Dolos climbed over the benches toward her. “Your shoulder’s dislocated,” the healer shouted above a surge of thunder. “This is going to hurt.”
He grasped her left arm by the bicep and pulled. A wave of nausea ripped through her as her shoulder popped back into its socket with a sickening crunch. She stared up through the driving rain, sagging with relief as Heracles and the others clambered back onto the mid-deck, the sail now bound to the mast. The storm had become so violent, Tiphys had even abandoned the steering oar.
“Argonauts, brace yourselves under the benches!” yelled Jason.
Danae clung onto the sodden wood either side of her as the rest of the crew scrambled to find a hold. All they could do was ride out the storm and pray they survived.
23
A Bargain
Danae looked up into a now clear sky. A gentle breeze fluttered over her face, barely lifting a hair. Not one cloud remained, as though the storm had been but a passing nightmare. Her raw skin and aching bones told her otherwise. It was a miracle the ship had survived intact.
She unfolded herself from under the bench and straightened up. TheArgowas caught on a strip of reef in front of a long expanse of beach. Creamy sand stretched away from turquoise shallows into a dense tangle of greenery. Trees with long, layered trunks that rose into a crop of feathery leaves stood tall above the jungle. Large brown nuts, almost the size of her head, nestled below their fronds. In the distance a lone mountain, its ridges carpeted in emerald foliage, reared against the sky. The vegetation was unlike any she’d seen before. How far had the storm carried them?
She flinched as birds and creatures she didn’t recognize chirruped to each other from the depths of the jungle. She tried to place them, but their strange voices were so unlike the gulls, larks and kestrels of home. The air was different here too, heady and sweet like syrup.
“Where in Tartarus are we?”
Atalanta’s salt-crusted head appeared from behind the next bench. Telamon and Hylas emerged beside her, then the rest of the crew began to stir, unfurling themselves from the nooks they’d wedged themselves into during the storm.
“Argonauts!” Jason shouted as he clambered unsteadily onto the prow deck, a deep gash across his forehead. “If I call your name, say ‘aye.’ Ancaeus?”
“Aye.”
“Castor?”
“Aye.”
“Pollux?”
“Aye.”
“Orpheus?”
“Aye.” The musician sounded stricken. Danae looked across the deck and saw him cradling his broken lyre.
As the rest of the crew answered their names, Danae heard a groan behind her and twisted around. Her heart sank as she watched Tiphys climb onto the stern deck and run his calloused hands over the shattered planks. The mast had snapped in two and smashed through the wood, the steering oar lost to the sea.
“The figurehead!”
Looking back toward the prow she saw that the carved likeness of Hera was another casualty of the storm. Idmon stared at the splintered wood, his face pale, and declared, “This is a terrible omen.”
“I hope she’s at the bottom of the ocean,” murmured a deep voice.
Danae turned to see Heracles standing behind her.
“How’s the arm?” His gaze swept over her, lingering on her shoulder.
She rotated the joint. It hurt, like the rest of her, but she could move it.
“Fine.”
“Good.” He looked at her so intensely the ship seemed to disappear into his eyes.
The breath swelled in her chest. Then his next words expelled it.
“What you did was incredibly foolish.”
