Stygian

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  “Wow. I’m sorry.” Katra appeared to actually mean it.

  Urian shrugged before he spoke an absolute truth. “Don’t be. I’d rather not see daylight than be stuck serving Artemis.”

  Katra gaped at his insult. “Ouch! I can tell we’re going to get along not at all.”

  “Fine with me.” He turned toward Apollymi and offered her a quick bow. “If you’ll excuse me, akra?”

  Katra watched Urian leave and shook her head.

  “Is something wrong?” Apollymi asked.

  “Why didn’t you tell him we’re cousins?”

  “For the same reason no one needs to know you’re my granddaughter, Katra. Of secret things, we are silence. As much as I hate your mother, we have to protect Artemis’s reputation in order to protect my son. Therefore, Strykerius is never to know that you’re Apollo’s niece.”

  And still there was another matter that disturbed her as Katra stared after the peculiar Apollite who’d left them.

  “For goodness’ sake, child. What else is on your mind?”

  Katra tilted her head. “Why does Urian look so much like my father?”

  Apollymi scoffed. “They say Urian is the image of Strykerius.”

  She scoffed at that explanation. “I’ve seen Stryker. Aside from his blond hair and carriage, there’s only passing similarity between them. But I’ve seen my mother watching after my father enough to know his every feature. While I’ve never seen Acheron in the flesh, I know the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose and eyes. The fine arch of his brows. And he and Urian could be twins. The only difference is that Urian’s skin is a bit darker in tone.”

  “Because his mother’s Egyptian.”

  The news shocked Katra, who’d had no idea of Urian’s real mother. “Pardon?”

  Apollymi froze as she realized the unintentional slip she’d made. But it was easy to do. She spent so much time alone that she wasn’t used to having to guard her tongue or censor herself. And here she was telling Katra to be careful …

  “Nothing. Just remember what I said. Speak of nothing said here. Keep to yourself.”

  “Believe me, I’m good at that. I have to be to protect my matisera from the other gods.”

  Apollymi pulled Katra against her and hugged her. “You should let me kill Artemis. For all our sakes. Cut her throat while she sleeps.”

  “Yaya! I can’t do that! I do love her.”

  Those words wrested a deep-seated groan from her. “Why?” she groused. “She’s completely unlovable.”

  “Not to me. Besides, there are many who think the same of you and it’s completely untrue. And speaking of which, I need to get back before she misses me. She’ll die if she ever learns I come here to see you.”

  “Good! Should I send her a basket to thank her for your visits?”

  “Yaya!” Katra huffed, then kissed her cheek. “Take care and I’ll see you soon.”

  Apollymi let her go reluctantly. She still couldn’t believe that Katra was real. That her precious son had fathered a child without anyone knowing. Had she not seen the girl with her own eyes and held her in her own arms, she wouldn’t have believed it. But there was no denying this truth.

  Katra was Apostolos’s daughter.

  If only Katra would renounce her loyalty to her mother. So long as she remained tied to two pantheons, Katra was a danger to both. She could be used against either side.

  Just like Urian’s real mother. Had Bethany not inadvertently given her protection over to the Greeks because she loved Prince Styxx, the Atlanteans would have destroyed the Greek army that first day in battle and won their war against Greece before it started.

  Then Princess Ryssa wouldn’t have been given to Apollo to win his favor, and she and her son wouldn’t have died, thus causing the curse for Stryker and his people.

  More to the point, had Bethany not had divided loyalties Apostolos wouldn’t have been slaughtered. And Atlantis wouldn’t have been destroyed.

  Divided loyalties could never be trusted. She only trusted Strykerius now because his father had forever severed their bond when he’d cursed Strykerius’s children to die. There was no repairing that with mere words. Strykerius would never forgive Apollo for his damnation of their innocence.

  She would make sure of it …

  April 17, 9508 BC

  “Solren? Please don’t get mad … I was playing with your sfora when I saw this.”

