Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The words faded, and the memory along with it. Good riddance.
The reason for the cave’s darkness became clear immediately. As did the reason I was torn out of sleep.
I grimaced, peeling myself out of my soaked bedroll. Then I swore a foul curse that the storm swallowed when I got a look at the soggy remains of my bread.
My shelter options were limited, giving me no choice but to choose a cave downstream of the river. A raging storm blew in and spilled most of it in the cave to cuddle up with me and my fire.
I inched toward the cave mouth. Shrieking winds blew me back, spitting icy rain in my face as my prize. Sticking my head out, my hair was soaked in an instant, but my suspicions were confirmed.
“Typhons.”
The storm whipped, raged, and thundered, but there was no lightning—that only meant one thing. This wasn’t a natural storm, it was a harbinger. A warning. A smack and laugh in the face that it was already too late, typhons were here.
I scanned the whipping, dancing trees, calculating my chances. I was too close to the border to stop now. A day’s journey would bring me to the edge of Calliope’s Forest and the gorge—my only chance.
Maybe I should wait until the typhons pass.
I discarded that idea almost immediately. I was a day away from the border, but the watchers were half a day behind me. Daughters of Artemis made up the border watchers. They rarely lost their prey.
My grip tightened on my wet pack. Until now. I have to get out of Olympia for everyone’s sake. This is one catch they won’t regret letting slip through their fingers. I gazed at the dark, swirling clouds. The typhons might be a good thing. With them in the area and us so close to the town of Leda, the watchers would have to go after the more dangerous threat. What’s one deserter against the most fearsome monster in our land?
Pulling my hood low over my eyes, I stepped out into the storm.
I ran light on my feet, darting from tree cover to tree cover. Why I bothered, I didn’t know. Freezing cold seeped into my bones, draining the energy a night of wasted sleep didn’t give me. Under the beaming sun, Calliope’s Forest was beauty and peace itself. Grass a brilliant, verdant green, tickled your ankles. Flowers of all types and colors nuzzled against mighty tree roots, where they ought not to be, but the forest nymphs liked to build their homes beneath the trees.
If you looked closely, you’d see the tiny deities riding the backs of butterflies and you’d wonder why anyone would live in a place that wasn’t Olympia. That is until you witnessed endless, unforgiving rain drown that verdant grass in a soppy mud puddle that tried to rip the boots off your frozen feet. A flood growing higher and higher to wash away the nymphs’ home and scatter them who knew where.
There were no butterflies or sun-drenched meadows smelling of Hecate flowers in the Calliope’s Forest of today. Monsters ruined it as they ruined everything good about my home. Everything good about what we once were.
A break in the trees appeared ahead, giving way to a clearing. I paused at the tree line and squinted through the dark. I couldn’t see movement out there, but that meant little. For all their hulking, oversized bodies, typhons were quick and stealthy. You didn’t know one had you in their sights until their shadow fell over you.
I tramped all through the night into day. It poured without end the entire time. I had no doubt the cave I slept in was now a cenote. Unlucky for me, I couldn’t keep the water out of my pack, so my food was nothing but a sopping mess. My spare clothes were too wet and cold to make a difference to my wet and cold body. My canteen was running low even though water surrounded me. Typhon-made rain wasn’t natural water. In a few days, it would turn the forest brown and sickly, and do even worse to me if I swallowed it.
But there was good news. With typhons nearby, all the manner of monsters or mischievous nymphs that would’ve attacked me or slowed me down, found somewhere else to be. I was making excellent time to the border. By my internal map, I should be there before nightfall.
I rounded a massive eucalyptus tree, and screamed.
A figure appeared over the tangled, stretching roots. Gold-dipped eyes beheld me, unwavering as her limbs, hair, even her features shifted and morphed to her heart’s content.
I tripped scrambling to get away. The mud finally claimed its prize, holding tight to my boot and dumping me against a tree trunk. I huddled against the wood—screaming, crying, ripping hanks of my hair and throwing it at her as if my strands were weapons.