Page 88 of Crown of Olympus
Darkness fell, instant and absolute, like midnight crashing through the ceiling. The floor trembled and cracked. The orchestra faltered, then ceased. Shouts and screams filled the air, my name among them more than once. But this was not my darkness. Not of my making.
The fracturing grew louder before the room split fully in half, a great chasm dividing the two sections. Chandeliers crashed to the floor in explosions of glass and gold. Then, the room was bathed in a sickly shade of green. Out of the deep fissure in the floor, an orb of glowing chartreuse rose. It bobbed and wavered in the air, growing larger by the second, until it split into three.
Each of the eerie auras pulsed with light once, then exploded into tiny neon specks, like shattered glass. When their light faded, three cloaked figures stood in their place. They moved as one, lifting withered hands to push back haggard, charcoal-coloured hoods.
The Fates revealed themselves — three sisters:
Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.
The Spinner. The Measurer. The Cutter.
The determiners of all our fates.
In spite of their eerie energy, I couldn’t help but wonder ifthey remembered every soul whose thread passed through their fingers? Or were lives merely a statistic of fates handled per day?
Did they recall how short my mother’s thread had been?
Did they have any knowledge of the prophecy that loomed over me?
Lachesis flicked her gaze to mine, as if in silent answer.
Clotho’s wispy, colourless hair drifted in a phantom breeze. Her fingers constantly moved, spinning invisible threads, though the rest of her body stood hauntingly still. Her white eyes were clouded, not with blindness, but filled lives yet to begin.
Lachesis’, by contrast, was unsettlingly sharp. Her gaze seemed to pierce into my very soul. Her frame bowed under the weight of the many lives she was bound to measure. Knowing some had been much too short, and others undeservingly long.
Atropos was the most difficult to look upon. Her face was more gaunt than her sisters’, her robes more tattered, her waxy skin stretched tightly over too-sharp bones. But it was her eyes that were the most terrifying, for they were missing entirely. In their place were empty sockets, hollow and horrifying.
And yet somehow, I felt the weight of her glare. Atropos needed no mortal sight to see one’s fate — or rather one’s end. The fingers on her right hand closed and opened repeatedly. Snipping invisible shears. Ending entire lives in silence.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
I shuddered, wondering when her shears would snick shut on my own thread — or someone I cared about.
Their mouths opened in unison. A startlingly familiar, otherworldly voice spilled out — a voice I’d heard before, in my Styx-induced vision. It came from all of them, and yet none ofthem. They sounded neither young nor old, but a mixture of both. Layers of whispers and echoes, chilling and heavy.
“The time has come. Champions, step forward.”
The remaining champions slowly emerged from the crowd — including myself and the two gods still pressed up against me — halting apprehensively a few paces before the sisters. Aphrodite sidled up next to Aros, fair brows wiggling mischievously at me. It was a look that promised we’d speak later — that she’d pepper me with all the questions about my illustrious evening.
Inwardly, I cringed. Velira’s knowing chuckle resonated through my mind.
“Your fates have long since been spun. They have been twisted, merged, and woven together. Your next trial awaits.”
The unpredictable trial. The one to be thrust upon us without warning. It was here.
Even Hera looked surprised. I had no doubt the sisters had just ruined her plans for the evening.
Thin golden threads latched around each of our wrists, tugging us forward. Velira shrieked, the sound ricocheting through my skull, despite her not being in the room. I’d left her in Charon’s care, so she must have felt it through the bond. She was probably wailing atop his skiff and causing him all kinds of distress.
It’s okay, Vel, I soothed.I have to go. I need to go with them. I need to compete for the crown.
She reluctantly retreated from my mind, leaving with a melancholy brush along my senses.
The threads still pulled at me, leading me through ancient hallways thick with dust, Caelus’ lumbering form at my front.