  Urian looked up from where he sat in their front room, polishing his sword, to see Geras holding his crystal sfora in his hand. He smiled gently at the boy. “I’m not angry, m’gios.” He tried to have patience with his son. “Though you should ask before you get into my things.”

  Placing the oiled cloth aside, Urian held his hand out for the boy to show him why he was so upset and fretting.

  Geras moved closer to hand him the small ball.

  Urian took a moment to reassure his nervous son that he wasn’t angry. Geras was literally shaking, he was so frightened. He set his kopis aside and pulled Geras into the circle of his arms so that he could stand between his knees and see into the sfora clearly. “So what did you glimpse that has you so upset?”

  Biting his lip, Geras held it up in front of the fire to show him.

  The flames flickered in the pale crystal. At first there was nothing except the mist that swirled like Apollymi’s eyes.

  Until Urian saw his mother’s home.

  And the body of her lover lying in the yard with four arrows protruding from his back.

  Cold fear went through him and shook him to the core of his soul. He couldn’t breathe or think.

  He shot to his feet.

  “Solren?”

  Too scared to look closer at the house on his own, Urian almost stumbled over his son. “I-I’m not angry, Geras. I’m grateful.” Kissing him on the head, he reached for his sword. Before he summoned his brothers to this waking nightmare, he wanted to verify the vision with the goddess.

  His heart pounded with denials and any other explanation his mind could conjure.

  Maybe it was wrong. Maybe, maybe it was something else.

  Please, gods, let it be anything else!

  He teleported to her garden.

  Too panicked to consider what he was doing, he flashed straight to her pool.

  Apollymi rose up instantly and slammed him down with a god-bolt. Unexpected pain exploded through his body as if he’d been hit by a mountain. It was so extreme and violent that for a full minute, he couldn’t breathe. He honestly thought that every bone in his body had been shattered. His ears rang with an unparalleled shrillness.

  Why didn’t I put on Xyn’s armor? At least that would have given him some form of protection.

  As it was, he had nothing. And he wasn’t sure if he’d ever walk again.

  In fact, it took him a second to realize that Apollymi had pulled him into her arms and was holding him, calling his name as she stroked his cheek. That was how much pain he was in. Just how senseless she’d knocked him.

  He struggled to move or have any semblance of a rational thought.

  “What were you thinking by barging in here unannounced?”

  He hadn’t been.

  “My mata,” he breathed.

  She scowled. “What?”

  “W-w-wanted to check on my matera.”

  “You foolish boy!” She looked over to her Charonte. “Xedrix, fetch water from the falls. Fast!”

  The demon didn’t have to go far. A beautiful priestess was already there in the gardens. One Urian had never seen before. Dressed in a black gown, she had long, curly auburn hair that held tiny braids and ribbons, intricately designed and laced through the dark tendrils. Even though she kept her gaze on the ground and he felt as though he were about to die, he couldn’t miss the vibrant beauty of her green eyes as she came closer to hand Apollymi a jewel-encrusted cup.

  Apollymi tipped it to his lips. “Drink!”

  Urian flinched at the black water as his stomach heaved in

revulsion of it.

  “Drink!” she insisted.

  Bracing himself, he obeyed, praying it didn’t taste as bad as it looked.

  The moment the black water invaded his mouth and burned his lips and tongue, he choked but somehow managed to swallow it down. Scented with roses, it tasted more like peppermint and some kind of sweetness he’d never known. And it swept through his body like fire, taking with it all his pain.

  The priestess laid a gentle hand to his hair, then his shoulder, before she vanished.

  Urian glanced from her to Apollymi. “Who is she?”

  “Never you mind. Are you all right?”

  Still shaken by his near-death experience, Urian frowned. “Pretty sure you knocked out the last three or four bits of my brain cells, akra.”

  She scoffed at him. “What have I told you about intruding so rudely into my sanctum?”

  “A point I shan’t ever forget after tonight.”

