We both climb up on the rail and balance there. “What is it with drops off mountainsides today?” I mutter under my breath.
Zai holds my hand tight. “Go!”
Faith and a whole lot of trust go into the leap. I almost feel as though we hang in midair for a second before we plummet, my stomach surging up into my throat at the drop.
“Fuck me, they jumped!” Dex exclaims as we fall away.
It becomes clear very quickly that I miscalculated two things when I hatched this brilliant escape plan. The first was Zai’s arm strength. I should have hopped on his back, because the second he engages the sandals and his fall stops, I jerk out of his grasp so hard my shoulder screams with the wrench it gets. I reach for him futilely but only grab air, watching horror fill his face as I keep falling.
Zai dives after me.
And that’s when miscalculation number two rears its ugly head.
Because Hades’ waterfall isn’t nearly as far below us as I thought and sticks out of the mountain farther than I realized.
I hit the surface and am instantly sucked under by the force of a raging river of black water.
45
Down To The Bowels
As the river sweeps me toward the gaping hole leading into the mountain, I am violently tossed around by rushing rapids so turbulent, it’s all I can do to not go under or get slammed against boulders along the banks.
Twice I catch sight of Zai somewhere above me, following in the air, frantic, face splotchy and yelling. Not that I can hear anything. I go underwater and tumble until I’m not sure which way is up. The water is so black, light doesn’t penetrate.
It holds me under. My lungs burn until I can’t take it anymore, but just at that moment I’m flung back to the surface, where I gasp and choke and flail. And somehow, through my hair and the water in my eyes, I catch sight of Zai flying right at me.
With one desperate heave, I kick my legs and throw myself up toward him, one hand outstretched. He’s reaching for me so hard, and I think maybe…
But then the water drags me back under and his face disappears.
The next time I come up spluttering, it’s pitch-black, and I know where I am—in the tunnel that leads down to the Underworld, a tunnel that leads to the River Styx.
Please, gods, let the water have a way through that’s not going to kill me. I’m picturing underground caverns that the water fills up to the top, leaving no air. I’m picturing white water rapids that will pulverize me against jagged boulders. I’m picturing a tunnel so narrow I can’t fit through.
Just as those images strike, I’m tossed off a steep drop, hollering a screech that could wake the dead. I plummet with the water, battered and confused, with no idea if or when I should brace or what else I’m going to hit on the way down. I plunge, and it feels like the current sucks me even deeper, tossing and turning. When I’m pushed to the surface once more, I suck in a mouthful of air, right in time to be tumbled over again.
I don’t know how long this will last or how deep the river runs. I’m just trying to hang on. It’s got to slow down somewhere, right? I’m definitely not letting myself think about the fact that the River Styx is supposed to be deadly to mortals.
At one point, the current becomes less violent, and I shuck my heavy, waterlogged jeans, which are weighing me down even more than my relic. I’ve hit the walls—or maybe big boulders? Who knows—so many times, I’m pretty sure my head is bleeding.
But the worst part is the exhaustion.
I can’t tell which is more dangerous, the roiling waters or my failing muscles. At this point, instead of fighting, I do the least I can to just keep my head above water, letting my body be thrown around like a broken, sopping rag doll.
I am near to breaking. The closest to giving up and letting the gods take me that I’ve ever been.
It would be so easy to just close my eyes and go. But I can’t. I won’t. I keep swimming, keep sucking in as much air as I can every time I come back up.
I practically pass out from shock when I burst into a new cavern—one where the waters calm quickly and I’m finally able to swim without being tossed or dunked.
I catch my breath in the total darkness, waiting for the next horrible thing to come at me, which is when it occurs to me that I have a way to create light. I draw a finger down my arm, and my animals come to sparkling life. “Don’t leave me,” I tell them. “Just help me see where I’m going.”
I hold up my arm, casting their rainbow glows across the still water so I can get my bearings. It looks like a massive underground lake. The shore is so far away I’m not sure I’ll make it, but I don’t stop, rolling over to float on my back when I feel like I can’t take one more stroke.
When my hands finally brush solid ground underneath the water, I almost sob with the relief that barrels through me so hard I shake. With plodding, scraping, crawling moves—anything I can make my limbs do—I manage to heave myself out of the water and collapse on the shore. Rocks the size of giant beetles dig into my stomach, and I don’t give a shit.
I didn’t die.
All I can hear is my heaving breaths, which gurgle, a little waterlogged, but that’s a problem for later. I don’t know how long it takes, how long I lie here before my body finally slows, catching up with the air I didn’t have for what felt like eons.
“They should put that in the fucking Crucible,” I mutter to myself.
Then laugh. Possibly a tad hysterically.
I pride myself on not giving in to despair. Ever. That would mean Zeus wins, with his curses and fits, and I refuse to let that asshat beat me down. But at this moment, with no one else watching, it’s so tempting to give in to the sensations rolling through me, as if my emotions were left behind in the trauma of the water and just caught up to me, tumbling me over and over for a second time.
I couldn’t name what I’m feeling if I tried. Mostly, I guess, grief. At all my life could have been.
I roll to my back and force my eyes open because if I let myself succumb to the oblivion of exhaustion, who knows what will happen to me. I’m still stuck somewhere in the Underworld and need to find a way out.
What if I’m trapped down here?
I slam my hands over my eyes, pressing my palms down, holding in tears. I am not crying. Not about this. Not when I lived. Not when Hades’ kiss protects me down here. Crying is for sad things only, damn it. And even then, I’d rather not.
“What are you doing, tiny mortal?” a silky, serious voice asks in my head.
