Chapter 27 ▴ Fear or Flight

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Raymond landed face first on the dirt

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Raymond landed face first on the dirt. His position looked so comical Amelia burst into a fit of giggles.

"It's not funny." He spat out a bit of soil, but there was the hint of a smile on his face. "I seriously thought I was going to wing it in my first try."

Amelia laughed even more. "I'm sorry, but was that a pun I heard?"

"So? At least my altitude to jokes is not as bad as yours."

"Don't get your head all above the clouds just yet." She cringed visibly. "Why the heck did I just say that?"

Raymond wiggled his brows. "My awesome aura must be rubbing off on you."

"If you mean in a bad way, then yeah, it probably does." Amelia rolled her eyes. "Can you just go on with it, please?"

He pushed himself to his feet, dusting his clothes. "I seriously don't know what to do. Flying normally is challenging enough."

"Well, what do you usually do before you take off?"

Raymond rolled off his shoulders. "First I switch Talaria on—that part's easy. I just say something like 'wake up' in my head and the wings will open up." The sandals' wings flapped a couple of times before going still. "See? Easy peasy."

"You're just making it look that easy," Amelia teased. "I bet the sandals are responding to you like that because you're his original owner's Chosen."

"Maybe," he said. "But then the hard part comes in. I have to order it to flap harder so that I can take off. Then I have to make my body go with the wind's flow so I wouldn't fall just like I did." He shrugged. "You get the gist."

So their idea of flying at a high speed might be out of the window. But the myths couldn't possibly lie. There must be some way to unlock the Artifact's ability. It might be an advanced one that wouldn't just show up easily, just like when Eloise made a thousand arrows from light or when Alistair woke Vesuvius up from inactivity. . .

"I just remembered something!" Amelia snapped her fingers. "When Eloise and Alistair used their Items to, you know, kill us, I noticed that they were muttering some sort of chant. Like a spell or something."

"Ohhh, that," Raymond said as if he just remembered it as well. "Eloise and Al never talked about how they got to that point. Their only explanation is that they heard some voice in their head talking weirdly."

Another realization dawned upon her. "I probably heard that voice too when I got Sagasitas from Rhea."

She didn't put much thought to it since it must've been her head playing tricks on her during that stressful time. But now that she was reminded of it, the voice sounded out of place. Although she couldn't say that for certain since she only used Sagasitas one time. After witnessing how its power could prove horrific in the wrong hands, she kept the Artifact locked up in Olympus HQ back at Olympian High for safekeeping.

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