by JJ King
Thea’s cheeks paled and her eyes narrowed into slits, “He’s the reason Athena cursed us? The reason she punished you for loving him?”
Em swallowed, feeling the familiar guilt rise like bile into her throat. “It’s because it was him, Thea. It’s just as much his fault as it is mine.” She braced herself against the mantle and gritted her teeth against the rage and pain. For a long moment, she stared at Thea, wondering how her sisters could have ever forgiven her for what she’d done to them. For lifetimes she’d questioned their love, their intent, assuming they needed her to survive. She’d always known deep down, that they had to hate her for what she’d done. Em searched for the words to say to make her sister understand what this revelation meant to her.
Before she could speak, Thea crossed the room and enveloped her in a hug. She squeezed tight, breathing quickly as her heart raced in her chest. Em could feel it, pressed against hers, beating frantically just as hers did. Thea stepped back and reached out a hand, tipping up Em’s chin. “Look at me,” she whispered in a hoarse voice. “Em, look at me.”
Em raised her gaze, blinking back tears.
“I know you’ve never believed us, but Eury and I have never blamed you for what Athena did. Not really.” She wiped her fingers across Em’s cheek, “We love you, Medusa.”
Hearing her real name come from Thea’s lips made Em’s heart stutter. She’d lived by so many names out of necessity, despite the fact that her snakes make it impossible for her to actually live the life she wanted to. They’d each made sacrifices to keep their identities hidden, especially Eury, she realized now, as she’d never felt connected to the world as time passed. Em knew her own sacrifices had cost her parts of her soul, but she’d always felt the burden of not just her own, but her sisters’ as well. Nothing they’d ever said had changed the way she felt about her own guilt.
“I’ve heard you say those words so many times,” Em whispered, “but it’s always felt like my burden to carry. I chose to let love lead my life, I chose to break my vows to Athena.” She took a deep breath and, when she released it, she felt some of the weight lift. “Now I know it wasn’t all my fault,” she smiled shakily, “and it feels like I can finally breathe.”
Thea pressed her lips against Em’s forehead and murmured against her flushed skin, “None of it was your fault. You fell in love and followed your heart. Vows be damned, no one, not even Athena, had the right to punish you for falling in love.”
Em choked out a laugh, “You might need to read your mythology a little closer, sister. The entire thing is riddled with women being punished for daring to love.”
“Fucking gods,” Thea cursed vehemently, curling up her lip in a snarl.
“Fuck ‘em all,” Em chimed in before turning her head away to hide the confusion she knew must be apparent in her eyes. She hated that the pure white rage she’d felt earlier had dulled and faded, taking with it her absolute certainty and resilience. Now that it was gone, she was left with a churning blend of doubt and pain. She clutched at her stomach and prayed it, too, would fade.
“How do I make it stop?” Em murmured the words quietly, as if saying them aloud would give them more power.
Thea reached for her hand and pulled, leading her to the couch. Em settled onto the thick cushions and grabbed a throw pillow to clutch on her lap. She needed something to help her feel secure and safe.
“I don’t think you do make it stop,” Thea said gently, tucking a strand of hair behind Em’s ear. “I think you have to decide if this information, however horrible it was to hear, is a deal breaker. You hated him for thousands of years and still loved him, can you come back from this, too?”
Em stared at her sister, “You aren’t,” she searched for the right adjective, “furious at him? For ruining our lives? For being a petty asshole who caused us endless pain out of childish spite?” With each question her voice got louder until she was shouting and the sound of it echoed off the white stucco walls.
Thea shook her head slowly, “I was for a second, but then I realized it didn’t make a difference. Not really. Athena did this to us out of spite and jealousy, and it doesn’t matter if she did it because she was in a fight with Poseidon or if she was pissed at losing her best priestess, she and she alone is responsible for doing this to us.” Thea gripped Em’s arm, “If I blamed him, I’d have to blame you and I don’t.”
“You really don’t blame me?” Em asked, the truth of those repeated words finally sinking in. They felt warm, like midday sun, and spread through her chest filling up the cracks that had hidden her darkest fears.
“No, little sister,” Thea said in a softly exasperated tone, “I don’t blame you. I never have.”
"Now," she said pushing up from the couch, "I'm going to go check on our sister and see how Mom and Dad are acclimatizing to the 21st century." She laughed, "Did you know Dad spent the afternoon watching Netflix? I think he found an old Die Hard movie. Something with Bruce Willis in it, anyway. It was so funny. He was so intent, I swear he stopped breathing at times."
