The warlock’s eyes grew even wider. And he screamed so loud Orpheus was sure all Crete could hear him.
Very few moments stuck with Orpheus on a gut level, but that one did. Watching his brother’s soul slide inside his body. Hearing the strangled scream of protest from the warlock. Seeing the warlock’s ethereal spirit as it was forced out. The image of the warlock appeared in the air, his true form—old, wrinkled, with gnarled hands and fingers and the same glowing blue eyes. The fear-filled eyes surveyed the room, then exploded in the warlock’s head. Then his ghostly body was swamped by a dark mist that dragged him down through howls of agony into the cracks in the stone floor until he was gone for good.
In the silence that followed, Skyla’s shot a look at Orpheus. “Okay, that was wicked.”
“Fucking wicked,” Demetrius muttered. “Remind me not to piss off Hades.”
“Too late,” Orpheus told him. “We already pissed him off.”
He knelt by his brother, ran his hand over Gryphon’s cheek. Needed some kind of confirmation his brother’s soul was in there. Gryphon lay slumped against the wall at an odd angle, his eyes still tightly shut. “Gryph, man, can you hear me?”
Gryphon stirred. With his hands still bound above, his body twisted from side to side as if struggling to wake up. Then in a flutter of movement his eyes opened. Those same light blue eyes Orpheus had seen on his brother’s face for over a hundred and fifty years stared up at him. “Or-Orpheus?”
Relief and something else, something he couldn’t define, seeped into Orpheus’s chest. “Thank you, Dimiourgos,” he whispered. He reached for Gryphon’s hands. “Hold on and we’ll unhook you.”
Gryphon looked up at his hands, bound above, then to Skyla and Demetrius, and finally back to Orpheus.
Heart still in his throat, Orpheus helped Demetrius unhook the metal cuff from his wrists. He rubbed at the red marks on Gryphon’s skin. “It’s over now. We’re gonna get you home to Argolea where you can forget this ever happened.”
In a flurry of movement Gryphon’s arms came up, knocking Orpheus’s hands away. He grasped the front of Orpheus’s shirt with a death grip and tugged his brother’s face close. Terror filled his wild eyes. “No. Not Argolea. Don’t take me Argolea. Anywhere but there. I can’t…” His body began to shake. His voice cracked. “Can’t…can’t go there. Not after…Don’t make me go there…”
Heartache tore at Orpheus’s chest. He grabbed Gryphon’s forearms, the ones covered in the Argonaut markings, as they were supposed to be. “No one will make you do anything. You’re safe now. I promise.”
“No, no, no, you don’t understand.” Sobs overtook him. “She’s out there. She’s always out there.” He let go of Orpheus’s shirt, dropped back to the filthy floor, and rolled to his side, curling into himself.
Frantic to do something, Orpheus rubbed his hands against his thighs and whispered, “Who?”
Gryphon’s body shook, a soul-deep tremble. And one word escaped his lips. “Atalanta.”
Disbelief shot to Orpheus’s chest, followed by a moment of clarity that whispered Yes.
He and Demetrius had trapped her in the Fields of Asphodel after they’d rescued Isadora from her lair. It was more than possible she would have recognized Gryphon for who and what he was down there.
Utter and complete helplessness consumed him as Gryphon’s gut-wrenching sobs tore through the quiet.
Unsure what to say, what to do to help, he looked to Skyla. The pity and horror awash on her face said she was as lost as he was. Turning to Demetrius on his other side, Orpheus saw the guardian’s clenched jaw and the mixture of fury and disgust etched into his features.
“The colony,” Demetrius said in a hoarse voice. Then stronger, “We take him to the colony. There are healers there who can help him.”
“Not Argolean healers,” Orpheus countered.
“So we get Callia and bring her to the colony too.”
Yeah, Callia. That was a good idea. Callia was the queen’s personal healer and Isadora’s sister as well. With her Horae powers, she’d be the one to help Gryphon through this.
Orpheus looked back down at his brother. Watched as Skyla draped the blanket over Gryphon’s shoulders and ran her fingers through his hair, humming again, trying to soothe him. But when she looked up and her heartsick eyes met Orpheus’s, he knew she was thinking the same thing he was.
Shame. Nothing could reduce a warrior to a quaking puddle of tears except shame.
Dear gods, what happened to him down there?
Sickness brewed in Orpheus’s stomach as he swiped a hand across his forehead, tried to refocus. He’d worry about all of that later. Right now they had to get Gryphon away from this place. “He can’t flash. Not in his physical state, not on earth. And I can’t put him on a commercial flight when he’s…like this.”