My Tattered Bonds

by Courtney Cole

  I froze, as did Ares.

  “Hecate,” I whispered, moving to touch her. She lurched to her feet and took off sprinting. She made it three steps before Ares had tackled her to the ground, holding her down as he tried to reason with her. Hecate seemed terrified, as if she had never seen us before in her life.

  I loomed over Ares’ shoulder.

  “I’m not sure that man-handling her is the best way to get her to trust you,” I remarked. “What do you think has happened to her?”

  “I know not,” he shook his head. “It is this place. It can turn the sanest person crazy.”

  As if on cue, Hecate began wailing about Empusa again in incoherent, desperate words.

  I dropped to my knees next to her.

  “Are you trying to find Empusa?” I asked quietly.

  She stopped crying and stared at me with liquid, hazy eyes.

  “Do you know her?”

  Her question was crystal clear as she gazed into my eyes.

  “It’s complicated,” I replied carefully.

  “Ares,” I turned back to him. “What can we do?”

  I was referring, of course, to Hecate’s mind. She had lost it. And Ares knew exactly what I was talking about.

  “I don’t know,” he replied limply, loosening his hold on the goddess of witchcraft. It was hard to believe at this current juncture that Hecate had recently summoned armies from the Underworld to aid us in Camelot. She was utterly helpless right now. “Try your bloodstone.”

  I pulled it over my head and pressed it to her skin. She looked at it fearfully, but didn’t exhibit the normal awakening behavior. It had no effect on her and the hope fizzled out of me. This was the first time that the Bloodstone hadn’t worked and I couldn’t imagine why- unless Hecate was just too far gone or if maybe even her internal magic was just too strong- it was subconsciously blocking the Bloodstone.

  “I wish that we had access to the Fountain of Truth,” I muttered. “It would surely restore her memories.”

  “Harmonia,” Aphrodite began hesitantly from my shoulder. I turned around quickly- I hadn’t even known she had been standing there. I had been that focused on Hecate.

  “You have drunk from the fountain- very recently. It is in your blood.” Aphrodite’s face was anxious and cautious as she made the unspoken suggestion. Her statement triggered a memory… of Lachesis drinking my blood in Camelot to expose the truth. She had wanted to see if I was lying and my blood had exposed that I was.

  And then I remembered Hecate herself telling me that blood could reveal the truth. I sighed.

  “Do you have any idea how tired I am of people drinking from my blood at this point? This is getting ridiculous,” I complained. “At this rate, I’m not going to have any blood left soon.” Regardless, I positioned myself closer to Hecate and pulled out a small dagger.

  “Hold her tightly,” I instructed my father. He complied and I cut a tiny slit in my arm, holding it above Hecate’s lips. She didn’t open her mouth, so my father forced it open.

  “Gently,” I snapped at him. “There’s no need to be so rough.”

  “Besides the fact that she betrayed us all,” he replied angrily. “I do not take to traitors kindly.”

  “She was coerced, I am sure of it. We need to keep that in mind,” I pointed out as I dropped a few drops of my vital blood into her mouth. Ares held her mouth shut until he made certain that she had swallowed it and then we waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  Her face was blank and impassive as she stared absently past us and I started to get panicky. What if she really was so far gone that nothing would work to bring her back? There were so many things that I wanted to talk to her about. I wanted to find out why exactly she had betrayed us and I needed to find out more about her daughter so that I could find my own.

  But it appeared that I would get nothing from her. She stared right through me, her eyes flat and empty. The chilly air whipped around me as I turned to Ares dejectedly.

  “It’s of no use. Let her go.”

  My voice was stark and hopeless and I hated the sound. But it was how I felt. I had no idea what to do now.

  “Harmonia?”

  Hecate’s murmur was so low that I had to strain my ears to hear it and I whipped back around, my heart thundering with hope.

  “Hecate!”

  She sank to the ground, hugging herself with shaking arms. Before I could say another word, she wilted further into the stones surrounding her and closed her eyes. She didn’t reopen them. I shook her shoulder, trying hard to wake her, but she remained asleep.

  I turned to my parents in exasperation. “Now what?”

  Ares pivoted in a circle, examining our frightening surroundings and the appearance of our little group. Every one of us looked ragged and tired. Cadmus looked far worse. He was unconscious and shaking. I stroked his arm and rubbed his cold hands with my own. When I looked up, I found Ares staring at my husband in concern.

  “We need to rest,” he stated simply. And I didn’t argue.

  Ares hefted Hecate into his arms and we began walking once more, looking around for a safe, secluded place to stop for a few hours. We found a horse-shoe shaped inlet in the midst of a crumbling, abandoned building and quickly set up a makeshift camp.

