Journey Into Nyx

by Jenna Helland

  She sat alone on the shore listening to the gentle rush of the tide. By the time the sun was setting she wasn’t angry anymore. She just wanted to make things better with Daxos. They were supposed to meet in the morning to train, but instead she found the note under her door. She smoothed out the note and read it again: YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE THE HERO OF THEROS.

  And now it was the morning after the argument, and there was no sign of Daxos anywhere. As she tried to fight off the unexpected sense of loneliness, two priests approached along the corridor behind her. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, so she moved behind a leafy trellis as they strolled by. Even without seeing their faces, she recognized the men’s voices. The younger man was called Stelanos, and he considered Daxos to be one of his friends. The elder priest was called Hew, a nickname from his days as a stonemason, before he left to serve Heliod.

  “He’s neglecting his duties,” the elder priest said. “Something must be done.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Stelanos said. “I looked for him already, but there’s no sign he slept in his bed at all.”

  “But he never does sleep, isn’t that true?” Hew asked. “Or has that changed?”

  “Since the Silence, he’s been sleeping at night and rising early to train with Elspeth …” Stelanos broke off. At first, Elspeth thought they stopped because they saw her through the trellis. But then she realized they still didn’t know she was there. They’d just paused on the other side of the pillar to continue their conversation, not knowing that she was listening.

  “Why are you dismissive of her?” Stelanos asked. “You don’t believe she is a chosen of Heliod?”

  “Why would Heliod choose an outsider?” Hew asked. “What is she, a Setessan? Then let her be the chosen of the Hunter. We don’t need her kind here.”

  Elspeth’s cheeks flushed red. They had been talking about Daxos, and now they were talking about her.

  “Her kind?” Stelanos asked. “You think the Sun God should only bless those born in Meletis? Or do you frown at all women nowadays?”

  “I have no problem with women,” Hew protested. “I don’t see how Heliod chose her before he was called to Nyx by the Silence.”

  “You presume to understand the mysteries of Heliod?” Stelanos asked. “Or are you calling Daxos a liar? He is the one saying Heliod made her his champion.”

  “No, no,” Hew said. “Some of the priests are questioning if she’s what she says she is.”

  “She did strike the killing blow to the hydra,” Stelanos reminded him.

  “Yes, but you can’t deny there’s been a change in Daxos ever since she’s arrived,” Hew said. “I don’t like it. He’s been absentminded. I don’t think he’s set foot inside the temple proper since …”

  “Since the Silence,” Stelanos finished for him. “Why do you think it’s the stranger and not the Silence that’s afflicting him?”

  “I saw her early this morning walking near the fountain,” the older man said. “She’s not with him now, but she might know where he is.”

  “I don’t want to trouble her,” Stelanos said. “I’ll speak to Daxos when I see him again.”

  “Have you heard about the strange sightings of the Nyxborn?” Hew asked as the two men walked away. “They attacked Setessa. Can you imagine …”

  As their footsteps echoed down the corridor, Elspeth felt sick with embarrassment. It had never occurred to her that the priests like Hew didn’t want her here. Since she’d arrived, most of her time was spent with Daxos. But the priests had seemed to welcome her. The politeness of her interactions with them reminded her of the knightly protocol of Bant. Human interaction felt cool and crisp. It was pleasant, but careful and formalized. Lifeless, perhaps, but it never occurred to her that it wasn’t genuine.

  Elspeth decided not to wait for Daxos any longer. She’d been meaning to visit Nikka, who was staying in Ephara’s compound, where she was subject to strict rules. Temple life was an awkward fit for the rebellious teenager. Just as Elspeth made up her mind to leave, she heard a tink as a pebble landed on the bench behind her. She stared at the pebble, which glowed a soft amber.

  Why do you look at the pebble and not where it came from?

  The words seemed to flow into her mind, and she looked across the courtyard. Daxos was perched on the very edge of the sloped roof, watching her. When their eyes met, he grinned and tossed another pebble in her general direction. She plucked the amber pebble off the bench and slung it back at him. With feline reflexes, he plucked the pebble from midair and grinned again.

