Gods Save the Princess (Grace of Gods Book 2)

by Kyleigh Castronaro

  “There has to be an easier way,” Aidan groaned as he fought the roots and pulled himself through a hole smaller than his tall form should’ve fit through.

  “I wish I knew...” I said apologetically, but my attention wasn’t completely on him. Wherever we had been brought to, Savannah didn’t appear to be anywhere. There were, however, more animals than I was comfortable with staring at us like we were invading their personal space.

  “How many mythological creatures do you think might be in the Amazon?”

  “Honestly?” Aidan said coming to my side, “I don’t know that many mythological creatures.”

  “Griffins, minotaur, Cyclopes, centaurs, dryads, sprites, nymphs, mermaids, sphinxes...” I listed a few to prompt his memory.

  “Oh, do elves count? I read Lord of the Rings once.”

  “I don’t think they’re the same thing.”

  “C’mon, let’s not wait around to find out, Jailbait.” He took my hand and led me away from a group of monkeys staring at us with far more interest than I liked.

  “Savannah?” I shouted her name, knowing she couldn’t be that far from where the portal had pulled us through, “let me check the map.” I freed my hand once more and pulled it out, flipping it open and letting the image of her spread on the page. She looked to be in the exact same place as us considering all the trees looked identical.

  “Call her name again, I’ll watch to see if she reacts.”

  “Queenie!” Aidan shouted at the top of his lungs, “Queenie, where are you?” Sure enough Savannah looked up from what she was doing and glanced around, her mouth moved but I couldn’t actually hear anything she said.

  “She’s nearby but not nearby enough that we can hear her. You go that way and keep shouting.” I pointed ahead while I turned around, navigating myself with the map as Aidan continued to call out her name. Each time he did I watched her answer him through the map before finally standing up and moving toward where she thought the sound was coming from. I had the terrible thought that forests could carry sound for some while and she might even be misled to going the wrong way.

  “Savannah!” I shouted her name and sure enough she turned around, looking in what I hoped was my direction. In the distance I could hear Aidan calling her still.

  “Savannah!” I followed her motions on the map, not watching where I was going when my foot hit a sinkhole and I fell right through, landing in a heap at the bottom.

  I groaned, running my hand along my leg to where my foot was aching. We were far out from human population, did that mean without mortal belief I wouldn’t heal fast enough?

  “Aidan! Savannah!” I called out; hoping one of them would hear me as I massaged my tender ankle. It was definitely twisted for the time being and I wasn’t going to try and get out of here, risking injuring it further.

  I watched in the map as Savannah continued to wander toward a voice, hopefully Aidan’s. I rubbed at my ankle as it continued to throb and burn. Savannah continued to walk through the woods, shouting something back in response to Aidan when I finally saw him come through a clearing and find her. I sighed in happy relief to see them reunited. I cast my eyes away from the map, feeling invasive on their tender moment. When I thought enough time had passed I looked back down and saw now that they were walking, calling out for me.

  “Aidan! Savannah!” I tilted my chin upwards and shouted out as loud as I could, hoping they would hear me. My ankle was still aching but I didn’t want to risk them moving further away from me so I pushed myself up, struggling to reach the top of the hole and pull myself out.

  I skirted my hand along the edge, looking for something to grab ahold of and pull myself up with, when a hand enclosed around mine and someone lifted my entire weight out of the hole.

  “Thanks...” I said with a sigh, looking up and expecting to see Aidan only to shrink back when instead I was met with a somewhat grotesque looking human. If he was actually a human.

  “What are you?” I stepped back; remembering at the last moment there was a hole behind me still. I caught myself mid-air like on the mountain and hung there for a moment before swinging myself forward. I landed back on the ground, trying to place distance between me and this creature.

  “I can almost taste your powers little Goddess...” He smirked at me, smacking his lips together in excitement. He reached out a hand to grab me and I ducked, noting the claws at the end of his fingertips. How had I missed that when he first grabbed me?

