Page 283 of The Mortal Trials

Aphrodite had asked him if he was going to write another heartrending song and she looked pointedly at me.

At the time, I didn’t know what she meant.

Or that this – I press my eyes closed – this song is why the beloved August Aymes was dragged here.

“It’s working!” Cillian says, relieved.

The pole is long and heavy for the small boy to maneuver, but he’s steadily making his way back across the river.

Aymes paces the shore, then kisses his hand and tosses it to his baby brother, who smiles and pretends to catch it and put it in his pocket. All those kisses weren’t for a lover at all. I bet hearts are breaking all across the realms.

August starts singing an upbeat song I recognize from years ago, but I can still only hear the harrowing words he sang about me. They resonate through my mind, pulsing like they have a heart, moving through me like the ripples spreading over the river’s otherwise still surface.

Wait…

Until now, the river hasn’t been anything but strangely placid, even with so many boats.

“What was that?” I ask Cillian, pointing to the water.

A strange fin, scalloped and spindly, breaches. “August!” I scream as the creature bumps the hull of his brother’s boat, knocking him off balance.

Two things happen at once: the boy splashes in, and August dives over the mud bank and into the Lethe, swimming for his brother.

Cillian jumps in to help. I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and see Torsten’s mother cutting a path toward us. The Norseman follows, growling his curses and complaints, telling her they need to go if they want to win.

When she snaps at him, he stops his muttering.

He has her sandy hair, sharp eyes, and tongue.

“Go!” Torsten’s mother tells him, pointing to the river. “He’s just a boy. Swim out and help. We’ll make a bridge to you.”

Without another word of protest, Torsten shucks off his muddy armor and leaps in.

August reaches his brother and holds his head up so he doesn’t go under. He swims them both toward the shore, but the water is viscous, like dark honey.

Cillian is almost to them when he screams, “It’s circling back!”

The beast’s fin disappears downstream.

I jump into the water on Torsten’s left, gasping at the shock of cold.

Torsten’s mother throws the golden spear to me. “For the creature!” Then she takes August’s blade and stabs it into the thick mud before jumping into the shallow water, keeping one hand on the pommel and reaching the other out for me to grasp. “Form a bridge! Hurry!”

I take her hand. Torsten clasps my other one. He strains to grip Cillian’s.

Cillian grabs August. Then Torsten’s mother reels us in as we kick.

“Stand up,” she tells me.

But I’m stuck. I try to tug my legs, but I’m afraid the mud’s suction will unlock the pin in my prosthesis. When I curse, Torsten bellows a laugh.

“Callalie Ryan, are you stuck in the mud?”

I glare at him.

“Allow me to even our score, then!” Torsten chuckles as he trudges out of the water. He takes hold of me like a bride, waiting as my legs rise from the muck before carrying me to the shore, where he unceremoniously drops me in the ash.

A cloud of it plumes around me. I am coated. I look like I did when Cillian bombed me in the face with flour when we were kids.