Elementals 3: The Head of Medusa (10 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

“You never told us that we wouldn’t be able to use our powers,” I said, trying—and failing—to swallow down my fear. I took a deep breath to steady myself, and loosened my grip on the sword to stop my hands from shaking. “We never agreed to that.”

“You never asked.” She shrugged, not looking sorry in the slightest. “But yes, that’s how it works. It wouldn’t do to have my slaves able to fight back, now would it?”

“You
can’t
do this,” Kate said, desperate now. “We’re the only hope this planet has to save the world from the Titans. Nyx told us herself. If you keep us here, you’re ruining our chance to stop this war.”

“I live in
Antarctica
,” Chione hissed, sending a wave of snow flurries up from the floor and around the room. “The forgotten continent. What happens in the rest of the world hardly concerns me. And the way I see it, if you were meant to stop this war, one of you would have freed the sword. But that didn’t happen. So clearly, you must not be as important as you claim you are. Now, you can either follow me downstairs like civilized little mortals, or I will force you down there myself. Your choice. But make your decision now—we don’t have all day.”

She was too far away for me to touch, and I eased my hands off from around the sword, hoping that slow movements wouldn’t startle her into using her powers on us. But then Danielle rushed forward and pushed me to the side, wrapping her hands around the sword and sliding it out of the block of ice.

“Wow,” she said, admiring the sword and raising it above her head. The sunlight streaming in from the windows glinted off the golden metal, reflecting around the room like a disco ball. “I didn’t think that would actually work.”

“Aphrodite was always
so
narcissistic.” Chione sneered. “It figures that she would choose one of her descendants to pull the sword out of the ice. However, I’m afraid you’re going to have to put it back.”

“Put it
back
?” Danielle held the sword closer. “Why on Earth would I do that?”

“Because you violated the terms of our agreement,” she said. “Three of you were allowed to try for the sword.
Three,
not four. If you were one of the original three who had tried for the sword, you would be walking through that portal to go home this very moment. But that’s not the case. You may try again for the sword once your seven years are up. For now, you must put it back and come downstairs with me.”

“I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.” And then, swifter than water, Danielle leapt for Chione and swung the sword through her stomach, slicing the snow goddess cleanly in half. Both halves thumped to the ground, Chione’s eyes staring blankly up at the sky. No blood came out of her body, as if her insides were made of ice itself.

“Did you just kill a goddess?” I asked, glancing back up at Danielle. “I thought they were supposed to be immortal.”

“I thought so, too.” Danielle held the sword in front of her, studying it as if she was just realizing the enormity of what she’d done. “It sliced through her so easily that I could barely feel any give.”

All was still as we looked upon the sections of Chione’s body. Had we really
killed
her? I thought so… but then both of the pieces rattled, and they slithered together to meet up at the seams. They started to stich together, and Chione’s eyes blinked, her mouth twitching as she came to.

She sat up, but before she had a chance to speak, Danielle was standing over her with the sword raised like the Grim Reaper himself, and she sliced Chione’s head clean off her shoulders.

“Throw it down the steps,” she instructed, pointing the sword at Chione’s head. “It’ll take more time for the pieces to find their way back to each other if they’re farther apart, and by then, we better be long gone from this place.”

We all stared at the head—I imagined that none of us wanted to be the one to touch it. But then Blake stepped forward, grabbed it by the hair, and threw it down the center of the winding stairwell. It hit the railing a few times on its way down, clunking when it hit the bottom.

“Done,” he said, stepping away from the door. “Now, what’s the plan for getting out of here?”

“We can’t leave the way we came,” Kate said. “The ice nymphs are waiting for us downstairs, and we can’t risk them getting those cuffs around our wrists. Which gives us only one option.” She looked at Chris, her mouth set in determination. “We’ll have to jump. Can you fly us all down from here?”

“Yeah—probably,” he said, which didn’t strike me as very comforting in a time like this. “But how are we going to get out of here?” He knocked on one of the windows, which must have been made of a foot of ice. “These things are unbreakable.”

“I have the Golden Sword.” Danielle held it up again, as if we needed a reminder. “It can cut through anything.”

“Right,” he said. “Duh.”

“But our jackets—and weapons—are still in the palace,” Kate said. “Chris didn’t have enough energy to heat up the air on our way here—let alone being able to do it on our way back,
after
flying us all out of here. How are we going to get to the South Pole Station without freezing to death first?”

“I can light a fire,” Blake said. “We’ll have to huddle close, but I can keep it burning until we get back.”

“That might work,” Danielle said. “If the ice nymphs don’t come after us. If they’re on horses—which I imagine they will be—we won’t be able to outrun them.”

