I’m completely unprepared for total, icy submersion. Freezing water closes over my head, expelling the air from my lungs and bruising me straight to my bones. My scream cuts off, bubbling around me. Reflexively, I fan out my aching arms and legs, trying to slow my descent before starting to kick.
Kicking is useless. I keep going down. The weight I’m carrying pulls me in the wrong direction.
My lungs scream for breath as I wrestle the strap of the heavy satchel over my head and then drop Kato’s clothing and all of our supplies. I’d rather starve than drown. One happens a lot faster than the other.
It’s not enough. I kick furiously, yanking at the cloak buckles and trying to shed the heavy garments. The dark water is numbing, and my stiff fingers slide off the latches. Panic beats through me as I reach for a knife. My mind races for solutions, but my body is sluggish, the marrow-deep cold preventing my hand from closing around the hilt.
I sink, my head and ears throbbing from the pressure. My lungs spasm, my chest convulsing as I deny myself the right to breathe. The light from the smoldering cloaks illuminates the steady stream of bubbles rising around me. Soon enough, that decreases, fading until there’s nothing.
Reflex finally overwhelms me, and I breathe. Water floods my lungs, painful and wrong. I can’t cough. There’s no air for that, so I just breathe more water, sucking it down and choking on it, the cold invading me, inside and out.
Numb to my core and yet filled with a burning desire to live, I shout a liquid scream. I scream for Griffin, for my friends, for myself, and maybe even for Fisa, the home I abandoned to a monster.
My scream heats my throat, heats it until my neck burns, my skin catches fire, and…splits?
Grimacing, I slowly lift my hand to my stinging neck. The pressure in my ears disappears, and I breathe. Sort of. I breathe water, but it doesn’t hurt. And it doesn’t feel wrong anymore. It clears my head of the shadow of death an instant before my feet touch solid ground.
Unsteady, confused, I try to catch my balance and my breath. Instinctively, I draw more liquid in through the slashes in my neck.
I didn’t drown. I have gills.
I didn’t drown.
I have gills!
My thoughts jump to Poseidon. I start to shake, as much from shock as from cold. I’d bet my knives this lifesaving magic has something to do with my vigilant, many-times-removed uncle watching over me—although he might have thought about intervening before I fell over a cliff.
Gradually, I get used to the feel of freezing water in my eyes and the idea of breathing underwater. There’s no current, giving the unsettling impression of being shrouded in a cold, dark, weighty cocoon. The silence is eerie and absolute, making the abrasive sound of my own clattering teeth almost deafening. I wrap both burning cloaks tightly around myself to gather their heat. They flare brighter, and their warmth starts seeping into my frigid skin.
I spot my satchel in the cloaks’ dim circle of light. It fell right next to me. Not stopping to look a gift Centaur in the mouth, I pick it up and start toward what I hope is the opposite shore of the lake. Kato sounded like he was somewhere over there. The three-headed beast… Hopefully not.
Walking through water is a slow and arduous process, especially after being thoroughly trounced by a monster and suffering what I suspect is a severe head injury. The heated cloaks chase away the worst of the numbness, leaving me feeling battered again. Anxiety over underwater creatures doesn’t help matters any. What could be down here? This is the Ice Plains, so pretty much anything.
I shut that thought down. Griffin is always trying to get me to be more positive. I’ll be positive for once. Positive. Positive. Positive.
Something slithers between my legs, thumping my ankles. I squeal a mouthful of water as my heart throws itself against my ribs. Spinning in a tight circle, I peer into the murky depths—and see nothing.
Hunching over, I trudge on, worn out and heavy. Intensely nervous. I have no sense of time. Both it and I seem to move incredibly slowly. Colorless fish, some big, some bigger, swim by, ignoring me for the most part. Eels slink past as well, smooth, long, and gray, their beady eyes seeming to track me long after I’ve lost sight of them. I see a flash of teeth every now and then and try to make myself as small as possible. Unfortunately, I still glow. I’m the only light down here, a bright beacon that might as well say “Big fish, chomp here.”
