We leaped.
The transition from the super-heated throne room to the freezing, chaotic air of the Olympus exterior was like being slapped awake. We tumbled through the air, flailing, falling toward the lower terraces of the city. We were just free-falling through a storm that wanted to eat us.
"Thane!" I screamed, the bond activating again instantly. I felt the lurch in my stomach through four other stomachs.
Got you,the Bear’s thought was a heavy, grounding anchor in my mind.
He snagged a passing sculpture, part of the palace's external architecture, with one massive hand, his arm jerking with the strain. His other hand grabbed Elias’s ankle. Elias grabbed Kaelen. Kaelen grabbed Flynn. Flynn grabbed me.
We formed a ridiculous, dangling chain of demigods and something that wasn't human anymore, hanging over the city, buffeted by winds that smelled of rotting ozone.
Thane groaned, the noise vibrating up the chain. "I am... not... a rope."
"Swing!" Kaelen ordered, looking down at a balcony about twenty feet below and to the left.
Thane grunted and began to oscillate. It was terrifying. I was at the bottom of the pendulum, swinging out over the swirling black nothingness that was eating the edge of the world. One slip, and I would fall forever.
"On three!" Kaelen shouted. "One! Two! Three!"
Thane let go.
We flew through the air, a tangle of limbs and terrified screams, mostly mine, though Flynn definitely yelped. We crashed onto the marble balcony, rolling, skidding, taking out a decorative planter filled with silver ferns.
I slammed into a balustrade; the air leaving my lungs.
For a moment, we just lay there, a pile of groaning, bruised bodies. The fire above us raged, licking out of the palace windows, painting the bruised sky in strokes of violent orange and black.
"Okay," Flynn gasped, staring up at the burning High Seat. "Okay. Note to self. Do not make the tiny girl angry."
Kaelen pulled himself up, wincing. He crawled over to me, grabbing my face. His hands were shaking. "Aria. Look at me. Are you back? Is the connection closed?"
I blinked, trying to focus. The multiple perspectives were fading, layering back down into a singular viewpoint, but the ghost of it remained, a peripheral awareness of their hearts beating, their pain, their adrenaline.
"I think so," I whispered. "I'm just me. Mostly."
"You nearly incinerated us along with the furniture," he growled, but he pressed his forehead against mine, his relief flooding down the bond like warm honey. "You cannot funnel that much power without a focus. You are a conduit, not a reservoir."
"She saved Elias," Thane pointed out, sitting up and rubbing his shoulder where the socket had surely been strained. "Athena would have skewered him."
Elias was sitting against the wall, looking uncharacteristically disheveled. His robes were singed, and his hair was windblown. He looked at me, his turquoise eyes wide.
"You saw it," he said softly. "You saw the strike before I did."
"I was everyone," I murmured, rubbing my temples where a headache was blooming. "I saw everything."
"We need cover," Kaelen said, snapping back into general mode. He looked up at the burning palace. Figures were moving on the upper balconies. Sentinels. And Athena. They were all silhouettes against the fire. "She will not let the fire distract herfor long. We need to get deeper into the city before they can find us or the storm decides to take another bite out of Olympus."
"The city is falling apart," I said, pointing toward the edge of the terrace.
A chunk of the district just past where we had landed had sheared off, drifting silently into the vortex. The Devourer’s storm was closer now, the red lightning arcing horizontally, bridging the gap between the nothingness and the stone.
"We go down," Kaelen said. "Into the lower districts. The slums of the gods. The architecture is denser; the magic is older. It’ll be harder to track us."
We scrambled to our feet. I was dizzy, my magic reserves once again feeling stretched, burned at the edges.
"Can you run?" Flynn asked, steadying me with a hand on my waist.
"I can run," I said, gritting my teeth.