  “See that you don’t.” Glaring pointedly at him, she helped him to his feet. “Now, let us look and see what’s going on with your mother.”

  Urian was still having a bit of trouble seeing straight after her violent assault as they went to the pool. It’d been a long time since he’d last ventured here for this. His days of wanting to see the sun had long passed. He’d learned not to yearn for things he couldn’t have. To not torture himself with such pointless endeavors.

  But as the waters cleared and he saw the bright light where his mother lived, his breath caught. It hadn’t been an illusion. She was under vicious attack. In the mirrored waters, he could see the humans who were ransacking her farm and delighting in the harm they caused.

  Urian started to teleport but couldn’t. Apollymi had locked him in.

  “Are you insane? It’s daylight!”

  “I don’t care!” Frustrated tears filled his eyes as he watched his mother being attacked. “She’s my mata!” Hysteria welled inside his heart as he heard his tiny mother screaming for help and mercy. Neither of which came for her.

  Rather the humans continued on and on with their brutality.

  Apollymi rippled the waters, scattering the images so that he could no longer see or hear them.

  Not that it mattered. They were seared into his mind and soul. Forever scarred there.

  “Ni!” Urian shouted, rushing back. “You can’t leave her. She’s alone and unprotected! We have to do something!”

  She caught him against her chest while he struggled. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Bullshit! You’re a goddess. Send your Charonte. A storm! Something! Help her! Please! Please!” Urian sobbed and struggled, desperate to help his mother.

  How could they do nothing?

  She refused to let him go. Instead, she held him tighter to her breasts. “I know, pido … I know. I couldn’t help my son when he needed me. Either of my boys, and it killed me to know how they suffered when there was nothing I could do to stop it. To know that with all the powers I have, I couldn’t go into Hades and pull my boy out and restore his life. It tore out my heart and left me this shattered shell you see before you that barely functions here in this hell. I know how bad it hurts. But there is nothing to be done. If you go, you’ll die. Plain and simple. You know this. Your mother wouldn’t have you harmed for anything. She would rather die a thousand times more than see you hurt. Believe me, I know the heart of a mother. And if you were gone, then who would protect your children and wife from such a fate?”

  None of that mattered to him right now. Not when he knew that his mother was being assaulted and he, a full-grown warrior, couldn’t help her. It wasn’t right or fair.

  Damn them all!

  What good was training if he couldn’t defend what he loved? Why were they even bothering? What was it for?

  Why!

  For the first time in his life, he felt completely helpless and he hated it.

  He hated himself. Damn the gods! Damn his father!

  Damn his own soul!

  “Shh,” Apollymi whispered as he wept against her shoulder. She held him with a tenderness he would have never attributed to such a violent goddess.

  But she wasn’t his mother. She could never be the gentle, sweet woman who’d nursed him when he was a child. The one who’d sung him lullabies and had made his entire world right with nothing more than a warm hug and tender smile. No one would ever be able to make him feel that loved again.

  And she was being torn apart by brutal hands in a harsh world he hated.

  “I failed her.”

  “Nay, pido. You live. That’s what she wanted for you. All she ever wanted. Your life and your happiness. So long as you have those two things, you have never failed her. Trust me, I know.”

  Yet he wanted more than that.

  He wanted his mother alive and well. Happy.

  Most of all, Urian wanted blood from those who’d desecrated the most sacred lady to ever walk this earth.

  And come the sunset, he would have it in spades. May the gods have mercy on them, because Urian would not.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  It wasn’t often that as an ancient, primal goddess, Apollymi feared anything. But as she watched the sons of Strykerius gather together, dressed in their armor to lead their first strike against humanity, she feared this.

  For she couldn’t get the words of her brother out of her head from aeons ago.

  Beware the hellhounds of war. Once unleashed they are as quick to eat their master as they are to feast on the throats of their enemies. At the time, she’d thought Jaden was a coward for his sentiment. A pathetic fool.

