Wings of Fury

by Emily R. King

  “Mama?” I asked.

  Acraea touched my mother’s shoulder and listened for her breathing. The matron raised her bloody hands and swiped at her forehead with the back of one, waiting. After an eternity, Acraea bowed her head.

  “Gaea, receive thy daughter,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Matron Prosymna prayed as well. “Gaea, welcome Stavra beyond the gates of the sun and into the land of dreams.”

  Tears brimmed in my eyes. How peaceful my mother appeared, like she could have been sleeping—but she was too empty looking, too still.

  Matron Prosymna opened the window to let in air. Leaving the infant with her mother, the vestals mopped the floor with rags.

  “She was too pretty,” said Acraea.

  “She should have worn her velo,” replied another vestal.

  Matron Prosymna nodded gravely. “This is what happens when a woman isn’t careful.”

  I balled my hands into fists. “My mama did nothing wrong! The Almighty did this. He and his bastard.”

  “Shh,” said the matron. “You’ll wake the baby.”

  The infant slept despite the death around her. She was small and fragile now, but she would grow into her birthright. She was an atrocity—half human, half Titan.

  Fully a monster.

  I scooped her up and ran to the open window. Once there, I didn’t know what to do. I only knew that Mama was dead and someone had to pay.

  “Put the baby down, Althea,” said the matron.

  “She killed my mama!”

  Matron Prosymna lifted her hands, still stained with my mother’s blood. “Stavra is at rest. Let her soul go to the gods in peace.”

  “The gods don’t care what becomes of her soul,” I said. “Every day, we prayed for her safe return, yet she’s gone.”

  “Goddess forgive your insolence,” the matron hissed. “Quit this ridiculousness and hand over the baby.”

  “The world needs one less Titan,” I replied.

  “She’s an innocent.” The matron patted her chest, over her heart. “What will you do to honor your mother’s memory? Will you care for your sisters—all of your sisters? Or will you break your promise to Stavra before her body has gone cold?”

  I glanced at my mother’s body, then out the second-story window. The babe slept fast, her ignorance unfathomable. Didn’t she know everything was ruined? Didn’t she know that Mama—our mama, my mama—was never coming back?

  “Who will teach her about your mother?” the matron pressed, gradually crossing the chamber to us. “Who will tell her how brave and strong your mother was?”

  The newborn stirred a little and squeaked, like a bunny.

  Matron Prosymna paused, just out of arm’s reach. “The babe isn’t your adversary, Althea. She’s your sister. Your family.”

  I eyed the baby more closely. Her nose was too large for her face. I often complained about the size of my own nose. Bronte and Cleora liked to tease me about its width. The baby’s nose was the same shape and had the same proportions as mine. She might have been half Titan, but she was also half mortal.

  Half my blood.

  Half me.

  “You should name her,” said the matron.

  “Name her?”

  “Yes, child. She needs a name.”

  None of the Titan spawn sired by the Almighty deserved a name. Still, I wondered what my mother might have called her.

  Footsteps pounded in the corridor. The door swung open, and three soldiers barged in. The one in the lead—a man with a long, angled face like a rat’s—spotted my mother lifeless on the bed, then swung his attention to me.

  “Hand over the baby,” he said.

  The matron stepped in front of us. “She belongs with her family. No one need know she survived. I swear on Gaea’s boundless name, none of us will tell a soul.”

  Ratface stepped closer, swinging his meaty shoulders and gripping his sword. “Save your promises, matron. The babe comes with us.”

  “You condemn her to death,” she replied. “The God of Gods will end her as he has all his children.”

  “It isn’t for us to question the Almighty’s will.” He shoved the matron out of his way and prowled toward me.

  My mother’s words cut through my mind. Protect your sisters.

  I lunged out the open window onto the ledge. Ratface’s long arms swiped at me. Light on my toes, I scurried along the sloped rooftop as he climbed out after me.

