HERE’S A SNEAK PEEK AT BOOK TWO IN AMANDA BOUCHET’S RIVETING KINGMAKER CHRONICLES TRILOGY
BREATH OF FIRE
Dawn breaks over the Ice Plains, turning the icicles lining the mouth of the cave into fiery daggers. Around us, a landscape of white, gray, and glacial blue slowly emerges from the night like a cautious beast leaving the shadows—still, monumental, treacherous. In the silence of daybreak, Griffin takes steel to flint, lights one of our two torches, and then hands it to Kato.
I peer to my right. The glacial tunnel leading into the labyrinth is as dark as a Cyclops’s heart. Griffin hands me the second, unlit torch, and I slip it into a loosened dagger loop in my belt.
In turn, I hand Griffin Ariadne’s Thread. He holds the silvery ball of twine while Carver ties the loose end around my wrist, tugging hard on the knot to make sure it’s secure.
Griffin rechecks it, twice, his expression grim. “Remember what the wizard said.”
“Only Kato and I go in. Beware Atalanta’s bow. Find the lyre before the three-headed beast. Heed the Goddess’s needs.”
His eyes bore into mine, dark and troubled. “I don’t like being separated.”
My chest contracts painfully as I lean into him. “I know.”
“Don’t you dare cut this thread.” Griffin’s arms clamp around me, hard as rocks. “If you do, I swear to the Gods I’ll come in there, find you, and give you a spanking you’ll never forget.”
A shaky laugh explodes from my lungs. “I find that a lot more tempting than I probably should.”
Griffin squeezes me. “Come back to me. Don’t do anything foolish.”
Me? “I’m never foolish.”
He grips me until my bones creak.
“I’ll be careful,” I promise.
Griffin eases his hold, pressing his lips to the top of my head and inhaling deeply. When he lets me go and offers his hand to Kato, the other man shakes it, absorbing Griffin’s long, hard look with a solemn nod. The silent communication has “protect her with your life and then some” written all over it. A few weeks ago, I would have dismissed it as a lot of overprotective male posturing. Now, I only wish I could convince them that dying for me is not an option.
As Kato and I enter the labyrinth, I have to convince myself to put one foot in front of the other. About thirty feet in, just before the tunnel curves to the right, I stop and look back even though every instinct tells me not to.
My heart seizes, tumbling painfully at the sight of Griffin. Ariadne’s Thread trails from his tightly fisted hand. His big frame is taut and still with the kind of coiled tension that hovers on the brink of explosion, as if he’s barely restraining himself from coming in after me.
Our eyes collide across the frost-blanketed entrance of the cave. “I swear I’ll cut this thread, drop it, and leave it behind me if any one of you steps past this point in the tunnel before we’re back.” The vow jolts through me, sealing itself in my skin, my blood, and my bones.
Griffin’s face twists. He curses violently.
Fighting the burning rawness inside of me, I say, “You can take shelter in the cave’s entrance, but if you come after us, I’ll be physically compelled to cut the rope and not pick it up again.” The magical chain reaction will hit me no matter where I am, not leaving me any choice.
“I release you from your vow,” Griffin says.
“It’s not a vow to you, it’s a vow to myself. You can’t release me.”
“Cat. Be reasonable. What if—”
“Just wait for us,” I call. “We’ll be back.”
My pulse thuds wildly as I back away under Griffin’s livid stare. A muscle jerks in his cheek, ticking hard enough to send a ripple through his beard. His eyes blaze, and my heart wrenches as I turn away.
“Cat!” he roars.
I turn the corner without looking back. My eyes burn, and every shallow, quick breath shudders in my throat.
Kato waits until the light from the cave’s entrance fades entirely before asking gruffly, “Are you all right?”
I sniff and press my chilled fingertips to my stinging eyes, stemming the hot prickle of tears. “No.”
He doesn’t try to talk to me again, which is for the best.
