A Rule That Never Breaks

Chapter 10

I was less afraid of the eagle dropping me this time. I didn't expect to hit the ground, and even if I had, I'm not sure I would have cared. For a moment after the eagle lifted me from the mountain top, I thought it might be taking me back home; back to the spot in the forest where I had first arrived. Being banished by Zeus would have been a welcome surprise. But as the interminable black forest stretched out below my feet again, I recognized nothing, and nowhere promised hope of an escape.

We began losing altitude. The eagle drew circles in the air, gliding lower with each pass. We descended over a clearing in the forest. It was perfectly circular in shape; far too even to have formed naturally, and massive; I couldn't see across it even with the advantage of height. The field was littered with stone structures, similar to the ones I had seen on Mount Olympus. They were in various states of disrepair; some had already crumbled to the ground, others still extended high into the sky. The structures were sporadic on the edges of the clearing, but further into the center they seemed to coalesce into a wall. Or rather, a series of walls, one jutting into another with no discernible pattern or purpose.

I was so focused on the cryptic stones, I hardly noticed that the eagle's talons no longer bit into my skin. We had flown to the height of the treetops when then the eagle opened its feet and dropped me. I still believed I was going to stop when I cratered into the sand. I cried out, partly in pain, but mostly from shock. I glared at the eagle's stomach as it flew away. My bruised skin and aching bones screamed out in protest at their cruel treatment. By my count, it was my third time being dropped in just over a day.

I pried myself off the ground in time to watch the eagle disappear from view. I was alone at the edge of the clearing. I scanned the rest of my surroundings quickly. At least I hoped I was alone. Alone was better than staring down Zeus. Alone was better than being with Ari. Just thinking of him made my fingers curl into fists and my jaw clamp tight. Traitor. I should have trusted my instincts and as stayed as far away from that boy as possible. I glanced up at the sky a second time, checking to me sure he really wasn't following behind. It was grey, empty, utterly impassive. I twinge of regret made me look down again. Maybe he was only trying to help.... 

No, I stopped myself. I never wanted to see Ari again. But first he needed to take me home. That traitorous jerk was still my only ticket out of this nightmare.

I dug the toe of my shoe into the sand, grinding my frustration between the kernels. As far as I could tell, I only had two options, both of them bad. I could try and find the place we had first arrived and hope to make my own way home; or I could wait here and hope that Ari showed up. Either way, there was a lot of hoping, and a lot of waiting for Ari... I twitched uncomfortably, remembering how it had felt to stand before Zeus, frozen in terror. What was going to happen when he found out I wasn't a hero; that Ari had lied?

I shook my head and walked into the clearing, searching for a distraction. I reached the first of the stone structures and stopped, curious. This one was particularly decrepit. It only reached to my waist and ran a few meters long before crumbling to a pile of rubble. The walls further towards the center of the clearing seemed much longer, and at least a body length high.

For lack of a better plan, I kept walking. A nagging voice at the back of my head reminded me that any place Zeus wanted me to be was not I place I wanted to be. But still... there was something about this place. I felt...something. The emotion was fuzzy, nothing like Ari's blazing fear on Mount Olympus. It was more of a yearning in the pit of my stomach, like the note of a song stretched out to the point of breaking. It was magnetic, and it filled me with sorrow. Beneath all my bravado and desperate independence, it was the tenor of my own heart.

I walked deeper into the clearing, following the tenuous thread of emotion. The walls grew taller around me, and I had to weave between them to make forward progress, sometimes even having to reverse direction entirely. But it wasn't until the walls were so close together the corner of one wall butted directly into the side of another that I finally realized where I was. This was a maze! I was blindly wandering into a place whose very purpose was to make me lose my way. The realization shook me from my stupor and broke the gentle pull of emotion I had been following. High walls rose up on either side of me, and a narrow path traced the space between them. When I lifted my arms, my fingertips brushed against stone on either side.