by Diana Tyler
The Centaur clenched his jaw, pawing the gravel as he poured water along his neck. “Despite the turbulence of our journey there, my wits did not escape me once we arrived on Mount Lykaion. I knew what I was doing. I knew I would be recognized, and I knew the risk it would present.
“But I also knew that it was possible, and in fact probable, that the high priestess would propose an alternative to punishment, one meant to display mercy only as a minor character in the night’s drama. The major player, as in every tragedy, was catharsis. The high priestess wanted her audience to put themselves in my place, to feel their own hands taking the blade, and to equate their own freedom, their own repentance, with the killing of an innocent.”
Chloe’s breath chilled in her lungs as a dead calm fell over the forest. The water stood still as glass. Every breeze and bird ceased to move as all mourned in silence for the sacrificed.
As the sun slipped out of the clouds, Ethan asked, “What if you’d been wrong? You would’ve had your eyes gouged out, and then what?”
“Then you and Miss Chloe would’ve traveled back five minutes to tell me to keep my cake hole shut.” The Centaur chuckled, but no one else seemed to find his words funny.
“That’s what you think.” Chloe couldn’t keep a straight face; she laughed, too.
“But you didn’t know that Chloe would be able to save you with the seed,” Ethan said.
The Centaur pointed to his right hip. “Do you not see the dagger ever at my side?”
Ethan examined him closely, cocking his head sideways. The Centaur grinned. There was no dagger to see.
“Centaur, I’m sorry to say the drugs haven’t cleared your system yet,” said Ethan. “You left all your weapons behind last night.”
“He’s toying with you,” said Charis. “He carries Carya’s knife. The one she used to free my mother and him from prison at Ēlektōr.”
“Why must you spoil the fun?” the Centaur said. “I was going to show them.” His hand hovered over the invisible object sheathed at his hip. “Like this.” His hand clutched the air and left a hole in his fist that a hilt could fill. A thin column of light appeared in his hand. It began to pulsate, buzzing as it brightened to a bold electric blue.
Chloe moved closer, eyeing the diaphanous blade from all angles. “Does it work?”
“It cut through iron bars,” said the Centaur. “Of course it works. And had you stayed put a little longer, you would’ve seen for yourselves. I’d have cut Aison free and dared anyone, even the high priestess with Hermes’ silly staff, to challenge me.”
“I mean no disrespect,” Aison said, “but I confess I favor Chloe’s plan over yours. I’m not sure you could have prevailed against so many.” He eyed the dagger with caution, second-guessing his choice to offend its owner. “Though your bravery is laudable. Unsurpassed, I should add.”
“No need to kiss up to me, kid,” said the Centaur. “I’m only free to use this when innocent lives are on the line.”
The Centaur lifted the glowing knife to his shoulder, holding it sideways with the flat of the blade face up. With a guttural roar, he reared back and flung it across the stream, where it veered left, spun in the air at a sharp right angle, and sliced through the trunk of a young juniper, sending the top half toppling onto the bank.
The knife’s errand wasn’t done yet. Adjusting its course, it curved upward and cut away scores of leaves from a dozen trees lining the brook. Then, lowering its tip as if to nosedive, it sped across the water, tip touching the surface, skimming in a brilliant blur as water shot up like miniature geysers along its sides. Only when the Centaur lifted his hand did the dagger decelerate and circle back to him, floating on the air like a fairy.
“I changed my mind,” Aison said, as the dagger slipped into its invisible scabbard.
“And how was I supposed to know you had a magical knife?” Chloe said. “I wasted a perfectly good magical seed for nothing.”
The Centaur shrugged. “So I forgot to tell you.”
Chloe’s fingernails dug into her palms. “We’ll never get anything done as long as there are secrets between us.” She looked around the circle. “Between any of us.”
“You’re right, Miss Chloe. Sometimes the horse part of me overrides the man part. Will you forgive me?” The Centaur’s brown eyes showed that he meant it.
