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Steady does it. That’s right.
And then Dimitra’s voice:
Don’t be a sissy. Just take the shot.
I focus. I breathe. I will the arrow beneath my fingers to fly true. I release.
And the arrow just grazes the side of the beast’s head.
Cold shock runs through my body.It can’t be. My first two shots were perfect. How could this have happened? My last arrow…
I fumble in the quiver, hoping I’ve miscounted.One more arrow, let there be one more.But the only arrows that remain are the birchwood ones, the love arrows, useless as dust.
Unless…
I freeze, as the thought takes shape in my head. The idea is outrageous. Dreadful. Yet perhaps it can work.
But even as I quietly slide one of the arrows out of the quiver, the beast has reared its head again. Its rage seems redoubled, its one remaining head slashing madly through the air. My plan cannot work like this. I must direct its gaze back toward the water, toward its own reflection.
I loose the slipper from my other foot: I’m barefoot on the wet bridge now, and the sodden planks slide too easily underneath me. But I grip the rope, and hurl the slipper wide.
As it hits the river’s surface, the creature cocks its remaining head, shifting it slowly in the direction of the sound. I see its single eye searching, its hesitation.
Look,I urge it in my mind.Look down.
And it does. I let the arrow fly—and this time, it flies true, burying itself easily in the flesh above the creature’s one remaining eye. The monster starts, jolts, but does not look up. Its gaze stays locked on the water’s surface exactly where it was before. The great eye stares back at itself, unblinking.
Mesmerized.
I wait, barely daring to breathe. A moment passes, then another. I shiver on the bridge. A wind sweeps through and the bridge rocks again, but though the slight creak of it makes me wince, the monster doesn’t so much as glance my way. As I watch, it bends even further over the water, as though to study itself more fully; it turns its head one way and then another. Andthen it lets out a call that makes me shudder from head to toe. I have heard its cries of hunger and rage, and even pain. This was none of those: it was some kind of mating call. I swallow down the bile in my throat.
I could hurl a rock into the river, I suspect, and it would not turn my way. It strikes me that after all, perhaps the poisoned arrows are the less evil of the two. Love—at least, this kind of love; this mad, senseless infatuation—might be the greater curse.
I turn, gripping the rope, to look toward the far shore. A mere fifteen paces away. The icy air flays my back, mychitonfrozen solid in parts. And yet so close in front of me is this vision of spring, bright and green and strewn with flowers. I have to close my eyes for a moment to gather myself. I tell myself not to look back—the doomed beast, the frozen river, the desolate lands behind me, I must will them from my mind now. I must move forward.
Breathe, Psyche.
I take a step, and then another. And then two more. Soon I am ten paces from the far bank. Then five. Then only one step remains.
The grassy verge is hyacinth-strewn and perfumed. Just one step more will do it. And yet my feet freeze where they are. I don’t know if I could bear it, if it should all turn out to be a mirage—and why shouldn’t it be one? Since I began this journey, betrayal has never been more than a breath away. Why should this moment be different? Perhaps the moment my foot touches the ground, the hyacinths will shrivel to ash, the ground will turn barren and hopeless. And I don’t know if I could survive that.
But I’ve come this far. I breathe in, breathe out. I open my eyes.
And my foot touches the ground.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sunlight washes over me.
The hyacinths move softly in the breeze, and a great warmth goes over and through me, like fingers through my hair. I fall to the ground, and the ghost of what seems a hundred winters leaves my body. I allow myself one glance behind me, but when I do, it’s like looking through a window to another world. The black and grey shapes of the river, the bridge, the monster—all of it seems fuzzy and unclear. I wrap my hands around the Shroud and for the first time since I began this journey, I really believe I may reach its end. Around me the air is scented, rich as wine. I lie collapsed on the grass, feeling the breath warm my lungs, listening to the cottony sound of petals moving together in the warm breeze. When I feel able to move again, I grab onto a handful of the long grass and pull myself to my feet.
Above me is the great citadel, the realm of the gods. I suppose I should be afraid, but the city itself is like a spell, too dazzling in its beauty to look away. I’m ready to start walking again—and then a cold breeze stops me. The air here is so mild that the chill seems out of place, like it belongs across the river, on the winter side. But the wind isn’t coming from the river. It’s coming from a dark, round opening under the hill. An opening just high enough for a person to pass through.
A cave.
The gaping black mouth looks wrong against the bright greenery and riot of blossoms, a void where life should be.
But then I remember something.
