The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes)

by Rebecca Lochlann

I haven’t told the queen. Omens speak yet leave unanswered mystery, and I must have more time. Have I done the proper thing, Lady Mother? Did I read the signs as you wished? From the moment of the birth, all Kaphtor has thronged to admire their new royal princess. They exclaim on her fine, delicate skin, a rich mix of olives and pink dittany. Already she watches those about her with quiet eyes, as though she possesses unrealized knowledge.

  Unrealized, perhaps, by mortals. Yet the Goddess showed me, in the smoke, what I fear the baby already knows.

  Terrible changes. Unspeakable horror.

  To give myself time, I told the people of Kaphtor that Athene has blessed our new princess, that the mark burned into her flesh is a sign of good will and alliance. I offered hints that the Lady’s beloved son, Velchanos, had a hand in Aridela’s conception, which makes her a most-holy grove child. In my vision, brilliant light surrounded the infant, leaving me with eerie conviction that my subterfuge held a core of truth. I wept, but the tears came from fervor, not guilt.

  Themiste didn’t read the rest. It was too unsettling. Instead she began inscribing on the clay tablet, carefully recording everything that happened at the feast meant to honor Carmanor and celebrate Aridela’s survival.

  Selene pummeled on Themiste’s door.

  Themiste herself opened it. Selene grabbed her shoulders, seeking comfort from her friend; yet even through the fog of grief she saw that the oracle didn’t look so much disconsolate as thoughtful.

  Themiste stood stiffly, offering nothing more than a pat on the arm.

  Selene released her and wiped her eyes. “We lost Aridela.” It hurt to speak. She couldn’t stifle a fresh flood of tears, no matter how hard she clenched her shoulder muscles or gritted her teeth.

  Themiste shook her head. “No, she lives. Only one died—the woman from Callisti. She who spoke before Aridela fainted.”

  Selene clutched the doorjamb. Her legs felt unsteady.

  She isn’t dead.

  “Then… what happened?” she managed.

  Themiste bit her lip. She crossed to a sputtering lamp and poured in a few drops of oil. “Aridela was confounded by vision. She had no venom or poppy, no cara. It came solely at the command of Athene. It’s a warning to us. Even now, the calamity of which it speaks is so near it shadows our horizon.”

  She seemed unnaturally calm, almost reconciled. Apprehension shivered the hair on the back of Selene’s neck.

  “There’s another thing.” Themiste kept her gaze fastened on the far end of the room, where threads of smoke drifted. “When Aridela fell into her trance, I grew queasy. There was a stabbing pain in my head—my eye. It was unbearable.” She touched her temple then dropped her hand back to her side. “The queen and Iphiboë suffered similarly. Whatever affected Aridela and the boy affected us as well, to a lesser extent. Yet the rest at the high table were fine. No one else endured any ailment, and all recovered but for the woman from Callisti. Her companion said she’d long been ill.”

  “I did,” Selene said. “All at once, I was dizzy and sick though I was fine until that moment. I fainted. When I woke, Aridela was gone. I thought her dead.”

  “You, Aridela, the boy, me, Helice, Iphiboë, and the Callisti woman.” Themiste ticked off each name on her fingers. She looked up. “Poison, do you think?”

  “I ate from the same platters as everyone else. The wine I drank came from a common pitcher. I remember the maid carrying it around the room. If it were poison, everyone would be sick.”

  “I, too, am well again, as is Helice. She sent word that the boy is recovering and so is Aridela. Not even spoiled food has such a short-lasting effect.”

  Selene shook her head. “No.”

  “And the thunder. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard thunder when that boy and Aridela were together. Do you remember? The morning he brought her out of the shrine.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I wish I knew.” Themiste took Selene’s hand and pulled her into the room, shutting the door behind her. “Will you vow never to repeat what I tell you?”

  “Of course. You needn’t ask.” Selene gave the promise without hesitation. She guarded many secrets.

  Themiste led her to a table littered with clay tablets, papyrus sheets, inkpots and pens.

  “Sit.” She pointed to a stool, and Selene obeyed.

