“I don’t care who torments us,” Euryale said. “I’d suffer from here to eternity to save my daughter.”
“I know you would,” Stheno finally said, voice quiet. “I know. You’ve always wanted a family since you could first talk. For Fates’ sake, you’d drive Medusa and me mad with your never-ending dreams of all the things you’d do with your daughter. The meals you’d make. The places you’d go. The stupid bedtime stories you’d tell her each night before kissing her on the head and sending her off to sleep.”
“You’re not helping your case,” Euryale said.
“I’m sorry,” Stheno laughed nervously. “I only meant that I know how important she is to you. But please, believe me, I did think about you in the few seconds I had to act. And what I ultimately realized was, what use is saving Cassandra if we can’t keep her safe?”
“I told you—”
“I know, you’d suffer any torment to cure her,” Stheno cut in. “But that still doesn’t guarantee she’d have a life of freedom and joy, does it?”
Euryale shook her head as she started to gather everything up on the table, being sure to steer clear of the candle.
“You know I’m right!”
Euryale’s tail rattled, and she had the urge to leave right then and there. But she wouldn’t. Not before she had spoken her mind. “Tell me, then, Stheno,” she said quietly. “Why did you run for the well first?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean,” Euryale said with disgust.
Stheno started to answer, but Euryale held up her hand and cut her off. “Don’t bother,” she said, heading for the exit. “I’m not interested in your excuses.”
Chapter To Chaos
“You always had it easy.”
Euryale whipped around, certain she’d heard her sister wrong. The look on Stheno’s unyielding face, however, said the opposite. “I’ve had it easy? Me? Did the Fates strike you with madness?”
“You never once had to live up to Dad’s expectations,” Stheno said, not backing down in the least. “Never had to train incessantly to protect your siblings from all the enemies he’d made. Never had to heal in secret or spend countless sleepless nights terrified that if your sisters found out what stalked them each day, they’d bury themselves in a cave till the end of time. So yes, baby sister, you had it easy. You had it so damn easy. You can’t even begin to understand what it’s like to be me.”
Euryale shook her head. “What are you talking about? Nothing ever came for us. Ever.”
“Because I killed them first!” Stheno said, groaning with frustration. “While you and Medusa built pretend kingdoms and played with horses, where was I?”
“You played with us,” Euryale said, slowly putting the memories together. “You were our loyal guard who always chased butterflies to far-off lands we couldn’t see.”
“Those weren’t butterflies.”
The pictures in Euryale’s head of all those times were far too faded to grasp. On top of that, as they were thousands of years old, she couldn’t be sure which were true and which were simply fanciful products of her imagination. She could picture Stheno standing post, never leaving the wall that encircled their play spot. She could picture her silhouette against the rising and setting sun, and sometimes against the moon, too, when Euryale would look out her window as she drifted off to sleep.
“Who?” she finally asked.
“Came after you?”
Euryale nodded.
Stheno laughed. “That candle will be gone long before I’m finished.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because I wanted you to have a childhood I never had,” Stheno said. “And I didn’t want you to blame yourself for me watching over you.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Yes, you would,” Stheno said, laughing again. “You’ve always blamed yourself. Do you remember when I came back from hunting and nearly lost an arm from a boar?”
Euryale shuddered as the image immediately flashed in her mind. It was one of the earliest memories she had of being truly scared. “It turned your arm to ribbons.”
Stheno nodded. “You were convinced it was your fault because you’d borrowed my cloak and accidentally tore it when you used it as a makeshift swing.”
“Oh, right.”
“And it wasn’t a boar I was fighting,” she added. “It was a trio of wolves Gaia had sent against us after she and Dad had a falling out.”
Stheno quieted for a moment, and Euryale didn’t dare speak, as she knew her sister still had something else to say. She only needed the opportunity.
“I’m sorry I didn’t go for the flower first,” Stheno finally said. “All I’ve ever known is the duty to protect you, protect Medusa, and after I failed at both, I promised myself I wasn’t ever going to let it happen again. After all, it’s not as if anyone else ever cared about us. So, forgive me, please, for the choice I made. It was never as selfish as it might have seemed.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” Euryale said. “Not anymore.”
“That’s painfully obvious now,” Stheno said. She forced a smile. “I guess that makes me the useless one of our little duo, doesn’t it?”
Euryale wasn’t sure what to say to that. Too much was going through her head.
Guilt. Sorrow. Pity. All of that weighed heavily on Euryale’s shoulders. She felt remorseful at the fact that on some level, she thought she’d set her sister up for failure. As for the grief, she didn’t need to scour the world to find the source of that, either. Euryale was about to lose her sister again, and quite possibly her daughter, too.
And pity? Euryale couldn’t help but pity her.
Yet on top of it all, Euryale still wanted to leave. She wanted to take all of that hurt and betrayal Stheno had caused and use it to drive herself out of there so that she’d never have to see her again. Well, for a few eons, at least.
She wouldn’t be able to hurt her again then, not any time soon.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave Stheno to such a lonely fate, especially given all she’d recently confessed.
