Danae stepped back as he grasped the trunk and pulled it from the earth in a shower of needles. Watching him carry the tree over to theArgo, she simmered with frustration.
She would just have to wait a few more hours.
Nightfall took an age to come. Despite the cold, Jason had forbidden them to make a fire in case it alerted the city guards to their presence.
Danae sat in her makeshift tent waiting for dark. Legs drawn into her chest, she rocked back and forth, trying to work out what she was going to say to Heracles.
You know how you hate your father? Well, the good news is I’m prophesied to destroy him. Want to join me?
She groaned. Why was this so difficult? She knew what the outcome would be. All she had to do was tell him the truth.
Finally, the shard of light faded from the gap in the tarpaulin. Leaving her bag inside, she slid her knife into her belt and crept out through the opening. With no fire to cluster round, the Argonauts had all retired to their beds. Across the encampment she saw Heracles’s lion hide outside his tent, propped up on a branch he’d stuck into the ground. She smiled. Just as he’d promised.
It had stopped snowing, but trails of white still lined the branches of the trees. Danae’s breath clouded in front of her as she walked. This was it, the moment her destiny became theirs.
Nearby, a twig crunched underfoot.
She shrank back into the shadow of a tent and was still. A figure darted into the trees. It was hard to be sure in the dark, but it moved just like Dolos.
She looked back at the entrance of Heracles’s tent. She could not let herself be distracted. This was too important.
Follow the healer,said the voice.
She hesitated, caught between her plan and the spark of intuition ignited by the voice. Then she turned away from the camp and followed Dolos into the trees.
Eventually the pines thinned, and Danae glimpsed a clearing ahead. She hung back under the cover of the branches.
Dolos was standing in the center, his face daubed in moonlight. The healer glanced around like he was waiting for someone. Danae stayed very still, her hand clamped over her mouth so her frozen breath wouldn’t give her away.
Then she stopped breathing altogether.
Lurking in the trees on the other side of the clearing was a pair of crimson eyes. The pines oscillated as the shade moved toward Dolos. The healer hadn’t seen it yet.
Without waiting to summon her life-threads, she drew her knife and sprinted across the clearing. She knocked the shade bodily to the ground, half surprised it had a solid form. Dolos was shouting, but she couldn’t hear him over the thumping of her pulse as she plunged her knife into the rippling space beneath those terrible red eyes.
Blood splattered her furs as she stabbed over and over again until the shade stopped moving. Then Dolos yanked her away. She staggered back, staring at the shade’s body in amazement. She could see it. In death its skin was no longer invisible, but a dull gray, cracked and rough like a lizard’s. It looked chillingly human, from the shape of its head and face to the composition of its limbs.
“What have you done?” whispered Dolos.
She turned to him, breathing heavily. “I just saved your life.”
Dolos fell to his knees, scrabbling around the icy ground. She watched him with mounting confusion. Then he pulled a bag toward him from the shadow of the trees. Fumbling with its clasp, he rushed to open it, pulling out bottle after bottle of the blue health tonic she’d seen him use to revive Heracles on Lemnos.
“Thank the gods,” he muttered. “They’re not broken.”
Lastly, he drew out a small amulet. She recognized the design. It took her a moment to remember where from. It was identical to the one she’d seen in Polyxo’s hut save for the crest, which on this was a thunderbolt.
A terrible realization unfurled in Danae’s mind.
“Dolos, were you waiting for that thing?”
The healer stared at the amulet, his face stricken. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her.
“Why was that shade carrying a bag of Heracles’s medicine?”
Dolos remained silent as he carefully placed the vials and amulet back into the bag. Then he rose to his feet, the pack clasped to his chest.
“There are things at play here you would never understand.”
