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Tyler looks at me. He is thinking the same thing I am. Ishake my head. “It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “I chose to show you what I showed you.”
Alyx’s ear twitches. “What did you do, Kalistratos?”
“Nothing that can be helped now.”
“You showed him your phoenix form.”
“A glimpse,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” Tyler says. “I shouldn’t have…”
I shake my head. “We keep moving, and we keep alert. We may be able to catch them off guard if they don’t realize we’ve caught their scent.”
The words have hardly escaped my mouth when a low rumble rises through my body from the rocks. The others feel it too. Tyler grabs my arm and Alyx’s fur bristles along his back. It’s like we’re standing on the belly of a snoring giant. Rivulets of pebbles begin to stream down the cliffside.
“Uhh, we shouldn’t be here,” Tyler says. “We definitely should not be here.”
The rumbling grows stronger. A rock the size of my head bounds down the cliff and cracks off one of the boulders in front of it. It shatters, peppering us with shards of stone as the large remaining piece spirals into the river with a splash.
“Time to go!” shouts Alyx. “Follow me!”
He flies along the boulders, seeking out the safest route as more rocks begin to tumble down from the cliff. I grab Tyler’s hand and we run. He’s fast, and there’s confidence in his footing. He doesn’t need my help to get up the rocks, but just before a falling stone bounces right into him, I grab the back of his cloak and yank him to a halt.
“You’ll lose your nose,” I shout.
“Holy fuck!” he cries.
I can feel it—the buzz of sorcery in the air. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the work of our pursuer and not the gods. A violent jolt nearly knocks us to our knees.
“Oh, no,” I groan as I see the boulders falling down the cliff like olives from a tree at harvest. “Alyx, fly!”
They’re huge, some of them the size of a cart. One cracks into two halves that dislodge an avalanche of smaller rocks that all come pouring down the hill towards us. There’s a bright flash. Alyx has transformed into a raven, and he flutters to safety into the sky.
I grab Tyler and wrap my arms around him as the shower of stones hurtles down on us.
9
TYLER
It’s a goddamn landslide.
Kalistratos grabs me as a million tons of rocks come hurtling toward us. I don’t have the space to feel flustered by the way his arms wrap around me. I turn and hunch over, protecting my belly. All I can think about is how much flatter we’re all about to be.
I’m slammed by what feels like the hit of a bass drum, just a wall of deep sound that reverberates inside my chest cavity and makes my teeth chatter. It’s followed by nothing. Just silence. The roar of the river, the clatter and crash of the falling rocks—all of it is gone.
Well, that’s it. I’m dead, then.
Except I’m not. Kalistratos still has his arms wrapped around me. I feel the warmth of his body, and then I realize I can hear the soft exhale of his breath against my ear. His hands squeeze my arms.
“We need to move,” he says.
Gripping my hand, he pulls me into this silent world. All around us, rocks are suspended in mid-tumble. One is perilously close to hurtling right into us, but it sits frozen in the air like it’s a part of some art installation. Kalistratos and I weave around the frozen debris, and bits of dust and sand pepper me as they’re pushed aside by my face. I have to keep my eyes lowered so that I don’t get the floating dust in them.
We clamber over rocks that hang several feet in the air. To my left, the river is frozen like a snapshot. The sun sparkles through the frozen mist, flashing rainbows as I pass. A fish is hanging in the air mid-jump, mouth open, about to snatch a fly just inches above the water’s surface. It’s beautiful as hell. If it wasn’t for the, you know, rain of death, I would’ve wanted to stand and stare at it all.
Kalistratos’s muscles strain with exertion as we climb and run. It’s like he’s carrying a massive invisible weight on his shoulders. Sweat pours from his brow, but he doesn’t stop until we’ve made it far beyond the rock fall, up to the safety of the cliff edge overlooking the valley. And the moment we reach it, he collapses onto the ground with a grunt. My ears pop from a sudden pressure shift, and the world starts turning again. The sudden onslaught of sound almost sends me sprawling as the tons of rock crashes down in the valley behind us. Kalistratos gets back up onto one knee, breathing hard. The landslide thunders on until the valley is filled with a haze of dust, and finally, the only noise is the dull roar of the river. Birds startto chirp again.
Alyx reappears from somewhere, back in his cat form. All three of us are silent and tense. We’re on alert mode, and we get low at the cliff’s edge and watch the valley. If there is someone after us, then it’s only a matter of waiting until they come out to check their handiwork.
