Danae backed away, ears ringing with the clash of bronze and bone. Islanders’ bodies littered the clearing. Many hadn’t found the safety of the jungle in time. They weren’t hunters and stood little chance against the rage-fueled Argonauts. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. These people had lied to them, drugged them, but they didn’t all deserve to die.
As Danae looked around, she saw the Argonauts had casualties too. Idmon, the seer, was lying on the ground, a spear protruding from his gut, his sightless eyes staring at the stars.
She was distracted by a hunter hurtling toward her with a broadsword. Just in time she swung up her axe and blocked the woman’s blade from cracking her skull. The hunter swung again, and this time her sword hit the axe’s handle, biting into the wood. Danae tried to reach for her life-threads but was too distracted to concentrate. The hunter snarled and pushed her sword, shoving Danae back until she collapsed, pinned under the weight of both their weapons.
Darkness began to press against the corners of her vision. Her chest was screaming, the weight of the axe crushing her. Then the hunter’s eyes were drawn to something behind her. The woman’s face fell slack and she let go. Scrambling back, Danae twisted to see what was happening.
Heracles was striding from the hall, dragging Hypsipyle by the neck. Jason staggered after them, his face bloody. From his glazed expression, it looked as though he had not yet been revived.
The hero threw Hypsipyle to the ground.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you, witch.”
“No,” moaned Jason.
“Pathetic.” Heracles kicked him as he reached toward his bride. “Dolos! Revive ourleader.” Then he turned his attention to the Queen of Lemnos. “Only a coward drugs their enemies. You are spineless by deed, and I will make you spineless by nature.” He reached for her.
“Wait!” Hypsipyle stretched out a bruised arm between them. “To kill me in our holy clearing, before the eyes of Artemis—” she reached toward the wooden effigy “—would be a sin against the gods.”
“Fuck the gods.”
Stillness rang across the clearing.
“You dare dishonor your father?” whispered Hypsipyle.
A terrible smile spread across Heracles’s face as he grasped her tunic and lifted her into the air. “I don’t give a damn about my father.”
Danae stared at him. She would never have imagined the hero harbored anything other than love for Zeus.
Then something small bounced off Heracles’s impenetrable lion hide. He dropped Hypsipyle and stooped to pick it up. Even in the moonlight Danae could make out a black feather. One of the deadly poisoned darts she’d seen in Polyxo’s hut.
One by one, the Argonauts started to fall. Blood thumped through Danae’s veins as her head whipped round, searching for the culprit. Pollux tumbled to the ground, then his twin, Castor. Telamon sank to his knees beside his fallen brother, Peleus. Then she noticed a wisp of silver hair disappear behind the Hunters Hall.
Polyxo.
She dropped her axe, it would only slow her down, and sprinted after the old woman. As she drew closer to the hall, Polyxo’s face appeared around the corner, a dart pipe pressed to her lips. Danae sped up, pumping her arms with all her might. Then someone grappled her. She crashed to the ground, the air punched from her lungs. Gasping, she looked up, but Polyxo had disappeared.
“Shit!” She pushed herself away from her attacker. It was Hylas. “What the fuck are you doing?”
He didn’t move. “Daeira... I feel strange.”
Then she saw the black dart lodged in the side of his neck. She ripped it out, throwing the cursed object as far away as she could. Hylas’s brow was already clustered with cold sweat.
“She would have...hit you,” he slurred.
Tears blurred Danae’s eyes. “It’s all right, you’ll come round in a few hours.”
“Ahh...sorry to miss...the fight.”
She forced herself to smile. “You’ve earned the rest. I’ll see you when you wake up.”
She felt his body go slack.
For a moment, there was nothing. No sound, no moon, no earth. Then she roared until her lungs ached to draw breath. All she wanted was to destroy.
You know what to do,said the voice.
She rose to her feet and summoned the power of her life-threads, throwing a surge of them through the hole Heracles had smashed into the side of the Hunters Hall.
