CHAPTER 44: THE RELIC’S VOICE

The fog burned away with dawn, leaving the world unnervingly ordinary. Apollo’s head pounded with every heartbeat, a testament to the sleepless night that left his eyes bloodshot and his golden hair damp with sweat.

He adjusted his pack for the twentieth time, the relic’s weight shifting against his spine like a restless animal seeking comfort.

Ahead, the trail cut through scrubland toward the eastern ridge, their compromise after yesterday’s circular wandering.

No one had mentioned the impossible ocean that had appeared when they should have been miles inland. No one had the words for it.

Lyra led the way, shoulders set with determination. Cale followed two paces behind, face unreadable as stone.

The others strung out in a ragged line, each wrapped in private exhaustion. Even the dog kept its distance, trotting alongside rather than ranging ahead as usual.

The silence pressed against Apollo’s ears, broken only by the crunch of boots on gravel and Thorin’s occasional grunt as his injured leg protested the pace.

The gold in Apollo’s veins had gone quiet, dormant beneath his skin, as if sulking after yesterday’s rebellion.

’At least we’re moving in the right direction,’ Apollo thought, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that the relic was simply biding its time.

The first sound was so faint he dismissed it as imagination, a whisper from his pack, barely louder than the rustle of cloth against cloth. Apollo tensed, then forced himself to relax. Just the artifact settling, nothing more.

Ten paces later, it came again, louder, unmistakable. A mutter, words indistinct but clearly words.

"Did you hear that?" Nik asked, glancing back at Apollo.

Before he could answer, it spoke, a harsh, mocking voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Oh, golden boy’s finally quiet," it sneered, the sound emanating from Apollo’s pack but somehow filling the air around them. "Afraid to speak without a script? Afraid they’ll see you for what you are?"

The group froze. Thorin spun around, face contorted in shocked anger. Lyra’s hand went to her knife.

"What in all hells—" Renna began.

The voice cut her off. "A hammer without a head," it declared, addressing Thorin. "Loud, heavy, useless."

Thorin’s face flushed crimson. He stormed toward Apollo, hand outstretched. "Give me that damned thing!"

Apollo stepped back, one arm raised defensively, but the voice continued, turning its attention to Nik.

"Do you do anything but grin and stumble? Gods love a fool, pity you’re no god."

Nik’s laugh came out strangled. "Well... it’s not wrong?" he said, but the false bravado couldn’t hide the hurt that flashed across his face.

The relic wasn’t finished. It pivoted to Lyra, voice dripping with contempt. "Marching east like you invented the compass. A leader who can’t even lead her own shadow."

Lyra’s eyes narrowed to slits. "We should toss it in the next river we find," she said, her calm tone belied by the white-knuckled grip on her knife.

"Sharp spear, dull wit," the voice continued, addressing Renna. "Always poking, never piercing."

Renna cursed, a string of profanity that would have made a sailor blush. Her fingers tightened around her spear until Apollo thought the wood might crack.

"Man of the land, lost on his own soil," the voice mocked, turning finally to Cale. "That’s almost poetic. Almost."

Cale said nothing, his expression unchanged, but something flickered in his eyes, a recognition that disturbed Apollo more than any visible reaction would have.

Thorin lunged forward, stamping his boot directly onto Apollo’s pack where it lay on the ground. There was a dull thud, but no crunch of breaking metal. Thorin yelped, hopping back on one foot.

"Bruised my damn heel," he muttered, glaring at the pack as if it had bitten him.

"I told you," Lyra said, voice tight with controlled fury. "First river we find, it goes in. Whatever this thing is, it’s not worth the trouble."

Apollo remained silent, watching the relic’s effect on the group. There was something methodical about the insults, something probing. Each barb had found its mark with surgical precision, targeting the exact vulnerability that would provoke the strongest reaction.

’It’s mapping us,’ he realized, the thought sending a chill down his spine despite the morning warmth. ’Stripping us down to our bones to see what we’re made of.’

