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Unfortunately, my attempt to rescue Peaches from his rope and chain prison didn’t work as I’d hoped. He struggled and swung so much, my arrow sailed past his chain and felled a random blemmyae in the stands.
Meg shrieked at me to stop, afraid that I might accidentally hit Peaches. I intended to defend myself by saying that I wouldn’t have missed if he hadn’t been wriggling about so much, but I was interrupted by Commodus leaping down from his box onto the racetrack.
Meg raised her sword and prepared to charge, but the mercenaries in the stands leveled their rifles. A swarm of red targeting dots floated over my chest and Meg’s.
“Once I’m in the car,” Commodus announced, “my mercenaries will not interfere. Meg, you may try to stop me any way you like. My plan is to complete one circuit, light your friend on fire, then circle back around and hit you and Apollo with my car. I believe they call that a victory lap!”
The crowd roared with approval. But instead of jumping into his purple race car, Commodus tapped his chin thoughtfully. “On second thought, this is good enough for the real show. Change of plans!”
He pointed at Meg, then at me. “Both of you dismount, then drop your weapons.”
The mercenaries’ rifles were still trained on us. Slowly, I got down off of Livia and removed my bow and quiver, combat ukulele, bandolier, and the Throne of Memory.
Meg looked like she was still considering charging Commodus, never mind the snipers. To my relief, she decided it wasn’t worth the risk and dismounted from the ostrich, reluctantly discarding her weapons.
Commodus snapped his fingers. Immediately, a squadron of his soldiers encircled Meg and I. “Secure the girl. Make sure she’s disarmed completely.” His eyes narrowed like he knew how much trouble Meg could get into with anything that could remotely be considered a weapon. “As for Apollo…” His cold smile only emphasized the burning hatred in his eyes. “Draw him a bath.”
Icy tendrils of fear rushed through my veins.
I was frog-marched to what I can only assume was Commodus’s private bathroom, given the gaudy opulence. My wrists were bound behind me.
“Leave us,” Commodus said to his guards. “It’s only polite to give Apollo some privacy for his bath.”
The blemmyae guards agreed and left with polite wishes for me to enjoy my bath. Somehow, I doubted that politeness would extend to Commodus also leaving with his men so I could bathe in peace.
As soon as the room was empty, Commodus grabbed the front of my shirt, tugging me towards him and bruising my throat with the force of his grip. “Oh, Apollo,” he whispered almost tenderly. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment.” His face hardened. “Get in the water.”
My knees were shaking, but my voice was remarkably calm when I said, “No.”
I knew it was coming. It was, in fact, painfully obvious what Commodus planned to do with me when he had me dragged to his bathroom. And yet, there was still a part of me that was surprised when he shoved me into the shining gold-plated bathtub, fully clothed.
I tumbled backwards with a splash. The water was ice-cold, causing my body to seize up. I tried to struggle up and out of the tub, but it was too late. Commodus was there, forcing my head under the water.
I thrashed and tried to break away, but he was too strong. A burst of godly strength would really come in handy right about now, but of course I had no such luck. I tried to focus on holding my breath, but my lungs were already starting to burn.
Then Commodus punched me in the stomach.
I gasped on instinct, which is a very bad thing to do when you are underwater. Whatever air I’d had left was gone, replaced by a large mouthful of water. I resumed my frantic struggle, but was unable to even budge the muscular arm that held me down. My watery vision started to darken at the edges, my movements becoming sluggish.
Was I about to die? Drowned by my former lover in the same way I’d murdered him, all those years ago?
I was yanked out of the water and collapsed to the marble tile, coughing up water and gasping for air.
“You didn’t think I’d let you go that easy, did you?” sneered Commodus.
I couldn’t have answered even if I’d wanted to, I was too busy hacking up my lungs.
“I need you in one piece for the naming ceremony tomorrow,” he continued conversationally, “so I’m not going to kill you just yet. But there’s nothing keeping me from making you suffer.” He hauled me up like I weighed nothing and dumped me back into the water.
