The ice split, and she and Ares stopped falling and started hovering. A hundred hands came through the rocks and ice and grabbed a different part of Ares.
“Impossible,” he breathed, his eyes locked with Helen’s.
“Go to hell,” she whispered.
And then she released him. With a deafening squeal, Ares was dragged into the dark pit of Tartarus by the hundred hands. An incalculable number of writhing arms closed over him until finally, Ares, the god of war, disappeared underneath them forever.
The portal closed, leaving Helen hovering at the bottom of the dark rift. The only sound was her, panting with exhaustion.
Her vision blurred. Barely able to float, she used her hands to guide her up the wall of the chasm. Her body began to tremble violently and her head lolled on top of her neck. As she got higher, she heard her name being called repeatedly by several voices. She fumbled her way toward the sound, sobbing with fatigue and pain.
Just as her strength failed, two different but dearly loved hands reached over the edge of the pit and hauled her up into the pink air of a new dawn.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I stabbed him, but it was all Zach, really. He was the one who figured out how to kill Automedon.” Helen pried Matt’s hand off Zach’s wrist and replaced it with the beautiful dagger. “He wanted me to give you this and tell you that you were a great friend. Which, of course, you are.”
Matt looked down at the ancient artifact and shook his head. “I don’t want it.”
“Take it,” Helen said. “It was his last wish, and my throat hurts too darn much to argue.”
Matt gave her a sad smile and a sideways hug. He stared blankly at the dagger for a moment, then tucked it into his belt under his shirt. Both of them felt horrible about the decision to leave Zach’s body on the streets in Nantucket, but they knew there was no better way to conceal the true cause of his death than to blame it on the riot.
“I won’t leave him in a disrespectful place, I promise. I’m very sorry about your friend, Matt,” Pallas said in a surprisingly tender voice. He put a hand on Matt’s sho
ulder and squeezed it reassuringly until Matt looked him in the eyes and nodded, signaling that he was ready to let go. Pallas picked Zach up gently and ran away so fast Helen knew it almost looked to Matt as if they had disappeared.
Without making her ask, Matt took Helen’s arm and put it over his shoulders, half carrying her back to the main powwow that was taking place at the edge of the chasm. Her leg had been broken in several places when Ares kicked her, and she still couldn’t walk on it but, like the rest of her, it was healing. She could see out both her eyes again at least, even though the right one was monstrously swollen. Helen still had plenty to be grateful for. Eris and Terror had run off as soon as Ares was defeated, and as soon as Helen had opened her eyes, Daphne had told her that her father and the twins were still alive. Unlike Zach. Matt placed her in between Orion and Lucas, and went to stare down the hole like Hector and Daphne.
“I already told you,” Orion said, gingerly pressing gauze pads to his two wounds. “The portal is closed. Look at my wrist.” He held up the Bough of Aeneas. “When it’s not glowing like that? That means it isn’t near a portal. Can I close the rift now so the farmers who own this place don’t accidentally fall down it?”
Lucas began to laugh at Orion’s tone, then quickly stopped laughing and clutched at the shoulder his father was bandaging. Helen could tell Orion was done with answering questions. He tended to get more sarcastic when he was ticked off. She decided it was time to step in and let him off the hook.
“I shut the portal, and I shut it forever,” she rasped through her tender vocal cords. “Ares isn’t getting out that way, if at all. Go ahead and close the rift, Orion.”
“But how can you know that?” Daphne interjected with mild exasperation. “Is there any way for you to go down and check, Helen?”
“Daphne, look at her. She’s suffered enough for one night. Stop pushing,” Castor said with his usual levelheadedness while he finished wrapping Lucas’s shoulder. “If Helen and Orion say it’s okay to close the rift, then let him close it.”
Daphne threw up her hands and turned away, blowing air through her lips noisily, just to let everyone know that even though she had been overruled, she still didn’t agree. Hector rolled his eyes and shared a look with Orion. Apparently, both of them were familiar with this little display of Daphne’s, although it was the first time Helen had ever seen it.
“Close it,” Hector said to Orion. The ground squeezed together with a grinding moan, and shut with a small boom.
“Well, looks like we’ll never know now,” Daphne said in a snippy undertone.
Helen really wanted to slap her, but she couldn’t stand up without Matt, and he had wandered off somewhere. She craned her head and found him searching the ground for something. He suddenly crouched down, sifted through Automedon’s ashes, and pulled out something shiny. The sheath to the blade, Helen realized, wondering why he wanted it.
“Hey. You okay?” Orion asked her, jarring her out of her thoughts. Orion put a finger on her chin to make her hold still and stared into her injured eye. Still staring at it, he leaned to the side and called over her shoulder. “Hey, Luke. Have you seen this?”
“Yeah,” Lucas said heavily, looking down and nodding. “Did you notice the shape?”
“Yeah. Very fitting.”
“What are you two talking about?” Helen said, her voice cracking.
“There’s a blue-white scar running down your right iris, Helen. The kind of scar Scions don’t get rid of,” Lucas said quietly. “It’s shaped like a lightning bolt.”
“Is it, like, freaky looking?” she asked Orion, paranoid that no one would ever want to look her in the right eye again. He started to laugh and then stopped abruptly, clutching his wounds and grimacing just as Lucas had moments earlier.