  This time his lips moved, but no sound came out. Meet me by Sleeper’s Gate.

  The streets were crowded with people heading to morning worship as Elspeth slipped out Sleeper’s Gate, the little-used wooden door tucked into the ivy along the southern entrance to the temple grounds. She didn’t have to scan the crowds long before she saw Daxos standing beside the public cistern at the end of the street. He held the reins of a large brown horse that stamped the cobblestones impatiently.

  “Are you leaving?” she asked, after she’d threaded through the throngs. Heliod’s temple bells began to chime in the distance.

  “Just a day’s ride,” he said.

  “Oh,” Elspeth said, stroking the horse’s nose.

  Daxos laid his hand on Elspeth’s shoulder and nodded at her weapon. “Why do you always have your blade at your side? The complex is safe.”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps,” she agreed. She was going to repeat some aphorism about always being prepared but stopped herself. She wanted to really talk to Daxos. She wanted to repair what had been broken by their argument, but he spoke before she did.

  “I rode out from the city before dawn,” he told her. “I passed through the Guardians and onto the plateau. Polukranos’s blood seeped into the stones. There’s a red stain upon the plateau that the gods can see from Nyx.”

  “Maybe Nylea can use it for target practice,” Elspeth said.

  “Nylea,” he repeated. “She won’t be happy about the hydra.”

  “She’d rather that your city was demolished?” Elspeth asked in surprise.

  “I was going to continue riding to the Nessian Forest, but I changed my mind,” Daxos continued without answering her question.

  “Why?” Elspeth asked.

  “I’m sorry I called you selfish,” Daxos said. “Wanting a home—safety—is fundamental.”

  “I wasn’t calling you a liar,” Elspeth said.

  “Some people will believe anything for the sake of glory,” he said. “I should have known that wasn’t you.”

  Elspeth shifted uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure what to do. Wish him a safe journey? Implore him to come back inside? Why was it easier to face an enemy in battle than speak her mind to a friend?

  “Do you want to ride with me?” Daxos asked. “This is a strong horse. He can carry us both.”

  “Where are we going?” Elspeth asked.

  “To the Despair Lands—to look for my mother,” he told her. “Before Heliod would never let me go, and now, I don’t want to go alone.”

  The sun rose higher and the mist burned off the fields as they rode down Guardian Way and onto the dirt road that led into the forest. Once inside the Nessian, Elspeth felt strangely ill at ease in the dim light of the forest under a canopy of the silver oaks. Near midday they stopped to rest by the ruins of a round tower beside a rushing stream. It was a particularly beautiful place with lilacs growing along the river bank and golden butterflies flitting through the shafts of sunlight. The water was startlingly blue, and silver fish congregated near the stepping-stones.

  “Where are we?” Elspeth asked. Her earlier discomfort evaporated once they reached the picturesque site.

  “It’s called Hunter’s Crossing,” Daxos said. “That ruined tower used to be a Setessan outpost.”

  They drank from the stream and then sat together at its edge while the horse grazed nearby. Daxos took off his shirt and used it as a pillow while he stretched
out on the river bank. Elspeth watched the water for a while before turning her attention to Daxos. His eyes were closed so she stared at the tattoos on his shoulder, which she’d been curious about but had never seen up close. She recognized most of the symbols as being related to Heliod. She’d seen some of them emblazoned on friezes in Meletis, but a few were unfamiliar symbols. His eyelids fluttered. He was not asleep.

  “Don’t you trust me, Elspeth?” he murmured. “Say what you need to say.”

  It was an invitation, but not one that she was ready to take.

  “What’s this symbol?” she asked. She pressed her finger gently against the ink near his throat.

  “That is a terrible heresy,” he said.

  “I thought you were all about orthodoxy,” she said.

  “I think we have both misjudged the other,” Daxos said.