  “You won’t get them!” I said defiantly, dancing to the side to avoid another swing. This is what the Erinyes were trying to warn me against in the Underworld, creatures like this one would come out and try to kill us - for our power. But what good could that do for them? Surely they needed something more for their existence... But what did I know about this thing.

  “Oh, come now, I promise it won’t hurt. I’ll snatch you up in one bite, one single crunch and it’ll be over.”

  “That’s not really comforting,” I said as I sidestepped once more, his claw catching my arm and tearing into my flesh. I winced, looking down as blood began to flow down my arm before looking up a moment too late as he leapt onto me pushing me down into the ground. He smiled hungrily, his fangs glinting mere centimetres from my face before snapping them at me teasingly. I twisted and turned, trying to pull myself from his grip and reached out, looking for anything on the forest floor that might help me.

  “AIDAN! SAVANNAH!” I screamed desperately, hearing my voice echo this time. The birds responded, echoing my cries in their chirps as my fingers curled around a rock on the forest bed. It was my only hope. I gripped it tightly and swung my arm upwards, colliding its edge against the skull of the creature. Dazed and surprised he was pushed off me as I turned the tables, with momentum in my favour I jumped on top of him and started hitting him again and again.

  I couldn’t stop myself after the first blow, or the second, I didn’t stop until sticky blue blood was coating my arms, mingling with my own blood. The rock became indistinguishable from stone and from monster flesh.

  There was nothing left to beat and I pulled away feeling less frightened and more invigorated. I had defended myself; I had been my own hero instead of relying on other people to save me.

  I grinned in triumph, staring down at the mangled creature.

  “Val?” Savannah came into my clearing first moving over to me quickly and crouching at my side. She shrunk back as she saw what lay underneath me, her nose curling at the disgusting remains.

  “What was that thing?”

  “I don’t know.” I said softly, feeling Savannah take my hands and guide me to my feet.

  “Well, it’s dead now.” Aidan said, making me look up at him. I felt guilty immediately as he looked down at me with disappointment. This was what he had tried to warn me about on the mountain.

  “It was trying to eat me, it said it wanted my powers.” I felt defensive; whatever he thought this was, he was wrong.

  “Well, good thing you got it then.” He said drily as Savannah inspected me.

  “You’re covered in its blood.” She said, her nose curling again as she pulled her hands away to wipe the blood that had transferred to her onto her dress. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded my head and then remembered my ankle, looking down at it in surprise. “I fell into the hole, I think I twisted my ankle.”

  “Can you walk?” I started to put pressure on it and quickly shook my head.

  “No, it’s not healing fast enough.”

  “C’mon, get her on my back. We need to get out of the forest in case more of those things are lurking nearby. We have to get to a door and get to Stonehenge.”

  “What’s at Stonehenge?” Savannah braced my weight and helped me onto Aidan’s back.

  “We’re meeting Griffin there.” Savannah glanced at Aidan and was about to say something but he shook his head.

  “He’s helping us, apparently. Leave it at that.”

  “My plan is to get everyone i
nto the Underworld and then hopefully trick the Titans into coming down. They’ll get trapped there because without Hades’ consent, or mine, they’ll be stuck. We can put them back into Tartarus and hopefully put an end to this.”

  “Why would you be able to say who goes and comes from the Underworld?”

  “I’m Persephone.” I said, looking over at Savannah with a smile.

  “You’re Hades’ wife.”

  “Yes.”

  “Makes so much more sense now.” She muttered to herself before smiling, “that’s good. I’m glad you figured it out.”

  “Me too, and I’m glad I can help out now.”

  She nodded her head and led the way through the trees, “I know a way to a village but it’s a very rudimental civilisation, I don’t even know if they have doors we can use.”

  “Why didn’t you stay in the village?” It seemed like a safer bet than going it alone in the rainforest. Savannah turned to look at me gravely, her smile tense as she shrugged.