My strange breathing accelerates when the lake floor begins to slope upward. I push myself harder, cupping my hands and pumping my arms through the water. The incline sharpens, but it’s so dark above me I have no idea I’ve reached the shore until my head pops out of the water.
For a moment, my body doesn’t know how to react. The gills stop providing air. My lungs are full of liquid. The lack of vital sustenance is sudden and alarming, and then I double over and spew water from my lungs. Heaving violently, I brace my hands on my thighs and cough until my throat hurts and my head spins again. Finally, I take my first real breaths in I don’t know how long.
Exhausted, weak, and trembling, I collapse on the rocky bank and just breathe. I’m iced through and dripping wet. Despite the fiery cloaks, the sleep of the irretrievably cold is calling to me. Sleeping is a terrible idea, especially when you add a massive blow to the head into the mix. I might not wake up.
I need to keep moving. I’m still trying to convince myself to get up even as I drop my head into my hood, tuck my booted feet up under the blazing folds of the cloaks, and then sink heavily—and maybe irrevocably—into darkness.
* * *
I groan. I’m definitely not dead. I hurt too much for that. I have a headache to end all headaches, but I’m not shivering anymore, and my clothes are dry under my gently smoldering cloaks. I must have slept for hours, long enough for the cloaks to dry even my boots.
I touch my neck, my fingers bumping over four raised slashes under each ear. The gills have closed over, leaving the skin on either side of my throat rough and tender. Fabulous. More scars.
A wave of dizziness washes over me when I sit up. One whole side of my body feels bruised—well, more bruised than the rest—and I know I hit the surface of the lake tilted to my left when I fell in.
Pushing my hair back from my face, I feel something that barely resembles a braid anymore. More worrisome is the huge knot on the top of my head. I wince when I hit the sore spot and then take a deep breath, making my ribs ache. A monster tail to the middle will do that.
Needing to get my bearings, I drop my hands and look around, seeing mostly nothing. Considerably higher up, there’s some light.
I sigh. I need food, something to get me going.
Pulling my satchel closer, I pick through the waterlogged offerings until I find a hunk of cheese and strips of cured meat that are still edible, discarding the rest. But I end up battling myself for every bite—as soon as the food gets anywhere near my mouth, my stomach rebels.
Nauseated, I fill my waterskin and then drink. The lake water is so cold it shocks my mouth and clears my head. It even settles my stomach, probably icing it over.
Steadier than before, I spread Kato’s wet clothing out on his smoldering cloak to lighten my load and let it dry while I explore. Pebbles and stones line the bank under my feet. Torches burn high above me. And I mean high. I’m going to have to climb to get back to the level of the tunnels. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way up.
My own cloak burns brightly as I strike out to the right. The torches start lower on that side and then climb upward in a spiral, giving the impression of being inside a cone—or the tip of the needle.
The footing is precarious, and my balance still isn’t right. I fall down twice, first bruising my backside and then opening the skin on one elbow. I don’t bother binding the cut and let my blood drip onto the rocks. Maybe Mother will come looking for me here and never find her way out.
I refuse t
o wonder if Kato and I will make it out. I have Ariadne’s Thread, which is currently dragging through the water and pulling on my wrist. I have a little food left. I have warmth. I have Griffin to get back to. I have stubbornness a donkey would kill for. I have—
The lyre!
I snort, incensed. There it is, propped up against a rock.
I squat and run my fingers over the strings. The sound they make is beautiful, beyond harmonious—music worthy of the Gods. I reach for the frame.
“Good Gods, that’s heavy.” I wrestle the instrument up against my chest. The lyre appears to be made of solid gold. It definitely feels like it. I’d leave it here if I didn’t think there was a good chance of running into the three-headed beast again. And even then, what am I supposed to do with it? Choose a head to throw it at?
Carrying the lyre awkwardly in front of me, I continue my struggle over the shifting stones, staggering and slipping like a drunkard. Before I can fall down again and break something, probably with the lyre on top of me, likely pinning me forever until I die of starvation, I come to a solid wall of ice.
