Blade's Edge || Deception Book II ||

Chapter 25: In the Ruins of Othrys Pt.I

Two and a half months later

A hiss of magic shuddered through the air, bringing with it the whisper of an ill-fated dream, a power so ancient that I felt it in my bones. My shadows flickered in response, the brush of an outside source stirring the secret I'd kept locked up deep inside me, and I clamped down hard on it, focusing my attention on the wall of fog in our way.

"Through here," Luke murmured, his gaze fixed on the path that vanished into nothingness in front of us. He squeezed my hand, almost like he was reassuring himself, and loosed a breath. "Thanks. Let's go."

I nodded silently, squeezing back, and we stepped into the mist together. The cold air brushed over the exposed skin of my arms and legs and I shivered, feeling the fog curl over me like a blanket. With the sheer amount of mist, the magical kind, hanging in the air, I could feel every little whisper in the air, a pool of magic right at my fingertips.

We walked through the fog silently, Luke a grounding presence at my side. Words didn't seem to be appropriate at the moment so we kept quiet as white mist drifted past.

When the fog cleared, we were standing on a dirt path, the sunset lighting up the sky with brilliant streaks of crimson, and I turned my gaze towards the summit of the mountain and the glittering golden apples on the tree, a giant dragon curled around its ancient trunk.

I felt my magic rise again in the face of a new threat and shoved it down, cursing the thickening power in the air that was causing me to be so on edge.

Luke squeezed my hand and I paused, glancing at him.

"Wait," he said, his gaze fixed on the tree and the dragon before us. I tensed slightly, my whip unfurling just the slightest bit, but waited.

After a heartbeat of agonizing silence, the mist and shadows pooling around the meadow began to move and an ethereal sound, like voices straight out of a high-fantasy novel, perhaps maybe the Lord of the Rings, reached my ears. Only Luke's grip on my wrist kept me from unfurling my weapon, and it was his presence that kept me still as the Hesperides emerged from the shadows.

I kept my expression blank, my facial features as cold, and sized up the four immortals. All had black hair like silk and the darkest night and wore white Greek chitons which brought out the warmth in their caramel-coloured skin.

Beautiful in every aspect, as the daughters of the sunset should be. They glanced at Luke and then at me and I watched them warily as all four gazes, black like obsidian, studied me. I held in my sigh of relief as they turned their attention back to Luke and fought the urge to collapse to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Ever since this morning, when Luke had informed Alabaster and Nicole along with the rest of the crew that they were to continue recruiting, this time along the West coast, as he and I delivered the casket up to Mount Othrys and met with Atlas, I'd been praying that they would listen to the order Athena had given them. When I'd mastered my shadow-walker abilities at the age of twelve, Athena had dragged me here and told me that until I fought Ladon and incapacitated him to retrieve an apple, I wasn't going home.

That had meant spending quite some quality time with the Hesperides. Suffice to say, after three days and a near-dead dragon, they'd been nothing but eager to have me out and never return. Before leaving, Athena had forced them to swear on the Styx that should I ever return, they would treat me just like another demigod daring enough to risk the wrath of the queen of the heavens herself.

"Luke Castellan, son of Hermes," Hesperia said coldly. "Art thou so determined to retrieve an apple that thou would return?"

"No," Luke replied coolly, his gaze unflinching though I felt him tense. "I have other business to attend to. You will let us pass to the mountain."