“Okay, now what?” I asked Alexa as I scooted my dripping self out of the water.
“Now, you sit,” she answered. “Look at your foot, roll it around, but don’t stand on it. You might as well dry out in the sun while you wait.”
“Wait for what?” I pounded my fists on the shore as I glared at the big ram, who’d gone back to chewing grass. “I don’t have time to sit around here. It’ll take me forever to get wool from all of those sheep.”
“Do you have time to die?”
“No.” My lower lip jut out in a very immature pout.
“Then just trust me, will you? The rams nap late in the morning. They’ll all go lay in the shade under that oak on the far side of the meadow. Zeus could drop a thunderbolt on top of them and they wouldn’t wake up. You’ll be able to collect all the wool then with no problem and be on your way… long before noon.”
Instinctively, I reached to hug her. She batted me away with an invisible hand.
“Stop! You’ll give us away.”
“Oh, right.” My hands fell back to my sides. “You’re still the best, even if I can’t hug you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Alexa pulled herself up beside me on the bank and stretched out on the warm grass. I plucked blade after blade of grass, tearing them into little pieces and pitching them into the river.
“How do they do it? The rams, I mean. They look strong, but strong enough to kill?” It wasn’t the question I really wanted to ask, but it broke the uncomfortable silence.
“Well, if the flames they shoot from their nostrils don’t burn you up, they’d run you through with their horns. Maybe both. I guess they have to be vicious or everyone would be running around with golden clothes.”
“She tried to kill me, then.” I peeled another blade of grass into strips. “I mean, Aphrodite sent me out to this field to be burned and staked.”
Alexa rubbed my hand.
“I’m sure that wasn’t what she hoped would happen. It’s just, the tests given to demi-gods are never easy.” Her voice seemed to blend with the flow of the river and my vision got watery as my eyes teared up. I still had so much to think about when it came to my family and every spark of a thought burned.
“Maybe I should just let him go,” I mumbled. “After everything that’s happened, everything I am, I don’t deserve him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Knowing who your real dad is doesn’t change a thing about who you are.” Alexa smoothed a strand of hair back from my face. “I told you the first time we met that you deserved everything in that palace — and that includes him.”
Rubbing at the bridge of my nose, I pushed away any tears that had managed to escape. “I just don’t know if I can do this right now.”
“You’re tired, is all.” Alexa squeezed my shoulder. “See, the sheep are starting to lie down. They’ll be napping in no time. You can do this.”
We sat in silence as the dozen golden sheep meandered to the oak and lumbered down to rest. One by one, their horns tore into the ground as their heavy heads fell over in sleep. As they dreamed, their hooves stuck at the dirt and sparks jumped from their nostrils.
As I watched, Alexa squeezed my hand. “You should go now,” she said. “They sleep soundest when they’ve first dozed off.”
My knife was still stuck in the bank from when Alexa had knocked me off my feet and it’d gone flying. I plodded over to it and pulled it loose from the mud. After washing it in the river and drying it on my dress, I inspected the blade to make sure it was perfectly clean. “Wouldn’t want to get mud on Aphrodite’s golden wool,” I muttered under my breath.
Alexa laughed. “Don’t forget to limp. You sprained your ankle, remember?”
“Whatever. Aphrodite can think whatever she wants about me falling into the river. I’m not going to fake a limp around flesh-eating sheep.”
Sloshing out of the river, I climbed onto the far bank. At first I took careful steps, trying not to let the grass crunch under my feet. But the closer I got to the rams, the more I just wanted to be done with the task and get out of the meadow. When I was within a few meters of the animals, I started running until I got to the farthest one away. My plan was to start far and work my way closer to safety.
I knelt by the back of the first ram to stay out of the way of his feet and flames. Of course, that put me within easy striking distance of his massive horns he if threw his head back for some reason.
For a moment, the horns paralyzed me. With fear or with awe, I don’t know. They were much more intricate and deadly than I’d seen from across the river. Instead of being perfect spirals, the horns came to a razor-sharp point along the top ridge. And the tips looked sharper than any needle I’d ever seen. Yet the horns were still beautiful, laced with delicate carvings that corkscrewed around in intricate patterns.
What are you doing?If you don’t hurry up, you might get to feel the horns and not just look at them.
I grabbed a fistful of fleece from the back of the ram and started slicing. Trying not to tug on his skin, I sawed the knife as fast as I could until the clump fell loose in my hand. The soft, glittery fleece squished between my fingers.
One down, eleven to go. I duck-walked to the neighboring sheep and started sheering away a clump of his fleece. With each patch I removed, I got more confident. Sawing faster, tugging harder, just trying to get the task over and done with.
But as Alexa had warned me, demi-gods don’t get easy tasks; things only went that smoothly until the eleventh sheep. My left hand was about overflowing with puffs of golden wool by then, and I lost my grip on the tuft of fleece from the ram I was working on. I was crouched down on my toes and leaning over the sheep, so that when I lost my grip, I fell face-first across his belly.
