Page 30 of The Games Gods Play
I stagger and catch my breath. I have no doubt Hades sent me the butterfly. I might just kiss that damn god of death when I get to him.
At that thought, I miss a step and almost go down but manage to keep my feet under me. I have to run through two more monster illusions on my way up—a cyclops and a griffin—but now I know to just barrel on through. They don’t slow me a bit.
By now, I’m losing steam. I can’t drag oxygen into my lungs fast enough. My legs feel like they’re filled with thousands of little weighted balls as I clomp up the stairs on feet I can no longer feel.
I slow.
And slow.
And slow.
Until I am using the rail to drag myself up. Boone would do this better. Hells, any pledge but me.
I have to be close, don’t I?
I wince. I can see the top now, at least, but my body won’t get me there. Not in time.
“You call that trying?”
For a second, I think I’ve hallucinated Felix up ahead of me, until I force myself to focus and realize that Hades is standing at the top of the stairs. Is that far enough inside Olympus to count for this? If I get to him, do I win?
“I know you can do better than this, Lyra.”
Asshole. This god put me here, and now he’s going to taunt me? Hot anger churns in my chest and flares all the way to my toes, feeding a needed burst of adrenaline that zings through my muscles and clears my mind for a moment.
I force myself to move. To move faster than my body wants me to. To move faster than I should. And I pay for it. Every single nerve is screaming as if lit on fire. My vision starts to close in, darkness trying to consume the edges and narrowing my sight to a tunnel. But I fix that remaining pinpoint of sight on Hades and don’t stop.
I don’t even pause when a gong sounds and my heart drops. But it wasn’t like my heart wasn’t getting me up these stairs anyway. I’ve got nothing left in me but sheer will.
“Move!” he bellows. Like it matters to him if I make it.
And the gong goes off again. These must be ticking off seconds now, marking the end of my time. Taking the steps two at once, I run in rhythm with the chimes.
“Five,” he yells.
He’s counting down.
Shit.
“Four.”
Keep going. I pump my sandbags for legs and pray I don’t miss a step. If I slip now, it’s all over.
“Three.”
Almost there.
“Two.”
It’s going to be close.
I’m still a body length of steps away from him. I don’t have a choice… I leap and fly through the air, and for the briefest moment I think I might actually get to the top safely, until gravity yanks me down and I belly flop on the stairs with a shock of pain splintering out from too many parts of me—all the parts that hit sharp corners.
And with the final toll, my hand lands on the well-polished black leather toe of Hades’ shoe.
Did I make it? The ringing of the bell is still fading away, and I’m still on the stairs. Did I make—
A sucking feeling, like the time I got caught in a tide in the ocean, drags me away. And suddenly I’m lying not on stairs but on a flat, smooth, blessedly cold floor. I manage to push to my hands and knees, but I’m too exhausted to lift my head, and my vision is still fuzzy. My breath rasps harshly in and out, in and out, as if I’m still running the race.