With only the light of the torch and the dim glow from our cloaks, we wind our way deeper into the labyrinth, ducking pointy icicles and slipping on mirror-smooth patches of ice. When the tunnel splits into three branches, we peer into the darkness. Which reveals nothing. Because it’s dark.
“What do you think?” I ask, my voice rough from disuse and swallowing tears.
Kato lowers the torch, scanning the tunnel floor for footprints or signs of passage. There are none. The ice is even and unmarked underfoot, and so cold that the chill is already seeping through my thick-soled boots.
He shrugs. “Straight?”
After that, there are so many offshoots that we simply take turns deciding which way to go. Twice, we stumble back onto Ariadne’s Thread and know we’ve gone in circles. We’re debating whether or not to backtrack while picking up the thread when a dim light beckons us from a distant tunnel on the right.
Curious, cautious, we follow the light and find a cavern, bright and high-ceilinged—if you can call the enormous sheet of ice filtering in the sunlight from outside a ceiling. Far above our heads on the frozen roof, zigzagging patterns of windblown snow splash swirling shadows across the cavern floor.
Kato looks up, frowning. “How thick do you think that ice is?”
I scrunch my nose. “Thick enough?”
Voices carry differently in the cavern, amplified by the smooth walls and towering ceiling. When we’re not speaking, it’s quiet enough that I fancy I can hear my own heartbeat echoing back to me from off the sheets of ice.
It’s quiet enough that there’s no mistaking the distinctive twang of a bowstring when it vibrates in my ears.
* * *
We both duck on instinct, and the arrow slams into the milky-white stalagmite behind us, embedding itself deep in to the mineral deposit.
Kato reaches for me, but another twang sends us diving in opposite directions. I scramble toward another stalagmite, slipping on the ice and skidding beyond my mark. The bowstring hums again, and my right foot gets punched out from under me.
I hit the ground hard on my side and slide. Grunting, I flip onto my stomach and then scrabble back over the ice until I crash into the back side of the mineral tower. Another arrow clatters across the ice just as I snatch in my trailing foot.
“Cat!” Kato is ten feet away, behind a stalagmite that’s not even as wide as his shoulders. “You’re hit!”
A colorfully fletched arrow sticks out from the heel of my boot. “It’s in the sole.” I yank it out and drop it next to me. “I’m fine.”
“Not for long,” a singsongy voice croons from a gallery of caves high up along the opposite wall of the cavern. “You’re oh-so-wrong.”
I take a quick look out from behind my shield, trying to discern the archer’s form. “Atalanta, I presume?”
There’s a pause. “She knows my name. That’s not part of the game.”
Twang. Crack!
She aimed high. I look up and see a huge, lethally sharp icicle speeding toward my head.
I jump out of the way, forced to forsake my shelter. Another arrow flies before I can take cover again and slams into my shoulder.
I gasp, staggering back. Then Kato has me. He shoves us both into the debris of the shattered icicle behind my stalagmite an instant before another arrow skids over the ice where I just stood.
Fuming, I grab the shaft and yank the arrow from my shoulder. Kato looks horrified.
“It hit a buckle. The armor blocked it.” Mostly. Under the tough leather, warm liquid dampens my tunic, making the material cling to the side of my breast.
His eyes close briefly in relief. Then, setting me behind him, he calls, “We’re here on a mission from the Gods. We don’t want any trouble.”
Atalanta laughs. It’s a light, airy sound, like wind through trees. Preternaturally fast, she flits from cave to cave along the far wall. “So handsome. I think I’ll hold you for ransom.”
“What?” I say through gritted teeth.
Kato looks at me. The wariness in his cobalt eyes doesn’t color his arch tone. “Now she can rhyme.”
My jaw drops. “I can rhyme!”
“Live among bears, get covered in hairs!” Atalanta sings.
I roll my injured shoulder, testing it. It stings, but that’s all. “She makes no sense. She’s trying to kill us. We have to get past her.”
Drawing a Kobaloi knife, I rub my thumb over the sinew while I watch the way the archer’s silhouette moves. When I think I’ve nailed down the pattern, I throw the blade into an empty gallery, counting on her to flit through it at the same moment. She does, but she catches the knife, stopping it right in front of her armored chest before twirling back into the shadows.
