He tried to wiggle his toes, but there was nothing to wiggle now. It was the strangest sensation. He could still feel them burn, but they weren’t there.
“I refused to countenance it at the time, but the more time I spent with Agaprei, the more guilty I felt about Erolina. I could tell she was suffering, but I didn’t do anything to help her. I should have, Cornett. I heard her soul crying out, but instead I pursued Agaprei, because I valued my head over my heart. Because I prioritized plans over passion. If I had only followed my heart, none of this would have happened.”
“What about Agaprei?”
“Estia and Tharros were destined to be together, but I am not Tharros, and Agaprei is not Estia. We have our own paths to follow in this life. Just because our paths crossed in a previous life, doesn’t mean they will do so again.”
“So, what happens now?”
“I don’t know. If I return to her, she’ll care for me. She’s loyal and noble that way. It’s one of the things I love about her. But I would feel awful. I will have become a parasite. On the other hand, if I don’t go to her, then there was no reason to open my eyes again in the first place, and I would forever dishonor her gift to me. I don’t think I could bear that either.”
“So, what will you do?”
“I will do neither.”
“So, you’re just going to do nothing?”
“I didn’t say that. I see my mistake now. Up until now, I’ve been focused on myself. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be happy. It was all for me, and that was wrong. And I paid the price for it. Now, I understand, and it’s so simple. It’s not about me, it’s about helping others. That’s going to be my focus now.”
“That is very noble.”
“Thank you, but that is not the only reason I’m doing it. I’m doing it to keep my sanity as well. Every time I look at my ruined body, I die inside. If I don’t find a way to distract myself I’m going to lose my mind.”
“So, what are you going to do?
“I’m going to help her, Cornett. I’m going to help her save her people. As many as will be saved. I refuse to be a burden to her. Instead, I’m going to be her champion. I’m going to travel with her to the forbidden island of Themyskira, and rescue them from their enemies.”
“But, you can’t even stand. How are you possibly going to do that?”
“Because I have something that can change the course of this war.”
Storgen took his left hand and rubbed his neck, carefully teasing something higher and higher up inside his throat.
Storgen held out his hand and spit something into it.
Cornett drew near. “Is that…?”
They looked at the bright crimson gemstone in Storgen’s hand.
Storgen closed his fingers. “With this, we will avert destruction.”
(12 years ago)
The customer was clearly not pleased as she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. The eyeliner was lopsided, the blush was the wrong color for her skin tone, and the concealer chosen was far too weak to hide the blemishes of her skin. She looked a mess, and everyone could see it.
Erolina slumped back in her chair in defeat. At the beginning of the work day, she had styled her red hair up into a bun, but now it just hung limply like a ball at the back of her head. The line of customers began to thin when they saw what lay in store for them.
“Honey.”
Kennid popped up from behind a portly woman, several curlers in his mouth. “What now?”
“I could use a little help over here.”
“Again?”
“Yes, again!”
“Bah. Fine.”
Erolina turned to the bored receptionist filing her nails at the front desk. “Arianna, could you pass out some coupons before we lose the rest of them?”
Arianna blew on her nails lazily. “I’m on my break.”
“Ugh!”
The cradle in the corner began to stir, a tiny yawn and a stretching arm peeking out over the rim. Erolina walked over and took out the baby, speaking softly as she held her close. “Good afternoon, little Apollonia. Did you have a nice nap?”
The baby looked up at her with beautiful red eyes, and Erolina’s heart melted. Apollonia had her mother’s skin, but her father’s warm eyes. Her hair was a beautiful mixture of Kennid’s gold and Erolina’s ruby, a strawberry blonde with adorable wavy curls.
Erolina held out her finger, and Apollonia took hold of it, her chubby little fingers wrapping around and yanking playfully.
“I love you so much.”
While Kennid expertly fixed the botched makeup job, Erolina fed the baby and looked out at the turquoise waters of the bay. Their little salon sat right on the beach, a warm breeze on the salty air. The azure skies were decorated with puffy white clouds, and the hills blanketed the autumn leaves of the trees with comforting shade.
Erolina saw a face looking into her shop. It was something that occurred a hundred times a day, but this time it made her blood run cold, and her face turn pale.
Rodania’s eyes met with Erolina’s, and the two amazons froze in place. The judgmental gaze drilled into Erolina’s heart, piercing her peace and shattering her safety. The day she had feared, the moment that had kept her up at night had finally arrived. The amazons had tracked her down.
Rodania turned and walked away, and Erolina knew she was to follow or there would be bloodshed.
“Um, honey, can you take Apollonia for a minute?”
Kennid looked up, his mouth full of curlers, his hands full of makeup brushes. “Seriously?”
She handed him the baby without even looking at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“You’ve got appointments!”
“I said I’ll be back!”
Erolina stepped outside and found the huntress standing at the water’s edge. Another amazon was perched atop a nearby tree, her bow at the ready, and a third around the side of the salon, watching the back exit. Erolina cursed herself for having left her sword at home during the morning rush to get to work on time.
