by Diana Tyler
Corinna’s yellow eyes glow. She throws back her head and cackles, filling the air around us with a thick, sulfurous smell.
“I only muzzle her when she isn’t sure whom to kill,” Diokles says. “But there was no need tonight. Remember, Tycho. Remember, Iris. This was your choice. I had marvelous plans for you. That doma of yours had been chosen by Apollo to…single-handedly, shall I say, decimate the entire Temple. And every Guardian, your master Acheron, one by one… You would have been greater than Corinna.”
I hear Titus yelling, Aspasia crying, but they are silenced by the sentries within seconds. Diokles turns to the Gryphon, her wings unfurled and talons scraping across the dry stone floor. He parts his lips. She parts her beak.
“Attack!”
I shut my eyes and stretch my arms out wide, fiery darts blazing through me, coating my veins with the explosive resin. The hot air stings my throat as I take a deep breath in and let out a hasty prayer for accuracy, followed by a ringing shriek of pain, the fire now blistering beneath my skin. I lift my right hand, then my left,
And then…a heavy thud upon the altar. A shrill, dolorous wail. A few shuffling footsteps left and right.
“Who has done this?! Lycus!!!”
“Iris!” whispers Tycho. “The Gryphon has been killed!”
I open my eyes and turn to see the beast sprawled on the altar, at least twenty arrows sunk into her flesh. I drop my arms and watch smoke fly from my fingertips like ghosts escaping the pit of Hades, and exhausted, I fall against Tycho’s chest.
“Let them go!” A girl’s voice calls out among the squadron. “Reveal yourselves!”
Alexa, don’t do this!
But it’s too late. All eyes turn to the Naos, the holiest place of the Temple accessed by the high priest just once a year, and probably the last structure to remain standing until it can be plundered of its silver and gold and sacred vessels. On its roof, an archer arises. He turns and lifts his arms to the unseen psiloi behind him. They all stand and direct their attention to the voice calling out from the crowd:
“Surprised, brother?”
I watch in disbelief as waves of yellow hair tumble out of a Soukinoi helmet, its rider sitting calmly atop a gray, red-speckled mare. She drops her helmet to the ground and awaits Diokles’s response.
“Yes, Alexa, I admit I wasn’t expecting my own sister to try her hand at ambush. Especially not against me. But I shouldn’t be, should I. I taught you everything you know about catching our enemies off guard…winning at their own game. Surprise nearly always proves a flawless strategy.” Diokles steps to the edge of the altar and kneels down so his eyes are level with hers. “Unfortunately for you, dear sister, you have also learned much about treachery. I wish Apollo would have warned me of this. But then, perhaps he is testing me. We all must make sacrifices.”
“That’s just it, Diokles,” Alexa says confidently, urging her horse forward through the motionless rows of soldiers, all watching her approach as though she were the archer-goddess Artemis, or the devious, war-loving Athena striding into battle. “Your loyalty to Apollo has driven you mad. You’ve forgotten who you are. You’ve turned your back on Duna, and your own people!”
“Silence!” Diokles shouts, his voice hissing and roaring all at once. “I will waste no more time trying to persuade you of what is coming – what must come! It seems your consciousness resists the age of transcendence. All who welcome it shall live on and evolve as gods, like Apollo and the lesser ruler, Duna. But the likes of you, well…”
Diokles raises his right hand as I’ve seen him do many times before pronouncing a judgment. He looks to the big guard, Ariston. “Bring her to me.”
Diokles turns back to the Naos and addresses the psiloi, already drawing their bows, marking their target. He then points a finger at Aspasia, Gennadius, and Titus; three guards put knives to their throats.
“Psiloi, I don’t know what my sister, the deluded princess, has promised you in return for your mercenary services today, but I can assure you that a generous portion of what lies in the Naos, just beneath your feet will be yours. All you must do now is toss those toys aside and come down from there. And stop this foolishness.”
He waits a moment, and then another, but not a single soldier drops his weapon. All eyes watch as the captain in front strings his bow, wraps it in cloth, then carefully lowers it to his side. When he lifts it again, the arrow’s tip is a ball of fire. The archers behind him follow, and soon the rooftop glitters with defiance.
