“What?” I thought, looking around for him. Where was he?
“Aethra? You keep shouting her name at us.”
Was I? Blood pounded in my ears. I couldn’t concentrate.
Aethra slammed into me and clutched my wrist. The driver Eleos had controlled recovered from his daze and yanked his reins, turning his wagon toward us.
An uncomfortable sensation wrapped around me. Stagnant air, unnatural silence. The ground cracked and splintered. A hole was rent in the earth, as though touched by the Empty. The horses swerved to avoid the danger, but the chariot’s wheels fell into the gap.
Bucking forward violently, the gilded carriage threw the men from their seats, and they landed to either side of the horses. Their steeds pulled the empty chariot loose from the ditch andcontinued galloping, nearly running their drivers over.
“Well,” Phaedrus thought, “not quite how I imagined it, but that’ll do.”
Perfect. Pulling from Aethra’s grip, I threw my sword toward one, managing to pierce his cloak and pin it to the ground, giving me time to reach him before he rose. Biting my knuckles, I drew more blood into a spear and brought it down on his neck.
He rolled over, blocking my strike with his gauntlet. My spear scraped off the metal, exposing me to a riposte. Grabbing a dagger from his belt, he lunged at my abdomen, and I backed off.
Retrieving his dropped lance, the knight rolled to his feet. Gripping the lance two-handed, he swung toward my head.
Blocking his swing, I pushed him off. Seraphim flew to my side, scythe swinging for the gap beneath his shoulder plates. Darting behind him, I avoided the end of his polearm and spun my spear around to drive into his back.
Surrounded, the knight dropped his weapon and raised his hands. Not willing to show him mercy, I lunged, but Seraphim caught the man’s neck in the curve of her scythe and yanked him away from me, tossing the man sideways where his helmet crashed into the dirt.
“I’m getting that chariot,” she announced, pushing past me and dashing after the empty vehicle.
A foolish move. These people didn’t deserve mercy. Spinning my spear to face down, I drove it between his neck and jerked it through to his helm.
Yanking my spear from the dead man, I searched the field. Aethra wasn’t where I’d left her. She had sprinted away and was nearly to the southern gate.
What happened to her insistence she’drunfrom battle, not dive into the thick of it! Stealing the dead knight’s dagger, I gave chase.
Percy rolled out from the southern gates moments before a violent tremor shook the ground, tripping Aethra up. The spiked ceiling in our cell must have fallen.
In perfect sync, the two remaining chariots rode north and whirled around, bearing down on the four souls trapped between them and the walls.
“Perse! Music,” Eleos shouted.
“Horses don’t understand dirges!” Percy thought back, shakily rising to his feet.
“Does that matter?”
“Yes! That’s how it works!”
“Why didn’t you say that before?”
Cursing, Eleos grabbed a fallen javelin and threw it toward the oncoming chariot. He nailed one of the wheels, and it stalled as the metal spear got caught in its spokes, sending the chariot spinning violently.
The other was upon Eleos before I could blink. I saw a flash of crimson and heard a crash, but couldn’t see behind the blur of hooves and steel.
Yanking the reins, the driver turned at the last moment, hugging the wall as he directed the horses toward me.
“Seth!” Aethra yelled, though I couldn’t see her.
I glanced left and right, trying to decide which direction to throw myself—and hoped for the best.
The unnatural sensation stifled the air again: The stillness and silence of the Empty.
The chariot’s back wheel splintered into dust, tossing the horses off balance. Tilting onto its side, the wagon flew off course.