Now Alexa may have thought that nothing could wake the sheep while they napped, but she was wrong.
The ram leapt to his hooves, leaving my face to fall into the dirt as my feet were tossed up in the air. The knife slipped from my hands and the clumps of wool scattered. I rolled over and found the ram’s face nearly pressed into mine. His black eyes glinted with rage and he snorted sparks that singed the ends of my hair.
“Easy now,” I whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I wiggled my right hand carefully through the grass until I felt the knife handle on my fingertips.
“Ngeeeeeeeee.” The ram bellowed and raised up on his hind legs. I grabbed the knife and rolled as the ram came down and struck the ground with a thundering blow. While he shook his head and refocused on me, I managed to get up onto one knee and plant my other foot on the ground.
The ram charged, snorting blasts of fire as he lowered his head and aimed for mine. Just before he reached me, I fell to the side to dodge his blow. As he passed, I plunged the knife as deep as I could into his side. He wrenched it from my hand as he barreled past, leaving me defenseless.
I scrambled to my feet as the ram skidded to a stop and turned to face me. Blood like crimson dye spilled across his golden wool where the knife jutted out from his side. He pawed the ground impatiently while looking first at his injured side and then at me.
Again, he raised onto his hind legs and bellowed. I was worried he’d figured out my duck and roll trick, but I knew I couldn’t outrun him either. With no time to think, I ran at the sheep and jumped as high into the air as I could when he charged, hoping I’d at least clear the razor-like horns. Because his head was down in his charge, I did manage to make it over the horns, but my feet and legs came down awkwardly.
My left leg slid down the ram’s side and my right leg was caught up underneath me, pinned between his back and my body. I toppled forward and grabbed whatever I could get hold of to keep from crashing into the ground. With one hand, I caught his tail. With the other, a chunk of wool. As I fell, the wool popped off in my hand and I spun backward off the sheep, holding on by only his tail. The sudden shift in my weight knocked the ram off balance and he crashed sideways into the ground, driving the knife deeper into his side.
I hurried back to my feet, ignoring the trails of blood oozing down my own legs after that fall. My heart thundered as I tried to think of a new way to dodge his next charge. Jumping hadn’t been my best idea. As I slowly backed away from the ram, I realized he wasn’t getting up.
His side heaved with each labored breath. The ram expelled a final, fiery breath and then was dead.
Two thoughts crossed my mind at the same time. I did it! I’m going to finish this task. and Crap! I just killed one of Aphrodite’ s golden rams. No matter how much sparkly wool I hauled in, she would not be happy about this.
The clump of wool from the dead sheep was still clutched in my grasp. Well, that makes eleven. I scurried back to the place where I’d spilled the other ten balls and quickly gathered them back up. Praise the gods, none of the other rams had woken up during my fight. Just one more sheep to sheer and I’d be done.
When I turned to go to the last sheep, I realized I didn’t have my knife anymore. How was I supposed to cut off a lump of wool with no knife?
Running back over to the dead ram, I tried to roll him over, but he was too heavy. I even tried sliding my free hand under his carcass to get my knife back, but it was no use. I couldn’t wiggle my fingers enough under his massive weight to even find the handle. For all I knew, it was lodged so deeply in his side, I wouldn’t be able to get it out anyway.
Frantic, I looked around for some tool. I hadn’t come this far, shorn eleven sheep and battled to the death with a fire-breathing golden ram to fail now. I toed some rocks by my feet, but none of them had a sharp enough edge to cut through fleece.
As I stared at the twelfth sheep, another ram rolled over and butted his head right into its flank. The horns! I could use the horns as a knife. Tip-toeing around the two animals, I reached down and gently grabbed a tuft of wool right under the horns.
Please just don’t let them wake up. I sawed one ram’s wool off using the other’s horns. If the other ram so much as raised his head, I’d lose my hand. But the horn was so amazingly sharp, it severed the wool like a hot knife cuts through butter.
With twelve tufts of golden wool in my hands, and the sun starting to sink almost directly overhead, I sprinted toward the river. “I did it!” I yelled to Alexa as I crashed into the water, splashing and tripping with every frenzied step. I scrambled up the bank, panting and dripping wet. “Did you hear me? I did it!”
But it wasn’t Alexa who answered me.
“Of course I heard you,” Aphrodite answered. She’d materialized out of nowhere and stood towering over me as I stooped to catch my breath. She unraveled the ball of fleece from my fingers and inspected it.
“You got all twelve, I see.”
“Yes,” I panted, still trying to catch my breath. Even through gasps though, I noticed I was smiling and Aphrodite was not.
“Is that your blood I smell, or have you injured one of my rams?”
I lifted the hem of my tattered dress and looked down at my legs. Angry red scratches and dried blood still lined my shins, but I’d stopped bleeding. That was probably more than I could say for the sheep.