Chloe’s hands relaxed. “If you’ll forgive me for not trusting you.”
The Centaur looked down as he picked at his callused hands. “I never gave you reason to.”
“But today you have.” Chloe went to him, drawing his eyes back to hers. “Magical dagger or not, it took guts to do what you did.” The Centaur’s cheeks took on the subtlest shade of pink as he smiled. “Because of you, we’ve proved that Aison is innocent.”
Tycho pulled his family close. “There’s one we cannot trust yet.”
“Archelaos,” said Chloe.
“Yes, but also one of our own.”
Chloe knew whom he was referring to before she’d answered with Archelaos’s name. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“Your brother,” Ethan said.
“Did you have any luck locating him, Charis?” Iris asked. Charis shook her head. “It’s all right. It’s an impossible chore.”
“He’ll come back,” said the Centaur. “Just as he did before.”
“That’s if Mania lets him leave of his own volition this time,” said Chloe. She turned to Tycho, conviction steeling her bones. “I know you have reason to distrust my brother, but I have greater reason than anyone to doubt him, and I still believe that deep in his heart he’s good.”
“I want to believe that, Chloe,” Tycho said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “But there comes a time when we must face the truth about those we love. When we have to let them go.”
Chloe closed her eyes. Quick snapshots of her brother’s face, irrepressible memories of all the times he’d hurt her, and the sting of the fateful day he’d abandoned her, flashed and burned in her brain.
“No,” she whispered, willing herself to forget the past, just like she’d promised she would. “You’re wrong about him. And even if you aren’t, there’s no way in Hades I’m ever letting my own brother go.”
Before doubt or self-pity could poison her thoughts, Chloe took off into the woods, an unfamiliar fire of fervor propelling every footstep, filling every breath. She would keep walking until she found him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
PAWNS
Damian’s stomach tightened and growled at the robust smell of stew lingering in the air. His captors had enjoyed three meals in his presence and hadn’t spared a single nibble for him. Hermogenes had tried sneaking him an apple, but the second Damian reached to remove the gag, his parents noticed and snapped their disapproval. They’d retired to bed hours ago, leaving Damian under the watch of Panther, who snarled when Damian breathed too loudly or even rubbed an itch on his nose with his shoulder.
Never in his life had Damian felt his body revolt against him as it did now. Previously he’d been sick enough to vomit only a handful of times, and that was only in reaction to routine vaccines and had been readily remedied with a pill. He’d had sore muscles from track and wrestling practices, and even broke an arm when he fell on it wrong. But none of that came close to rivaling the discomfort he felt now.
His throat was so parched that he could no longer tell his tongue to swallow, nor could he move his stiff ankles without drawing blood from the iron chains wrenching his skin. Too dehydrated to sweat, he felt himself baking in the sticky heat of the wilderness; it seemed evening’s cool would never come.
Hadn’t Leto called him an ally? This was some way to treat one. A day or two more without water and he’d be dead. He wondered how many other people had died two thousand years before their birthday. Maybe what they said was true; maybe there really was a first for everything.
He jumped as a cold pair of hands grazed the back of his neck and untied the rag. “I didn’t want it to
be this way.”
It was Leto’s voice. She gently pulled away the rag, then flung it onto the floor as she strode to the hearth. “I’d hoped we could be friends.” She grabbed a spoon and hastily filled a nearby bowl with stew. “Wine or kykeon?”
“Pardon me?” Damian rasped, desperately eyeing the amphora of wine beside her.
“To drink. Wine or kykeon?”
Damian blinked. “Anything. Please.” He’d never been one to beg, but he would if he had to.
Leto sighed, took the jar by the neck and poured the wine into a wide black bowl. Just hearing the sound of liquid spilling into the vessel heightened Damian’s thirst a hundred fold. She held the bowl to his lips. He hardly breathed as he drank it down. It didn’t taste at all like cough syrup this time, but honey-sweet nectar of the gods. It was only on the third refill that his taste buds sensed the abhorrent, herb-like flavor he remembered.