“The horses,” I said, smiling as it all clicked into place. “They’re still outside. If Chris lands us on top of them, we can run them back to the South Pole station. By the time anyone realizes we’re gone, we’ll be far enough away that they won’t be able to catch up.”

“Good idea,” Chris said, rubbing his hands together. “Who wants to go first?”

Something rattled near the door, silencing us. I looked over to see what it was, and my heart rose to my throat at the sight of Chione’s head rolling inside. It stopped for a second to balance on its neck. Her empty eyes stared forward and zeroed in on the rest of her body, which was now traveling to meet it.

“How’d it get up here so fast?” I shuddered and kicked the head like a soccer ball, sending it back down the stairs. I held my breath, watching it roll down and down until it collided with the door on the ground floor. It settled down there, and I finally allowed myself to breathe again.

But then the door opened, and an ice nymph stuck her head inside. She saw Chione’s head and screamed. Then she grabbed it by the hair and raised it in the air, yelling something back to the others and pointing up the stairs. Her ice-blue eyes met mine, and she hissed, holding Chione’s head in one hand and the metal cuffs in the other. She ran up the stairs, and the others followed her—the ones who weren’t holding the chains brandishing long swords.

I slammed the door shut and pressed my back to it, as if that would be enough to hold them off. “The ice nymphs are coming,” I told the others, panic rising in my voice. They sounded like a stampede as they hurried up the steps, their footsteps getting louder by the second. “They’re armed. We don’t have enough time for Chris to fly us down separately—we all have to go
now
!”

Without hesitation, Danielle ran forward and swung the Golden Sword at the window. It easily slid through the ice, and she carved a rectangle big enough for all five of us to walk through. She kicked the window and sent the ice block tumbling down. The freezing air rushed inside, so cold that it burned my lungs. Luckily, it only took seconds for Chris to warm the air. The chunk of ice that had previously been part of the wall fell for what felt like an impossibly long time, and then it collided with the ground, shattering into pieces.

Chris’s eyes widened, all of the color drained from his face. “I can’t…” he said, stumbling away from the opening. “I don’t know if I can fly us all down at once. I’ve never tried before. What if I mess up and we end up like that?” He pointed down at the destroyed window for emphasis.

Kate stepped forward and reached for his hands, forcing him to face her and meet her eyes. “That won’t happen to us,” she said, her voice calm and steady. “But we need to get out of here, so you have to believe in yourself and try your best—like what I did back in the hydra’s cave. I didn’t think I would be able to make those tree roots grow. But I
needed
to do it to save everyone, so I told myself I could, and then I made it happen. You can do this. I know you can. You just need to believe in yourself, too.”

“You really think I can do this?” he asked.

“Yes.” She nodded, her gaze not leaving his. “I do.”

“So do I,” I chimed in, at the same time that Blake and Danielle said that they did, too.

“Okay.” Chris straightened and took a deep breath. “Everyone grab each other’s hands so we’re in a line—it’ll be easier for me to do this if we’re all linked together. I’ll say ‘jump’ when I’m ready.”

We did as he said—Chris stood in the middle, surrounded by Kate and me. Blake took my hand, and Danielle took Kate’s. In Danielle’s other hand was the sword. Chris stared down at the horses, his forehead scrunched, as if he were planning out how to do this.

I tried not to look down, but it was impossible. The ground must have been over a hundred feet away, and it felt like it was getting further by the second. The world moved and tilted, and my legs felt so weak that if I wasn’t gripping Blake’s and Chris’s hands, I worried that I would tumble over the edge from the sheer terror of it all. This must be what people felt like when they were skydiving, in the seconds before jumping out of the plane. What if I couldn’t jump? I knew we had to—but what if I didn’t have the courage to go through with it? Or what if Chris
couldn’t
hold all of us up, and we plummeted to the ground like that window?

Then the door swung open, and the herd of angry nymphs barreled through, swords raised to strike.

“Now!” Chris screamed, and together, the five of us jumped off the ledge.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The air cushioned our feet as we fell, controlled and steady, like when you’re watching a movie and everything is happening in slow motion. Once I realized that Chris had control over our fall, I glanced back up at the tower, where the nymphs stood in the window, hissing and pointing at us. They threw ice daggers down at us, but Chris had somehow created a vortex of wind around us that sent the daggers flying away.

I looked back down and saw the ground getting closer—we would reach it in only a few seconds.

“Let go of everyone’s hands!” Chris yelled, and I instinctively did as he said.