“Ah…I see,” says Diokles, his eyes narrowing, his jaws clenching. “This is a matter of morality to you all. You simply cannot break away from the myopic teachings of the old religion and the Oracles’ pompous prophecies.”
Ariston escorts Alexa up the ramp, but Diokles’s patience is wearing thin. “Sword!” Diokles yells, advancing across the ramp to intercept them. A solider places his sword in Diokles’s hand as he marches past. “All of you thought I would have pity on my own flesh and blood! I confess… I do,” he utters. “I have pity on her indiscretion.”
“I can’t stay here, Tycho,” I whisper. “Let me…”
As I speak the words, I tear myself from Tycho’s arms and rip my dagger from my girdle. I race toward Diokles, arms pumping afresh with the doma’s fire, heart pounding with the will to reach him before he reaches her, his own sister, merely a replaceable recruit in his eyes. But in mine, she is Jasper, the courageous martyr. Niobe the strong-willed slave. Corinna the rootless, defenseless Asher.
I cannot let her die.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
VIOLET
Diokles doesn’t hear me coming. How does he not hear me coming? It doesn’t matter. I stay directly behind him, moving swiftly in a soundless blur.
I slow my pace when I see Ariston fall down dead, a flaming arrow between his shoulder blades.
“Iris!” Tycho yells.
I spin around to see Aspasia’s guard charging me, sword in hand. Tycho slams himself into the guard’s side, knocking the sword from his grip. The guard stumbles just enough for Tycho to push him again, this time face up onto the ground beside the Gryphon’s body, which alarmingly now looks no larger than an eagle’s.
Before the guard can right himself, Tycho pulls an arrow from the bloody mess of feathers and drives it into the man’s throat. The guard’s muscles relax; his eyes roll back into his skull as his head falls with a terrible, gurgling moan. The Gryphon beside him seems to wither, her feathers shedding and falling away from peach-colored bones, bones that I soon see are not bones at all, but pristine skin, the skin of my aunt. Her long hair is auburn like mine, and out of her delicate shoulder blades flutter two wings, as grand as an eagle’s and as violet as the Moonbow’s last arch; a flurry of western wind moves them to appear breathtakingly celestial one last time, as they were always intended to be.
Tycho returns his attention to me; I watch his eyes widen with terror.
“Behind you!” he yells.
I turn and see Diokles wielding his sword, coming straight for me.
“And where do you think you’re going, sister?” he fumes, the dark onyx spheres once again swallowing the cerulean color of his eyes. “After all I did for you. You were so close to avenging your brother. Isn’t that what you wanted? How you have failed…”
I hold my tongue and my dagger steady.
Duna, fight for me. Defend me. My life is in your hands, not mine.
“Duna had a far greater reason to keep me alive than avenging Jasper.” The words slide past my lips, a revelation too thrilling to contain. “I have failed to become what I wanted to be. And through Duna, that is my greatest victory.”
Diokles’s upper lip curls into a snarl. He growls, then bares his teeth, transporting my mind back to the hills around Enochos where I stared into the eyes of the gray wolf, my first kill. On that day, I had pretended the wild animal was Acheron. I’d made the first move, thrust my dagger through its heart, and began to imagine how satisfying the sight
of Acheron’s spilled blood would be.
Now, as I stand face to face with a second wolf, this one much more cunning and fierce than the first, I am overcome only by the desire to honorably defend, not vengefully attack. The spirit of “Hunter” has flown away from me; the inner voice has been muted, just as Tycho said it would be. But now another hunter approaches…
“I’ll make this fair,” Diokles growls as he casts his sword aside. Then he charges me with his dagger raised. The darkness in his eyes now glows red, and I wonder if Apollo is within him now. His knife comes down.
Duna, I pray.
I dodge the blow and shuffle backwards, tossing my knife to the ground and letting the fire surface and seethe as hot as it will. I watch Diokles’s pupils dilate at the sight of my flaming right hand; they are simultaneously attentive to it, and distracted by it…
I rush at Diokles and strike his wrist as hard as I can; his dagger falls and I kick it toward Tycho behind me.