  Holding the newborn tighter, I edged around the corner of the roofline. The courtyard stables ran parallel to the temple. The ledge ahead ended at a gap between two peaks. Unafraid of heights, I stepped across. My ankle turned on a loose roof tile, and I wobbled backward. My bottom hit the sloped roof, and I slid. Air whooshed around me as I landed in a pile of hay.

  The baby groused in my arms. I hushed and rocked her.

  Bronte and Cleora leaned out the gynaeceum window on the second floor and gaped at me. Ratface searched for a safe path down from the roof. I wriggled out of the hay to the ground, my ankle aching as I limped toward the front gates.

  A soldier emerged from the shadows. He was bigger than the others, with a shaven face and wavy dark-brown hair that hung down his back. I paused, waiting for him to draw his sword. His brow pinched.

  “Angelos, secure the baby!” Ratface yelled.

  The soldier in my way started for me. “Give me the baby and I’ll see that you’re safe.”

  “No,” I argued.

  Angelos opened his arms to take the baby. I jerked away, jostling her awake. Though her eyes were closed, she began to wail. He grabbed for her again. I kicked him in the kneecap and sped past him.

  “Run!” Bronte and Cleora shouted in chorus.

  I rushed the gates. Two soldiers with swords drawn hurried out of the temple and blocked my pathway.

  Ratface gave up on descending the roof and started back through the window. “Get me the baby!” he ordered, then disappeared inside.

  The soldiers blocking the front gates prowled forward. I whirled around to find Angelos behind me.

  He opened his arms for the infant, his expression solemn. His voice matched his sympathetic eyes. “You must let her go.”

  The babe howled.

  Another soldier reached around me from behind and tried to wrestle her from my grasp. I held on as tightly as possible without hurting her, but he wrenched her away. I beat my fists against his back.

  “Let her go!” I cried.

  He pushed me hard. My sore ankle turned on its side again, this time with a popping noise, and I fell to the ground in pain.

  Ratface stormed out of the temple and saw they had secured their prize. He whistled, and the soldiers mounted up, except Angelos, who lingered beside me. He extended his hand to help me up, but I pushed to my feet, my ankle aching fiercely.

  The newborn wailed and wailed.

  “She’s my sister,” I pleaded.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “Angelos, we ride!” Ratface called.

  Angelos hesitated another moment and then mounted up with the liege men, and they rode out. The infant’s wails faded with the thunder of horses’ hooves into the jasmine-scented night.

  I sank to the ground in tears, my arms limp at my sides.

  Mama was gone, and so was my baby sister.

  Gone before she even had a name.

  1

  I carried the full water pails away from the pond and through the dappled woodland. Two hours before daybreak, I had scoured the kitchen and commons floor with scalding water. Now, as the sun crested to the east, my back ached from scrubbing away the soot marks around the hearth on my hands and knees.

  The nearby stream roared as snow-water torrents hurtled down the mountainside. In spring, the forest itself rested in a wintry haze, the hamadryads in each tree dozing until dawn dismounted her rosy throne and surrendered to daylight. In the almost seven years that we had lived in these hills, I had come to know the many craggy paths through l
eafy recesses. I navigated every dip in the ground and ducked from every bough, considerate of the yawning hamadryads. The water sloshed over the edges of the pails and onto my muddy feet. I should have slowed down so as not to waste more, but the handles cut into my palms, and my empty stomach grumbled. Replenishing the water supply was my last morning chore before I could eat.

  Travelers headed my direction up the trail, a party of hoplites—poor citizen soldiers, farmers, and artisans who elected to take up weapons in defense of their homeland. The road was too narrow for them and me, so I stepped into the underbrush and bowed my head. My hair fell forward, hiding my unmasked face.

  “Divine day,” one man said as they passed.

  I flinched. His voice did not sound familiar. Still wary, I glanced from the corner of my eye. Once in a while, I met men from the nearby village for a brief romp down by the pond, but I didn’t recognize these men.

  A very pretty unmasked girl, no older than thirteen, sat with her hands bound in front of their lead rider. An offering for the Almighty, I wagered. She could have been one of their daughters, or a girl sold to them by a poor family. It was hard to say what circumstances led her here, another girl who was worth just two hundred silver pieces.