Leto laughed at his disgusted expression and served him the stew.
“Thank you,” he said.
Leto didn’t answer; she just lifted a spoonful of vegetables to his lips. After he’d had enough to appease his stomach, he paused, and she set down the bowl.
“I didn’t want it to be this way, either,” he said.
“I offered you my friendship yesterday,” Leto said, the subtlest breeze blowing back her silvery white hair as she spoke. “And you rejected it. You came here today uninvited and unseen, like a rat looking to steal my cheese or make a home beside my hearth. Two offenses in so brief a time hardly persuade me that you’ve come here with pure intentions.”
“I came here looking for truth.” Damian rolled his neck from side to side. He’d never sat in one position for so long. Now that his thirst was slaked, he wanted nothing more than to lie down and stretch his limbs as far as he could.
Leto lifted another spoonful to his mouth. “You can thank your doma for your shackles. They’re the only way to ensure you stay put once your power returns.”
“When does your power stop working?”
Leto pounded her fist into the floor, causing Panther to whimper as thunder shook the columns, and rattled the pots and bowls. The pot hanging over the hearth squeaked as it swung back and forth in a violent gust of wind.
Damian closed his eyes and mouth to keep dust and rocks from blowing in. I get the point, he wanted to say.
“My doma operates when I tell it to,” Leto shouted above the thunderous refrain still echoing around them. “And it stops when I command it.”
Damian opened his eyes just wide enough to see her hovering six feet above him, arms extended toward the east and west as twin thunderbolts crisscrossed the courtyard, carving a flame-red X through the dusky fabric of sky.
“You’ll wake…your son…” Damian strained to speak through the din of howling wind.
“It matters not. He’s already seen who I am.” Leto dropped to her feet, signaling the thunder to cease and the winds to blow softly once again. She drew her blood-red cloak across her shoulders. “The All-Powerful might have created me, but I don’t belong to him, nor does the doma with which he endowed me.”
“May I ask you a question, or will you throw another tantrum?”
A smile tugged at Leto’s lips, but she twisted it into an indignant smirk. “No one save for immortal Hermes has spoken to me with such insolence.”
“I guess we Ashers all have a bold streak.”
The smile escaped. “You may ask it. And I will control my temper.”
Despite her promise, Damian braced himself. He took a breath. “Why do you want to own the world when you yourself resist belonging to anyone? Why can’t you leave Petros alone and let the people worship how and whomever they want to?”
Leto threw her hands onto her head and looked up at the gibbous moon rising over them. “You fancy philosophy, do you?”
“I fancy people being able to do whatever they please. I don’t fancy tyrants who manipulate the world to align with their own private agendas.”
Leto lowered her arms to her sides and looked on him with something much deeper than pity. Lines of anguish etched her face. Sorrow glimmered in her eyes as they fought to withhold their tears. Her hands, normally rigid, poised to command the weather, interlocked as she clasped them to her chest. Just like Chloe’s did whenever she was sad or afraid, Damian noted. Leto’s long hair fell like a platinum shield across her face, forbidding him from witnessing any more of her emotions.
“The world is cruel, Damian,” she said, turning her sharp chin toward him. “The people within it, the gods below, are all heartless, selfish creatures who do just as you say. But whether aristocratic tyrant or common merchant, they are all gods in their own eyes, displaced deities seeking a throne. And they’ll deceive, abandon and kill anyone who stands in their way.”
She showed him her face, lovely in its sadness as her radiant complexion shone even brighter in the moonlight, her tears like crystals on her cheeks. He made himself look away.
“My cousin Iris killed my father.” The crystals melted and slipped down her ivory neck. “For her beliefs in Duna, the All-Powerful,” she said mockingly. She wiped her cheeks and knelt in front of Damian. “And do you know what is cruelest of all?”
Damian watched Panther slip into the shadows behind Leto, his tail between his legs.
