He was in his element. He looked like the Heracles she’d always pictured from her mother’s stories. The hero who was unstoppable.
At that moment, a slew of arrows shot over their heads and rained down on the Earthborn left on the beach. With a swell of satisfaction, Danae saw at least a dozen fall.
“What in Tartarus is that?” said Hylas.
Danae looked up, squinting against the sunlight.
Curling around a mountain in the distance, like a snake coiling around its prey, was a tendril of dense fog. She watched it quickly blanket the land in an opaque, gray mist. Her frown deepened. It was moving unnaturally fast. It didn’t come from the ocean, yet it raced like it was driven by a stormy sea wind. And it was heading straight for the beach.
Despite the heat of the rising sun, her blood ran cold.
The gods had found her.
It happened so fast. Danae could do nothing but watch as the fog enveloped the cliffs then advanced on the beach. In moments no one would be able to see who they were fighting.
There was a nauseating crack from the isthmus as an Earthborn smashed open the skull of a Doliones soldier like it was a melon, while the man was distracted by the rolling mist.
Hylas unsheathed his sword. “Fall back! Fall back!”
But it was too late. Danae looked to the end of the isthmus just in time to see Heracles, up to his sword hilt in the innards of an Earthborn, be swallowed by the fog. The rest of the men froze as the mist consumed them.
Behind her, the fighters of the second wave came pouring out of the tunnel and scrambled down the rocks.
“Stop!” Her words fell unheeded as they disappeared into the mist and Hylas plunged in after them.
“Shit.” She hesitated for a heartbeat, then followed him.
The silence hit her like a wall of stone. The noise of battle sounded very far away, like she was underwater. She shivered. The fog was cold with the promise of death. It was so thick it rendered her almost blind. She stretched out her arms. Her limbs looked ghostly, fingers fading into the mist in front of her. Was that an Argonaut moving ahead, or an Earthborn?
She fought down the fear that threatened to choke her. She had to stop them, or the fighters would be slaughtered.
Something loomed out of the mist toward her. Realizing too late she’d forgotten a weapon, she threw her arms over her head and braced herself for the rake of an Earthborn’s claws.
“Gods’ bollocks, I nearly killed you!” Telamon stood over her, his sword barely a handspan from her arms.
Heart still palpitating, she straightened up. “Have you seen Hylas or Heracles?”
“Can’t see anything in this damned fog.” He grasped her by the shoulder. “Do you know why this is happening? Is this the gods’ doing?”
Before she could respond, a claw slashed through the mist above them. Telamon pushed her out of the way and swung his sword to meet the Earthborn’s talons. She rolled across the sand, losing sight of them both as they disappeared into the fog. She came to a halt bashing into something on the ground. At first, she thought it was a fallen Earthborn, but as she leaned over the body, she realized what she’d mistaken for its fur was Ancaeus’s bearskin. The Argonaut’s face was slack, eyes misted as the air around him. Danae felt something warm and wet pooling around her hand.
Part of her was transported back to the bay of Corinth and the sight of Manto’s mangled corpse. But another part knew now was not the time for guilt. With each battle, each death, this part of her grew louder. She closed Ancaeus’s eyes, swiftly whispered the prayer that would send him to Elysium, then took his sword and stepped over his body.
With her vision blocked, every cry, grunt and clash of metal took on its own distinctive note. But she was listening for something else.
She stopped, the rough sand crunching beneath her feet as she raised Ancaeus’s sword. Someone was nearby. She could hear their breath, slow and steady, devoid of the panic around them. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Trust your power.The voice was calm, confident, certain.
She knew what she must do. She dropped the sword and felt for the energy surging through her veins. She took a step forward, then another. The outline of a figure came into focus. It was wearing golden armor, topped with a blue-plumed helm, unlike the kind worn by any soldier or general Danae had ever seen. From the neck down, it covered the figure’s entire body, down to gauntlets that capped their fingers.
Suddenly, the figure raised its arms, golden gauntleted hands piercing the mist. Danae flung out her own arms and cast her life-threads into the fog. The wind howled like a thousand wolves as she whipped the air into a torrent, slicing a path of clarity through the mist. As it recoiled and daylight poured in, she caught a clear glimpse of the figure, their golden armor so dazzling they shone like the sun itself. There was something familiar about the face beneath the helm, but she had no time to rack her memory, as the figure was sent sprawling backward onto the sand from the force of her gale. She advanced, but the figure raised its arms once more, and the mist surged back around them. The golden stranger must be controlling it. Danae redoubled her efforts and drove the fog back for a second time.
But the figure was gone.
Danae whipped the wind left and right, clearing swathes of the isthmus, but the golden stranger had vanished. Roaring in frustration, she turned her efforts back to banishing the rest of the fog. Had the being fled? If it was powerful enough to conjure an all-consuming mist, why would it run from her?
She had no time to dwell on it. Despite having cleared a good deal of ground, she still couldn’t see Hylas or Heracles. Her vision was crackling at the edges. She knew she didn’t have much strength left; she’d drained her life-threads dangerously low. The wind required much more energy than the fire on Lemnos.