I blink. Titos and now this? Those Kobaloi knives were the worst purchase of my life!
Atalanta pops into the next cave, flips my knife in her hand, and then throws it back. The blade sticks in a mini stalagmite an inch from my foot. I jerk back, thumping mad.
“It’s not with a knife that you’ll take my life.”
I pry my knife free and then sheathe the blade again.
Twang. Crack!
Kato yanks me against him and spins to the side as another icicle falls from the roof and smashes down next to us. Shattered ice blasts our legs and scatters in a chiming wave.
“Nock an arrow, hit the marrow,” Atalanta chants, letting another bolt fly.
Too late, I realize Kato isn’t entirely behind the stalagmite anymore. He slaps his hand over his neck, right at the base of his skull.
Fury gathers inside me like a storm as he moves us both closer to the mineral deposit again. I reach for his wrist. “Let me see.”
He lowers his red-stained fingers, and I rise to my toes, using the arm he still has around me for balance.
“It’s just a scratch.” But mini Titos’s forked tongue is lapping up the blood.
I pat Kato’s chest in what I hope is a reassuring way, trying to keep my eyes a normal size and my voice steady. “You’re fine.” Animated tattoos and vampiric snakes are not something he needs to worry about right now.
I pull my tunic from my pants, rip off the relatively clean hem, and then wrap the strip around Kato’s neck, securing the ends with a knot. “There. Good as new.”
He gives me a tight smile. “This stalagmite isn’t big enough for the two of us. I’ll go back to mine.”
“Don’t.” I grab his arm. “She’s too good. She’ll pin you in seconds.”
He hesitates and then gets behind me, pushing me right up against the frosty surface. Stuck, I can’t even give Atalanta the evil eye anymore.
“I can’t breathe,” I eventually protest.
“Good. Then you can’t move.”
“And that’s ever-so helpful in a fight!”
“Atalanta!” Kato calls, not moving an inch. “Zeus and Athena sent us. We’re meant to bring a treasure to the Ipotane Alpha.”
I roll my eyes. “Fantastic. Just tell her we’re here to steal her treasure.”
“It might not be hers.”
“She might be guarding it,” I argue.
I feel him shrug behind me. “Or she could say she was expecting us.”
“Expecting to kill us,” I mutter.
Kato inhales sharply, moving enough for me to lean over and see what he sees. Atalanta has stepped out onto a ledge. Framed against the gallery of caves above, she’s magnificent. Wild and dark. Silky hair falls to her knees, spilling over her arms, hands, and lowered bow. Diaphanous skirts cover her long, shapely legs only to mid-thigh, and gleaming, golden upper-body armor illuminates the smooth, pale skin of her neck and face. Dark brows wing across her forehead, arching delicately. Her full mouth looks like it’s been stained by kalaberries, offering an exotic splash of color against her flawless, almost translucent complexion. She’s as cold and perfect as the ice crystals adorning the cavern.
Thick-lashed, elongated eyes send a shock through me. They mirror mine, glinting with the pure, light green of magic and the north.
She moves forward, her long hair swaying. “The Gods sent you to me that I might be free?”
Free? From what? “Yes!”
Kato gives me a warning squeeze, and I stick an elbow in his ribs.
Atalanta cocks her head in a perfectly savage way, reminding me of a wolf let loose in a field of unsuspecting sheep. “Please Artemis and you may depart from this.”
Artemis is the Goddess? Heed the Goddess’s needs.
What does that mean?
“We don’t have an offering,” Kato whispers in my ear.
“I know!” I grate back.
Atalanta steps so close to the edge of her perch that the tips of her boots kiss empty air. “We’ll take the warrior to serve as courtier.”
My insides plummet in a nauseating rush. Is that why the Gods sent Kato in here?
“You can’t have him.” I search frantically for an alternate offering. “You can have a magic cloak.”
Atalanta laughs.
