The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo #1)(66)

I sang of Hyacinthus, the most handsome of men. The West Wind Zephyros had also loved him, but I refused to share even a moment of Hyacinthus’s time. In my jealousy, I threatened Zephyros. I dared him, dared him to interfere.

I sang of the day Hyacinthus and I played discus in the fields, and how the West Wind blew my disc off course—right into the side of Hyacinthus’s head.

To keep Hyacinthus in the sunlight where he belonged, I created hyacinth flowers from his blood. I held Zephyros accountable, but my own petty greed had caused Hyacinthus’s death. I poured out my sorrow. I took all the blame.

I sang of my failures, my eternal heartbreak and loneliness. I was the worst of the gods, the most guilt-ridden and unfocused. I couldn’t commit myself to one lover. I couldn’t even choose what to be the god of. I kept shifting from one skill to another—distracted and dissatisfied.

My golden life was a sham. My coolness was pretense. My heart was a lump of petrified wood.

All around me, myrmekes collapsed. The nest itself trembled with grief.

I found a third geranium, then a fourth.

Finally, pausing between verses, I heard a small voice up ahead: the sound of a girl crying.

“Meg!” I gave up on my song and ran.

She lay in the middle of a cavernous food larder, just as I had imagined. Around her were stacked the carcasses of animals—cows, deer, horses—all sheathed in hardened goop and slowly decaying. The smell hit my nasal passages like an avalanche.

Meg was also enveloped, but she was fighting back with the power of geraniums. Patches of leaves sprouted from the thinnest parts of her cocoon. A frilly collar of flowers kept the goo away from her face. She had even managed to free one of her arms, thanks to an explosion of pink geraniums at her left armpit.

Her eyes were puffy from crying. I assumed she was frightened, possibly in pain, but when I knelt next to her, her first words were, “I’m so sorry.”

I brushed a tear from the tip of her nose. “Why, dear Meg? You did nothing wrong. I failed you.”

A sob caught in her throat. “You don’t understand. That song you were singing. Oh, gods…Apollo, if I’d known—”

“Hush, now.” My throat was so raw I could barely talk. The song had almost destroyed my voice. “You’re just reacting to the grief in the music. Let’s get you free.”

I was considering how to do that when Meg’s eyes widened. She made a whimpering sound.

The hairs on the nape of my neck came to attention. “There are ants behind me, aren’t there?” I asked.

Meg nodded.

I turned as four of them entered the cavern. I reached for my quiver. I had one arrow left.





Parenting advice:

Mamas, don’t let your larvae

Grow up to be ants

MEG THRASHED IN HER GOO CASE. “Get me out of here!”

“I don’t have a blade!” My fingers crept to the ukulele string around my neck. “Actually I have your blades, I mean your rings—”

“You don’t need to cut me out. When the ant dumped me here, I dropped the packet of seeds. It should be close.”

She was right. I spotted the crumpled pouch near her feet.

I inched toward it, keeping one eye on the ants. They stood together at the entrance as if hesitant to come closer. Perhaps the trail of dead ants leading to this room had given them pause.

“Nice ants,” I said. “Excellent calm ants.”

I crouched and scooped up the packet. A quick glance inside told me half a dozen seeds remained. “Now what, Meg?”

“Throw them on the goo,” Meg said.

I gestured to the geraniums bursting from her neck and armpit. “How many seeds did that?”

“One.”

“Then this many will choke you to death. I’ve turned too many people I cared about into flowers, Meg. I won’t—”

“JUST DO IT!”

The ants did not like her tone. They advanced, snapping their mandibles. I shook the geranium seeds over Meg’s cocoon, then nocked my arrow. Killing one ant would do no good if the other three tore us apart, so I chose a different target. I shot the roof of the cavern, just above the ants’ heads.

It was a desperate idea, but I’d had success bringing down buildings with arrows before. In 464 BCE, I caused an earthquake that wiped out most of Sparta by hitting a fault line at the right angle. (I never liked the Spartans much.)

This time, I had less luck. The arrow embedded itself in the packed earth with a dull thunk. The ants took another step forward, acid dripping from their mouths. Behind me, Meg struggled to free herself from her cocoon, which was now covered in a shag carpet of purple flowers.

She needed more time.

Out of ideas, I tugged my Brazilian-flag handkerchief from my neck and waved it like a maniac, trying to channel my inner Paolo.

“BACK, FOUL ANTS!” I yelled. “BRASIL!”

The ants wavered—perhaps because of the bright colors, or my voice, or my sudden insane confidence. While they hesitated, cracks spread across the roof from my arrow’s impact site, and then thousands of tons of earth collapsed on top of the myrmekes.

When the dust cleared, half the room was gone, along with the ants.

I looked at my handkerchief. “I’ll be Styxed. It does have magic power. I can never tell Paolo about this or he’ll be insufferable.”