“It would seem you have me at a disadvantage,” Erolina said as she drew near, her voice a low growl.
“Disadvantage?” Rodania asked flatly. “For two years, I have tracked you from the Coral Bay of Pónos to the Falling Mountains of Misó. I have been denied visits to my homeland until I found you. What do you know of disadvantage?”
“Is my happiness really so repugnant to you? Why not leave us alone?”
“Your happiness came at a price. When you abandoned the throne, it threw your mother’s rule into disarray. Now, the core families are vying for leadership. Your mother has survived five assassination attempts and thirteen challenges, and still the circle asks for her removal. Our people are on the brink of civil war, and unless the line of succession is legitimized, the core families will tear one another apart.”
Erolina narrowed her eyes. “You think I would not defend my daughter?”
“Yes, even without a weapon and outnumbered, you would be quite a difficult opponent to overcome. You might even kill me and my huntresses. But, what then? Your mother will just send others in our stead. And more after them. How long do you think you can keep your offspring safe from us?”
“I will not let you harm her!”
“Harm her? I didn’t say I was here to harm her.”
Rodania turned around, and Erolina was surprised to find not anger in her eyes, but sadness. “When we located you, your mother commanded me to kill you and your offspring. I pleaded with her to find another way. I begged on my knees on your behalf, and I was scourged for it.”
Erolina looked down and saw the burn scars on Rodania’s arms. “You did that for me?”
“I did my duty.”
Erolina’s eyes became pained. “I don’t know what to say. Thank…”
“Your gratitude is not necessary. I swore an oath to protect you, and I will perfor
m that duty. Now I ask you to perform your duty as well.”
“How?”
“As I said, you mother needs to validate the line of succession, what’s more, she needs a new conquest to unite the core families and restore her position.”
“Who?”
“We will help the centaurs remove the darkest stain from their honor. We will help them conquer Dasikí Chará.”
“No one can conquer Dasikí Chará. Their forest’s barrier is impregnable.”
“Conventionally, yes, but not unconventionally.”
“What are you hinting at?”
“Your mother commands you to visit their Chieftain as a diplomatic envoy. You will travel under a white flag of truce, and while there you will steal the heart of the forest. With their precious protection down, they will surrender without a fight.”
Erolina took a step back. “Blasphemy! You would ask me to violate a white flag?”
“This is not a request, this is an order.”
“It is a dishonorable order, and I am not obligated to follow it. I can’t believe she would even consider such a thing.”
“It is not dishonorable.”
“It’s unthinkable. It is a complete betrayal of everything we stand for.”
“What do you mean, ‘we?’ You abandoned your people and your birthright. You have been banished from Themyskira under pain of death. You have no honor to lose, so it is no dishonor to demand this of you.”
Erolina gritted her teeth. “My birthright was a cage.”
“And your current life isn’t? I’ve seen the pitiful shack in which you live. I’ve listened to you squabbling with your husband all hours of the night. You took umbrage that you were asked to have a child, and what was the first thing you did? You went off and got pregnant with some commoner.”
“Don’t talk about him that way.”
Rodania stepped closer. “If you do this, your daughter will be recognized as a true amazon and her life will be spared. She will be recognized as grandchild to Queen Erotas and the line restored. If you do not do this, my original orders stand, and your child will be eliminated. Whether by my hand or another’s.”
Erolina struggled, her eyes full of rage. “This is wrong. If we wish to make war with the nymphs, we should face them honorably on the field of battle, not skulk around in the shadows like a cowardly human spy.”
“I am offering you a chance to save your daughter’s life. I didn’t have to do that.”
Erolina glanced down at the scars again.
Balling her fists, Erolina turned away. “I’ll need a couple of days to make an excuse to get away.”
Rodania nodded to the amazon in the treetops, and she slowly lowered her bow.
* * *
Chief Wenham had a nervous energy to his movements. A kind of half-skip as he wound his way around the trunk of the enormous tree that sat at the center of Dasikí Chará. Each time he extended his green foot out, the bark of the mother tree would grow outward, forming a step to catch each footfall. His guest looked uncomfortable in her ceremonial robes. They seemed to weigh heavily on her as she followed him higher and higher.
They wound around, rising up above the canopy of the other trees. The air was laden with nectar, this one mighty fílos tree dwarfing all the others, its blossomed branches reaching out over the entire forest.
The air crackled with energy where it touched the mother tree, a nearly invisible dome that stretched out, blanketing the entire forest from one end to another, nearly covering the entire island save for a few inlets and sandy beaches.
“I can’t tell you how surprised I was to receive your royal decree,” Chief Wenham said excitedly, his ceremonial headdress tipping to one side on his head. “To think that after all this time, Themyskira would offer to open up her ports in trade with us, and with us exclusively, no less.”
Erolina followed behind, a dour look on her face. “Yes, who would have thought?”
“This comes at a great time for us, I am not going to lie. The last few years have been rife with struggles and infighting. This is exactly what we need to fertilize our common soil and shift our focus to the next season.”
As they reached the center of the trunk, the wood opened up like an enormous knot hole, tall enough for them to step inside.