  Now …

  A deep sense of foreboding went through her. Urian was a chimera unlike any ever conceived. Worse, he’d been lied to from the moment of his birth.

  Cursed by the very gods whose blood he shared.

  His true father, Styxx, had been a volatile creature, both as a Greek prince and as the Atlantean hero he’d been a lifetime before—Aricles of Didymos. A man who’d been betrayed and slaughtered just as her own husband had been. The gods should have never allowed the great war hero Aricles to be reincarnated as Styxx.

  That one warrior had been dangerous enough, but Aricles had held a childlike innocence that Styxx had lacked. And after being betrayed and murdered by Apollo, Aricles had been reborn into a ruthless and cunning prince unlike any other. In the incarnation of Styxx, he had been invincible as he sought to protect what he loved. As if Styxx somehow knew all that Aricles had been through and understood innately the cruelty of this world and the bitter necessity of striking the first killing blow to quell all enemies before they rose up against him.

  He’d passed that passion and drive to his only son so that Urian also held an unbelievable skill and birthright. When coupled with the powers of the goddess Bathymaas, who’d been reborn as Bethany …

  What have I done?

  She’d infused the blood of two of the deadliest creatures ever born with Apollo’s DNA, and given Urian who knew what additional powers when she’d saved his life as an infant and placed him into the belly of Hellen and allowed his powers to merge with Stryker’s.

  Well, you wanted to destroy the world, Braith. With this child, you may very well have created the perfect vessel for it.

  The only problem was, she wasn’t sure she had control of Urian.

  As her brother Jaden had noted all those centuries ago with his dire prediction, Urian was just as likely to cut her throat once her hellhound learned of her part in his birth as he was to embrace her for the gift of his powers.

  That was what had her scared.

  She’d set things in motion that she couldn’t see or direct.

  And as she watched him and his brothers teleport to his mother’s cottage through the dark waters of her mirrored pool, her blood ran colder than ice.

  Surrounded by his brothers, he held himself together with a rigid composure that would have done Styxx and Bethany proud. Indeed, Urian was the very image of the Stygian commander as he found his adoptive mother’s body and tried to bring her back to life with the powers he’d inherited from his true goddess mother, Bethany.

  But Hellen had been dead for too long. There was no hope for her now. And that horror caused Urian to let out a visceral cry that rang through the fabric of time and space. It was the anguished cry of utter agony. A soul-deep misery that shook the walls around her and resonated deep in the halls of the gods.

  Apollymi had tried to warn him of what he’d find. Not all dead could be saved. For many reasons. Telamon had returned to life because he hadn’t been ready to leave his wife or children. Hellen was another matter. As a human, she’d been tired. Her reasons had nothing to do with Urian or his powers.

  And though it was possible to bring the dead back against their will, that was never a good idea.

  Her son, Apostolos, was a prime example of what happened when one interfered with the will of another.

  As was the Malachai.

  Never let your pain make your decisions, my love. For it is in our darkest hours that we make our darkest hells. Kissare had been right. Everyone was the architect of their doom. To this day, she hated him for that.

  Apollymi watched in her mirror as Urian realized it, too. In that one instant, the light inside his eyes went out. It was a sight she knew all too well—like one of Hephaestus’s automatons that could pass for a living creature at first glance.

  Until one realized their eyes were soulless and cold.

  The only hint of humanity was when Urian cradled his mother’s body briefly in his arms and kissed her cheek. He removed his bright red chalmys and wrapped it around his mother’s ravaged body.

  Then he’d lifted her in his arms and carried her outside to the pyre that he quickly built with his powers and placed coins upon her eyes.

  One by one, his brothers each placed a black mavyllo rose onto their mother’s body. Roses Apollymi had plucked from her own garden and sent with Urian as the ultimate sign of respect from the Destroyer. A final mark of honor that she paid to the woman who’d unknowingly carried Bethany’s son in her womb and birthed him for Apollymi’s vengeance.

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