Em's lips twitched as she imagined their father watching Netflix. "Oh God, he's going to be the worst binge watcher ever, isn't he?" They both giggled.
"What about Mom?" Thea asked, glancing toward the bedroom down the hallway. "I can't see her becoming Susie homemaker. I wonder what she'll do with her free time, you know, now that they're free."
The reminder of their parent's incarceration wiped the grin from both their faces. Em gritted her teeth, "Athena needs to pay, for what she did to us, for what she did to them." She lowered her eyelids and sent a silent prayer to whomever would listen, "and I swear to God, if Eury dies..."
"Don't think like that," Thea hissed, causing her snakes to go wild.
Em looked up at them, at the writhing mass of glinting copper above her sister’s head, and gave a quick nod.
"What else can we do to save her?" Thea asked. "How the Hell can we get Athena's blood?"
Em shook her head, wishing she had an answer, but she didn't. "I don't know," she whispered, hating to say the words aloud. "Maybe if we could get into the temple..." She gasped and grabbed for Thea's hand. "That's it! We need to get into the temple."
"Are you insane?" Thea pulled her hand free and backed away. "Em, we barely walked away alive the last time we were in her presence and you want to go back there again? I repeat, are you insane?"
"No. Yes, maybe, but I think it could work." Em shot to her feet and began pacing the room, as long forgotten memories began to bubble to the surface. "It's a long shot, I know, but isn't Eury's life worth it? Athena's blood, that's what all this nonsense is about. And I know where to find some."
Thea whirled around, her eyes huge, "What? Where? Are you serious?" She raced across the room to grasp Em's hand again, "Where is it?"
Em pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it, "It's in the inner sanctum."
Thea's profanities filled the air. Em waited until her sister had spewed every foul word she knew, and she knew many, before speaking again. "We can do it, she's worth it."
Through ragged breaths and wild eyes, Thea nodded. "Alright," she agreed, "I'm in, but you better be right. If Athena catches us and turns us into, I don't know, harpies or something, I'm going to be so mad at you."
"I'll be pretty fucking mad at me, too," Em responded with a sense of determination. "Now, let's make a plan, because this isn't going to be easy."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Em stared at the screen of her tablet and exhaled a deep breath. "It's all different," she shook her head slowly, "all of it, it's completely different."
She handed the tablet to Thea and sat back in her chair, frustrated and exhausted. Her grand idea to mount a sneak attack on Athena's temple had gone up in smoke the moment they’d pulled up plans of the ancient ruins. Because after all these years, that was exactly what the magnificent temple was, ruins.
"Why am I shocked?" She asked, looking at Thea with wide eyes. "We haven't been back in th
ousands of years and what, I expected it to be exactly the same?"
Thea smiled kindly, "No, more like you tried with every fiber of your being to not think about it for thousands of years and now you're just taking a moment to acclimatize to reality." She frowned down at the screen, "The world's changed, Em. Athena isn't Athens’ goddess anymore, not really. The world doesn't believe in gods like they used to. People come from around the world to visit the Acropolis, to see Athena's temple, and none of them will ever see what we saw."
Em closed her eyes and remembered what it had been like. The three of them had climbed the steps of their goddess’s temple hand in hand, dressed in their finest pure white gowns, each trembling just a little as they dedicated their lives to the virgin goddess.
She could still smell the smoke coming from the pyres, mixing with the incense and the tangy sent of the sea. She'd been so excited, so sure this was the path she was meant to take. They had knelt before Athena and received her blessings, then had taken their place as fledgling priestesses, the most sacred women in all of Athens. For the next two years they had served, learning from the head priestess and from Athena herself, until they, too, had stepped into the role of full priestesses.
It had been so heady, even for daughters of sea gods. They were beloved of Athena, and none more so than Medusa. Em felt a knot of regret and grief ball in the pit of her stomach as she recalled how close she and Athena had been. In a temple of women, all as close as sisters, their relationship had been different, special, and it had been the greatest joy of her life.
She opened her eyes and swallowed back emotion that she’d denied forever. Coming here, coming home had dredged up too much already, leaving her feeling raw and undefended against an already too cruel world. Em knew that nothing good could come from remembering the past too clearly.
"Wait a second," her mind raced as a memory sprang to life, as clear as day in her mind. "I think I might know how we can get in." Em grabbed the tablet from Thea's hands and enlarged the picture of the Acropolis, sitting in its place of honour, overlooking the city. "Here," she pointed to an outcropping of rocks at the base of the hill. "Athena showed me a secret entrance once." She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it intently. "It might still be there."