“I will not do this a second time,” Euryale said slowly as she made her way back to the table. Her nails dug into her palms. The pain that stabbed through her hands became a welcome distraction from the misery that nearly overtook her. “Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“I mean it, Stheno,” Euryale said. “If you sacrifice my children for your own gain, I’ll bury you myself. I don’t care how much of a grand picture you were looking at.”
“I know,” Stheno replied. “And I’ll never put you in that position. I swear.”
Euryale licked her fingers and pinched the candlewick. The flame disappeared in an instant with a hiss and a slight wisp of smoke. Stheno dropped at the same time, falling into a deep crouch but managing not to smack the unyielding floor.
“What now?” she tentatively asked.
“We head for Chaos, get the flower, go home. Same as it’s always been.”
Stheno nodded as her eyes nervously skirted everywhere in the room but where Euryale stood. “Can I get a hug?” she eventually asked. “If you’re still not wanting to skin me alive, that is.”
The gorgon wrapped her sister up in a tight embrace, lifting her off the ground.
“Ow!” Stheno said, laughing and feeling bones crack. “Ribs! Need the ribs!”
Euryale let her slip free but took Stheno’s hands as soon as her feet graced the floor. “Thanks for watching over me.”
“Thanks for not leaving me,” she replied. She then glanced at the floor where her spear lay, lightly humming with energy. “You should take it.”
Euryale shook her head. “No. You take it. It’s yours.”
“But—”
“I want you to have it,” Euryale insisted.
“After all this?” she said, motioning to the room, dumbstruck. “Why?”
“Because in the end, you’re
still right,” Euryale said. “There’s enough out there that I want you to watch over me still.”
* * *
“Aw, come on. What’s the worst that can happen?” Euryale teased.
The pair had halted a quarter mile from a narrow pass filled with shadows and flashes of light. On both sides of the pass, steep, jagged mountains stretched into thick clouds full of lightning. Rolling thunder filled the air, but coming from the pass ahead was a constant roar of what could only be the most enormous and frightening waterfall in existence.
“I’m quite certain I can’t begin to come up with what’s the worst that could happen,” Stheno said with a nervous chuckle. “Are you sure this is the right place?”
Euryale took out the card and checked the map. “There’s another way in off in that direction somewhere,” the gorgon said, pointing to the side, “but this is definitely the route Nyx put down.”
“Maybe we should give that place a look.”
Euryale considered the suggestion but ultimately decided against it. “The horses are refusing to fly in this already,” she said, gesturing at the low-lying clouds. “Who knows how long it will take for us to find that path. It’s not like she drew this map to scale.”
“Could be only a few hundred yards,” Stheno said.
“Or a few thousand miles,” Euryale said. “Or more.”
Stheno groaned. “Fine. Let’s go. I guess if Chaos starts tearing everything apart, the horses will go first.”
“Exactly. It’ll be easier than spearfishing in tide pools. You’ll see.”
One of the Akhal-Tekes turned his head back toward them, seemingly casting a glare at them both, before flicking his ears and snorting.
“Hush,” Euryale said. “Don’t be so dramatic. We’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not out in front,” Stheno said as she bumped her with her hip.
Euryale stuck out her tongue before taking the reins and driving them forward. Despite her words, the gorgon second-guessed herself with every foot of ground they covered. What if Stheno was right? Maybe the other way was safer. Maybe it was closer, too, than she’d thought. What if something dreadful waited for them inside the pass?
There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver there, something the gorgon became acutely aware of as the chariot wheels had maybe a foot on either side once they’d entered. Her heartbeat quickened as one final thought dawned on her: Nyx had warned her about what dwelled in the area. That warning didn’t come lightly.
Ahead, some forty or fifty yards, the air twisted and the ground rippled, as if reality couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be. From the rocky floor rose an amorphous mass with a slick skin that pulsed and distorted for a few seconds before portions of it stretched into two distinct appendages, at which point it dragged its bulbous body toward them. A couple seconds after that, a fifth appendage grew, sporting a giant maw of jagged teeth.
“Fight or run?” Stheno asked, adjusting her grip on the spear.
Euryale glared at the approaching monster. Had it eyes, she’d have turned it to stone right then and there. Sadly, it didn’t, and though petrification didn’t seem an option, she wasn’t about to turn tail, either, especially when she was so close to the flower.
“We’re not running,” she said. “I think it’s time we see what this newly imbued spear of yours can do.”
“If it does half of what it did back at Nyx’s, get ready to pick your jaw up off the ground,” Stheno replied as she nimbly vaulted over the front of the chariot, spear in hand.
Euryale watched her sister trot forward, spinning her weapon a few times in front of her, no doubt feeling its balance, while the creature ahead continued on. The closer the two drew, the faster and more eager it seemed to be to reach her, stretching its arms more and more.
When only a few paces separated the two, Stheno dropped into a slight crouch, her left leg bent and out in front, while her right trailed behind, ready to spring her forward or catch her backward, depending on what the situation called for.
“Come closer,” Stheno said, amusement in her voice. “I won’t bite…much.”
Whether the creature could understand her, or even cared if it could, Euryale had no idea. Nor did it end up mattering.