  “I’m pretty sure they’re cannibals.”

  Aidan laughed, breaking the dramatic tension the she’d built, “cannibals, huh? You saw humans on spits roasting over the fire or are you just basing that on your college education?” She punched him in the arm making him laugh again.

  “Seriously, they have like human bones in their hair and stuff.”

  “You’re sure they were human?” I said uncertainly, making her look back over at me and nod.

  “I was in medical school, I can tell the difference between animal bones and human bones.”

  “Maybe it was a tribute thing.”

  “Or maybe they’re cannibals.”

  “I hope you taste good with barbecue sauce.” Aidan looked over at Savannah again, a filthy smirk on his face and she punched him again. “Just saying.”

  “What happens when we get to this village of cannibals and find out they have no doors, then what?” I asked.

  “Then we find out if there’s a way to a place with doors I guess.”

  “And when they don’t speak English but in clicks?” Savannah asked, raising her eyebrows with interest.

  “First of all, they would have a dialect of their own probably stemming from Spanish or another European background instead of clicks, which is a dialect of African. Don’t be ignorant.”

  “I’m not worldly like you Mr. Big shot.” I sat on Aidan’s back watching Savannah and him bicker in a cute way that suggested they were both messing with each other, as opposed to being actually angry.

  “The doors.” I reminded them, pulling them from their own conversation.

  “Right, doors. If the doors don’t work we make our own door.”

  “How do we do that? Build a house? That could take days!”

  “We just need a threshold and then make a door, we can borrow one of their tents.”

  “If they live in tents.”

  “If they live in tents.” He repeated gravely, shifting my weight on his back for a moment before nodding at Savannah. “How much further?”

  “Not far, I didn’t want to stay too far away just in case.”

  And she was right, not long after that we came into a small clearing packed with huts and humans, going about their day to day. It was like stepping into a portal and seeing how nomads had lived back in the day, or at least how I imagined they had.

  “No doors.”

  “Now what?” Savannah said, turning to look at both of us.

  “Want to ask the cannibals if they have doors?”

  Aidan smirked, making her huff again, “let’s just make our own.”

  He nodded and set me down carefully, telling both of us to wait as he returned into the forest looking for a suitable piece of wood.

  “Do you think this is going to work?” I looked up at Savannah from where I was sitting. She shrugged, her face a mixture of frustration and worry.

  “I hope it does.”

  “Do you really think they’re cannibals?” I said, glancing over at the people who still, thankfully, hadn’t noticed us. “They look hungry...”

  From across the clearing a group of them returned, spears in hand but no prized game with them. I frowned, looking up at the sky to Olympus. Maybe this was the Titan’s doing, maybe they were punishing the humans because they were a creation of Zeus, so they withheld game and produce.

  I shook my head and looked away, no... Why would they do that? It didn’t make sense; it would only make the religious unrest more strained. The Titans needed belief as much as we did for their power.

  “How’s this?” Aidan reemerged holding out the door he had fashioned out of wood.

  “Works for me.” Savannah said, “you want to do the honours?”

  “Sure, I’ll brave the cannibals.” He tucked the door under his arm and started sauntering out into the clearing, immediately drawing attention to himself.

  “Easy for him to be brave,” I muttered loud enough for Savannah to hear me: “he shoots lightning bolts out of his hand; I make daisies grow.”

  “But you can do some crazy damage with a rock.” She pointed out jokingly, not even realising that it made me uncomfortable. I could still see the judgment on Aidan’s face. I suddenly felt like I needed to repent for my action, but that was an innate reaction. Who would I repent to now? Aidan? That would just make him more smug than usual.

  “Are you two coming?” He shouted over his shoulder making Savannah turn and help me to my feet, bracing my weight and guiding me alongside her toward Aidan.

  “He better have a bolt ready just in case though...” She whispered to me as we passed three very hungry looking men.