I floated straight onto the back of the horse I’d ridden earlier. I looked around at the others and saw that they were each on a horse’s back, too. The cold bit at every inch of my skin, and while the heat of the horse’s body warmed me up, it was only slightly. Without our jackets, scarves, hats, and gloves, we wouldn’t last long out here before getting frostbite.

I held on tight to my horse’s mane. “To the South Pole station!” I said, squeezing her sides with my legs. She must have understood me, because she took off, galloping away from the palace. The sound of running hooves echoed behind me as my friends followed my lead.

But the air around me kept getting colder and colder. Chris must have been losing his control over the temperature. The sun was so bright and the air was so brutally cold that I had no choice but to close my eyes. But despite my eyes being closed, I could still feel which way was South, and I made sure the horse headed
in
that direction.

The wind whipped around me until I couldn’t feel my skin anymore—especially in the places where it was exposed. My ears and nose felt like they’d disappeared from my face. The air burned my lungs so much that they coughed and spasmed, but I refused to let go of my grip on the horse’s mane. Luckily, she ran so smoothly that I was able to lay forward without feeling like I was about to fall off—I was grateful that water horses had a smoother ride than a regular horse could ever dream of. My fingers were so numb from the cold that I could barely feel them, but I just had to last for a few more minutes.

They felt like the longest few minutes of my life.

Finally, the horse’s running slowed to a walk, until she stopped completely. My eyes had frozen shut, but I forced them open and found a large boxy building in front of me. The South Pole Station.

My entire body felt frozen solid, but I tried to slide off the horse anyway, ending up rolling off and flopping to the ground instead. I opened my eyes to get another look at the building, saw a figure in full winter gear running towards me, and then everything went dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

When I woke up, the wind and cold were gone. I was on a bed, but I couldn’t open my eyes due to the throbbing, tingling pain on my face. The pain was in my fingers and toes, too. It was like the worst pins and needles I’d ever had in my life.

I immediately focused on the white energy surrounding me and called it into my body, healing myself in less than a minute.

Now that the pain was gone, I forced my eyes open and saw three people surrounding me—Darius, Hypatia, and a young, thin man I’d never met. The stranger was staring at me in shock, as if I were a crazy science experiment. Which I supposed to him, I was—since I’d just healed myself in front of his eyes.

“Where am I?” I asked, although my throat was so scratchy that it came out barely louder than a whisper. Darius handed me a glass of water from the nightstand, and I gulped it down in seconds. He refilled it and handed it to me again, and I drank this one nearly as fast, too.

Once finished, I looked around the room and saw one other bed. Kate was in it, and she looked like she’d been through hell. Her nose was so red that it was dark gray on the tip, and her cheeks were gray and blistered as well. I didn’t know that it was
possible
for skin to turn that color. Is that what I looked like before I healed myself? Was she in the same pain that I’d been in, but unable to do anything about it?

“I have to heal her,” I said, pulling the covers off myself and sliding out of bed. Something clanged against the bed and stopped me from moving—an IV-stand connected to my arm. I ripped the needle out, since I didn’t need it now anyway, and hurried to Kate’s bed. I was barefoot and wearing loose scrubs that I didn’t recognize—I guessed that whoever treated us when we arrived had put them on me.

I reached for Kate’s hands, which had also turned that deathly reddish-gray and were unnaturally cold and stiff. Once I sent the white healing energy through her body, her injured skin changed from gray, to red, and finally back to normal color. She opened her eyes and looked around, and I smiled when I realized she would be okay.

“Where are we?” she repeated the same sentiments I’d had when I woke up. “How did we get here?”

“I don’t know,” I said, keeping hold of her hand. “But Darius and Hypatia are here. I’m sure they’ll tell us everything.”

“How… how is this possible?” The man I didn’t know stared at us, his mouth hanging open. “You both had extreme frostbite. The doctor said he would likely have to amputate. But now you’re both perfectly fine. This isn’t
possible
.”

“I told you that Nicole is a healer, and not to worry,” Hypatia said, smiling smugly.

“I know…” He watched me closely, scratching his head. “I just didn’t think it would happen that fast.”

“Where are the others?” I asked, my heart pounding with worry at the possibility of them—especially of
Blake
—not being here with us. “They’re here, right? Are they okay?”

“They’re in the other room,” Darius said. “The infirmary here isn’t accustomed to handling so many patients at once, so we had to make
do
with what they had. The others are in need of your help, too. I’ll bring you to them now.”

I followed him into the other room, where Blake, Chris, and Danielle were laid out on a trauma bed, a dental chair, and a mattress that someone must have brought in. All three of them were asleep and in similar conditions to Kate, their skin gray and red with frostbite, and IVs attached to their arms. If it hadn’t been for the monitors keeping track of their vitals, I would have thought they were dead.