“Kill him, Iris!” Tycho shouts.
I wrap my scorching hands around Diokles’s throat and stare into his eyes, watching the enkindled blackness subside. The crystalline color floods his irises again.
“I don’t want to kill you,” I whisper to him.
“I don’t want to die, sister,” he replies, his chin quivering as his blue eyes hopelessly search the skies. “I’m – I’m sorry…”
I start to lower my hands, but as I do, I notice a faint smile dance across Diokles’s lips, a flash of red in his eyes. As he raises his arm, I close my eyes and hold my breath as razor-sharp blades of fire pierce through my fingertips and plunge into his neck. I pull them out again to the cheers of the rooftop psiloi.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice quavering through the ovation of voices and clapping hands. Diokles looks at me with roaming, vacuous eyes, smoke billowing from two black, bloody holes in his neck, as though he’d been bitten by a viper, or perhaps Python himself.
“You’ve accomplished nothing,” Diokles rasps. “None of you have!” He grimaces and fights the fall to one knee. “The reign of Apollo is coming. And he will crush you all and laugh at death; it cannot touch him.”
“There’s still time, Diokles. Duna is patient with us.” I whisper the words faintly, as if speaking any louder will make them vanish before reaching his ears.
He tilts his head and smiles curiously as his eyes begin to flutter and he collapses onto his heels. “What do you mean?” he says, straining to project every searing word.
“You can have eternal life. Just believe, Diokles. Ask Phos to save you. ”
“Never!” he shouts, his outrage overwhelming his pain. Then his outrage gives way to death… “It…isn’t…over… Do…you…hear…me…” He spews his last words, his own haunting knell, with wide, bloodshot eyes that churn both with terror and imprecation, and I know he means to threaten me, to threaten all of us.
“What do you mean?” I say, pressing my hands against his face, trying in vain to keep him alive one minute more. His eyes roll back into his head before he can take another breath.
“Brother!” I hear Alexa cry out. She runs to him, lying on his back with the implacable mask of anger still clinging to his face. “Brother, what happened to you…” She folds herself over his chest; her sobs fill the Court as Diokles’s cavalry slowly abandons the altar and drifts away like a fleet of ships breaking up in a storm.
Tycho wraps his hand around mine, then lifts his eyes to the Naos where the archers are waiting, wondering like me, What happens now?
But Tycho doesn’t have an answer or a command to give them. His lips part, but only a pensive sigh escapes them.
After a few moments, the psiloi leader aims an arrow at the guard standing nearest to Titus. He backs away without contest, and he and the guard beside Gennadius descend the ramp and follow the silhouettes of soldiers into the upset sea.
Aspasia reaches out her arms to me and I run to meet her. My eyes fill with tears at the sight of her bruised face and torn-apart flesh.
“Aspasia! I should never have left you. I’m so sorry!” I cry, holding her hands to my face as my warm tears wash over them.
“Shhhh, child,” she smiles. “Duna is a wonderful craftsman. He works all things together for the good of those who love him. Broken fragments, broken hearts…all can be mended and made beautiful by his hands.”
“Even when I didn’t love him, he was pursuing me, Aspasia. I felt him. I tried evading him as best I could…”
“It is the greatest love, Iris. That is all. The greatest love.” She kisses my forehead, and the kindness of it settles into my spirit; I feel the weightlessness of grace ridding me of my burden, carrying it into oblivion.
Titus and Gennadius join and pull us close, and together we huddle in reverent silence until Alexa approaches, now an orphan just like me.
“I prayed,” she says quietly.
Titus and I exchange glances.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The day you saved Tycho at the bathhouse,” she explains. “You seemed so brave, and my brother seemed so cruel. The only thing I knew to do was what I’d been taught a long time ago: pray for wisdom. The Oracles said wisdom is better than strength.”
Gennadius smiles. “That’s right. You had very wise parents for teaching you that,” he says.