“Fine. Two magic cloaks.”
Kato grunts. I don’t think he wants to give his up.
“I’m not just handing you over!” I snap.
“Your worry can end, for we will not keep your friend.”
I look sharply at the other female. “Then what do you want from him? And for how long?”
She wets her berry-colored lips. Her hands curl at her sides. “Mistress and I, we’ve decided to try…”
Her words trail off, an intense, heated look coming over her face. I know that look. I look at Griffin that way all the time.
Scowling, I wiggle enough to turn around and face Kato. “She looks like a wild animal in heat. I have a good idea of what they have planned for you.”
“Me too.”
I smack his arm. “You don’t have to look so happy about it!”
Kato shrugs. “What’s not to like?”
“She shot me!”
“She shot me, too.”
Gah! Men! “Artemis is sworn to virginity. Her…disciple might be, too. You can’t touch them.”
“Heed the Goddess’s needs.” Kato spreads his hands like he can’t help it if Artemis wants a man.
“That’s not a need, it’s a want! She can live without.”
“She’s immortal. That’s a long time to live without.”
“Maybe she is sick of her eternal virginity.” I would be. “But what if you’re wrong and Zeus strikes you down with a God Bolt for deflowering his daughter?”
Kato looks less keen about that. “This is part of what the wizard said. I have to go with her. What happens next…” He frowns. “I’ll figure it out.”
“It’s a test.” I start to panic. I don’t like it. “It’s a test to see if you’ll hold out, if you’ll keep the Goddess pure.”
“If the woman is brave,” Atalanta calls down, “she’ll find her man in the second large cave.”
“What second large cave?” I glance at Kato. “It took us hours just to find this one.”
“She thinks I’m your man,” Kato says, surprised.
“And yet she has no problem dragging you off for an Olympian orgy!”
“Two women is hardly an orgy,” he points out.
I glare.
Kato takes my shoulders and squeezes. “This is why it was me, Cat. Why they said only I could come into the caves with you.”
My eyebrows slam down. “What do you mean?”
“I’m the only one of us who can do this without damaging something. I’m the only one whose heart isn’t engaged.”
“What? Oh…” Griffin loves me. Jocasta is clearly something to Flynn, even if he’s not sure what. And Carver… Obviously Kato knows something about Carver that I don’t.
“There are always consequences,” I say darkly.
He shrugs. “Sometimes more. Sometimes less.”
My mouth flattens into a tight line. I don’t like this. “Who is Carver pining for?” No wonder he’s been moody and a little solitary lately. Whoever she is, he had to leave her behind. “I can’t be the only one who doesn’t know.”
Kato smiles faintly, something sad edging into his eyes. “A ghost.”
I wince. Oh, Carver.
Kato drops his hands from my arms. “Don’t worry. I’ve been in the back room of a tavern or two. I know what to do.”
I don’t doubt that. “You don’t have to. We’ll find another way.”
“This was written, Cat. You know that as well as I do.” Kato steps away from me. “Find me in the second cave.”
My heart launches itself violently into my throat. “What if I can’t?”
“You can.”
I grab his wrist. “Have you seen me try to read a map? It’s pathetic, and I don’t say that lightly.”
“You don’t have a map.”
“Well, that’s even worse!”
Atalanta drops from her perch, landing lightly on the balls of her feet despite the impact fracturing the frost in a wide circle all around her. She strides toward us, tall, confident, and poised, possessing an animal’s natural grace. Her arms are loose. Her hips sway. Her hair swoops. Gods, it’s annoying.
I’ve got animal grace. I’ve got plenty. Definitely enough to claw her eyes out.
With a last look at me, Kato steps out from behind the stalagmite.
I jump after him, trying to pull him back. “What about the three-headed beast?”
He rubs the back of his neck, his blue eyes swimming with shadows. “I don’t know, but I don’t think she’ll wait.”
Atalanta’s avid gaze is already bright with lust. She’s practically foaming at the mouth. “Strip!” she commands, not bothering with a rhyme.
