The Sixth Life of Medusa

58. He Prefers The Cursed Ones

"You're going to smash a hole through the ground at this point."

Akrivi stopped bouncing his knees and released a long, haggard breath. His heart wouldn't stop racing. How was Lonian able to maintain such outward calm? They were at Upper Tartarus, where a branch of the Areopagus court was located. A place that would spell their deaths or vindication; there were even rumours that Zeus might appear.

"You should calm down," Lonian said as if reading Akrivi's anxious thoughts. He was leaning against the stone wall, eyes fixed on the ceiling and expression serene. "Recall the Frozen Toad Breathing? Try it."

"To river styx with that." Akrivi buried his fingers in his hair, gripping it as he glared at the ground. "We may die. Blood! I'm too young to die." He resumed bouncing his knee, unable to help himself.

"If we don't calm down, what else can we do?" Lonian's massive shoulders rose and fell as he shrugged, that appearance of ease still in place. But he couldn't fool Akrivi's eyes; he was also scared.

"We'll die when we're meant to die anyway," he said, voice quiet and solemn.

"Again with that ridiculous line." Akrivi huffed, suddenly annoyed. "It's cowardice, you know? So I'm to just... just offer my life because some gods deem it so?"

Lonian snorted but said nothing.

"I'll never stop fighting to live. Hold on to life, my friend," he said earnestly, hoping his words sank into Lonian's monk-muddled brain. "Do anything to live. Anything."

And Akrivi meant every word. Not because there was someone he promised several years ago to survive against all odds, but because that dogged will to survive was what got him this far. That I exist, and so far from the path he wishes I take, is sand in his eyes.

Lonian released a strained chuckle. "Even so, that mantra brings some peace, no? Fair trade."

Despite Lonian's calm exterior, his fear was evident in small details. The barely perceptible mist of sweat on his brow, how his fingers faintly trembled as he fiddled with his prayer beads. Praying to whom exactly? Akrivi sniggered. The murderous gods who put them in this situation in the first place?

"Ha!" The back of his head hit the wall as he stared at the ceiling, too. It was a deep grey shade, so were the walls and the iron door ahead. They had been waiting in this glorified cell for how long now? Two, three horai?

Demeter had given no assurances or comfort. Only sending Nestor to stuff them in a carriage heading for the nearest portal bridge that morning. At least the trial was held in Tartarus and not Olympus. If it were Olympus, his escape plan may be impossible to hatch, seeing that he was clueless about how aether worked there.

"You think she was in pain?" Akrivi asked, still focused on the ceiling. There was a wispy rope of cobweb hanging in the corner.

"She obviously was."

"Couldn't you just lie?"

"Cheap comfort rots wounds."

Akrivi rolled his eyes hard enough to strain their tendons. "If soft hands were alive, our odds would have been a lot better."

Lonian hummed in response, eyes now shut and fingers still clutching his prayer beads.

Pray for both of us, because if my plan fails...

The temptation to spill everything danced at the edge of his tongue. There was a higher possibility that Lonian might understand and choose not to give up his life so easily. Or not; better to take him by surprise.

Unlike Lonian, who aspired to become the head monk, Akrivi planned to marry three or four beauties, have at least twenty kids and die old and satisfied at a hundred. No thanks, immortality. All his research, his savings, his plans to accumulate wealth and reputation ten times greater than that of House Alkis, to build an unshakable legacy for his children. If he died at seventeen, where would all that go? His mother would weep to see him join her so early.