The Passion of Hades - Eliza Raine Page 0,22

from his hole.

The sight was all I needed to snap back into action. I shoved my hand into my pocket, noticing first that the vines had gone, then yelling involuntarily at the pain. Gasping through the agony, I withdrew the gem. I had seconds before the beast reached us.

'Go!' I urged the hippocampus, and we pelted up, towards the tip of the central spike, the only one missing a gleaming blue gem. Heat engulfed us and I knew it was Charybdis' rotten breath as the light around us faded. His huge teeth moved into my peripheral vision as he reached us, and adrenaline flooded my body.

This was it. Now or never.

I screamed as I launched myself up from Buddy's back and slammed the gem into the empty recess, and the ring of teeth began to close around us.

Eleven

Persephone

The blood-stained teeth were barely a foot from us when white light flashed. For the first time since coming to this damned forsaken place, I couldn't have been more grateful for that light. It meant I was being transported somewhere else, and there was literally nowhere at that moment that could be worse.

I found myself on Poseidon's throne room floor again, dry and on my ass. I moved to stand as the light cleared from my vision, but immediately dropped back to the stone floor. My leg...

The wound on my ankle was turning black, the torn leather of my pants revealing how swollen it was. As I reached out to touch it new fear and pain blazed through me. I couldn't move my hands, and pain was lancing up my arms from my wrists with such intensity I could barely focus on anything else.

'You used the wrong gem,' boomed Poseidon, and I blinked up at him. He was standing in front of his throne, the eleven other gods behind him, just as they had been before I'd started the Trial. His face was different somehow, like he was straining against something.

'Where's Buddy?' I asked, before I could stop myself. Poseidon inclined his head a touch. 'The way you treated my hippocampus was commendable. He is safe.'

'Good. What do you mean I used the wrong gem?' I said through clenched teeth, trying to flex my fingers. Nothing but pain, shooting up my forearms. I felt sick.

'That gem was not the same as the other two in the trident. They were turquoise and the one you found was blue. The correct gem was in the other room. You may now be judged.'

My mouth fell open, but as I started to argue I was cut off.

'And so to the judges!' the commentator's voice sang out from behind me. I swiveled around on my butt, not giving a shit how it made me look. I couldn't stand, and I couldn't use my hands. Standing and falling on my face would look a lot worse. My head swam as I looked at the judges, fresh waves of pain stabbing through me. 'Radamanthus?'

'No tokens,' the cheerful judge smiled at me. I felt the fury morphing my face.

'Aeacus?'

'No tokens,' the serious man said.

'Minos?'

'No tokens.'

I glared at them as they vanished, injustice pounding through me, then the world flashed white once more.

I wasn't in my own room when the light faded. I was on a bed though, and I looked around warily, anger still rolling through me in waves, every pulse of pain tearing through my arms and leg making it worse.

I got past a snake and that freaking sea monster and got nothing at all for it? This was complete and total bullshit! You don't want to win, what the hell are you angry about? The rational voice inside me cut through the fury. And it was right. I didn't want to win, I just wanted to survive. This was a good outcome.

But it didn't feel good. In fact, I didn't feel good.

A fuzzy feeling overcame me as I tried to take in my surroundings, and my vision abruptly turned bleary.

'Is she alright?' said an urgent male voice, and I tried to look for the source but instead felt the top half of my body collapsing on the pillows behind me.

'I don't know, get out of the damned way!' answered a female voice that my brain barely registered as Hecate's, before I blacked out completely.

'You know, you should stop passing out after every Trial. It's not a great look.'

I sat up quickly, and Hecate leaped backwards before I accidentally head-butted her.

'My hands!' I said, fear making my skin crawl. I