orenda [leo valdez]

xl. Bob's Wonderful Return

❝sad birds still sing❞

⤷autumn

△△△

With everything Kira encountered in Tartarus, the worst was loneliness. When she was above the surface, the longest she would be away from Leo was a day. Ever since the Wilderness School, they had formed an unbreakable bond.

She had been away from him for around two weeks now. And encountering the worst monsters that had ever been formed didn't help.

Now he could be hurt.

She wanted to think that he was just hurt. But even that thought, that he was injured, and she couldn't be there to help him hurt her.

Now, she had to deal with Nyx.

The phrase "ignore your problems and they go away" does not apply to goddesses trying to kill you. Trust Kira on this one.

Not only was she exhausted, she had absolutely no motivation to continue.

If she wasn't with Leo, what was the point?

Nyx was almost too much to take in. Looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and smoke, as big as the Athena Parthenos statue, but very much alive. Her dress was void black, mixed with the colors of a space nebula, as if galaxies were being born in her bodice. Her face was hard to see except for the pinpoints of her eyes, which shone like quasars. When her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs, making Kira feel heavy and sleepy, her eyesight dim.

The goddess's chariot was made of some metal and pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. The beasts' legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.

The horses snarled and bared their fangs. The goddess lashed her whip—a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs—and the horses reared back.

"No, Shade," the goddess said. "Down, Shadow. These little prizes are not for you."

"Uh, so you won't let them eat us?" Percy asked her. "They really want to eat us."

Nyx's quasar eyes burned. "Of course not. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!"

"Oh, don't kill yourself!" Annabeth cried, thinking fast. "We're not that scary."

The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean—"

Annabeth and Percy worked well together. Kira looked warily at the goddess, her vision blurring in and out.

"Well, I'd hope not!" Annabeth looked at Percy and forced a laugh. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"

"Ha, ha," Percy said weakly. "No, we wouldn't."

The vampire horses looked confused. They reared and snorted and knocked their dark heads together. Nyx pulled back on the reins.