Pegasus landed before his old master and nuzzled Poseidon’s hand.
Metis forced out a laugh. ‘A little much isn’t it, to arrive on the back of Skolopendraandbring your favourite winged horse.’
Poseidon wrenched his trident from the earth. ‘My steed was last spotted in the company of the girl. Where is she?’
Metis took a step back. ‘Not here.’
Poseidon’s azure-grey eyes turned to scour the greenery around the lake.
‘Poseidon, I swear –’
As though swinging an axe, the God of the Sea raked his trident through the air and a surge of life-threads shot from its treble prongs to wrap around Metis.
Danae waited, limbs bound with tension, expecting Metis to throw him off. But it seemed she could not. Her face reddened, her body twisting until there was a sickening crack and one of her arms folded inwards at an unnatural angle.
Metis screamed.
He was going to kill her.
You can do this, said the voice.
‘Please, Gaia, help me,’ Danae mouthed. She imaginedeverything bleeding away, all the noise, wind and fury, and pictured herself melting into her river. Lines of gold began to crackle across her vision as the tapestry of life faded in and out of sight. She tried to hold onto the feeling of calm, but her connection to Gaiasight was weak.
It would have to do.
Summoning her life-threads into her hands, she emerged from the bushes. In that moment, all the resentment she’d harboured burned away. She was risking everything, but even after discovering the past Metis had concealed, she couldn’t let the woman die. Gaia’s last true Titan. The only person left who truly understood what it felt like to be a protector of mankind, and how much it cost.
Poseidon looked towards her, Metis still caught in his rope of threads. His gaze swept over Danae and his lip curled.
‘Finally, in the flesh.’
Her breath steady, Danae hurled two cords of gleaming strands at him. But the God of the Sea was swifter.
The power of his trident still binding Metis, Poseidon blasted Danae’s threads away with a coil of wind and hoisted her off the ground. She struggled in the air, her limbs bound like a bird trapped beneath a lion’s paw. As the breath was squeezed from her lungs, panic consumed her, and the tapestry of life vanished from sight. She no longer asked the wind to come to her aid, but internally screamed at it, hurling her life-threads against Poseidon’s barrier of air. The pressure around her chest only tightened and from the ground, the false god laughed.
‘How my brother will reward me, when I return to Olympus with your head.’
The next thing Danae knew, she was slamming into the ground, suddenly free. Dazed, she staggered to her feet. Atalanta was hanging about Poseidon’s neck, trying to find anopening in his armour to drive her knife through to the soft flesh beneath.
Lying a stone’s throw from Danae, Metis groaned. The woman flung out her good arm, her life-threads snaking away into the earth.
Poseidon ripped Atalanta from his back, smashing her into the bank. He raised his trident, but before he could strike, he stumbled, the ground cracking beneath his feet. For an agonizing heartbeat, the God of the Sea flailed. Then he fell, and with hungry earthen lips, the island swallowed him whole.
‘Go!’ shouted Metis.
Danae ran to her side, but Metis pushed her away.
‘I can’t hold him for long,’ she gasped. ‘You must go.’
Before Danae could protest, Atalanta grabbed her arm and pulled her towards Telamon and Heracles, who had heaved the little boat from the undergrowth and were dragging it towards the shore.
Danae grabbed onto the side of the vessel, her sweat-slicked fingers slipping across the oiled wood as she fought the urge to look back. They hauled the boat through the sun-crisped grass until their feet sank into sand. But before they reached the shallows, all four of them froze.
Emerging from the sea was Skolopendra, the creature Poseidon had arrived on. Water sluiced from its mottled navy shell as it loomed over the bay, supported by at least fifty legs, its crayfish tail beating the water. It looked like something from the dawn of time, a giant, primordial crustacean that had crawled from the deepest crevice of the sea. Even after meeting the beings that dwelt in the Underworld, Danae quaked at the sight of its crab-like head; eyeballs the size of human skulls bulging on stalks, tentacle-thick hairs trailing from its nostrils, and its bone jaws clicking like two saws as it stormed towards them.
For a moment, they all stood dumbstruck. Then, with a guttural roar, Heracles grabbed Telamon’s sword, his limbs shaking with the effort, as he ran doggedly towards the beast.
‘Heracles, no!’ Danae sprinted after him, tackling him round the waist and bringing them both crashing to the sand. ‘Stay back!’ she barked as she leapt up in front of him, casting two ropes of life-threads into the sand. As the sea-monster reared, she was transported back to fighting Kerberos on the midnight bank of the Styx. She whipped her life-threads and threw two clouds of sand up towards its eyes, piercing its giant eyeballs with thousands of razor-sharp grains. Dark blue liquid sprayed down as the beast screeched.
