“Maelea!”
“I’m there!” she screamed.
More rocks tumbled down the incline, smacked him in the face as he battled. He kicked out, knocked the closest kobalos down the hill to land with a crack on his back. On the other side of the river, the red glow erupted in flames ten feet high. And then light flooded the cavern, blinding Gryphon with its intensity. He blinked several times, opened his eyes, and saw the twenty-foot-tall fire demon, surrounded by a vortex of swirling black smoke and fiery flames.
Holy shit.
The hundreds of kobaloi along the banks of the river shrieked and rushed away from the demon, crawling like spiders along the walls, rushing for a hole in the ceiling and their only chance for escape. The demon roared, vomiting a steady stream of fire that singed kobaloi, sent screams of agony ringing through the cavern, and kicked the temperature up at least twenty degrees.
“I’m through!” Maelea yelled.
Sword gripped in one hand, the other arm out for balance, Gryphon scrambled up the wall of rock after her.
His lungs burned, but he reached the opening. Squinted into the bright sunlight. Maelea grasped his arm and pulled. Halfway out, something grabbed his leg, then blinding pain shot across his nerve endings as nails or claws or teeth slashed through his calf.
Max knew he wasn’t supposed to be in the tunnels, but he was tired of being told what to do. And the way his mother kept watching him with those eagle eyes of hers was driving him freakin’ nuts.
He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. Scowled as the elevator doors opened at the lowest level of the colony’s castle, the level that led into the tunnels. His mother hovered over him as if she expected him to freak out or something. As if she was just waiting for the moment he was gonna go all “Atalanta” on her.
His mood grew darker with each step. The walls seemed to close in around him. He wasn’t a baby, dammit. He’d killed daemons before. And no one had more reason to see Atalanta dead than he had. He was sick and tired of being told what he could and couldn’t do. Of being treated as if he were a kid. He was an Argonaut, dammit. Didn’t he have the markings?
As he rounded a corner, voices echoed ahead. His high-tops slipped on a wet section of rock, and he reached out to grasp the wall to steady himself. The trickle of water echoed, followed by his dad’s voice.
“Whoa! Hold on,” Zander yelled. “That’s not working. Someone’s gonna slip and fall into that crevice and die.”
“Skata,” Theron’s voice echoed. “The flow’s still too strong. We’re not going to be able to rappel in until we get this water dammed up.”
Other voices murmured in agreement. Max picked out Cerek and Orpheus. He’d seen Demetrius in the castle talking with Queen Isadora, giving her an update on the search for Gryphon, and since Phineus was still helping Max’s mom with Titus in the clinic, it meant the other voices had to be Nick and some of his Misos sentries.
Max pushed forward, hesitated at the bend in the tunnel. Light burned ahead. He could see far enough around the corner to pick out the bodies blocking his view, the water seeping around their boots. But he couldn’t see the crevice they were talking about.
“Theron,” Zander said, “Nick’s gone.”
Silence descended, and Max leaned forward to hear better.
“Skata,” Theron finally said again. “That’s not good. How long’s he been missing?”
“I don’t know. He was here while we were all trying to stem the flow, but as soon as it became manageable, he disappeared.”
“Why do I have a feeling he knows something we don’t?” Theron asked.
Zander didn’t answer, and Max’s interest was piqued in the resulting silence. What was down there in that crevice?
He was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t hear the boots clomping his way until it was too late. He took one step back just as his father rounded the corner and drew to a stop, staring down at him with surprised silver eyes. “What are you doing in here?”
“I—”
“Does your mother know you left the castle?”
“She—”
His dad grasped him by the arm before he could answer and turned him back through the tunnel, pushing him toward the castle. “Skata, Phin is supposed to be keeping an eye on you.”
Max’s feet shuffled to keep up. His dad had a temper, thanks to his link with the legendary hero Achilles, and Max had learned quickly after coming to live with him and his mom not to push the Argonaut. But his curiosity had gotten the better of him this time.
“Dad, I—”
Zander yanked him from the tunnel into the receiving room lined with lockers, then pulled him to a stop at the elevator doors and pushed the call button.
“Take it easy on the kid, Zander,” Theron said at his back.
“Stay out of this.” Zander shot Theron a look, then glared back down at Max with stormy, swirling gray eyes. “It’s not safe for you to be in the tunnels. You’re to remain in the castle with your mother or I’ll send you back to Argolea, you got it?”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
“I knew this was a bad freakin’ idea,” Zander muttered, staring at the elevator doors. “I told your mother you wouldn’t stay put.”
Max’s mouth slammed shut. And that anger boiled hot in his veins all over again. But instead of arguing, he stood still and silently fumed as they waited for the elevator.
This was how it was always going to be. Them treating him like a kid, sending him away when all he wanted to do was be included. Why had they even rescued him from Atalanta? They’d all be happier if he just left, like Gryphon.
As his dad pulled him onto the elevator and the door closed behind Theron, Max couldn’t help but wonder where Gryphon was right now.
Lucky bastard. At least he was free.
A roar ripped from Gryphon’s mouth. Maelea pulled harder, fell with a grunt on her butt, but didn’t let go. Gryphon kicked out as hard as he could, and when the kobalos released, scrambled the rest of the way out of the cave.
Heart racing, he crawled on hands and knees as far from the cave as he could get, dropped back on his ass, tried to suck in air. The sword was still in his hands, and he waited for the creatures or that demon to burst from the hole they’d just climbed out of, but nothing happened. From inside the cave, the sounds of hundreds of hissing monsters was drowned out by the roar of a fire demon that shouldn’t be real.
Gryphon pushed to his feet, grasped Maelea by the arm, and yanked her up, the whole time still watching that opening. “Come on. We need to get the hell out of here before they decide to come through.”
“They or it?” she asked with wide eyes.
“Either.”
She kept pace with him as he ran through the woods, dodging trees, trying to avoid twisting an ankle, focusing on putting as much space between them and that cave as they could. Judging from the sunlight shining through the canopy, he guessed it was midafternoon. The air was warm, the scents of pine and moss strong. Out here in the late-spring air, their clothes dried quickly, and before long he grew damp not from the water of that underground river, but from sweat.
He didn’t slow until the trees thinned and opened near the edge of a cliff that looked down over a valley of green. A small river wound through the valley, sparkled in the sunlight, ran through what looked to be a human settlement. The sun had now dropped and was heading for the mountains on the far side.