  “Excuse us, we won’t be long. We just need a minute with your hut and we’ll be on our way.” Aidan was majestically holding his hand up like he was commanding a mass of people. Wherein actual fact a group of indigenous people were all just staring at him, no clue what he was saying to them. He propped the door up against the tent, trying to secure it enough to make it look like a doorway before turning to look at us.

  “Val, you go first.”

  “Savannah’s the mortal.” I argued.

  “Yes but you’re injured, I know at the very least she can throw a punch.” Savannah stopped in front of the door and let go of me, forcing my weight onto my bad ankle.

  “We’ll be right behind you.”

  “Promise?”

  “As your King and Queen we promise.” She said solemnly. So I nodded, turning to the door and grabbing Aidan’s shady rock handle and pulled the door open, thinking hard about Stonehenge and all the photos I had ever seen of it before crossing through.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I stepped through the threshold, entering someone’s home. Glancing around at the rudimentary furniture and other makeshift items I knew I hadn’t actually managed to go anywhere.

  “Did it work?” I heard Aidan ask on the other side.

  Sighing in frustration I grabbed the door to go back out, “no it didn’t.” I went through to my friends except I stepped right through and half stumbled out into the middle of the ancient rock formation, startling a few tourists.

  “Whoa.” I said, gathering my bearings as we both stared at each other. I could see they were trying to figure out where I had come from considering I’d most likely had magically appeared into thin air.

  “If youb see a guy in a red jacket, I wasn’t here.” I lied so fluidly I impressed myself while pretending like I was some dumb college kid on a school field trip. I skirted around them and glanced over the masses looking for the other Gods. I wanted Aidan’s plan to have worked, to arrive here to a group of people waiting breathlessly for me, but all I found was tourists.

  “Valentina?” Savannah came stumbling through the portal next, followed only milliseconds after by Aidan.

  “Hah, it worked.” He said with a grin, pleased that his terrible door had done the job.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Savannah seemed to be having the same epiphany as me. If this was it,
if we were all that was left of the Gods, we had utterly failed and we had barely even been in power yet.

  “Let’s look around before we get disappointed.” Aidan set his hand on Savannah’s lower back and guided her away from the curious tourists while I went in the other direction. I figured I would be hobbling on my ankle but after another steady step I looked down to find it was feeling perfectly fine.

  That couldn’t be a coincidence, there had to be other magical beings here. I had to be feeding off their energy to heal or being this close to the mortals was helping.

  I moved quicker, with more determination as I searched every face that went by. I wasn’t as worried about the other Gods not being there, as I was about Griffin not being there. What if what had happened on the mountains had led Oliver to go back to Olympus and take his anger at Zeus out on Hades? What if while searching for the key he had been captured?

  Face after faceless face passed. I didn’t know these people. They didn’t know me. I was as alone in this crowd as I had been at that first party Jed had taken me to. I felt almost as alone here as I had in the pits of the Underworld. People might’ve surrounded me but they didn’t notice me, they didn’t even give me a second thought. To them I was just one of those dumb college kids on a school trip.

  “Val! Over here. They’re over here.” Savannah parted through the crowds, oblivious to the looks people around her gave her. Women envied her and men wanted her, but she didn’t see. Savannah’s self-doubt had always fascinated me. Every time we got ready together she spent most of the time cutting herself down to size but she couldn’t see what everyone else saw. Charlotte had thought her a threat because of her beauty, not because she was Hera.

  I slipped between two different families and made my way over to Savannah, “was Griffin there?”

  Her face dropped slightly before she shrugged, “I don’t know, I didn’t notice.” She took my hand and led me away to where the rest of the Gods were standing. Some were faring better than others, the tolls of disbelief weighing harder on some than others. Aidan, for one, was still shirtless and allowing everyone to see his ribs weren’t healing by consequence. But of course Zeus’ reliance on belief would be more cataclysmic than the rest of us.