It went on like this for what seemed like an eternity — him holding me under the water until I ran out of air, then pulling me out just long enough to ensure that I didn’t pass out from lack of oxygen. At some point, we were interrupted by a loud knock on the door.
“What?” growled Commodus, pinning me so that my body hung awkwardly over the lip of the tub.
Sideways and blurred by water, I saw a yellow blob I could only assume was Lityerses. “My— my lord,” he stammered.
From what I could gather of the conversation through waterlogged ears, the Hunters of Artemis had taken down a number of Commodus’s men and had yet to lose any of their own. Predictably, Commodus was not pleased by this.
“Alaric!” he snapped. “Put Lityerses in one of the holding cells so I can kill him when I’m done with this. It’s time for a new prefect.”
Commodus ignored Lityerses’ fading protests, forcing me back under the water with renewed fury.
“Should I give you my blessing, Apollo?” he hissed. “Bless you as you blessed me, then hold you down until the bubbles stop?”
My head lolled — I was almost too drained now to even cough, but I managed to choke out, “please.” Even I wasn’t totally sure what I was begging him for. For him to bless me? Kill me and put me out of my misery? Stop?
Yes, I thought woozily. Stopping would be good.
Commodus did not stop. He howled with rage and threw me with even more force than before. He threw me too far — the side of my head cracked against the side of the tub and I saw stars.
He might actually kill me, I thought, in the detached, dreamy way one only can when they are suffocating and probably also have a concussion. Then he’ll kill me for dying and messing up his ceremony.
It took a stupidly long time for me to realize that Commodus was no longer holding my head under the water. I knew that I should probably try to pull myself up out of the water, but I found that I no longer had the strength. The fact that my hands were tied behind my back didn’t help.
Luckily, I was saved from drowning when a new pair of arms reached in to pull me out — smaller than Commodus’s, but just as strong. The newcomer guided me to my knees, holding me up around the middle with one hand and firmly pounding me on the back with the other as I gagged and spit up water.
When my coughing had mostly subsided, the arms gently guided me to the floor, then cut the ropes binding my hands. I closed my eyes, shivering and dripping water onto the marble below me. Meg would no doubt be able to describe exactly how much I looked like a drowned cat.
My eyes flew open. “Meg,” I croaked, struggling to sit up.
“Wh-whoa! Hey!” a female voice said with alarm. “Take it easy, Apollo.” Kneeling on the ground in front of me was one of my father Zeus’s demigod children, who also happened to be my sister Artemis’s lieutenant — the one and only Thalia Grace.
“Meg is the girl with the cat’s eye glasses, right? She’s fine, some of the Hunters found her rescuing a karpos.” Thalia’s freckled nose wrinkled a little bit, as if she couldn’t understand why anyone would voluntarily associate with a grain spirit.
I sagged with relief. At least Meg (and from the sound of it, Peaches) was safe. “Commodus?” I asked hesitantly.
Thalia grimaced. “I found him in here…” she trailed off, perhaps unwilling to say, “I saw him torturing you,” to my face. “Anyway, he wasn’t prepared for a fight, so he ran off. I shot him a few times, but…”
I finished her thought in my head. There was no way a few arrows would take down the emperor, even if those arrows had been shot by one of the Hunters of Artemis.
Our conversation was interrupted by the rumbling of a nearby explosion. Thalia’s expression tightened. “I don’t want to rush you, Apollo, but we need to get going. Can you stand?”
I could, though not very steadily. Thalia gripped my elbow to keep me from falling over.
“We need to get the Throne of Memory,” I said.
She nodded, as if she’d expected that.
“And Lityerses,” I added, feeling a strange pity for the young cornhusker.
Thalia raised her eyebrows slightly, but nodded again.
“And most importantly,” I said, thinking of poor Livia, “we need to rescue an elephant.”
She accepted that even more readily than Lityerses — how typical of a Hunter.
“Is that everything?” she asked.
I nodded.
She squeezed my elbow. “Let’s go.”