Page 25 of Crown of Olympus
I looked to the sun god for help.
Tell her to open her eyes.
I crouched before her, beneath her hanging head as she swayed with the agony of the invisible flames.
“Stop fighting it, Nyssa. Open your eyes,” I half-shouted.
Her still-dusty eyelids cracked open, those same shatteredgreen irises piercing mine, just as they’d done from across a crowded room over two decades ago.
“Look at Apollo.”
She lifted her head a fraction, a strained whine still clawing out of her throat. When her eyelids opened fully, her body jolted, and I knew Apollo was speaking into her mind, just as he had to me.
Her scream died out slowly as her breaths came more easily, and I felt likeIcould finally breathe again.
She straightened and quickly unlaced her left vambrace, throwing it to the ground. She flipped up her tunic cuff, exposing mottled, grey skin, bearing an eery resemblance to the statues dotted all over Aetherion. Together we watched as the greyness slowly receded, her skin returning to the glistening white of moonlight.
“What happened?!” I growled.
“Serpent venom,” she levelled me with a glare. “It’s fine. I can move my fingers again. Apollo’s power — the flames — they’re healing it.”
Incredulous, I fired back: “You mean to tell me... that you’ve been trudging through the desert —silently— while your arm solidified?!”
She raised that irksome black brow. “Yes. While we burned under the afternoon sun, my arm also burned, from the inside out. The venom was almost at my collarbone when we crossed.” She pursed her lips. “I was going to fix it at home.”
“Fix it?! Why didn’t you just tell me?” I shouted, furious at my own blindness. She’d obviously been hurting fiercely, but masked it so well I was obtusely unaware of how dire the situation had become, until it was almost too late.
“Tell you? What could you have done, golden boy?” She scowled, her mask slipping just enough to reveal a hint of her fury. “You had no cure, no power to help — and I couldn’t trust you even if you did!”
And there it was.
She didn’t trust me.
She couldn’t.
And I understood why.
So why did it sting so badly?
I’d never been so shaken by another’s pain — never longed to destroy its source so fiercely.
Sure, she was beautiful, but was that really the only reason?
She had every reason in the three realms to hate me. Every reason to be wary and keep me at arm’s length. But I longed fervently for that to not be the case. Iwantedher to tell me she was wounded.
Why was that? Why had the daughter of Hades lodged herself in my mind since the moment I’d waltzed into that council meeting a week ago?
I wasn’t entirely sure of the answer. And I wasn’t entirely sure I cared. I was just drawn to her — perhaps to my doom — but I was done playing the part assigned to me at birth and holding myself to everyone else’s expectations. Kings didn’t do that, and wasn’t that what I intended to become?
I looked up to find Apollo’s eyes already latched onto mine, and I wondered just how deeply his telepathy delved. I narrowed my brows, frowning, but his expression didn’t shift — still etched with steadfast pain.
Call for Hermes.
I did as Apollo bid, and moments later, a loudsnapricocheted through the sweltering air.
“Can’t say I’m surprised to find you here, son of Zeus,” said the god of travel, turning his eye to Nyssa. His lips tugged down at the corners. “You, on the other hand…”
“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Nyssa spat, her breathing still a little too rapid for my liking. She gritted her teeth and summoned what I suspected were the last reserves of her power, throwingshadows to the ground. They rippled over the sand like an oil spill, halting when a perfect circle had formed.