"It’s testing us," Cale said quietly, not meeting anyone’s eyes. The words seemed to hang in the air, an uncomfortable truth no one wanted to acknowledge.

Nik forced another laugh. "Well, if that’s a test, I think we all failed." He tried to smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Apollo knelt beside his pack, feeling the relic’s weight shift as he lifted it. The others stepped back, as if afraid it might lash out again.

He said nothing, made no defense against the mockery directed at him. Instead, he listened, not just to the words, but to the patterns beneath them, the deliberate architecture of provocation.

This wasn’t random malice. It was an assessment.

And that frightened him far more than any insult could.

As if sensing his understanding, the relic suddenly erupted in laughter, not a single voice now, but a chorus of overlapping cackles, each with its own distinct timbre. The sound echoed far wider than its small shape should allow, rolling across the scrubland like thunder.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped.

The silence that followed felt thicker than the fog had been, pressing against Apollo’s ears until he could hear his own pulse. No one moved. No one spoke.

Finally, Lyra turned away. "Keep moving," she ordered, voice clipped. "We still have ground to cover before nightfall."

They resumed their march, feet moving faster than before, each pretending not to hear the echo of laughter that still hung in the air. But Apollo couldn’t stop listening for it, couldn’t shake the certainty that whatever game the relic was playing had only just begun.

The gold in his veins stirred, warming beneath his skin, responding not to his will, but to something older, something that recognized the voice in the artifact and knew its purpose.

Whatever it was testing them for, Apollo feared they would learn the answer all too soon.

The relic’s silence felt worse than its mockery. Apollo pressed forward, boots grinding against the loose stone of the trail, hyperaware of the weight against his back. Every few steps, he found himself tensing, waiting for another outburst, another round of surgical insults designed to strip them bare.

But the artifact remained quiet, its presence a warm pressure between his shoulder blades that seemed almost... satisfied.

’Like it got what it wanted,’ he thought, then immediately wished he hadn’t. The gold in his veins pulsed once in response, as if agreeing.

Ahead, Lyra maintained her punishing pace, her spine rigid with barely contained fury. She hadn’t looked back since the relic’s performance, hadn’t acknowledged any of them except to bark directions when the trail forked.

Apollo could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her hand kept drifting toward her knife.

Nik trudged along behind her, his usual stream of commentary reduced to occasional muttered curses. The relic’s words had found their mark, Apollo could see it in the slump of the man’s shoulders, the way he kept glancing at the others as if expecting more judgment.

’Do you do anything but grin and stumble?’ The voice echoed in Apollo’s memory, and he winced. It wasn’t just cruel—it was precisely cruel, cutting straight to the heart of Nik’s carefully constructed facade.

Thorin limped along in the middle of their ragged column, favoring his bruised heel and shooting dark looks at Apollo’s pack. The dwarf’s face had settled into its usual scowl, but Apollo caught the way his fingers kept flexing, as if he wanted to try smashing the relic again.

’A hammer without a head.’ Apollo shook his head. The insults weren’t random, they were surgical, each one crafted to expose the exact wound that would hurt most.

Renna brought up the rear, her spear held at the ready as if expecting an attack from behind.

She’d been unusually quiet since the relic’s assessment, her usual aggressive confidence replaced by something harder to read. Apollo could feel her eyes on his back, studying him with an intensity that made his skin prickle.

The morning wore on, heat building as the sun climbed higher. Apollo’s shirt stuck to his back with sweat, the fabric chafing where the pack straps rubbed.

The gold beneath his skin seemed to respond to the warmth, stirring lazily through his veins like honey in hot water.

They crested a low rise, and the landscape opened before them, rolling hills covered in scrub grass and stunted trees, stretching toward a distant line of mountains. No sign of water anywhere, let alone an ocean. Apollo felt a flutter of relief, quickly followed by unease. The relic had been quiet for too long.

"Water break," Lyra called, her voice hoarse from the dry air.

They clustered in the shade of a weathered boulder, passing around a shared waterskin.