Daughter of Wine

Callida

For a moment I'm weightless in the dark, the sides of the hot stone pit burning my arms. Then the space opens up around me. Instinctively I tuck and roll, absorbing most of the impact as I hit the stone floor. 

Flames shoot up in front of me, annoyingly singeing my eyebrows, but I unsheathe my dagger and swing before I even stop rolling. A bronze dragon head, nearly decapitated, wobbles across the floor. 

I stand, trying to get my bearings. I look down at the fallen dragon head and feel a moment of guilt, as if I killed Festus. But this isn't Festus. 

Three bronze dragon statues stand in a row, aligned with the holes in the roof. I decapitated the middle one. The two intact dragons are each three feet tall, their snouts pointed upward and their steaming mouths open. They are clearly the source of the flames, but they don't seem to be automatons. They don't move or try to attack me. I calmly slice off the heads of the other two. 

I wait. No more flames shoot upward. 

"Calli?" Annabeth's voice echoes from far above like she's yelling down a chimney. 

"Yeah!" I shout. 

"Thank the gods!" Piper yells. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Hold on a sec." 

My eyes adjust to the dark. I scan the chamber. The only light comes from my glowing knife and the openings above. The ceiling is about thirty feet high. By all rights, I should've broken both legs in the fall, but I'm not going to complain. 

The chamber itself is round, about the size of a helicopter pad. The walls are made of rough-hewn stone blocks chiseled with Greek inscriptions, thousands and thousands of them, like graffiti. 

At the far end of the room, on a stone dais, stands the human-sized bronze statue of Ares, with heavy bronze chains wrapped around his body, anchoring him to the floor. 

On either side of the statue loom two dark doorways, each ten feet high, with a gruesome stone face carved over the archway. The faces remind me of gorgons, except they have lions' manes instead of snakes for hair. 

I suddenly feel very much alone. 

"Annabeth, Piper!" I call. "It's a long drop, but it's safe to come down. Maybe... uh, you have a rope you could fasten so we can get back up?"

"On it!"

A few minutes later a rope drops from the center pit. Annabeth shimmies down, followed by Piper. 

"Callida Rivera," Annabeth grumbles, "that was without a doubt the dumbest risk I've ever seen anyone take, and I date a dumb risk taker."

"Thank you." I nudge the nearest decapitated dragon head with my foot. "I'm guessing these are the dragons of Ares?"

"And there's the chained god himself." Annabeth nods to the statue. "Where do you think those doorways-"

Piper holds up her hand. "Do you hear that?"

The sound is like a drumbeat...with a metallic echo.

"It's coming from inside the statue." Piper decides. "The heartbeat of the chained god."

Annabeth unsheathes her drakon-bone sword. In the dim light, her face is ghostly pale, her eyes colorless. "I-I don't like this, guys. We need to leave." 

The rational part of me agrees. My legs ache to run. But I'm not a completely rational person, and something about this room feels strangely familiar.

"The shrine is ramping up our emotions." I tell my friends.