of the churning sand and I realized as the hippocampus reared back suddenly, that I was only just out of its reach.
'Now you face Charybdis!' boomed Poseidon's voice, and the creature screeched on hearing its name.
A surge of adrenaline wiped away the pain from my leg and the initial paralysis at seeing something so alien. My vision focused sharply, and I reached down to Buddy, who was vibrating with fear beneath me.
'I need your help, Buddy. We're way faster than this thing,' I told him, loading my voice with a confidence I prayed I could back up. 'But we need to go right now, before that thing gets out any further out of the sand. Go!'
The hippocampus burst to life, zooming up and over Charybdis so fast I could feel the skin on my face pulling against the force of the water. I glanced down as we soared over the monster, a flurry of excitement building inside me. We were doing it. We would reach the trident statue in no time.
But my breath caught and the excitement sank like a stone to the pit of my stomach the very next second. The thing was dropping back down into its hole, its massive round mouth forming the epicenter of the sand-whirlpool below me, and a jet of water blasted up from it, slamming into us and freezing Buddy's progress completely. He squealed beneath me, and panic flooded my system as I looked down and saw a second layer of razor sharp of teeth slice out under Charybdis’ first set, jagged and stained and as big as I was. We were trapped in the beam of water, and like quicksand, it was sucking us downward.
'You can do it!' I urged the hippocampus, my heart hammering as I looked up at the trident statue. But he couldn't. Slowly and inexorably, we were being dragged towards the creature’s terrifying maw.
I looked desperately between the trident and Charybdis, sand and ocean water swirling faster and faster around us. Buddy was moving backwards now, his frantic tail unable to keep beating at such a fast pace against the mighty pull of the monster. I felt utterly useless sat on his back, but if he couldn't break free of the whirlpool’s force, there was no way I could.
I needed to do something else. Something that wasn't swimming. Whatever it was that I did best.
I fixed my sights on the center spike of the trident, and concentrated hard on Poseidon. I thought of what he had said to me, how he blamed me for being here, for posing a threat to Olympus. I thought about the way Eris had treated me at the masquerade ball, patronizing and cruel. I thought about Zeus, and his fucked up, inflated sense of entitlement and the shit he was putting Hades through.
Black vines burst from my palms, and a feeling like electricity burned through my entire body. There was no fear this time, no terror of what was happening. This time I was in control. This time I wanted the vines. I launched them at the trident, bone-deep strength filling my body to the brim as I sent them snaking further through the water to wrap around the central spike.
Buddy squealed again and I snapped my attention down, dimly noticing that my arms were glowing green.
We were too close.
Charybdis was only ten feet below us, and a tremor of fear shuddered through my new found strength as I looked down past those insanely sharp teeth, into the black, rotten gullet of the beast.
No fucking way was I going down there.
I pulled hard on the vines, willing them to hold, willing them to be stronger than the whirlpool.
They were.
I cried out in pain as my wrists were yanked up hard, both of them making an awful snapping sound as we shot up through the sea. I squeezed my legs tightly around Buddy as we were dragged higher, tears streaming from eyes I couldn't keep open against the powerful flow of water. I didn't see the trident until it was too late, Buddy and I slamming into the cold marble. The pain in my wrists was so excruciating that I hardly noticed though, and I struggled to get my bearings as I belatedly realized we had come to a stop. I heard that hideous screech again and shook my head, blinking. Buddy tipped me forward with a whinny, so that I was looking down, and through my haze I saw Charybdis launching himself up