The Mythos Trials

Chapter Twelve, Part One

All right, enough of this.

Phenex tore his arm from Cienna's grasp for what must have been the hundredth time since their brush with the Pyrian hornets' nest, fixing her with a burning glare as he did. "Goddamn it Cienna, enough already!"

Everyone stopped, staring at him in mingled surprise and expectation. They had seen the signs over the past two days, he knew they had; it wasn't as though he'd made his irritation with Cienna's constant smothering a secret. But since they'd gathered the pure ether the hour before, his temperament had drifted into much fouler territory.

He caught Rem's eye briefly, the other giving a casual shrug as if to say, "It was only a matter of time" before Phenex returned his focus to Cienna. The nymph stared back at him in wide-eyed shock, her lower lip trembling.

"I've had it up to here with you," he said, emphasizing here by holding his hand at eye-level. "This might come as a shock to you, but let me make this perfectly clear: I'm. Not. Interested. I've never been interested, and I never will be! So stop clinging to me like I'm your personal saviour, and start acting like a damned professional for once. Or has Apollo babied you so greatly that you can't even manage that much?"

The niggling feeling that he was going too far crept into the back of his mind, but it was too late. He had said what he'd meant to say, and there was no turning back. All that was left was to gauge Cienna's reaction.

He didn't have long to wait. Cienna gave him one last, tearful look, and in a flurry of skirts, took off down one of the many side paths snaking through the island's forestry. Even with this particular island being nowhere near as large as the one they'd found the pure ether on, it was still big enough that it would have been all too easy for one of them to get lost.

And he had just given Cienna the means to do exactly that.

"Just had to lose your cool, didn't you?"

"Rem," Aquis warned, "this isn't the time."

Phenex tore his gaze away from the thicket Cienna had disappeared into, guilt churning in the pit of his stomach when he noted Forneus's reproachful expression.

"When will it be 'the time', exactly?" Rem countered, gesturing toward the woods. "Dawn is over three hours away, and gods only know what's out there. Cienna's not a fighter. If something happens to her, what do you think Apollo will say when we get back to the Spectrum?" He looked at Phenex when he said this, pressing his lips into a grim line.

Phenex understood instantly. Not only had Cienna been among Apollo's favourites, she was also one of very few that had remained loyal to him. After two thirds of his staff had turned out to be Iris's spies, he could ill afford to lose another. It went much further than that, he knew, beyond the simple relationship shared between god and subordinate. There was a bond between them, one too multi-faceted and complex to go by a single name.

"Shit. All right," he growled, dragging a hand through his hair. "You guys set up camp. I'll go look for her."

He spared a single glance in Gwen's direction, noting her curiously guilt-stricken expression, then took off after Cienna. The sound of the others setting to work faded far behind him, with only the slap of his sneakers over wet ground and the scrape of leaves against his leather jacket to fill the void. Though the forest was dark, he could see everything clearly, once again grateful that in spite of taking on a human form, he'd managed to retain his natural eyesight.

Every scattered leaf across the ground, every pebble and nocturnal insect... All were naked before him, stark against the shadows cast by the trees. And yet, for all that, there was still no sign of Cienna.