  “I trusted you once before,” Themiste said, “when I shared my conviction that Aridela must die.”

  “You think I told someone?”

  “No. I ask you to hear more, if you’re willing.” Without waiting for her answer, Themiste picked up a clay tablet, still damp, and held it out to Selene.

  “I cannot read,” Selene said.

  “Oh, yes.” Themiste took back the tablet. “I forgot.”

  “Read it to me.”

  Themiste nodded and began.

  “Lion of gold from over the sea.

  Destroy the black bull,

  shake the earth free.

  Curse the god,

  crush the fold,

  pull down the stars

  as seers foretold.

  Isle of cloud,

  Moon’s stronghold,

  See your death come

  In spears of gold.”

  “What is it?” Selene asked.

  “At the feast, Aridela fell into a trance. She spoke this in the tongue of the homeland, a language she has never been taught.”

  Filaments of unease pierced the nape of Selene’s neck. “Read it again.”

  Selene asked Themiste to reread the prophecy three times.

  “I fear the reckoning in these words,” Themiste said softly. “I want to divert it, but how? What use am I to Kaphtor, if I am not shown what to do?” She ran her fingertips along the edge of the damp tablet. “What is this ‘lion of gold’? Is it a beast? A man? An army? A pestilence? How will we know it when it comes?”

  Selene succumbed to a spurt of unexpected laughter. At Themiste’s frown, she covered her mouth with one hand, trying to stifle it. “Forgive me,” she said. “But can you imagine the rumors? By now half of Kaphtor has heard that Aridela shot flames from her fingertips—that she took wing and burned as hot as the sun.”

  Themiste’s frown lifted into a faint smile, but it didn’t last. “I’ve grown lazy and overconfident,” she said. “So many years have come and gone in peace and prosperity. None of us know anything else. Even earthshakings are minor annoyances.”

  “Themiste.” Selene grabbed the oracle’s hand. “Please, please, you cannot blame yourself for this. How could you have caused it?”

  Themiste shook her head. “There’s more I want to share with you.” Riffling through the stacks, she eventually found the papyrus she was looking for and read it.

  “A lion and a bull appear in my visions. This lion must bare his throat and consent to his destruction. The bull must consume the lion. The moon and stars will then return to the egg and the bull will repair the egg with his divine seed.”

  Selene lifted her hands to express incomprehension as Themiste leveled her with a pleading gaze. If the oracle of Kaphtor couldn’t decipher these strange words and felt she must look to Selene for guidance, all was lost.

  “I know.” Themiste sighed. “My head aches from trying to see meanings beyond my capabilities. I feel my inexperience. I fear my failure.” Her shoulders slumped. Selene looked away, ashamed at her inability to give the comfort Themiste so clearly needed.

  Themiste drew a breath and continued.

  “One more completes the triad. A child will spring from the loins of Velchanos, god of lightning, her celestial brother. Without her, all will fail.”

  Newly invigorated, Selene rose and paced from one end of the table to the other. “Since the night she was born and lightning destroyed the shrine on Mount Juktas, this is what the people call her. Daughter of Velchanos. Is there more?”

  “Yes, my friend, there is so much more. I’ve tried to understand the intent in these prophecies for as long a
s I can remember. Will you hear the rest?”

  “Yes please,” Selene said eagerly, and Themiste read on.

  “Mortals forsake the Lady. She fights to win back what she has lost, but must give her champions free will: if any of her triad refuses or abandons their calling, every civilization will perish in conflict and fire. If three become two, all the world will be reborn to the bountiful Mistress of Many Names, and the vine will again bear fruit.”

  “We haven’t forsaken her,” Selene said. “We honor the Lady in all we do.”

  “Yes.” Themiste’s expression darkened. “But every trade ship brings new rumors of burned shrines, desecrated statues, the rape of Our Lady’s priestesses. I believe she who wrote this log saw into the future. How long can Kaphtor hold out against the rest of the world? Against these new gods who seem to be everywhere lately, and who lash out so violently?”

  “What are these writings, Minos?” Selene clenched her hands to stem the trembling. She glanced at the mess on the table. If all these tablets and sheets contained similar language, Themiste’s obligations were legion. No surprise oracles died young.

