Page 155 of Blood of Olympus

“I don’t know.” Even I could feel the devastation etch its way across my face.

Nightshade? I tried again, desperate to hear her voice echoing around my skull.

After a brief, agonising pause where it was hard to breathe, I finally got one word of a faint response: Busy.

“Something happened and I need to get to her now,” I growled at her Blade, who was equally as responsible for her wellbeing as I was.

Aros nodded, then hefted his axe into the eyesocket of a lunging beast. “Which way?”

It killed me to say this twice in as many minutes, but a second, “I don’t know,” spilled from my lips.

Aros roared his frustration at the sky, then shouted, “Where did that fucking dragon come from?! Somebody find out and tell me immediately!”

The warriors in our immediate vicinity all yelled, “Yes, sir!” and scattered like mice in different directions.

Suddenly, the air whooshed out of my lungs and I doubled over, gasping for breath.

“Caelus?” Aros asked, clutching my shoulder with bloodstained fingers. “Caelus? What’s wrong?”

What is wrong? I asked myself.

And then I realised what I should have in the first instance: this was not my pain but hers.

Nightshade, where are you?!

No sooner than I realised that, did something hit me upside the head, knocking me so far off balance I might as well have been doing a backflip.

Nightshade!

Something was beating her senseless — and I was going to tear them to shreds.

The fastest storm I’d ever conjured appeared above our heads. Thunder cracked louder than an explosion, lightning struck in an arc around us, and rain pelted down, washing our gore-coated skins.

I don’t know exactly. Apollo does, her hushed answer finally came.

“Where’s Apollo?”

Evie answered first. “On the dunes, aiding refugees and the wounded.”

I met Aros’ intense amber gaze. “Apollo knows where she is.”

He didn’t question how I knew, or what I needed next. He just began slashing through monster and mortal alike to get to the sun god a league east of where we currently were. His enemies — our enemies — dropped like blades of grass before him, split in two by Flameless or set alight by his or Evie’s fire.

Where Ceraunos could not pierce the beasts’ scaled flesh, Lykos tore through them with his teeth, or lightning struck them where they stood.

The streets trembled as we approached.

The skies roared with urgency, lit up by a thousand consecutive lightning strikes.

Golden? I could use your help now.

We’re on our way. Don’t give up, I pleaded with her, and begged of the Fates.

Don’t let her give up. Don’t let her give in. Keep her safe until I can.

“Where is Apollo?” Aros roared as we finally reached the congregation site on the edge of the dunes outside Hellespont. Someone bolted to fetch him.

I gasped as something ice-cold and wicked-sharp skewered my heart. So visceral was the feeling that I looked down, expecting to see an arrow sticking out of my chest.