fate, then maybe none of this would have come to pass?
I glared at the goddess cowering in the corner, barely spared by a fallen pillar. This was all her fault. If Hera hadn’t tried to murder me, then none of this would have happened. I would carve my vengeance from her flesh if it was the last thing I ever did.
For him.
But first, I’d send Kronos back to the depths of Tartarus where he belonged.