  “Prophecies, handed down from oracle to oracle.” Themiste foraged until she found the next papyrus she wanted. “A Minos called Timandra wrote this one when my grandmother lived.”

  “The child must rise up from the intoxication in which she willingly drowns. If she becomes pure, utterly clear, the thinara king and his disciples will give her their allegiance. If she does not, every living thing will languish and the end will come.”

  Selene rubbed her forehead. Her mind was spinning. “What is the thinara king?”

  “The title given in forgotten times to he who will rule beyond his term and shatter all traditions. On the morning Carmanor carried Aridela from the shrine, she said something to me about the thinara king.” Themiste paused, frowning. “She said it again at the feast, in her delirium. I have never taught her the word. I can’t imagine where she could have heard it.”

  “It says the child must become utterly clear. That is Aridela’s name-meaning. Can there be any doubt this writing speaks of her?”

  “Not in my mind.” Themiste selected another clay tablet, this one old, fragile, the edges pale and crumbling. She handled it with care.

  “He of one father but two mothers will grow to dominion in a foreign land—one split into two, gold and obsidian. The universal egg will crack. All that is sacred will spill and be lost. Lion and bull, they are forged.”

  Selene’s gaze returned to the damp clay tablet holding Aridela’s recent prediction. “Every one of these strikes a similar note. Did Timandra write that too?”

  Themiste shook her head. “This one was Melpomene’s.”

  Selene stared at the tablet. She wanted to touch it, but hesitated. Every native of Kaphtor knew of Melpomene, the seer who predicted the worst earthshaking the island ever experienced, which toppled palaces, shrines and buildings, and left countless numbers dead. Stories of the calamity survived through the generations; children still played on piles of overgrown rubble in the pastures. “But she—she lived so long ago—”

  Themiste returned the tablet to the table. “Yes. This was written, as we tell time, over three hundred years ago. There are logs, my friend, written by oracles, which go back to Kaphtor’s beginnings. This prophecy is mentioned throughout. The gold lion, the bull, a child, the triad. You remember the prophecy I shared with you a year ago—the one about Aridela’s birth. It was the first prophecy I was required to memorize. My teacher would beat me if I got a single word wrong.” She gave a short, bitter laugh.

  “Of course I remember. I said so then, and I say so now. It could refer to no one but Aridela.” Selene returned to the stool, too wrung out to go on standing.

  “Yes, I think so too. I never told you the second part.” She found a papyrus and pulled the lamp closer. “Time has ruined the original, but we oracles keep it preserved.” She began to read.

  “Should this child survive, she will be made blind and deaf to earthly things. All that seems evil to others will appear innocent to her. She will see only what the Mother wants her to see. This holy child will follow a path of deep shadow to unlock the secrets of the moon.”

  Selene stared at her friend, not knowing what to say.

  “This is what sent me to her bedside with my knife,” Themiste whispered. “It says, ‘Should this child survive.’ The night she was born, lightning speared the sky and burned her. I remembered this prophecy. I was afraid. I knew it was the beginning. I knew Helice had given birth to no ordinary child. The people wanted reassurance. They were afraid, too. I didn’t know what to say, so I lied. I told them she was blessed. Then I came here, seeking answers. I sent myself into vision.”

  She stopped.

  “What, Minos?”

  Tears slipped down Themiste’s cheeks. “I saw our country ravaged, our palaces crumbled, women and Lady Athene herself brought low, forced into servitude. And more. Cataclysms of the earth. Fires, wind, earthshaking and death. I couldn’t tell the queen. She loved her new baby. But that night I decided Aridela must die. I believed her death would avert the curse.” Her voice caught; her shoulders trembled. “It took me ten years to make the attempt. I loved her too. She can be selfish. She is certainly spoiled. She lacks humility. She is impulsive and reckless. She’s never been tested or hurt. Yet I have seen her broken heart at the stillbirth of a lamb, and the tenderness she gives her sister. Her spirit for life makes me feel alive. Aridela is the daughter I could have had if I were allowed to live like other women.”