  Though I was supposed to return home already, I waited until the party disappeared up the winding road before hefting the water pails onward.

  The temple compound was shrouded in springtime foliage, its outer walls a two-story dormitory that housed all the vestals, their oratory, and their workspaces. Within the courtyard of the U-shaped dormitory—in addition to the kitchen, stables, and outbuildings—stood the actual temple, a modest stone structure with columns on a base of stairs and an ornate precipice. The most recent addition to the courtyard, come five years ago, was a statue of the God of Gods posed naked with his arms at his sides and chin lifted defiantly. It, and the tattered First House flag hung at the front gates, displayed the minimal devotion required of any household in the territory of Thessaly.

  My bad ankle throbbed by the time I arrived. After I broke it as a girl, the bone hadn’t healed right, often giving me pains when I stood too long or walked too far. A line of vestals exited the temple after offering morning prayers before the statue of Gaea. They had already laid their daily sacrifice of fruit or bread before the statue of the Almighty. He always came first. I mumbled, “Divine day,” and kept on for the open-air kitchen.

  Acraea kneaded bread dough, with two slaves assisting her. My sisters worked alongside them, Bronte grinding grain and Cleora stoking the fire. They, too, had woken early. Cleora ran the kitchen and hearth, while Bronte swept the quiet halls and tended to the garden. A bundle of freshly picked greens was piled by the washbasin, waiting for Bronte to clean and chop. Our meager breakfast of stale bread, which they nibbled on as they worked, and wine was on the plate and in the chalice we shared. Fewer dishes to wash, Cleora would say. She always found ways to lessen our workload.

  I set the pails by the fire, then poured them, one at a time, into the big pots for boiling. Finally, with a moment to be still, I stretched my back.

  Cleora stared at the dancing flames. “You’re late.”

  “Or dawn was early,” I replied.

  Bronte snorted. I joined her at the worktable and reached across her to snag a piece of flatbread from our breakfast plate. She flicked me in the arm.

  “Don’t forget to pray,” she said.

  I mumbled a short prayer of thanks and shoved the bread into my mouth. “You’re filthy,” I said, rubbing a smudge of dirt off Bronte’s forehead. Her straight flaxen hair was tangled with bits of rosemary.

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “You smell like a sow.”

  “You smell like an herb.”

  Acraea laughed at us from where she kneaded dough at the second worktable. She wasn’t like the other snobbish vestals who’d joined the Guild of Gaea in their childhood and kept their distance from us. Acraea had taken her vow of virginity later, after running away from an arranged marriage years ago. She brushed her hands on her apron and flung a gunnysack at me.

  “Go to Othrys for figs and burgundy olives,” she said. “We need them for the bounty bread.”

  “I said I would help with the mending, and I need to muck out the stalls. It’s also my turn to watch the flock.” I always had a long list of things to do. Whereas Bronte and Cleora had set chores, I did whatever needed to be done, which was usually what no one else would do. I had been anticipating a day by myself in the fields to practice with my spear and shield away from the matron’s disapproving scowls.

  “The slaves will take over your household commitments, and Bronte will tend to the sheep,” Acraea replied.

  “Why doesn’t she go to the market and I watch the sheep?” I asked.

  “The wild dogs hunted down two lambs yesterday. She’s a better archer.”

  I caught Bronte’s small smile. For her, tending to the sheep also meant time away from the overbearing matron.

  “We need those ingredients,” Acraea added.

  The bounty bread was baked for the First House Festival, the anniversary of the Almighty’s overthrow of his father, Uranus. The olives and figs, representing the blood that Uranus shed upon the earth, had to be soaked in wine for at least five days before the dough could be prepared. People across the world baked the bread in the God of Gods’ honor. The day of celebration wouldn’t be the same without it, but I didn’t like having my commitments handed off.

  Besides, traveling to the city meant that I might run into Decimus. I was always on the watch for him. We all were. At times, I thought he had forgotten me, but the tag burned into the back of my neck wouldn’t let me forget him.