  “You don’t believe the teachings of Heliod? Or you do?”

  Daxos’s eyes flicked to the sky then closed again. “I believe in them. I just don’t believe they’re written in stone.”

  “Are you angry with Heliod?” she asked.

  Daxos didn’t answer right away. He sat up, picked up a rock, and flung it in the water. It skipped across the surface three times before sinking.

  “Are you angry with him for the Silence?” Elspeth prompted.

  Daxos looked at her with a strange expression. Then he grinned and burst out laughing. It transformed his entire face, and she found herself smiling at his unexpected joy. He leaned toward her as if he were going to kiss her on the cheek. But instead he whispered, “I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

  Before Elspeth could answer, he grinned at her mischievously. “You know a funny thing about water?” he asked.

  “About water?” she asked, confused at the change of topic.

  He tipped his head to the left and then right. While she was trying to figure out what he was doing, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. A thin stream of water rose out of the stream. She turned to look more closely and heard Daxos snicker. By the time she realized that Daxos was casting a spell, it had already drenched her completely.

  “You splashed me!” Elspeth sputtered.

  “That’s your response, Champion?” Daxos teased. “You can slaughter the great Polukranos and have no response to a simple dousing?”

  Elspeth found she couldn’t think of a single spell, so she just tackled him instead. She surprised him and took the advantage. Kneeling over his chest, she almost pinned him down, but then he shifted his weight unexpectedly. She leaned left to compensate, and he flipped her to the right. She maintained control for about one second longer, and then he pinned her easily. They were about the same height, but he was stronger and had been trained in the art of wrestling.

  “I give, I give,” she said. She shoved him off and sat up. They were both covered in dirt, leaves, and crushed violets.

  “Nice,” he said, assessing her disheveled state. “You look ready for the pankration event in the Akroan games.”

  “Is that like pit fighting?” she asked.

  “No death matches, not since Anax became king,” Daxos said. “You didn’t learn hand-to-hand combat in your training?”

  “No one usually gets past my sword,” she muttered. “But no, we didn’t spend much time with ground fighting. Being a knight was all about using the weapon with honor.”

  “Where was your home?” he asked. “When I first saw you, I thought you had been born of the gods.”

  “My home was destroyed,” she said.

  His brow creased with concern. “Where was that?” he asked.

  “What is the farthest explored point on the known world?” Elspeth asked.

  “In the east, beyond the leonin lands, there’s another forest,” Daxos told her. “Larger than even the Nessian Forest, no one knows how far it goes.”

  “What’s to the west beyond the sea?” Elspeth asked.

  “The world ends at the waterfall where Kruphix’s Tree grows,” he explained. “The sea falls off the edge and into the void below.”

  “My home was beyond your infinite forest,” she said.

  He smiled at her gently. “Beyond the infinite forest,” he repeated.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said.

  “I believe you,” he said. “And I marvel at your courage, traveling so far alone.”

  There was a long silence broken only by the pip of the songbirds and the rushing of the water.

  “What did you mean yesterday when you said, ‘At the feet of the untouched city. By the hands of someone I love?’ ” Elspeth asked. “Is that about your mother?”

  Daxos stood up abruptly. He offered a hand to Elspeth and helped her up.

  “We should get going,” he said.

  “Daxos, I thought your mother died,” she said. “How could she be in the Despair Lands?”

  “Come on,” he said. He stood up and held out his hand. “I’ll show you.”

  They stopped on a ridge overlooking the Despair Lands where all the trees along the open edge of the forest had died. Daxos tethered the horse to a withered branch while Elspeth stared out at the lifeless expanse of black sand, scattered boulders, and desolation.

  “Is this natural?” she asked. She thought of the sick ground of Grixis pushing up through the lush fields of Bant. Elspeth felt fear rising inside her, like a wellspring that could overcome her. Time seemed to slow. It was like an invisible weight had been placed on her shoulders.

  “Natural?” he asked. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “What causes the land to die and the trees to wither?” she asked.