Stheno lunged forward, driving the tip of her spear at the monster’s head. It ducked and then ended up arching back to avoid a short slash she made a moment later. Its right arm slashed at Stheno’s chest, doubling in length as it flew through the air.
Euryale’s sister didn’t go on the defensive. Instead, she launched herself over the attack, and as she came down, she stuck the spear right into the middle of the creature’s body.
Like a boulder hitting water, the spear shot through the monster with ease, sending its body flying in all directions with a deafening clap filling the air. Once Stheno hit the ground, she immediately yanked her weapon free from the ground and readied herself to continue the fight if need be.
“Well, I guess that answers that,” Euryale said after a slow whistle. “I don’t think there’s anything left of the thing.”
Stheno grinned before noticing a fleck of goo on her shoulder. Her mouth curled with disgust as she flicked it off. “Ugh. You don’t want to know how this smells.”
Euryale recoiled, catching the tiniest whiff that reminded her of when a dead and bloated siren had washed up on her island shore long ago, and Medusa had had the bright idea of poking it with a stick hard enough for it to burst. “You’re right,” she said, covering her mouth. “I don’t. Why don’t you keep walking ahead? Way, way ahead.”
“I’m old and can’t walk for long,” she replied as she trotted back to the chariot and climbed in. “But you’re welcome to lead if you like.”
“I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer.”
“Thought as much,” Stheno replied. “Any idea what in the Fates that thing was?”
Euryale shook her head, but she took a stab at the question anyway. “No,” she said. “But since we’re nearing the literal source of all creation, I’d say another spawn of Chaos.”
Stheno’s mouth turned downward into a slight frown as creases of worry formed in her brow. “Let’s hope any other spawns we encounter remain as weak.”
“Agreed.”
With that, Euryale snapped the reins, and off they went. The pass continued for what felt like miles upon miles, twisting and turning. The roar of water steadily built, drowning out all conversation unless the two yelled into each other’s ears.
Eventually, the path split into three, and Euryale took the branch on the left in accordance with Nyx’s map. From there, they rode on, following a dozen more branches—not to mention, dispatching a few more creatures—until the portion of the pass they were in suddenly opened up to a chasm wider than comprehension that was filled with deafening falls. Oceans’ worth of water cascaded over a crest that was likely miles above the pair before plunging into a basin only Nyx knew the depths of somewhere down below.
Scalding mist billowed upward and filled the air with a smell that reminded Euryale of rotten cabbage. The deluge, like the clouds that had covered the mountains they’d come through, were rife with sheet lightning, setting the hairs on Euryale’s skin on end, and for a few moments, all she could do was stand there and watch it in complete awe.
“What do you suppose is on the other side of that?” Stheno asked, sounding as completely overwhelmed as Euryale felt.
“Infinity.”
“Yeah,” Stheno said. “Yeah…” The gorgon grinned and bumped Euryale with her shoulder. “Too bad we can’t harness that.”
“I wonder how many have tried,” Euryale said.
“What do you mean?”
“There are so many stories of so many gods and demigods—heroes, too, when you get down to it—that simply end abruptly,” Euryale explained. “I wonder if any of them came here and never returned.”
Stheno shuddered. “More than I’d care to know, I suspect.”
&
nbsp; “Exactly,” Euryale said. “We should get moving.”
Euryale checked the map one last time. Sadly, there wasn’t a lot more to it, merely a cute little drawing of a flower next to where they were, circled, with a dash and the word “here” written nearby. To make matters more complicated, Euryale quickly realized that the path they were on not only skirted along the face of a cliff that dropped into oblivion, but the path narrowed so much, there wasn’t a prayer that they could bring the chariot. If they were lucky, they could walk, but the gorgon had the dreadful feeling they’d be forced to scale the mountainside at some point.
“We should’ve brought rope,” Stheno said. “I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to be anything like what we had to do back at Hera’s place.”
“No kidding,” Euryale said, tucking away the note and sliding off the chariot. “I only hope it’s not very far.”
“Same.”
The two carefully made their way down the ever-narrowing path. When it shrank to about three feet in width, Euryale’s hands picked up an uncontrolled tremor. At two, her heart seemed to skip every third beat. And when the path tapered down to less than a foot, it was all she could do not to drop to her belly and scrape her way across, especially since the rock wall they were up against leaned out at a slight angle, threatening to push them off with every step.
“We really should’ve gotten you some rope,” Stheno said, who thankfully had taken the lead. “Do you want to go back for the bridles?”
As much as Euryale would’ve killed for a tether to something, anything, the last thing she needed was to give up now. “No, if we did, I don’t think I could work myself up to go through this again.”
“When this is all over, you’ll look back and laugh.”
“Only if it’s because I’ve finally had my nervous breakdown.”
Stheno flashed a bright smile. “Still a laugh. That counts.”
Her sister’s joke put enough of a balm on her spirit that Euryale found pushing on a little more bearable, and it wasn’t long after that when Stheno came to a full stop. She was pressed up against the rock, her back facing the roar of Chaos. The moment she halted, she glanced over her shoulder with an ecstatic look.
A Storm of Blood and Stone (Myths of Stone Book 3) Page 25
