The Burning Maze (The Trials of Apollo #3)(99)

‘Harken the trumpets,’ I croaked, my voice almost gone. ‘Turn red tides –’

‘Stop that!’ Medea shouted at me. ‘Ventus, throw the prisoners –’

Crest strummed an even uglier chord.

‘GAH!’ The sorceress turned and stabbed Crest again.

‘Enter stranger’s home,’ I sobbed.

Another suspended fourth from Crest, another jab from Medea’s blade.

‘Regain lost glory!’ I yelled. The last stone tiles shifted into place – completing the second column of lines from the far side of the room to the edge of our platform.

I could feel the prophecy’s completion, as welcome as a breath of air after a long underwater swim. The flames of Helios, now visible only along the centre of the room, cooled to a red simmer, no worse than your average five-alarm fire.

‘Yes!’ Herophile said.

Medea turned, snarling. Her hands glistened with the pandos’s blood. Behind her, Crest fell sideways, groaning, pressing the ukulele to his ruined gut.

‘Oh, well done, Apollo,’ Medea sneered. ‘You made this pandos die for your sake, for nothing. My magic is far enough along. I’ll just flay you the old-fashioned way.’ She hefted her knife. ‘And as for your friends …’

She snapped her bloody fingers. ‘Ventus, kill them!’





43


Favourite chapter

Because only one bad death

That is just messed up





Then she died.

I won’t lie, gentle reader. Most of this narrative has been painful to write, but that last line was pure pleasure. Oh, the look on Medea’s face!

But I should rewind.

How did it happen, this most welcome fluke of fate?

Medea froze. Her eyes widened. She fell to her knees, the knife clattering from her hand. She toppled over face-first, revealing a newcomer behind her – Piper McLean, dressed in leather armour over her street clothes, her lip newly stitched, her face still badly bruised but filled with resolve. Her hair was singed around the edges. A fine layer of ash coated her arms. Her dagger, Katoptris, now protruded from Medea’s back.

Behind Piper stood a group of warrior maidens, seven in all. At first, I thought the Hunters of Artemis had come to save me yet again, but these warriors were armed with shields and spears made of honey-gold wood.

Behind me, the ventus unspooled, dropping Meg and Grover to the floor. My molten chains crumbled to charcoal dust. Herophile caught me as I fell over.

Medea’s hands twitched. She turned her face sideways and opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Piper knelt next to her. She placed her hand almost tenderly on the sorceress’s shoulder, then with her other hand removed Katoptris from between Medea’s shoulder blades.

‘One good stab in the back deserves another.’ Piper kissed Medea on the cheek. ‘I’d tell you to say hello to Jason for me, but he’ll be in Elysium. You … won’t.’

The sorceress’s eyes rolled up in her head. She stopped moving. Piper glanced back at her wood-armoured allies. ‘How about we dump her?’

‘GOOD CALL!’ the seven maidens shouted in unison. They marched forward, lifted the body of Medea and tossed it unceremoniously into the fiery pool of her own grandfather.

Piper wiped her bloody dagger on her jeans. With her swollen, stitched-up mouth, her smile was more gruesome than friendly. ‘Hi, guys.’

I let out a heartbroken sob, which was probably not what Piper expected. Somehow, I got to my feet, ignoring the searing pain in my ankles, and ran past her to the place where Crest lay, gurgling weakly.

‘Oh, brave friend.’ My eyes burned with tears. I cared nothing for my own excruciating pain, the way my skin screamed when I tried to move.

Crest’s furry face was slack with shock. Blood speckled his snowy white fur. His mid-section was a glistening mess. He clutched the ukulele as if it were the only thing anchoring him to the world of the living.

‘You saved us,’ I said, choking on the words. ‘You – you bought us just enough time. I will find a way to heal you.’

He locked eyes with me and managed to croak, ‘Music. God.’

I laughed nervously. ‘Yes, my young friend. You are a music god! I – I will teach you every chord. We will have a concert with the Nine Muses. When – when I get back to Olympus …’

My voice faltered.

Crest was no longer listening. His eyes had turned glassy. His tortured muscles relaxed. His body crumbled, collapsing inward until the ukulele sat on a pile of dust – a small, sad monument to my many failures.

I don’t know how long I knelt there, dazed and shaking. It hurt to sob. I sobbed anyway.

Finally, Piper crouched next to me. Her face was sympathetic, but I thought somewhere behind her lovely multicoloured eyes she was thinking, Another life lost for your sake, Lester. Another death you couldn’t fix.

She did not say that. She sheathed her knife. ‘We grieve later,’ she said. ‘Right now, our job isn’t done.’

Our job. She had come to our aid, despite everything that had happened, despite Jason … I could not fall apart now. At least, no more than I had already.

I picked up the ukulele. I was about to mutter some promise to Crest’s dust. Then I remembered what came from my broken promises. I had vowed to teach the young pandos any instrument he wished. Now he was dead. Despite the searing heat of the room, I felt the cold stare of Styx upon me.