  “Acraea, when do we leave?” I asked, tying back my deep-auburn hair with a piece of string.

  “The matron said she’s needed here,” Cleora replied, meticulously tending the fire.

  My eyebrows shot up. “I’m going without a companion?”

  “You’re eighteen,” Acraea said. “That’s old enough for a day trip to the city alone.”

  I often pointed out my age to justify my independence, but I was surprised Cleora would allow this. She didn’t like me going to the city at all, let alone by myself. The matron must have insisted. I grabbed the gunnysack. “All right.”

  Cleora straightened up and finally looked at me. “Where’s your velo?”

  “Upstairs in our bedchamber.”

  Her amber eyes flashed. “You went outside unmasked? Were you seen?”

  “Nothing happened,” I said, sipping from the wine chalice the three of us shared. Cleora snatched my wrist, and I nearly spilled down the front of myself.

  “Who saw you?” she asked.

  “The hoplites weren’t interested in me.” I reached for a piece of flatbread with my free hand, but she shifted and blocked my way.

  “Take this seriously,” she said. “Did they speak to you?”

  “Just pleasantries in passing.”

  “Althea,” she groaned. “How many times must I tell you not to leave the compound unmasked? Go fetch your velo. You’re not traveling without it.”

  Cleora’s usual bossy overprotectiveness grated on me. Of course, I wouldn’t go to the city without my modesty mask. I wasn’t dense. “Can I eat first? Gods.”

  “Watch your tongue,” the matron snapped.

  Everyone froze except Bronte, who was busy grinding wheat, preoccupied by her own humming. She sang to herself so often that no one found it odd when she didn’t respond to Matron Prosymna’s appearance in the doorway of the kitchen.

  “Do not blasphemy in Gaea’s house,” said the matron.

  The goddess wasn’t present to take offense, but I didn’t point that out.

  “Althea didn’t mean anything by it,” Cleora said, letting go of my wrist.

  “I will hear an apology from your sister,” the matron replied.

  “Althea?” Cleora prodded.

  I refused to meet their gazes. I was not sorry abou
t my slip of the tongue.

  “Althea,” Bronte said with a kindly singsong in her voice. “You should apologize.”

  It might have been petulant of me, but my older sisters ordering me about was too much just then. My hands and back still ached from chores, and my stomach grumbled for more food. For nearly seven years, I had toiled hours a day for the guild. At what point would I earn the right to speak without watching my words?

  “Perhaps she needs more work to avoid idle time,” the matron said.

  Eating breakfast was idle time?

  “Althea’s grateful for all you provide,” Cleora replied in a rush. “She hasn’t eaten yet, and you know she’s grumpy when she’s hungry. I’ll fetch her velo.” She whisked out of the kitchen.

  “The rest of you get back to work,” Matron Prosymna commanded. “Bronte, shouldn’t you be leaving for the fields?”

  Bronte glanced at the pile of herbs set aside for her to wash and chop. “Cleora asked me to help here before I—”

  “Your sister will manage. You’re required elsewhere.”

  Bronte slowly set down the pestle, then met the matron’s stare. My sister hid her disdain so well that sometimes I forgot I wasn’t the only one barely tolerating our life in the temple. “Yes, matron,” Bronte said with a hint of derision.

  Matron Prosymna cast me one last pinch-lipped glare and stormed out.

  Acraea returned to kneading the bread, shaking her head. “You know how to liven up a morning, Althea.”

  Bronte brushed the coarse-ground grains off her hands. “My little sister’s stubbornness could raise the Gigantes from the underworld.”

  “You don’t wear your velo to the watering hole either,” I shot back.

  “I’m careful not to be seen, mm-hmm,” Bronte teased. “You know how Cleora feels about us leaving the compound.”

  Cleora hadn’t gone outside since our mother was taken. Though she was twenty-one now, and a full-grown woman, it was an unacknowledged courtesy that we never spoke of her self-segregation from the outside world.

  Bronte showed the bowl of ground grain to Acraea. “This looks finished.”