Thief of Spring: A Hades and Persephone Retelling (Part One) (Faeries of the Underworld Duology Book 1) by Katherine Macdonald

Author:Katherine Macdonald [Macdonald, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen: The Hydra

The screaming begins a second later, and the hydra lunges for one of the guests.

Hades snaps his fingers, and the skeleton guards leap forward. He darts backwards, covering me.

Ares reaches the creature first, swinging his massive sword.

“Do not decapitate it!” Athena hisses.

“You think I would do that?”

I don’t need to be an expert to see that he’s swinging too wildly, that his strikes could easily lob off its head without meaning to. It’s impossible to get to the chest; he’s too distracted with its head.

Artemis fires her arrows, but she stops her hunters; there are too many civilians, too many moving targets. Aphron runs forward with a silver whip, trying to lash it around its neck. They cannot reach the head.

The skeletons surround it, jabbing it with swords. This cannot take much longer, surely? There are so many of them, and only one beast.

The hydra launches at Ares, but Zera cuts across its path with a shriek, raising her hands. Lightning shoots from her fingertips—

And the hydra explodes into a dozen, a hundred other reptiles.

Well, that never happened in the myths.

Pandemonium erupts along with it. Pixies and nymphs are squealing and making for the door, but the largest of the hydras smacks several out of the air and rams against the entrance, cutting it off. Tables go flying. Chairs are everywhere. Only a few of the guests are armed; most came defenseless.

I hear a scream above me. One of the musicians is slipping off their disc. Someone runs forward to catch them, but the disc spins in my direction.

Hades streams out of nowhere, wings unfurled, covering me. The disc crashes against his back.

“Hades!”

“I’m fine,” he hisses.

I wonder if the definition differs for him, or if in the chaos of it all, he thinks he is. His wings vanish, and he drags me to my feet, pulling me to the side of the room.

He clicks his fingers and a door opens up. “Go,” he says.

“But—”

He races back to the fight, a golden sword appearing in his hands. Someone tugs at my elbow. Irma.

“Come,” she says. “You’re no good here.”

Somehow, my legs detach themselves from the spot they were screwed into, and I break for the door. Irma shoves me in. “Run,” she says. “Barricade yourself in your room. Stay there until one of us comes to get you.”

“I’m not leaving him!”

Irma has already vanished, leaving me to contemplate the stupidity of my words. What help could I possibly be? He can handle himself. I’m no use to anyone.

And yet…

The screaming continues. No one else has noticed the door.

I am no fighter, but I’m not one to run, either.

I skid back into the room. One of the tables is on fire, a half-conscious mermaid trapped underneath it, a friend desperately trying to pull her free. I seize a bowl from one of the tables, dunk it in the fountain of wine, and douse the flames, patting them out with the sodden tablecloth.

The other mermaid tugs her friend free, and I direct them to the hole in the wall.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.