My jaw drops. Kato looks rather shocked himself.
“Now?” he asks, for some reason directing the question at me.
I shrug helplessly. “I guess.”
Atalanta slings her bow over one shoulder and raps her fingernails against her armor. The impatient tip-tapping grates on my nerves. Everything about her grates on my nerves—the rhyming, her agility, the way she caught my knife, and how she intends to use Kato, although he doesn’t seem to mind.
Kato strips, handing each item of clothing to me. He starts shivering almost immediately. “The temperature won’t exactly enhance my performance,” he mutters.
I take his pants, trying not to glimpse what they used to be covering. “I have a feeling she’ll keep you warm,” I say sourly.
Atalanta claps, apparently delighted with what she sees. I don’t look. I refuse to look.
“The treasure you need, you’ll receive after the deed. As you depart, it will”—she looks Kato up and down with unabashed libidinous craving, her tongue sliding along her lower lip—“warm your manly parts.”
I glare at her. “That does not rhyme!”
She unslings her bow, nocks an arrow, and shoots me. Sort of. If she’d meant to kill me, I’d be dead. I think I lose some hair, though. In any case, Kato is faster than I am. He spins me out of the archer’s path again and deposits me back behind our stalagmite. In the time before he lets me go, my face is buried in his chest. Crisp, golden hair tickles my nose and brushes my lips. His skin is still warm, and smells of man, and frost, and leather. He turns almost as fast, leaving my face against his back. I exhale, and goose bumps spread across his skin.
“I go with you now,” he tells Atalanta, “and you leave her alone. You will not harm her. Ever.”
Atalanta makes no response that I can hear. Maybe she nods. I don’t know. I can’t see around Kato and about a mile of naked back.
He seems satisfied, but then adds, “I’m keeping my boots.”
I can’t help it. I look down. Before I get to his boots, though, my eyes snag on a very fine backside. I’ve only ever seen one naked male bottom. I tilt my head to the side. There’s no real harm in seeing two.
Kato half turns, looking at me over his shoulder. My eyes jerk back up, a ridiculous blush hitting my cheeks like a thunderclap.
“Griffin will kill me for leaving you alone in here,” he says.
“Griffin will kill you for being naked in the same room with me,” I answer.
He grunts. “Believe me, I’d rather be dressed. It’s bloody cold in here.”
“Go, then,” I reluctantly urge. “Atalanta will warm you up.” The words almost stick in my throat. It’s hard not to choke on them.
The muscles in Kato’s bare arms ripple as he clenches his hands into fists. “There’s still the lyre, and the monster.”
I push on the middle of his back with the flat of my hand. He needs to go before he freezes to death. The warmth is already seeping from his skin. “That’s my part, I guess. You just heed the Goddess’s needs when you see Artemis. Needs,” I remind him. “Not wants.”
“Heed the need,” he echoes, looking less enthusiastic now that he’s freezing cold and actually parting from me.
Kato suddenly turns and grabs my wrist, crushing Ariadne’s Thread into my skin. “Keep the string tied. No matter what, you find your way out.”
Does he really think I’d leave him in here? “I find you, and then we both find our way out.”
He looks ready to argue. He looks ready to turn this whole plan on its ear.
“Go.” I give him the hard look Griffin is always giving me. “Go before I give in to my base feminine curiosity and look at your ‘manly parts.’”
Kato slowly drops my wrist. “I’ve seen you naked. We’d be even.”
“Being even isn’t high on my priority list.”
He grins. Then he sweeps his big hand over the top of my head, turns, and walks away.
There’s a long moment when my heart forgets to beat. Atalanta takes hold of Kato’s arm and drags him toward a shadowy tunnel. As she turns back to me, her long hair sweeps over his bare skin, and I wonder what she’d do if I took out a knife and sawed it all off.
Shoot me probably. For real.
“Don’t follow us. Go that way.” She points to the third tunnel on the left.
No rhyme this time? I bare my teeth, a horrible pressure building in my chest. I’m terrified of never seeing Kato again.