  We settled down to rest while half of the Amazons stood watch. Aphrodite crouched next to where I lay with Cadmus. She reached out and stroked my back.

  “My sweet, everything will turn out alright. I have faith in that.”

  I couldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Will it?” I replied quietly. “We’ve been through so much, mother. Perhaps we’re not meant to ‘turn out alright.’”

  She shook her head lightly. “I don’t believe that,” she replied. “You’re a good person, Harmonia. You’re a fighter and you have always chosen to do the right thing. I don’t think that kind of behavior will be rewarded with tragedy.”

  “Yet, it has been already,” I answered sadly. “Time and time again.”

  “But the end of that is near,” she assured me. “I don’t know how I know, but I just feel it.”

  “I hope you’re right.” But as I watched my wounded husband sleep, his face tightened with pain, all I could feel was discouraged. I didn’t know how much longer Cadmus could hold on. If he died, this time it would be permanent, unlike all of the mortal lives that he lived and died in. Without Zeus, no one could bring him back. I fell asleep with his name on my lips and his limp arm wrapped around me.

  It didn’t take longs for dreams to consume me.

  I was standing in knee-high purple flowers. Fields and fields of them, with billowing blue skies above me. A child’s laughter distracted me and I turned, the sweet scent of the flowers assailing my senses. In addition to the floral notes, I detected salt in the air. Sea salt.

  Raquel ran among the flowers, turning to laugh and yell over her shoulder.

  “Come on, Em!”

  “I’m coming.” And I realized that Empusa was standing directly next to me. She leaned toward me, her gray eyes smoky and serious.

  “Hurry,” she murmured as she pressed a dark purple flower into my hand.

  I awoke with a start, staring into my husband’s eyes.

  I startled, then gasped, as I realized that he was awake. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw that Hecate was kneeling at his side, attending to his wound and I gasped again. She glanced up from her work with a small smile tilting the edges of her mouth. But before I could say anything to her, Cadmus slid a large hand into my own. As he did, I realized that I was holding a purple flower blossom.

  Chapter Ten

  “You’re awake!” I cried, throwing my arms carefully around his neck. He winced slightly, but pulled me close with his uninjured arm.

  “Did you doubt?” he asked, one dark eyebrow raised. “Did you really think that you could get rid of me that easily?”

  “That easily?” I repeated incredulously. “You were this close�
��” my voice trailed off and I didn’t want to say the words. Instead, I kissed him gently and squeezed his hand, reveling in its warmth. He nodded, closing his eyes again wearily.

  “I’m here now. And you’ve apparently found Hecate. Incredible… a guy can’t take a quick nap without the entire game changing.”

  He tried to joke, but I wasn’t in the mood at the moment. I had come perilously close to losing him. I could still scarcely believe that for once, I had not. I tightened my grip on the flower before turning my gaze to Hecate. I sat up as I spoke, keeping Cadmus’ hand in my lap.

  “Hecate, I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  “You can say it,” she said without looking up, her fingers deftly moving over Cadmus’ injury, sprinkling what appeared to be ashes. “You’re glad I’ve regained my sanity.”

  “Yes,” I admitted quietly. “You’re right.”

  “And there is much you’d like to know,” she prompted.

  Once again, I agreed. “Yes. But first, I’d like to thank you for helping Cadmus.”

  She finally paused her moving hands and looked up at me. When she did, I could tell that she had been avoiding it because she had been afraid to see my expression. My heart twinged a little.

  “You’re welcome,” she sighed. “It’s the least I could do.”

  I stroked my husband’s thumb with mine as I spoke. “What happened, Hecate? Why did you do it? Why did you betray us?”

  She looked away as she tried not to cry, her beautiful blue eyes welling up with tears. Her angst was evident in her tortured expression and I had no doubt left in my heart that whatever she had done, she had been forced into it.

  “The man that I love is not as loyal or admirable as Cadmus,” she replied quietly as she began working over my husband once again. “But I can’t help but love him anyway. It has been that way for many, many years. I give him the best of me and he gives little in return but his fleeting presence, once every few years.

  “During one of his visits, I became pregnant with a daughter. And when she was born, I loved her more than any other thing on the face of the planet. She was all that was right and good in the world, even though her father was considerably less so.”

  She paused for a long moment as she bent to study the gash in Cadmus’ shoulder. Pushing against it firmly, she pulled the dragon’s spike loose and pressed herbs into the wound.

  “What is that?” I questioned curiously.

  “Oh, it’s a medley of things, but it is comprised mostly of dried dragonheart blossoms… with a few other things of course.” I didn’t even bother asking what the ‘other things’ were. I was sure I didn’t want to know.

  “Most people would not know that dragonhearts can be used to combat