I healed all three of them—starting with Blake. Once everyone was healed, I collapsed into a nearby chair, needing to sit down and rest after expending so much energy.

“Where’s the sword?” Danielle asked, and I sat straighter, searching the room for the Golden Sword. I didn’t see it anywhere. But it
had
to be here. We hadn’t come all this way and put ourselves through so much only to have lost it during our escape to… wherever we were. I assumed the South Pole station, but no one had confirmed it for sure.

“It’s in my room,” the man who I didn’t know said. “I put it there for safekeeping while the doctor attended to you all. When I first saw it, I thought it might be…” He looked at each of us, his eyes wide with wonder. “It is, isn’t it? The Golden Sword of Athena?”

“Yes,” I said. “It is. But can we start from the beginning? The last thing I remember was riding here on the water horses. They dropped us off, and then I saw someone walking toward us, and then I was waking up here. What happened? Who are you? And how did Darius and Hypatia know to come here?”

“This is Jeffrey,” Hypatia said. “The witch I told you about who lives at the South Pole station.”

“So
you
were the person I saw?” I asked.

“Yep.” He nodded. “I knew to watch out for the five of you, but I couldn’t see you until you fell to the ground in front of the station. I can only guess that a similar shield as the one that hides the ice palace surrounded the water horses you spoke of. When you were riding the horses, the shield must have hid you, too. That would explain why you appeared out of thin air.”

“You can see the ice palace?” Kate asked him.

“Not when I’m outside of the shield,” he said. “I knew it was around the area, and I first saw it while out skiing with my friends a few months ago. None of them could see it even once we’d passed the shield, since none of them have magical blood. But they knew to stay away from it. Instinct, I suppose. Anyway, the moment I saw you, I grabbed the sword for safekeeping—I didn’t want anyone asking too many questions—and called the medical team to have you brought in. Then I called Hypatia, and she and Darius came immediately. They talked with everyone who saw you. They used their abilities to convince them not to question how you ended up here, and not to discuss your being here with anyone else at the station.”

“We’re still here at the station?” Blake asked. “You didn’t portal us somewhere else while we were out?”

“We didn’t want to transport you anywhere until you were in stable condition, so Hypatia and I portaled here the moment Jeffrey called us,” Darius said.

“So yes, you’re still here,” Jeffrey said. “I’m sorry that your arrival was so unpleasant, but… welcome to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.”

“Scott,” I repeated, the name sounding familiar. “Like the explorer who came to the South Pole over a hundred years ago?”

“You know your history.” Jeffrey smiled, although I couldn’t smile back, since the reason I knew was because I’d seen the very man we spoke of—as a frozen slave in Chione’s ice palace. “He and his men made it to the pole, but they unfortunately didn’t survive the journey back,” he said. “Roald Amundsen and his group were actually the
first
to get to the South Pole, and they did survive. The groups were in a race to get to the pole first, which is why the station is named for both of them. I wish I could give you more of a tour—not many civilians get to see the station—but we don’t want more people asking questions. It’s been difficult enough keeping them away since you’ve gotten here.”

“How long
have
we been here?” Chris asked.

“About twenty hours,” Jeffrey said. “The doctor put sedatives in your IVs to help with the pain.”

“Well, that explains why I feel like I haven’t eaten in a day,” Chris said, wrapping his arms around his stomach.

“Right, of course.” Jeffrey opened a cabinet and pulled out five chocolate bars, handing them out to us. “It’s an Antarctic favorite,” he explained. “It’s so cold here that we burn calories quickly, and chocolate is so calorie-rich that it’s an efficient way to replenish. Eat those, and I’ll go to the cafeteria to pick up some more food.” With that, he looked over at Hypatia and Darius. “Will one of you come with me so you can convince anyone watching not to question why I’m taking five meals to the infirmary?”

“Actually, if it won’t trouble you, I think it’s time we portaled back to my place,” Darius said. “I have plenty of food there, and since Nicole has used her ability to heal everyone, they won’t be needing any more medical treatment. We’ll need the sword before we leave, though.”

“Of course,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve heard a lot about what the group of you are doing, and I hope—for all our sakes—that you’re successful. I’m just glad to have been able to help.”

He left the infirmary and returned quickly with the sword. Once it was back in Danielle’s hands, Hypatia created a portal, and we all returned to Kinsley.

It was good to be back, but it was also impossible to forget that this mission was far from over. Because what we’d just done was the
easy
part.

We still had to use the sword for what we needed it for in the first place—fighting and beheading Medusa.