Page 126 of Blood of Olympus

I turned towards the last arch — the one that would send Kronos home — and my vision blurred. Shades seemed to press in on all sides — or was that blackness my shadows?

What are they doing here?

Dazedly, I registered the taste of honeyed nectar on my tongue and the scent of ambrosia in my nose, mingling with the frostiness of the shade-plagued isle.

Odd.

Raising what felt like a stranger’s hand to my face — a hand that moved too slowly and limply it couldn’t possibly have been mine — I rubbed the tickling sensation away from the space beneath my nose and upper lip. Faintly horrified to discover that it came away golden and metallic — covered far too fully to be anything less than a bad nose bleed — I stared at my glittering hand wondering what I was doing and why I was bleeding right now.

Every breath scraped. Every inhale clawed and every exhale was forced. Heavy.

But still I forged ahead. I had a job to do. Something important. Something…

There.

My gaze latched onto that final gateway, and I lifted a heavy foot to get to it. Unfortunately, the ground decided now was the most opportune time to lurch beneath my boots, and my knees buckled.

“Nyssa!” someone called. A woman, I thought dreamily.

Ignoring the concern in her voice and the twinge of fear lancing my heart, I crawled toward that final obsidian archway. Gold splattered the stone floor beneath me — so stark on the obsidian.

My head felt so heavy, so weary, I could barely keep it upright.

I longed so badly to collapse, to curl into a ball and sleep, but that black monstrosity glared at me. It taunted me with the knowledge that I needed to finish this task if we were to have any chance at defeating Kronos.

A familiar crop of red hair and intense amber eyes filled my field of vision, cutting off my view of the arch.

“Move, Aros,” I slurred around a too-heavy tongue. “I need to finish.”

I tried to shove him away, but he was immoveable.

Lump of a god.

Aros lifted a bronzed hand and two immaculately kept fingers snapped before my nose, assaulting my senses. Blinking rapidly, I tried to shake the lingering crack out of my skull, and those amber eyes came closer.

“You have... pretty eyelashes,” I said as the lashes in question multiplied and floated dizzyingly around in circles.

“Nyssa,” a decidedly feminine voice snapped.

I giggled at the oddity of Aros sounding like that. Then a second pair of eyes joined the swirling amber irises — cerulean blue and framed with long blonde lashes.

I smiled, because Aphrodite was looking at me. She saw me. The goddess of desire desired me — my friendship. And I sorely needed her, especially after…

“Charon,” I whimpered as the face of my friend hovered above me, albeit upside down and mostly transparent.

A fourth face pushed in beside him. Dark hair, deep blue eyes, and a short black beard caused by weeks of no shaving.

“Nyssa,” Arch murmured, the sound almost lost to the keening wail of displaced souls. “You have to stop now. You’ve given enough. Let me finish it.”

All four faces undulated above me, each painted in various stages of grief. Grieving the loss that was to come, the sacrifice Arch was about to make if I’d let him.

“No,” I growled. “Not you, too.”

Charon met my gaze head on, something like regret shining back at me.

“Nyssa, if you do this, we might lose you instead,” Aros said, and as my vision cleared momentarily, I realised that it wasn’t Aros at all, but his twin, Evie.

Of course. He’s in Strathos. With Caelus.