And I fought to get away from Nix.
I turned around and took off like a shot out of a gun. My legs weren’t used to this kind of physical strain and my lungs burned with the effort and high altitude. But I didn’t let any of that stop me.
I ran like hell. I ran like the hounds of hell were chasing me.
And maybe they were.
On Olympus, I didn’t expect for anything to be simple or normal and the mountain did not let me down. I watched gods and goddesses grow in front of my eyes. Gigantes became towering giants that destroyed entire buildings with one crushing stomp of their massive feet. Fire and lightning zoomed around me and rained down overhead.
I lunged forward only to jump back when a streak of hot lightning speared the ground right in front of me. I darted around a crumbling building and managed to duck out of the way just as it crashed to the ground, spitting boulders of stone and debris.
Another building collapsed to my right and forced me back to the main battle that I was desperately trying to outrun.
I stretched my legs and leapt over piles of burning roofing. I was disturbed to see more than a few dead bodies littering the ground. They weren’t the corpses of gods or goddesses, but of the lesser Greek beings that had come out to help.
I couldn’t name them all, but I saw many that I recognized. Centaurs and nymphs, ogres and more. Some had been servants to the mountain, others had crawled from seedy places that I would expect Nix to inhabit.
“Ivy!” Nix roared my name above the clashing of swords and gruesome sounds of battle. “I will find you!”
I didn’t bother turning around. I needed to find Ryder first. If I could get to him, we could stand together and force Nix to fight us both.
I might have a chance with Ryder at my side.
Nix seemed unstoppable, especially since we hadn’t been able to do much damage a few minutes ago. But we were more motivated than ever. And Ryder wanted him dead as badly as I did.
Where there was a will there was a way. Right?
Sure.
I jumped up on an overturned column and tried to find Ryder through the crowd. He stood in the middle of an attack, with a sword in his hands. I had no idea where it came from, but he had officially claimed it as his.
He swung his new weapon with all of his strength. He might not have had precision or skill, but with a blade that sharp, he didn’t need to be accurate. He just had to hit something.
And he could hit something.
I caught my breath as I watched him. His hair was wild and dirty, his face streaked with bruises and blood. His biceps rippled under the strain of wielding his sword. He looked like an avenging angel in the middle of the battle for Eden. He looked like a supernatural creature born to kill… born to seek revenge.
He looked like a Greek god surrounded by mortals.
He put the Pantheon to shame, despite their immortality and mystical beauty.
I had never been more proud of him or proud to be his.
A whoosh of air blasted around me and I only had time to brace myself before they appeared.
The Fates.
They stood on the wide column with me with poise and grace, as if they were meant to stand there, as if this column had been toppled simply for their feet to rest upon.
“Siren,” Enid smiled demurely, her pale pink eyes flashing with frenzied excitement.
“Fates,” I clipped back. I didn’t like that they were here. This seemed pre-planned. They claimed to want Nix dead, but instinct whispered something different. They didn’t care so much about Nix as they wanted the entire Pantheon in chaos.
The Oracle of Delphi had said that their true goal was control. Yet they couldn’t kill a god.
But they could orchestrate it so that the gods killed each other.
“The day has rather a promising outlook, don’t you think?” Enid’s grin widened, revealing sharpened teeth and a black tongue.