Foreboding trips through me as I crane my neck up. And up. The cliff is soaring. Sheer. “How in Hades am I supposed to scale that?”
An arrow sings through the air and lands an inch from my boot, sticking between the loose stones. I jump, nearly drop the lyre, and curse like a warlord. Griffin would be proud. Or shocked. Either would be fine.
“She’ll use the stairs if she dares.”
I scan the cliff top for Atalanta, seeing no one.
“I climb, you rhyme?” I call back acerbically.
An arrow knocks my hood back from my head and probably slices off a few frizzy hairs. I shut up and look for the stairs.
They’re not far away, but they climb out of the shallows of the lake, which means I’ll have to get my feet wet to reach them just when I was getting used to being dry and a relatively normal temperature again. Worse, they’re narrow and nearly vertical, and there’s no handy railing. Doubly worse, I don’t trust my balance at the moment. If I fall, a foot of water won’t save me like the deep side of the lake did.
Atalanta seems to have disappeared, and I’m not making this climb twice, so I leave the lyre and follow the shoreline back to Kato’s cloak and clothes. I pack up and then pick my way over to the cliff again, wondering how to get everything up. I need my hands to steady myself and climb, and the lyre won’t fit in my bag.
After some deliberation, I end up making a back sling out of Kato’s cloak. I pin the cloak behind the lyre against the cliff wall, sit down in front of it, and then draw some of the material up between my lower back and the lyre to fashion a sort of pocket for it. With the instrument pressing into my back, I latch the neck clasp above my breasts and then bring the bottom edges of the cloak around my waist, tying them in a tight knot.
Getting up again is a nearly herculean challenge I hadn’t really considered, but I eventually manage to stand with the lyre tucked safely against my back. My contraption works and has the advantage of putting most of the instrument’s weight onto my hips.
Praying my head doesn’t start spinning again, I sling the heavy satchel across my upper body and then step into the lake. A full-body shudder rolls through me when liquid cold seeps into my boots. The climb takes a small eternity, leaves me panting like a dog in the sun, and scares the magic out of me every time I slip on the ice. A bashed shin is the worst of the damage, though, and when I finally haul myself—and the lyre—over the top of the cliff, all my muscles are quivering from fatigue. I thank every God and their pet Pegasus it’s over. Stairs are my new enemy.
I move toward the torch-lined wall, staggering under the weight of the lyre. There’s a good chance I’ll pitch the bloody thing into the lake if it doesn’t end up being useful. I get my shaking under control and then look around, still breathing hard. The cavern consists of galleries and tunnels shooting off into darkness, all of them bordered by a slippery ledge of rock that can’t be more than three feet wide in most places, and sometimes less. The ledge circles a giant pit, and far below, the lake.
Exhaustion weighs as much as the lyre. I don’t let it get the better of me this time. I’m on the same level as the beast now. I’m sure of it after picking up the slack in Ariadne’s Thread and seeing the line coming out of a tunnel about a third of the way around the cavern from where I stand. Atalanta is running around somewhere as well, probably rhyming about an arrow with my name on it. And I need to find Kato more than I need to sleep.
Closing my eyes for just a second against the relentless throbbing in my head, I jiggle the lyre into a more comfortable position. Opening my eyes again, I start toward the only thing that looks different in this dim, inhospitable cave. One spot along the wall is a whole lot brighter than anything I’ve seen since Kato and I stumbled onto the first cavern together.
I’m convinced a snarling, three-headed beast is poised to jump out at me from one of the tunnels, so it’s a nerve-racking walk along the ledge. Finally, I reach a wall of thick but transparent ice caging off what looks like a plush boudoir with an enormous bed, two long couches scattered with colorful cushions, platters of food, softly flickering torches, layers and layers of thick flokati rugs covering the icy floor—and Kato.
My heart takes a painful dive at the sight of him sitting cross-legged just beyond the wall, his head in his hands and his big shoulders slumped. He’s wearing his boots and what appears to be a large, golden fleece. His mace, which he held on to even when he was naked, is on my side of the enclosure, sitting on the ledge.
