“Three,” Pandora called from outside of the circle.
“Three.” Max didn’t look at Pandora, simply nodded as his gaze drifted over the satyrs. “I guarantee the silens are no longer docile.”
“Not anymore,” Pandora mumbled.
“After three years under the direction of the Prince of Darkness,” Max called out, “they’re now highly trained warriors who will strike”— he swung the blade in his hand to his right and sliced off the left arm of the satyr still standing in the middle of the circle before the beast even saw him move—“fast and accurately.”
Blood squirted, but the satyr didn’t have time to defend himself or even scream. Max’s blade whirred through the air, slicing off the other arm.
“And you dumbshits”—with one last twist of his weapon, Max decapitated the satyr, sending its head rolling across the hard ground—"won’t even have time to react.”
Talisa gasped and jerked back. Her butt hit the rocks. Zagreus quickly pulled her out of view behind the boulder and slapped a hand over her mouth.
Still too shocked by what she’d seen, she didn’t fight his hold.
That wasn’t something the Argonauts had taught Max to do. That wasn’t something the Max she knew, the one who was devoted to duty and honor, would ever do. She’d always known Max was a fierce warrior, but that… There’d been no provocation. No threat. No reason other than that he could.
“Fuck me,” Zagreus mumbled above her as he continued to look through a gap in the rocks.
She had no idea what he was seeing, wasn’t sure she wanted to look. Her pulse pounded in her ears all over again, drowning out all other sound as she tried to come up with a reason for what Max had just done.
Zagreus pushed her over onto her hands and knees and roughly whispered, “Crawl. Back into the trees. Quickly. And stay quiet.”
She moved as fast as she good, trying to make as little noise as possible. When the brush near the cliff transitioned to trees that hid their bodies, she pushed to her feet and ran, ducking under limbs and jumping over downed logs and rocks in her way. She didn’t slow until after she crossed the meadow and reached the arching firs, several miles away from the cliff where they’d been hidden.
Breathing heavily, she leaned forward and perched her hands on her knees as she sucked back air. Zagreus joined her seconds later, but he didn’t stop to catch his breath.
Gasping her by the arm, he dragged her toward the natural archway. “Come on. You can rest on the other side.”
He held up his hand as he drew close to the arch, muttered magickal words in that ancient language she didn’t understand, then stepped under the archway as it popped and sizzled.
Once they were on the other side and she could no longer see the meadow she’d just run through, she dropped to her hands and knees, drew in a large breath, then flopped over to sit.
“Holy gods,” she breathed. “How many do you think there were?”
“I don’t know.” Zagreus perched his hands on his hips, not even looking winded as he glanced around the forest. “Three thousand, at least. Probably more inside we couldn’t see.”
Three thousand satyrs…
Talisa thought of the handful they’d encountered at that club. And the fifty or so near the stone arch the night Zagreus had been injured.
She couldn’t best three thousand satyrs. She and Zagreus together couldn’t tackle three thousand satyrs. She wasn’t sure how many silens he’d trained in Ehrendia, but they would need all of them if they had any hope of freeing Max from those beasts.
Pushing to her feet, she swiped the dirt from her backside. “We’ll need to hit them at night, when they aren’t expecting us. We can set up some kind of diversion with your silens.”
Zagreus’s head swung her way. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about when we come back to rescue Max. With the element of surprise on our side we can—”
“We’re not coming back here.” He grasped her at the biceps and pulled her with him in the direction of the river they’d crossed earlier.
“What do you mean, we’re not coming back here?” She struggled against his hold. As they moved deeper into the old-growth forest, she finally managed to use her strength to jerk free. “That’s the whole reason we came out here today in the first place. To see if Max was there. Well, he’s there. Now we have to go get him.”
Zagreus motioned back the way they’d come. “Were you paying attention to what happened back there?”
“Of course I was. Look, I know three thousand satyrs are a lot, but Max took that one down with no trouble. You and I easily got through fifty. If we hit them when they aren’t expecting us—”
“Motherfucker. He torched that satyr.”
“What?”
“Son of a bitch.” Zagreus rubbed a hand over his forehead. “You didn’t see it because you were too shocked he decapitated that first one.”
He let his hand fall to his side and pinned her with a look. “The one he took the blade from? The one he pushed back to the circle’s edge? That stupid bastard charged him after he sliced and diced the first. Your precious Max didn’t even bother with his blade. He lifted his hand and shot an energy beam at the moron. Just like I did when I hit your cousin with my energy in that club. Except then I held back. I only gave him enough juice to knock him off his feet and zap him of strength. He torched that second satyr until its body went up in flames. The way I torched those daemons when they found us in that forest.”
Talisa stared at Zagreus, trying to make sense of what he’d said. “No, that isn’t possible. Max has the power of transference, yes, but he can only access the powers beings or gods use around him. You didn’t use that power when we were on that cliff. Did you?”
“Of course I didn’t use my powers. Did you want me to give us away?”
The incredulity in his eyes made her mouth snap shut. She glanced around, thinking back over every moment she’d ever spent with Max.
“I-I don’t understand,” she said. “He’s not a god. He can’t do that. You must have seen wrong.”
“I didn’t see anything wrong. You just don’t want to believe. How many gods has your cousin come in contact with? Before and during his time with the Argonauts?”
“I don’t know.” Talisa’s mind spun. “A few.”
“Like whom?”
She was having trouble thinking. “Atalanta. He spent ten years with her. I-I think he talked to a Fate a couple times. That’s not a god, but still a being. Um…” She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “The night Atalanta was killed, I know he saw it happen. He was a kid then, but… Zeus showed up after she was dead.”
“What about Hades?”
“Um…” She pressed a hand to her cheek. “Yeah. He said he was in the human world once and he came across Hades and Persephone having some kind of fight. It was violent. He ran before it was over. He’s also been around Nick more times than I can count. We both have. Nick lives in Argolea with his mate Cynna. He’s like an uncle to both of us.”