  Daxos considered the perimeter of dead trees along the ridge.

  “This is new damage,” he said.

  “Damage?” Elspeth asked.

  “There should be an ethereal boundary that keeps the forest safe,” Daxos said. “But with Nylea in Nyx, it’s getting worse.”

  “What’s getting worse?” Elspeth put her hand on her blade as if enemies hid just behind the trees.

  “It’s the breath of Erebos,” he said. “He takes pleasure in others’ misery, so he fills the world with his own despair. It’s the only happiness he knows.”

  “Is this just here?” Elspeth asked “Can he afflict the cities? How far can it spread?”

  “The Underworld contains Erebos himself,” Daxos said. “I’ve never seen him cross the rivers into the mortal realm. Before the Silence, his voice was the hardest to hear. But he can afflict creatures and fill them with his toxic presence. Both humans and beasts, like the catoblepas, can be agents of his despair.”

  “What is his purpose? Death and carnage?”

  “No, that is what Mogis desires,” Daxos explained. “Erebos wants everyone to resign themselves to misery. We call it ‘drinking from the cup of resignation.’ At its most mild, it makes people sluggish and cruel. At its worst, it makes them reexperience the worst moment of their life. They can no longer separate reality from his affliction.”

  Elspeth scanned the bleak horizon. Across the field, she saw the black entrance to a cave on the far side of the field of boulders and black sand. Panic rose up in her.

  “This place feels oppressive,” she admitted. “Desperate.”

  “And we are only on the edge of it,” Daxos said. “Perhaps we should go back to Meletis. I don’t want you to …”

  A flash of golden light from below caught their attention. Elspeth pointed to a dark figure stepping around the boulders. Despite the distance, she could tell it was a centaur. They were more common in Meletis than in Akros, and they often sold their wares outside of Heliod’s temple. This centaur paced in circles around the rocks, repeating the same endless circuit.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  “It’s a Returned,” Daxos said.

  “Those are the people who wear gold masks?” Elspeth asked. She’d seen likenesses of them on a frieze in a catacomb below Heliod’s temple.

  “A Returned can
be anything that escapes the Underworld—anything that had enough consciousness to worship the gods in life.”

  “Creatures really come back from the dead?” Elspeth asked in surprise. She’d seen plenty of zombies on other planes, but those mindless creatures hadn’t really come back from the dead. They had been ripped out of the grave by a necromancer. Because Daxos probably had no conception of a “zombie,” she didn’t speak her thoughts aloud.

  “No one knows what death is really like in the Underworld,” Daxos said. “The gods tell stories of what it will be like, but only Erebos knows for sure. And he lies. That’s all he does. I’m not sure he knows how not to lie.”

  “Do you think your mother might escape?” Elspeth asked. “That she’ll come back to you?”

  “I don’t know,” Daxos said. His voice caught in his throat. “I don’t know why some of the dead come back and some don’t. And even when they do come back, they’re not the same. It must be a horrible existence. They have a sense of all they’ve lost, but can’t begin to find it.”

  Elspeth stared down at the Returned Centaur, who had stopped his mindless circling. He stamped his hoof on the ground over and over. It reminded her of an irate child, and she wished she could take away his frustration to ease his burden.

  “They don’t remember their lives, so they follow some forgotten pattern seared on their brain,” he said. “Even if my mother did come back, she wouldn’t know me. She would have lost her soul and wouldn’t remember herself.”

  “What happens to their souls?” Elspeth asked.

  “The soul is severed and wanders on its own,” Daxos said. “They become eidolons. It’s drawn to the magic of gods, like a cub clings to its mother.”

  “Has something happened that makes you think you might find your mother now?”

  “Heliod used to control my actions,” Daxos said. “With his absence, he can’t stop me searching. And this is where I lost her. If she did come back, she would be wandering here.”

  Now that she understood why this was so important to him, Elspeth tried to squelch her rising sense of panic. She put her hand on his arm. “Let’s do down and look,” she said.