AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anything!
My limbs are stiff and unresponsive.
Apollo barrels at me. Lunging toward me, turning his back on his dad.
Gripping my shoulders, he flings me to one side with such force.
One moment, I was staring at Apollo and the spear and int the next I was flung into a masonry wall.
My shoulder and back took the brunt of the blow.
Dust and powder rise, filling the hole in the wall. Chunks of stone are still colliding and crashing into the ground all around me.
Sprawled on my back, a shop appears around me. Lights flicker in my vision. The world spins around me and my ears are ringing.
Weapons. Most seem fully picked over with the events of today.
My world spins around me as my bones ache.
“Run,” warns Arista.
“But Apollo,” I murmur. Willing my eyes to stay shut for a couple more moments. Pushing for me to slide off to sleep.
Arista whispers, “He isn’t long for our world. The plague. The mercury. Look.”
Pulling my chin to my chest, I spy Apollo stretched out on the floor. The spear protruding from his center. Apollo lifts his head, curled only slightly to look at his father. His fingers grip at his heart.
Ichor lightly coats the nearby area in splatters. The liquid is more viscous than the waxy quicksilver.
Did the spear break through the marble?
Zeus towering above his son, he grips the spear, ripping it out from his chest in one solid motion. Yanking the spear backwards, he flung it to the side. Attached to the cast aside spear is a chunk of marble. Almost like remnants of a statue. The stone crashes against the cobbled streets.
Ichor flows through the streets quicker than before. Spreading father and father from his body. Apollo curls and then, I see it. His chest is hollow. Large enough for me to see the cobbled street beyond him. Disintegrating rock, mixed with ichor pulverized into dust underneath him.
No!
“Now, my dear son, I'll be taking dear Persephone,” Ov enunciates forcefully. A long muscled hand holding a near spear points in my direction. “And she'll help me claim my throne.”
My blood goes cold.
Persephone? She’s not here. There’s been no trace of her in a hundred. Even dad couldn’t give me any leads.
Rolling over, I climb to my feet. I searched for a new weapon in the shop. Each step, I scream internally. Pain radiating through every inch of my body. Each weapon was huge. Not made for a human but a large god or other immortal.
I need to do something. This is all my fault. He wouldn’t have been hurt if it wasn’t for me. I bite back tears and the feeling of guilt.
Swords, shields, and spears are the main wares of the shops. Behind a glass box, I see a black bow and arrows set tipped with gold. They look large. Like they’re meant for an immortal, but they’ll need to do. My next weapon. Gripping a stone, I time the breaking of the glass with the shouts in the street.
The glass spider webbing before falling all around my feet. Slinging the quiver of bows around my shoulder, I snatch the bow into my hands and drop the rock. Finding an already broken window of glass, out the back side of the building, I boost myself through. Ignoring the chunks of sharp glass piercing the skin of my hand.
I land softly on the street. Surveying the area, it appears the fighting is elsewhere. Though it can’t be too far from where I'm judging on the noise. Crouching low, I pull back toward the wall and peak over at Apollo and Zeus off to my right. Notching the golden tipped arrow, I draw back with my left hand, ready to lose it when I see an opening between the columns.
The arrows feel too big.
Too clunky.
They’re meant for a god.
