The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(76)

Incitatus flared his nostrils. ‘I think I’ll kick Medea in the head.’

‘No, you won’t!’ Medea shrieked in a sharp burst of charmspeak. ‘Caligula, silence the girl!’

Caligula strode over to Piper. ‘Sorry, love.’

He backhanded her across the mouth so hard she turned a full circle before collapsing.

‘OHHH!’ Incitatus whinnied with pleasure. ‘Good one!’

I broke.

Never had I felt such rage. Not when I destroyed the entire family of Niobids for their insults. Not when I fought Heracles in the chamber of Delphi. Not even when I struck down the Cyclopes who had made my father’s murderous lightning.

I decided at that moment Piper McLean would not die tonight. I charged Caligula, intent on wrapping my hands around his neck. I wanted to strangle him to death, if only to wipe that smug smile off his face.

I felt sure my godly power would return. I would rip the emperor apart in my righteous fury.

Instead, Caligula pushed me to the floor with hardly a glance.

‘Please, Lester,’ he said. ‘You’re embarrassing yourself.’

Piper lay shivering as if she were cold.

Crest crouched nearby, trying in vain to cover his massive ears. No doubt he was regretting his decision to follow his dream of taking music lessons.

I fixed my eyes on the twin cyclones, hoping that Jason and Meg had somehow escaped. They had not, but strangely, as if by silent agreement, they seemed to have switched roles.

Rather than raging in response to Piper being struck, Jason now floated deathly still, his eyes closed, his face like stone. Meg, on the other hand, clawed at her ventus cage, screaming words I couldn’t hear. Her clothes were in tatters. Her face was crosshatched with a dozen bleeding cuts, but she didn’t seem to care. She kicked and punched and threw packets of seeds into the maelstrom, causing festive bursts of pansies and daffodils among the shrapnel.

By the imperial dais, Medea had turned pale and sweaty. Countering Piper’s charmspeak must have taxed her, but that gave me no comfort.

Reverb and his guards would soon be back, bearing the hearts of the emperor’s enemies.

A cold thought flooded through me. The hearts of his enemies.

I felt as if I had been backhanded. The emperor needed me alive, at least for the moment. Which meant my only leverage …

My expression must have been priceless. Caligula burst out laughing.

‘Apollo, you look like someone stepped on your favourite lyre!’ He tutted. ‘You think you’ve had it bad? I grew up as a hostage in my Uncle Tiberius’s palace. Do you have any idea how evil that man was? I woke up every day expecting to be assassinated, just like the rest of my family. I became a consummate actor. Whatever Tiberius needed me to be, I was. And I survived. But you? Your life has been golden from start to finish. You don’t have the stamina to be mortal.’

He turned to Medea. ‘Very well, sorceress! You may turn your little blenders up to puree and kill the two prisoners. Then we will deal with Apollo.’

Medea smiled. ‘Gladly.’

‘Wait!’ I screamed, pulling an arrow from my quiver.

The emperor’s remaining guards levelled their spears, but the emperor shouted, ‘HOLD!’

I didn’t try to draw my bow. I didn’t attack Caligula. Instead, I turned the arrow inward and pressed the point against my chest.

Caligula’s smile evaporated. He examined me with thinly veiled contempt. ‘Lester … what are you doing?’

‘Let my friends go,’ I said. ‘All of them. Then you can have me.’

The emperor’s eyes gleamed like a strix’s. ‘And if I don’t?’

I summoned my courage, and issued a threat I never could have imagined in my previous four thousand years of life. ‘I’ll kill myself.’





32


Don’t make me do it

I’m crazy, I’ll do it, I’ll –

Ow, that really hurt





Oh, no, thou shalt not, buzzed a voice in my head.

My noble gesture was ruined when I realized I had, once again, drawn the Arrow of Dodona by mistake. It shook violently in my hand, no doubt making me look even more terrified than I was. Nevertheless, I held it fast.

Caligula narrowed his eyes. ‘You would never. You don’t have a self-sacrificing instinct in your body!’

‘Let them go.’ I pressed the arrow against my skin, hard enough to draw blood. ‘Or you’ll never be the sun god.’

The arrow hummed angrily, KILLETH THYSELF WITH SOME OTHER PROJECTILE, KNAVE. OF COMMON MURDER WEAPONS, I AM NONE!

‘Oh, Medea,’ Caligula called over his shoulder, ‘if he kills himself in this fashion, can you still do your magic?’

‘You know I can’t,’ she complained. ‘It’s a complicated ritual! We can’t have him murdering himself in some sloppy way before I’m prepared.’

‘Well, that’s mildly annoying.’ Caligula sighed. ‘Look, Apollo, you can’t expect this will have a happy ending. I am not Commodus. I’m not playing a game. Be a nice boy and let Medea kill you in the correct way. Then I’ll give these others a painless death. That’s my best offer.’

I decided Caligula would make a terrible car salesman.