Dropping my dress, I stood and looked up at Aphrodite. “Probably a little of both. One of your sheep attacked me.”
“Then the only way you could be here is if you killed it.”
My shoulders slumped. This didn’t sound like it was going to be good.
“I’m sorry, Psyche. But your task was to sheer the sheep without harming them.”
Um, how’d I miss that instruction? Maybe while I was focusing on trying to look like I was paying attention but not actually hearing a word she was saying.
“Since you bested the ram, though, which is more than I expected, I won’t call off our deal just yet. I’ll give you another task.”
I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or pissed. I’d had a hand-to-hand duel with a killer sheep and collected twelve tufts of wool, just like she asked, but I wasn’t any closer to seeing Eros.
Then again, I wasn’t any closer to being turned over to Ares either. I guessed I had to take what I could get for now.
Chapter 48 - Eros
Eros raced back to Olympus, wishing for something more powerful in his quiver. If Aphrodite had so much as scratched Psyche’s perfectly tender skin, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold himself back. A week ago he’d cowered at his mother’s vengeance, but that was before he owed Psyche an apology. Before she became his everything again. Now, he wasn’t prepared to let anything stand in his way. Even his mother.
As he flew, Eros spotted a brilliant burst of color descending on him.
Iris. What was she doing here? He didn’t have time for her now. Still, he slowed his flight, flapping his wings only enough to keep him airborne.
“There you are, Eros. ” Iris stopped herself on Eros’s chest. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I was thinking, maybe today we can find prayers to answer in a town where it’s already raining. That’ll make things easier.”
Eros put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her out of his way. “I can’t today. I’ve got to get back to Olympus.”
Iris’s lips pursed as she set her jaw. “I suppose this has to do with Psyche?”
“I’m sorry, Iris. She might be in danger. I have to go.”
Eros flapped his wings to continue his flight to Olympus, but Iris reached out and caught his wrist. “Wait.”
Eros glared at her and she released his hand.
“I mean, let me help you,” Iris offered. “You think she’s with your mother, right? Why don’t you let me go to Aphrodite? You can wait in my palace, and I’ll figure out a way to borrow Psyche so you can see her.”
“You’d do that for us?” Eros’s lip curled up in a soft smile. “You’d really help us?”
Iris shrugged. “No, but I’ll help you. This isn’t for Psyche. I’m just trying to help my friend.”
Eros crushed Iris into his chest. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Iris clutched Eros’s hand and launched into a flying sprint toward her palace, moving so quickly she almost dragged Eros behind. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she called over her shoulder.
Chapter 49 - Psyche
“You’re trying to kill me!”
I blurted out the words before my brain registered that it wasn’t smart to yell at a goddess, even if she was sort of your quasi-mother.
“On the contrary,” Aphrodite responded, twirling a golden coin over and under her fingers, “I’m saving you.” She flipped me the coin and I caught it over my head. “The coin will ensure you get safely into Hades.”
“And what about coming back out?” I demanded.
Aphrodite laughed, throaty and indulgent. “Smart girl. You did pay attention during our visits.” She materialized another coin and tossed it to me.
I put the coins into a little wooden box and tucked it under my arm. For my second task, Aphrodite told me to take the box to the Underworld and borrow some of Persephone’s beauty. To hear Aphrodite tell it, the stress of everything that’d happened between me and Eros had melted away some of her eternal glamour. And somehow, although Aphrodite was already prettier than everyone else anyway, Persephone would gladly give up some of her own beauty to make Aphrodite feel better.
In my opinion, that wasn’t likely. Never mind that humans don’t go into Hades and come out alive –- or come out at all for that matter.
So, setting aside the fact that my task was basically doomed to failure, all I had to do was get Charon to ferry me into Hades, sneak past Cerberus the three-headed guard dog, find Persephone, convince her to give me some of her beauty for Aphrodite’s benefit, get back past Cerberus, and get Charon to ferry me out of Hades. Oh yeah, and I had to get half-way across Greece before even meeting up with Charon.
No problem.
“Don’t be so traumatized,” Aphrodite said, probably noticing the glazed-over, scared-half-to-death look in my eyes. “You’re a demi-god, remember? You ca
n do it. Besides, I’ll take you to Charon myself.”
My heart lightened by the weight of a feather. There was still a ton of crap to get through, but at least one part of this trip would be easier. “Thank you.”
The words were barely out of my mouth when she grabbed my wrist. Salt water rushed into my mouth and my face was pelted by sea spray. I choked back the panic of drowning and tried to crunch the sand out from my teeth.
As quickly as the ocean assault began, it was over. As we regained our footing on solid ground, Aphrodite looked refreshed, her cheeks glowing. When I reached up and felt my own hair, I was convinced I looked like I’d just lived through a hurricane. Great.
Our new location was obvious even though I’d never been there before. There’s only one way to get into Hades and that was through the gates in the Alcyonian Lake.
Destined Page 25