“Well, here it is. The heart of the forest.”
What lay inside was unlike anything she had ever seen before. It was neither mist nor spark nor flame, but somehow all three at once. A glowing collection of pure essence in the shape of a seed. It gave off colors like a shifting prism, shades that could not be seen but rather felt, hues beyond what the eye could perceive, without name and without comparison. Roots grew out from it above and below, as if it sat in the center of a vast web. It pulsed like a heartbeat, warping the air as it did so. Silver droplets fell free from it, the living wood soaking it up and drawing strength from it. It was thought surrounded by memory, wrapped in emotion, bathed in music, and drenched in spirit; and yet it was not many things, but one thing. A single concentrated ingot of life.
Erolina watched it breathlessly.
“I must say, I was surprised when you asked to see this,” Chief Wenham admitted. “Most foreigners show little interest in our sacred places.”
Erolina took off her sandals and stepped inside, taking out her ceremonial rod and holding it up in salute.
“It’s beautiful.”
“That it is. One drop can sustain the life of a nymph, even if he is at the very moment of death.”
Chief Wenham snorted and laughed. “Of course, we have little need for it. Danger cannot reach us here beneath the protection of the trees.”
“It’s closer than you think.”
“What?”
The aged forest nymph screamed as arcing tines of energy washed over his body, his green limbs jerking and quaking as his eyes rolled back into his head. He collapsed, senseless, to the floor as Erolina stood over him, her rod crackling in her hand.
She stepped in close, the living wood around her screeching in panic as she reached out and laid hold of the seed. It resisted her grip, rootlets wrapping around her fingers and wrist and digging into her skin.
The heartbeat quickened in fear, and she pulled harder. The roots stretched, screeching and howling as she dug in her heels and used her full strength. With a sickening snap, the seed tore free, glowing fluids spraying across her face and clothes.
The entire forest shuddered, and the wood within the hollow began to turn brown and dormant.
Erolina wasted no time running back outside. Already, nearby guards were closing in on her.
The steps fell away beneath her, disintegrating into ash as she leapt at one of the forest nymphs, striking him hard in the gut with her knee, and then throwing a crystal at a second. It exploded in the air, releasing a caustic green mist. The poisoned nymph fell down through the bottom of the cloud, screaming in pain as she fell down towards the forest floor far below.
All around, the forest began to wither, leaves turning brown, branches becoming brittle. Dry chunks of bark sloughed off in great slates and rained down like cinders. Nymphs fired their bows from every direction, but Erolina was too fast. She zipped from one to another, striking them with her rod. When they grew up razor-sharp roots from below to impale her, she tapped a run on her necklace and her robes unfurled like white wings. She sailed down and away, the guards in pursuit. All over the island, the trees became paralyzed and the barrier came crashing down, breaking into great shards of fume and soot.
Dodging swatting branches and slipping through growing walls of thorns, Erolina broke out of the darkness of the forest and burst into the light of day. She glided over the sandy beach and landed on the docks, where a strange sight greeted her.
Hundreds of warships were rowing towards the shore, their hateful horns blowing, their coxswains spurring them on to greater speed as their fell banners flapped in the hot wind.
“What is this?”
So shocked s
he was, she barely noticed a human tying a dilapidated sailing ship to the dock and walking towards her until he was almost upon her. It surprised her to see him. What surprised her even more was the look of outrage he wore, twisting his normally kind features into a scowl.
“Kennid…what are you doing here?”
“I should ask you the same thing. You told me you were going on a religious sojourn. The ‘rite of the second moon,’ did you really think I wouldn’t look it up?”
“Well, I…”
“Save it. I came here to stop you.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I shouldn’t be here? Erolina, this is wrong. You can’t do this.”
She clutched the heart and held it closer. “I have to do this. I have a duty.”
“You have a duty to do what is right.”
“I have a duty to do what I am commanded to do.”
He motioned out to the fleet of warships. “Look around. Tens of thousands of people are about to die.”
“They’re not going to kill them, they’re just going to force their surrender.”
There was a huge explosion to the north, and the trees along the coast burst into flames. Erolina could feel the heat even as far away as they were. The first of the triremes ran aground and vomited their baleful cargo. Hundreds of centaurs began to charge into the burning woods, gleefully swinging their burning axes and loosing flaming arrows.
Kennid reached out and grabbed the heart. “Does this look like they have come to sign a treaty? You have to put it back.” He yanked hard, but his strength was nothing compared to hers.
“No, I can’t,” she pleaded. “They said if I didn’t do this they would kill Apollonia.”
She yanked the heart out of his grip and he fell hard back onto the dock, banging his head against the stone.
Erolina covered her mouth to see him hurt by her hand.
“What have I done?”
A golden trireme rowed up to the docks, and Queen Erotas of the amazons stepped out, resplendent in her full armor. She looked on with relish as smoke began to rise from all over the island. Already the sounds of battle were growing stronger. Screams of the wounded and cracks of flaming thunder. She inhaled deeply, drinking in the growing scent of blood.
Ambrosia Page 95