Page 18

Envy

“What the Fates!” Anger hollers.

“No freakin’ way!” Andrew screeches.

“Fuck!” Malice drones.

The rest is a jumble of masculine shouts as the river swallows their vessel. The females are the sober ones as they grab the ends of the star-shaped vessel and tug, directing it as best they can.

That should be Envy’s job, but he’s too busy staring. White flames shoot from the pole, their light thrashing against the sky. The universe is all sound, sound, sound. Curses and bellows from the archers, roaring whooshes from the river. Great walls of water smack the boat’s tapered points, causing it to lurch in one direction, only for the transport to collide with another wave lashing in the opposite direction. Fluid lunges over the side, dousing everyone and flooding the floor.

The world spins in a vortex, a blur of jostling bodies, bumpy seascapes, and jagged cliffs. Envy’s vision goes wild. Everything veers from side to side in an erratic mutiny of motion.

Mist sprays his neck. Foam slides down his arms. Fluid clogs his throat.

The rapids seize the vessel and yank on it, one way and then another, then another, then another. The boat tilts at an incline, lifts out of the water, rides the tail of a wave, and plunges into the brewing flux.

While the females try to direct the vessel, the males fight to keep everyone’s weapons from disappearing over the sides. Arrows, longbows, and quivers scatter, each one slippery and impossible to grab. Anger dives to catch lengths of iron, then neon. Andrew bundles archery against his chest, wrestling to hold on. Malice throws quivers over his shoulder.

Belatedly whipping open the lower compartment, Envy hollers for them to throw Merry’s skateboard and the weapons inside. They grapple, fumble, and flounder. At last, they manage to secure the assortment into the cubicle—all except for Love, Sorrow, and Envy, because the rapids are too damned manic.

Love, Merry, Wonder, and Sorrow continue standing vigil at various points of the boat. Together, they heave, steering the vessel without knowing their orientation.

“That way!” Love shouts.

“Ease up, dearest!” Wonder cautions.

“We defy you, mighty river!” Merry cries.

Sorrow bellows something, but the crash of breakers against the bluffs washes out the words. Everybody stumbles in their struggle to stay upright. Their kind can last a while submerged without oxygen, however not forever. And that’s assuming the towering cliffs don’t flatten them.

A blot slogs across the divide. Sloshing through the water, the figure draws near and then cuffs Envy upside the head, knocking him out of his stupor.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sorrow spews into his face. “Get your celestial ass in gear!”

With a backhanded swat of his arm, Envy knocks the harpy goddess aside. “Then kindly move out of my way.”

As their transport crashes down the river, he snatches the pole and gives it a deft twist. At which point, they dodge a wave, and he continues to steer through the turbulence. Up ahead, the range swells larger than before, inches closer than before.

A scanty weight barrels into his side, throwing him off balance. His back rams into the floor as a lanky body lands on top of him. Between the seaweed of her hair, Sorrow’s half-moon eyes pop out at him, those pupils inflamed and exasperated. In unison, their heads swing toward the pole, where an ice arrow has lodged itself.

The waves must have caused the boat to launch a few renegade projectiles that escaped her quiver. If Sorrow hadn’t seen it happen, his head might be a pincushion by now. She doesn’t look interested in his gratitude, doesn’t act like it either when she fists his shirt collar and drags him up with her. Tottering upright, she darts back to her position without a backward glance.

Envy lets the mortification roll off his shoulders and resumes his grasp on the pole. Dawn leaks into the firmament, its tint slathering the canopy. This quest becomes a push and pull, a tug-of-war without an ending.

Envy’s muscles contract as he manipulates the pole. “Bear north!”

The females grasp and exert pressure on the transport’s points—a less common way to steer—whirling them out of harm’s way, skating another onslaught. The river splits, one route spilling toward the summit and a shoreline, the other extending toward a realm of homes on stilts.

The homes of their people. A certain path to imprisonment.

Not if he has anything to say about it. He opens his mouth to howl another command, but a vicious slap of water slams into the boat. The liquid tail flicks at the air, whipping at the belly of a scanty passenger and tossing the body overboard like a ragdoll.

Like it weighs nothing. Like it means nothing.

Love screeches, Wonder gives a cry, and Merry bawls the figure’s name.

Andrew leaps, Malice jets forward, and Anger thrusts out his arms. All three males snatch the goddesses before they cast themselves over, hauling the females backward and preventing them from being saviors. The goddesses keep shouting a name, the word buffeted by the rapids, but Envy doesn’t need silence in order to hear.