  Selene rose. She took the papyrus from Themiste’s hands and laid it on the table. “How old is this one?” she asked, to distract her.

  Themiste swallowed and clasped her hands together tightly. “It was composed as many years ago as there are fish in the sea.”

  Awe gave way to creeping fear. Different women, from vastly different ages. Every one experienced similar visions. They saw the same catastrophe and made parallel warnings. This was more than Selene could grasp. She tried to rub warmth into Themiste’s hands. “What can I say? I’m no seer. I cannot help you.”

  “I didn’t expect you to solve the riddle. I simply needed to share the burden.”

  A thought occurred to Selene. She bit her lip, afraid to speak it, but she knew she must. “Minos, our oracles have prophesied these events for time beyond what I can fathom. Why do you think you can change any of it? I think that no matter what you do, everything will unfold as the Immortals have planned it. You cannot thwart them.”

  Themiste released a weary sigh. Her shoulders drooped. The blue crescent tattoo on her forehead stood out in stark contrast to her pale skin and her eyes were haunted. “But why am I given this knowledge, if nothing can be done? No, I don’t believe it. The prophecies have formed, like an infant in the womb of its mother. Now, in the time of Aridela, the child of lightning, they are giving birth. They show but one possible path. My task is to find a way onto another.” Her fine brows lowered, shadowing her eyes. “But I don’t know how, and my ignorance may bring doom to us all.”

  You’re my sister. Can’t I count on you, at least? I’ll die if I have to spend another day in this room.”

  Iphiboë set her needlework on the table. “Stop pestering me, Aridela. You brought this on yourself.”

  “I want to see the sun.” Aridela threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in soft wool.

  “Rhené says you should remain quiet. If you run about in your usual manner the wound could break open. And what about the dizziness, the fainting? It’s no surprise she’s worried.”

  “I have no memory of the feast, or of speaking this prophecy. I’m not sick. That’s all I know.”

  Iphiboë picked up a cedar footstool and placed it before the loom. “Keep your hands busy. Perhaps Mother will relent if she sees you accomplishing something.”

  “I wish I were as old as you. Then I could do whatever I want.”

  “When you’re my
age, you’ll be living in the cave shrines with Minos Themiste. Priestesses are watched over as carefully as princesses—you even more so.”

  “I wish I were a commoner.”

  “I wish you were Mother’s first-born. Then you could be queen and I could be Themiste’s acolyte.”

  Aridela sat up and faced her sister, distracted from her own troubles by that familiar tone. “You think of the sowing.”

  The tremor in Iphiboë’s shoulders served as answer.

  Perhaps logic would make a difference. “Why are you so convinced the man who finds you will be horrible?” Aridela asked. “Is there not an equal chance he will be young, handsome, and you’ll fall happily in love?”

  “When has chance ever allied itself to me?” Iphiboë sank onto the stool. “Every other woman who enters the oak grove can choose her partner. I alone am bound to accept any man, young, old, sick, well, stranger or friend, so that all can say Athene made the choice.”

  “If I were going, I would hide so well no one could find me but a god. Velchanos himself.”

  Iphiboë managed a brief smile. “Velchanos wouldn’t want to find me. Do you think I don’t see things as they are? Men never notice me unless I’m covered in gems and on display for some event. I prefer it that way. I know I’m ugly.”

  “You’re not ugly.” Aridela leaped off the bed. “Stop saying that.”

  “I have to fulfill the rites. I’ve put it off too long. Mother’s council might rope me to the ground this time.”

  “They—they wouldn’t—”

  “Oh, put your eyes back in your head. I didn’t mean it. But they are sending Selene with me. She takes her orders from Mother.”

  “Selene loves you.”

  “It’s you Selene loves, Aridela. If you wanted no man to find you, she would cast spells and guard you with swords of fire.”

  “Well, don’t do it. You say you have to, but that isn’t true. No one will force you. It may be written that a queen can’t refuse any man who finds her, but you know they’ve always made their secret arrangements. And whatever you say, I know Selene would gladly arrange something for you. If you’re bold enough, you can make things happen to suit your own pleasure.”