Not breathing, I shake my head. I have no idea. I don’t want to know.
“I am Perses.”
My eyes widen. The Titan God of Destruction. A primordial being even older than Zeus!
“And I’m supposed to make sure you finish what you started.” And with that, the bastard lifts me up and throws me off the ledge.
* * *
I shriek. Pounding air. Panic.Oh my Gods!
The valley floor is a long way down. It still rushes up to meet me. Fear for Little Bean slams into me. I need to fly.Now!
I strain, twist, scream,roar. No wings spring forth. I can’t reach them. I don’t know how!
Too late!
Terror gives way to blinding pain. Consciousness somehow remains apart and alert, even though every single part of me is broken. Splintered. Shattered. Splattered. No bones left. Blood everywhere. Little Bean—dead.
There’s a mind-ripping push and pull, and I take shape again, forming in a backward rush. A tortured animal sound leaks from me as my body knits itself back together. I’m aware of every second of it. The fear. The suffering. Little Bean’s life spark pulses again, and then what feels like the hand of a God grabs me and yanks me violently up. I fly through the air, still solidifying as I go. I end up intact and utterly petrified on the high-up shelf of rock.
I fall to my knees and vomit. There’s not much in me, just saliva and dry heaves and my mind supplying the sharp memory of blistering pain and a vivid image of my own broken body.
I turn my head, gasping for breath. Granite and gray waver before me. I see triple, double, and then Prometheus comes into focus.
“Fly,” he mouths to me, a deep crease between his heavy brows. There’s no hole in his bloodstained side anymore.
Perses glares at me. “Are you ready to spread your wings, or do you want me to dothatagain?”
“I…” I shake my head, dazed. As soon as I can, I stagger to my feet, trying to banish the nightmare of Little Bean’s and my deaths. I brace my hand against the cliff wall for balance and push and prod at where my magic should be. There’s nothing. I feel emptied out and scraped clean.
My heart sinks. “I don’t feel the wings.”
Snarling, Perses grabs me and heaves me over the edge.
I scream. I scream all the way down. I hit the ground screaming. I scream when Little Bean leaves me, ripping my soul apart. I scream when she comes back, my heart wrecked from both pain and relief. I scream all the way up the sheer cliff again as my body glues itself back together with my own skin and marrow, bones and blood. I scream loudest of all when I rise on trembling legs to face Perses again and then strike out with a closed fist.
He weaves out of my reach. “I told you to fly, not punch.”
He reaches for me again, and instinct kicks in. I run. He’s bigger, stronger, and a lot faster. He’s a bloody God, and there’s nowhere to go!
I’m airborne before I can take two steps, and there’s still no hint of my wings. Instead of screaming, this time I strain through my chest and shoulder blades for all I’m worth. I’m still pushing when I hit the ground and feel and see myself explode, still pushing when this horrible world pieces me back together again, and still pushing when it propels me straight back up to the feet of my Titan tormenter once more.
The next time I fall to the valley floor, I see an emaciated man desperately grabbing for a cluster of figs he’ll never be able to reach. Focused on his eternally unattainable feast, he doesn’t even look at me as I shatter right next to him and then keen like an injured beast.
I re-form and rise again, knowing I’ll never feel hunger here like he does. That’s not my punishment for trying to control things beyond my mandate.Thisis.
“Why won’t you fly?” Perses thunders. His lips draw back to bare his teeth. His bronze eyes boil with power and anger as he lifts me up and gives me a dangerously hard shake.
“Why won’t you teach me?” I thrash in his hot and biting grip. I kick out, landing solid hit after hit. He’s going to throw me over the cliff again, and I fight with every bit of strength I have left. “Everyone just expects me to do it, but no one ever says how!”
“Because it’s instinct! Just like any magic. You either have it, or you don’t. Thereisno how!”
My other magic I could always feel. I knew where it was, coursing through my veins, pooling in my blood. I could reach for it, command it. I never could with either the wings or the lightning—the two things I need right now!
I pound at him with both feet. “You’re not helping!”
“Maybe this will help.” Perses launches me over the edge with a disgusted curse.