“I would like to find them. I followed Diokles to the desert.” She looks over her shoulder at her dead brother and chokes back tears. “He told me I would be a princess for the rest of my life and would never have to take orders from an Alpha again. He told me a lot of things... I’m sorry about your aunt, Iris. I didn’t know. I promise I didn’t know,” she says pleadingly, her voice shaking as she looks back at Corinna’s body, now draped with a blanket.
“I believe you,” I say. “He was deceiving all of us.”
“We will pray that you find your parents,” Aspasia says, touching Alexa’s hand. “And we’ll help. I promise.”
“I found someone hiding at the bathing place.”
I turn to see Tycho, and behind him the Centaur, soaking wet and chewing on a piece of wood.
“I thought I saw something suspicious from the roof earlier,” adds Tycho. “A crate moving through the water and a black tail floating behind it.”
“And what were you doing there while we were here fighting to survive?” I ask.
“I thought it best to keep myself scarce when I saw the Guardians running out of the city like shrews out from under a log when the battering rams started rolling in. Besides, who else is going to carry the old tanners back to Limén where the young rascal stole my sword?” He winks at Alexa. She jumps up and runs to him, then swings herself onto his back and wraps her arms around his shoulders.
“I missed you, Centaur,” she says.
“Let’s get the general and the tanners to a doctor,” Tycho says. “The journey to Limén can wait another day or two.”
“Iris,” Alexa says, beckoning me with three bends of her forefinger. I go to her, and she leans in, placing a protective hand to my ear so no one can hear her ask, “What about Acheron? If he escaped with the other Guardians, he can’t be far from here.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, I whisper my response, “I have been forgiven, having done nothing to earn it. And so is he. I think I will let Duna be his judge.”
Alexa smiles broadly and hugs my neck. “It’s a new beginning for us, isn’t it?” she asks.
“Absolutely, sister,” I say, helping her off the Centaur. “Our journey has just begun. And only Duna knows the way.”
“And how to put that doma to use!” blurts the Centaur.
“Have you become a believer now, Centaur?” Titus asks.
The Centaur snorts a laugh. “I may need to witness just one more trick.”
“Don’t tempt me, Centaur. I might just send a fireball into your skull to knock some faith into you,” I reply with a wink.
“I think Duna has long ago forgotten about me,” the Centaur
says, glancing sideways at the stars, chin tucked and eyes shifting as if he feels unworthy to look upon them.
“Duna forgets about no one,” Aspasia says, her fingers finishing a braid in Alexa’s hair. Her head bobbing and brow softening, Alexa looks like a child again. I pray Duna will expel the nightmare of Ēlektōr far from her memory. No more swords and daggers. No more manhunts or sparring with Centaurs, unless of course it’s with our Centaur…
“You know, Tycho,” the Centaur begins, his eyes dropping to the serpent tattooed on Tycho’s arm. He hesitates, then looks up at Tycho and searches his face like one who is examining an estranged friend to make sure he is who he claims to be. “It was you, in all your evil, who made me believe that Python truly did exist. What – or who – else could compel a man to do such unspeakable things? And now,” the Centaur sighs, shaking his head in wonder of his forthcoming statement, “the fact that you stand in the presence of the kindest people I’ve ever known convinces me that I would be a fool not to have faith in a god of goodness. I suppose, Tycho, my fellow Pythonian, your faith has been like a doma to me – a true gift.”
Tycho takes the Centaur’s arm and embraces him, saying as much with that single gesture as he could with a thousand words.
“I think there might be hope for you after all, half-breed!” Alexa quips, apparently having discovered a second wind.
Titus helps Gennadius and Aspasia onto the Centaur’s back, and Alexa follows the four of them down the ramp and onto the street as a soft shower of rain falls from heaven. I leave Tycho to look after Anatolius’s and Corinna’s bodies and make my way to the bathing place.
Sitting on the pool’s edge I look up at the alabaster moon, a fearless lily blossoming from violet soil. Feeling its presence, I turn to see the Moonbow suspended above the Naos, each arch more vibrant than ever, each one glorifying its maker with its own unparalleled beauty. I think of the colors and the ways in which they called to me…
Red, the highest band, color of blood and vice;