They enter the dimly lit passageway. Rows of uneven icicles hang from the rounded entrance of the tunnel, making it seem as though they’re disappearing into a monster’s gaping maw. Sharp teeth. Dark gullet. Ready to swallow them whole.
I shudder as they disappear from sight. To keep myself from chasing after them, I fold Kato’s clothes and then tuck his things into our satchel before strapping his leather armor to the outside of the bag. His cloak is too big to fit inside, so I throw it over my shoulders and fasten it at the neck. The heat of my own cloak diminishes as the two fire-wrought garments balance their warmth together.
There’s a cold spot deep in my chest, and nausea plagues my stomach as I walk toward the third tunnel on the left—into my own gaping maw. More than a foot of cloak drags on the ground behind me, sweeping my footsteps from the frost.
* * *
Find the lyre before the three-headed beast. No problem. I’ll get right on that.
My fingers and toes are icy. I rub my hands together, muttering to myself because the sound of a voice, even my own, helps me feel less alone. Kato left me our torch, but it burned out ages ago. After a while of seeing only by the faint light of the two cloaks, I broke down and lit the second one. Since then, I’ve gone up, down, and around, stumbling onto my own path eight times so far. Eight!
The tunnel I just left has Ariadne’s Thread on its slippery floor three times over. Who was the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to leave me alone in a labyrinth?
That’s right! Grandpa Zeus.
He obviously doesn’t know me at all. And for all of Griffin’s and Beta Team’s praying to Athena, she was in on this, too. So were Hades and Poseidon.
Bloody Gods. They could at least try not to make this so hard. You know, throw me a lyre or something.
I come to yet another fork in the tunnel and frown, worry a bitter taste on my tongue. There’s a thread to the left. It’s icing over, which means I was already here hours ago.
Grumbling, I go right, knowing Kato and I will walk every same, useless circle on the way back out again. Worse, we’ll do it in the near pitch-dark. The torch won’t last much longer, and the cloaks, even turned flame-side out, aren’t actually that bright. With my luck, I’ll probably stumble onto the beast just as soon as I’m blind.
A scraping noise puts a stop to my low muttering. I pause and listen, hearing a scrabbling that sounds a lot like claws on ice.
Adrenaline dumps into my system. My pulse leaps, and my muscles tense. I try to steady my breathing as I draw my sword, keeping the torch in my left hand. Before, I would have drawn a knife, but I haven’t had much luck with them lately.
Click. Click. Chuff.
Great. I have the beast. I do not have the lyre.
I round a bend, moving as silently as I can. The tunnel brightens by degrees, and a thought kicks my already thundering heart into overdrive. Is the beast guarding the second large cave?
I’m desperate to see Kato again and to get us both out of here. By the number of times I’ve gotten hungry, I estimate that three days have passed since Atalanta separated us, which means we’ve been in the labyrinth for almost four full days. Kato left me everything we brought with us, and I’ve eaten sparingly, but if we can’t be on our way out of here soon, meals will get truly sparse.
Being alone, and in the cold and dark, is wreaking havoc on my mind and body. Despite resting and eating at regular intervals, I’m exhausted like never before—weak and even woozy sometimes. I slept twice because my body was telling me to stop in a way I simply couldn’t ignore, but both times I woke up screaming, my raw shouts echoing off the frozen walls, and not feeling rested at all.
Now, my blood drumming in my ears, I inch toward what can only be described at the moment as not total dark, my sword leading the way. I swear to the Gods, when this is over, I’m never going underground again. It’s horrible, black, quiet, and incredibly lonely. I have no idea what’s happened to Kato—well, some idea—and Griffin and the others must be freezing cold and out of their minds with worry.
The scratching gets louder. I want to turn around and find another tunnel, but there’s light this way, and a three-headed beast was part of the Gods’ warning. I need to face it, whether I want to or not. Unfortunately, I’m minus one lyre.
Ariadne’s Thread trails from my wrist, and I wish I could somehow sense Griffin on the other end. What if something’s happened to him? What if I don’t make it out?