He doesn’t move. Maybe he didn’t hear my footsteps through the ice.
“Kato?”
His head jerks up, revealing a face I hardly recognize. Pale and drawn, his eyes hollow, he looks more like a wild animal than the man I know. Hanks of long blond hair shadow his eyes and tangle with what’s becoming a very shaggy beard. The little I can see of his expression underneath his disheveled mane speaks of utter devastation.
Panic wells up in me. What happened here?
I peer through the ice. Bloodshot eyes stare back at me, deep-blue bleeding into red. Kato’s hands drop, open and limp, on his knees.
Dread explodes through my chest. Those women did something to him. I’ll kill them. Bludgeon them. Slowly. With my bare hands. Or maybe the lyre.
I bare my teeth in an involuntary snarl, and Kato’s whole body jerks in reaction.
His throat works, bobbing and then eventually producing a voice that’s rough and broken. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I frown. What does he have to be sorry for? He did his part, although it obviously took its toll. That golden fleece covering him from neck to knees is clearly the gift we’re supposed to present to Lycheron.
Kato swallows. It looks painful. “How will I tell Griffin? How can I ever tell him?”
He utters a hoarse curse, and something inside of me cracks. Heat crawls up my throat.
“I’d rather die in here. I’ll die here instead.” Bleak eyes sweep over me, taking me in from the top of my head to the tips of my boots. The total defeat in his reddened gaze pierces my heart like a lance. “We’ll be together. You and me, Cat. That’ll be okay.”
I stare at him. Honest to Gods, I have no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s breaking my heart.
“Haunt me all you like, just don’t haunt Griffin. He…he couldn’t handle it. Not you. Anyone but you. He loves you too much. It would drive him mad.”
I snort. “I fully intend to haunt you, Griffin, and whomever else I please, but that’ll have to wait until I’m dead.”
A sudden sheen glasses over Kato’s bloodshot eyes. They start to glitter in the torchlight. He doesn’t even blink. “You are dead.”
I look down at myself and then bounce as much as I can with the lyre on my back, shaking out my aching arms. “No, I’m really not.”
<
br /> His voice lowers, raw in his throat. “Don’t do this to me, Cat. I saw that…thing. I watched you fall. Heard you scream. It went on for—” He chokes on the words, his face contorting. “Then there was nothing. Two days have passed. Atalanta told me. There’s no way you walked away from that. Even you.”
Two days! Well, I did have head trauma, drowning, and gills to deal with. I could hardly jump right up and scale a cliff.
“Now, I either have to find my way out of here and tell Griffin, or die in here with you.” His sunken gaze locks onto mine with a rather desperate spark of hope. “I shouldn’t leave you, right?”
He looks far too keen about the possibility of dying under the mountain, which is a testament to how much he doesn’t want to tell Griffin I’m dead. Which I’m not.
“I know how much you hate to be alone. You should have gone to the Underworld, with your sister. Or to Elysium, with heroes and warriors. I don’t know why you didn’t.” He gives a bitter shake of his head, and the tawny ends of his hair drag through the thick, curling wool of the fleece. “Since you’re still here, we can be realm-walking spirits together. Maybe you won’t have nightmares if you’re with me.”
Tears flood my eyes. That’s one of the nicest, most selfless things anyone’s ever said to me. I want to shake him for it. Maybe punch something. “I do hate being alone, I would never ask you to bury yourself alive for me, and I’m not bloody dead!” I kick the wall of ice so hard it cracks, and a webbed pattern splinters out from where my foot connects.
Kato’s bloodshot eyes shoot wide. He jumps about a mile and then springs to his feet. His posture transforms as he raises himself to his full height. Gone is the defeated man. In his place, a raging bull. He launches himself at the ice, slamming into the sheer wall with the force of the Minotaur. He does it again, then again, bellowing like a lunatic the entire time.
Breath of Fire Page 19
