Page 182 of Blood of Olympus

“Loose!” Haras roared again — and again the shrieks of beasts sounded as arrows met flesh, scales, and armoured hides in droves of sickening thuds.

As the two thunderous gigantes approached, Velira reared back, startling me. She showed me their terrifying forms: skin as hard and grey as stone made flesh, hunched backs with small trees sprouting from the cracks and ridges along their spines, moss and lichen tracing the planes of their unimpressed faces, and eyes so telluric and vast it was like glimpsing into the soul of the earth itself.

How the fuck do we defeat living mountain ranges? I sputtered.

We don’t. We have something far worse to contend with.

A minute later, the gigantes reached the first line of traps set three hundred metres from our battalion. The second was placed a hundred metres closer to our ranks, and the third, another hundred again — each growing increasingly violent thanks to our clever friends from Caldris.

The air shattered as a line of explosives were detonated by the giants’ footsteps, igniting an unbroken boundary of fire separating us and them. The blows took out a solid chunk of Kronos’ infantry — beasts and halflings and men instantly silenced by Caldrian wrath.

An eerie laugh — deep and resonant — tore through the silence, carried on winds that smelled of ice and the promise of sorrow.

He’s here, Vel declared.

Whether it was the carrion winds chilling me, or the longing of vengeance lodged deep in my soul, I felt my heart harden with every passing beat. Somewhere among their ranks was the god who murdered Charon, and a portion of my black soul along with him. Somewhere within that writhing mass was the titan who saw fit to stake his claim on a land of innocents — murdering, pillaging, and destroying whole cities just to make a point: simply, that he could.

Good, I growled back.

One person stood just short of the line of fire and ash.

One person resolute enough to cause mayhem with their Fate-given powers.

One person with ladyballs the size of Theris.

Aphrodite — clad in a pristine, blush-coloured gown of silk, with spotless golden sandals upon her feet, and not one long, blonde curl askew — stood with perfect posture, waiting for the first brave or foolish souls to cross the line.

And it was not monsters, but men, who hazarded the crossing.

Men who saw a pretty girl ripe for the taking.

Men who would suffer the consequences of underestimating such a woman.

Through Velira’s eyes, I watched it all play out in shades of cobalt and viridian. Through her gaze, I saw one fourth of Team Heroes raise her hands, clawing the air, and those brave, foolish men sank to their knees. They cried out, their anguish tarnishing the air, even as their hearts raced, stuttered, fractured, then finally — broke.

Because the other side of desire was loathing.

The other side of beauty was monstrosity.

The other side of love was heartbreak.

And Aphrodite was waging war on every single one of them by wielding the seldom-used antithesis of her usual magic — the dark side of her light.

The hundred-odd men who crossed the line did not live to regret it. She made them claw their own hearts out before they could appreciate the statement they were making. The statement Aphrodite made.

Eventually, though, she was spent. Ichor dripped freely from her nose, cascaded down her lips, and stained the front of her gown. Aph, exhausted from the magnitude of power she’d just harnessed, didn’t even notice.

“Fall back!” I called to her. “Fall back, Aphrodite!”

She stumbled backwards as if dazed, and the monsters seized their chance.

Vel!

She leaped into the sky with several hard snaps of her wings, rocketing toward our friend, standing alone on a field of corpses she’d singlehandedly created, with gigantes and apmhisbaena and any number of wicked creatures advancing on her.

My vision brightened to that painful, crackling white as Vel’s concentration switched to the importance of the task before her. She roared, whipping her long, scaled neck sharply to the right as her body tilted in the same direction, spewing a constant stream of fire at the monsters. It was all I could do to hold on, to let muscle memory and all our many hours of training take the reins as she banked hard to the right then down, loosing another jet, another screech, then shot back up into the sky.

Did you get her? Vel! Did you get her?