My blood ran cold. “That’s Skylla? As intheSkylla? The Brutium legend—the one who swallowed an entire fleet?”
“That’s the one.” He studied it absently, like it wasn’t a monster pulled from my darkest dreams. “Poseidon’s favorite pet. Looks like she’s floundering without her master.”
The deck erupted into chaos. Soldiers screamed, some drawing blades, others frozen in terror. Oars clattered uselessly as rowers abandoned their benches, stumbling across the planks in panic. Another serpentine loop rose, then another … massive coils undulating like a leviathan dance. The creature’s head breached at last, sleek and angular, with eyes the size of shields and teeth like spearheads.
She shrieked. The sound ripped the air apart, so high and violent my ears rang, my blood ice in my veins.
Theron yawned.
The ship lurched hard as a coil smashed against the hull. The deck pitched. Men tumbled screaming into the froth. I caught the railing just in time, splinters biting deep into my palms as wood groaned beneath us.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something?” I shouted.
“I am,” he said, his tone maddeningly sincere. “I’m admiring the view.”
A scream split the deck, then another. The serpent’s long neck arched above us, jaws gaping wide. Rows of teeth gleamed, each one the length of a dagger. Its eyes fixed on me, unblinking, as if the whole sea narrowed to a single point.
“She thinks you’re beautiful,” Theron called, and before I could absorb the absurdity of that statement … it lunged.
My muscles seized as the jaws came for me like a closing gate of death.
Something slammed into me from the side, and I crashed into the deck, my breath crushed from my chest. For a heartbeat I lay stunned, the world tilting around me, until a shadow blocked the light.
I blinked up into Achilles’s blazing eyes.
His body shielded mine as he rolled us clear. Behind him, the serpent’s jaws snapped shut where I’d been standing, the railing exploding in a splintering blast of wood.
“Are you trying to die?” he growled into my ear.
My heart was hammering too fast to answer. His arms held me against him as though he might anchor me to life itself.
The ship pitched violently. A coil of the beast whipped upward and smashed into the mast. The great yard splintered with a deafening rupture, and the sail split down the middle, its canvas whipping loose into the wind. Sailors shouted as the ropes snapped free, fragments of wood and sail raining across the deck.
Achilles rose, dragging me up with him. “Back,” he barked to the crew, his voice slicing through the panic as he held up his sword. “Form lines! Protect the queen!”
A coil snatched one of the soldiers mid-step. I watched, paralyzed, as the man screamed, twisting in the beast’s grip. And then he was gone, yanked into the water so hard the deck shuddered. A plume of blood fanned out across the surface a moment later, darkening the already crimson waves to near black.
Archers yanked arrows to their strings and let them fly. The shafts thudded uselessly against the monster’s scaled hide. The beast reared higher, its jaws spreading wide as it snapped down on the railing. The serpent roared as wood fell to the deck, a sound so immense that it vibrated through my ribs and made my teeth ache.
“Aim for its eyes!” Achilles’s voice cut through the din. His blade flashed as he pointed, commanding lines even as the serpent clamped its mouth around another writhing soldier. There was a crunch and a cry cut short, and the water below boiled redder still.
Theron, utterly unbothered, was still studying the serpent like it was a sculpture. “You know,” he called, “if someone had just asked, I could’ve told you not to bleed into the water. She loves that.”
My stomach twisted. Men were dying, torn apart in front of us, and he—he dared to sound amused.
Achilles whirled. “Do you ever shut your damned mouth?” he roared, his voice carrying over the screams and the crash of the serpent’s coils. “Or do you prefer to stand idle and taunt while men are slaughtered?”
Theron only smiled faintly, as if Achilles’s fury were nothing but background music to the performance.
The sea boiled as the serpent plunged, its massive body cutting a scar through the red water. Foam frothed crimson in its wake.
It struck again.
Achilles met it head-on. His blade cut deep into the beast’s jaw. The serpent shrieked, a sound that was just as piercing as its roar, and I cried out and covered my ears. Warmth slicked my palms, and I pulled them away to stare at the blood streaked across my skin. My ears were bleeding.
The monster reeled back, thrashing, blood gushing from the wound Achilles had left. For a moment, I thought he’d felled it—
Then the sea split anew and Achilles was tossed away from me to the other side of the deck.