A desperate sort of anxiety clamps down on my chest, making it hard to breathe. I clutch my sword, feeling each ridge of the grip press into my palm. Fear usually makes me mad. I need to get back to that.
I plaster myself against the icy wall and creep forward just enough to get a look at what comes next. The passageway opens up, but not enough for what I’d call a cavern. It’s a bigger, wider, higher tunnel, with multiple offshoots, some of which are not utterly dark.
What do those offshoots lead to? The second cavern? The first? At this point, I’m completely turned around. I could be anywhere inside the mountain. Maybe it’s the exit. I could be closer to Griffin than I thought!
Quietly, I hurry toward the light until I slip on black ice and nearly land on my back. Then I step on something uneven, and my left ankle twists. Ignoring the twinge of pain, I lower the torch to see what my foot just landed on.
It’s a bone. Old, crunchy, dried-up bone.
Thump! Scrabble.
I jerk my head up.
Scrabble. Thump! Thump!
I whirl, facing the darker tunnels. Something’s coming down one of the passageways, but I don’t know which one.
Thump! Thump! Chuff.
The middle! I dive to the right.
Wrong! The three-headed monster explodes from the right-hand tunnel.
A shot of pure fear detonates inside me. I drop and roll under a lethally clawed foot. Something razor-sharp slices my thigh, and I hiss in pain as I shove my torch up into the beast’s underbelly. It bellows and skids to a stop.
I jump to my feet, my injured leg howling in protest, only to drop again when a powerful, clubbed tail whizzes over my head and smashes into the side of the tunnel. Ice shatters, and I duck as a shower of cold, sharp shards splashes over me.
The beast pivots. One of its huge heads lunges for me, and I spring back, pain pulsing in my thigh. Its jaws snap, and I back away. Six black eyes track me. They’re as dark as the rest of the beast, only with a shiny, liquid gleam.
“We don’t have to fight.” So saying, I raise my sword.
The middle head attacks. I shoot to the side and bring my blade down hard on that skull. The impact jars me from teeth to toes.
In the flickering torchlight, I see a flash of dark horns—long, smooth, and curved low over the beast’s skull. A quick sweep of the torch reveals horns protecting all three heads. They arch back over the heads and bend downward toward the jaws, protecting the vulnerable necks.
While I’m assessing the situation, the monster brings its clubbed tail around again like a battering ram. There’s just enough room in the tunnel for the maneuver and nowhere for me to go. The cramped quarters work in my favor, though, because the thick, muscular part catches me in the middle while the bony club scrapes a deep furrow along the tunnel wall. I have just enough time to curl inward and throw myself backward to better absorb the impact.
I fly through the air and land sprawled on the ice on my back, the wind knocked out of me. I slide what feels like a mile down the tunnel before the top of my skull cracks against the wall. Bright lights explode behind my eyes. Pain roars through my head as momentum carries me around in a hard arc, and the rest of my body slams into the icy barrier.
For a second, there’s nothing. No air. No light. No sound. Then I suck in a huge breath, and my stunned body jolts back to me. Groaning, I roll to my knees. Pain grips my head. Everything spins. I touch the sorest spot and feel the start of a huge knot, warm and wet.
I tighten my other hand around a familiar hilt. Somehow, I held on to my sword. The torch lays far down the tunnel, dimly illuminating the advancing monster from behind. I blink, trying to chase away the dizziness, but my head throbs. I can’t focus on the beast, but I know it’s coming for me, hulking, huge, and snarling snorts and growls that remind me of Cerberus.
Hades left me his guard dog for eight years, and I needed him a grand total of once. The Hound of the Underworld would come in really handy right now, and yet he’s nowhere to be found. I’ll never understand the Gods’ sense of humor, or irony, or whatever it is.
Real fear, the kind I recognize like an old enemy, takes root inside of me. I’m so completely outmatched right now, there’s a good chance I’m going to die.
Breath of Fire
Coming January 2017