“She oversaw the death of the gryphon Corinna, who was my mother. She fell dead, a dozen arrows in her back, before my father’s eyes. And Iris did it all because she wanted a throne for herself.”
Damian knew there had to be another side to this story, but it would do no good to probe for it now. “I’m sorry about your father. I lost my parents, too.”
Leto’s face softened at this, but only for a moment before fresh anger filled it. “I can see in your eyes that they were murdered as well.” Damian nodded. “By whom?”
“By someone we call the chief councilman. He hates Ashers. That’s why we’re here.”
“You’re not here to hinder me?”
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Damian said, measuring his words carefully; one wrong syllable and she’d stir another storm. “But I’m here because I wanted to see who you are for myself.”
Leto drew back, eyeing him askance. “And have you made your judgment? Have you decided who you think I am?”
“I know you’re not a monster. You’re not Mania. You’re hurt, you’re angry. Just like I am. The only difference between us is that you’ve made an enemy of the entire world.”
He held his breath, certain that any second she’d unleash her fury to prove him wrong, to show him she indeed was Mania, through and through. But she remained still, pensively studying his face as if hoping he had more to say.
“And how do you view the world, the world that allowed your parents to die and will kill you as well if it gets the chance?”
“I view it as another victim.” Footsteps padded behind him. He heard Hermogenes yawn.
“Father said we shouldn’t talk to him, Mama,” the boy said.
“Your father isn’t here now, is he?” Leto answered sharply. “I am master of this house, not he. Now go back to bed.”
Damian looked over his shoulder as the boy, shoulders stooped and feet shuffling, turned the corner. “The world is a victim, just like your son is,” he said, turning back to her.
Leto’s gray eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? My son is a victim of no one.”
“I’d be willing to bet his birth wasn’t an accident. I don’t know much about the so-called gods, but I know every step they take has been carefully strategized. Your son, even you, you’re both just pawns on their board game.”
Leto picked up the bowl of half-eaten stew and threw it against the pot. Whipping back around to Damian, she stretched her arms toward him as a forceful wind gathered the dust from the floor and spun it into a small cyclone. It grew wider and taller and faster by the second, and then shrank as quickly as it had appeared.
“I told you I’d hold my temper, an
d I’ll keep my word,” she said, clearly using every bit of self-control she had to keep her fingers curled. “But if you ever slander the name of my beloved again, that whirlwind will just be the beginning of your woes.”
She smiled and bent down closer to whisper, “I may not be able to kill you, but I can still make you suffer until you pine for the Styx.” She stood and pushed a wind into the lamps, extinguishing their light and sending ribbons of smoke into the sultry air.
It struck Damian with perverse amusement that this was what he deserved: to be held prisoner by a capricious witch who could kill him with a snap of her fingers. After all, he’d been the one to leave his own sister in Hades, chained and tormented by the embodiments of evil. It didn’t matter that Chloe had forgiven him; justice required more than an apology.
No sooner had Damian closed his eyes to sleep than the temperature dropped fifty degrees, causing his teeth to chatter. He brought his knees to his chest and buried his face between them. He felt a blanket fall across his shoulders, then looked up to see Hermes standing over him, wand in hand.
“I want to see it,” Hermes said.
“See what? And have you been here this entire time?”
“Aye, but I kept my distance.” He patted Damian’s shoulder. “We wouldn’t want our pet Asher to get chilly now, would we?”
“Go back to hell, Hermes.”
“I shall.” Hermes’ jovial demeanor turned dark. “And I shall take you there with me if you don’t do as I ask. I wish to see my future self betray Apollo. And you will take Leto with us so she can see with her own eyes that you’re a liar.”
“You’re afraid she’ll find out that what I said is true.”
Hermes bore down on Damian’s shoulder and squeezed into a pressure point with his thumb. With his opposite hand he pointed his wand at the chains binding Damian’s feet and cut them off. “You’re the one who should be afraid.” He stuck his wand into Damian’s back, pushing him onto his feet.
“Uh, slight problem, buddy,” Damian said.