Thea raise an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side, "You never told us about any secret entrance."
Em shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but she couldn't stop the flush of blood that sprang to her cheeks. "Sorry, it happened right before I met Poseidon."
"You fell hard for him, didn't you?" Thea asked in a tone that knew the answer.
"I was a child," Em said with a long sigh, "and I knew nothing of betrayal or pain. So, I gave him everything I was, I held nothing back." She shook her head, "That's the problem with love, isn't it? We meet that someone special and lose all sense of ourselves. So, when the love fades, when they break your heart, all you're left with are the bits and pieces that you can scrape together. I loved Poseidon with all my heart and soul, and when …” she blew out a breath, “I was left with nothing."
Thea reached out and touched her arm, "Not nothing. You had us."
Em laid her hand over her sister's and squeezed, "We had each other, which is why we need to get into the temple and find that blood."
“Fuckin’ eh!” Thea cheered, raising her hand in the air.
Em grinned, caught up in her sister’s enthusiasm, and slapped her palm with a resounding crack. As they headed toward the door and the one place they’d sworn they’d never return, she fought to keep her thoughts positive and not let herself think about what awaited them at the temple of Athena.
*****
“Jesus, Em,” Thea scowled in the dim light cast by her cell phone’s flashlight, “we might get eaten alive before we make it through.” She pushed aside another veil of tightly-wound spider webs and shuddered.
“We’re immortal, Thea,” Em said with a snort, “we’d have to run into Arachne herself to get into trouble.”
“I don’t think I’d like to run into her in a dark cave,” Thea whispered, as if there were some chance the eight-legged monster was hiding in the dark recesses of the secret passageway they’d somehow managed to find after all this time.
“If you don’t shut up, we’re going to run into some kind of monster,” Em murmured, lifting her cell phone to peer into the darkness ahead. “I wonder how close we can get before someone notices we’re here.”
She hated the thought of having to fight. Once upon a time she’d been one of the women they were most likely to run into, if there even were still priestesses. Time had changed everything else, so there was always the chance they were entering an empty temple. Still, she’d do it, she’d fight her way through endless warriors to save her sister’s life.
Thea had argued that they should remove their protective lenses so they could use their most vicious and useful weapon should the need arise. She’d refused flat out. She’d turned too many good people to stone during her dark times and she never wanted to feel that weight of guilt again. Even the ones that had deserved it still haunted her.
The long, dark corridor curved ahead, sparking a dim memory in Em’s mind of Athena’s laugher echoing off the stones walls as they raced through the tunnel hand in hand, heading out into the night to get a moment of freedom from the constant company in the temple.
“There’s a set of stairs just up ahead,” Em stepped over the bones of a rat and tried to forget the years she’s spent living below ground, convinced of her fate as a monster.
“Where does this come up, anyway?” Thea followed her up the stairs silently, their quiet breaths the only sound in the stale air.
“The devotions room.” Em smiled despite herself. She, like everyone else, had much preferred the other rooms in the temple, especially when Athena was around. No one had wanted to be secluded in a tiny room praying to a goddess they could actually spend time with in person.
“Seriously? That’s fucking devious.” Thea said with a chuckle.
Em wished she could forget the time she’d spent with Athena and the way her goddess had welcomed each and every one of them into her temple with open arms. Those had been some of the best days of her life, until she’d met Poseidon and her heart had expanded so violently that there was nothing she could think of but him.
She cleared away the cobwebs from the chiselled stone and shone her flashlight on a moss-darkened carving of an olive branch. Em brushed her fingertips over the worn indentations and steeled herself for whatever would come next. Then she pressed lightly and switched off her light as the hidden stone wall above them creaked, shifted, then swung open with a groan.
“Holy shit,” Thea said in barely more than a whisper, “it worked. We’re in.”
“We’re not in yet,” Em focused on her breathing, certain her erratic heartbeats could be heard throughout the temple, “the urn was stored in Athena’s anti-chamber, with all the other fancy shit she collected from her family.”
“Why did she even have a jar full of her own blood?” Thea’s face screwed up.
“Thea, we literally have snakes coming out of our heads and our gaze turns people to stone. Why the hell are you skeeved out over a bit of blood?”
Thea shrugged and glanced around, “It’s pretty quiet in here, Em. This is either a really good sign or we’re about to be attacked by an army of skeletons.”
Em opened her mouth to respond but couldn’t find the words. She’d watched enough movies to know that her sister was right. “Whatever happens, make sure one of us gets the urn. Eury lives no matter what.”
“Agreed.”
They stepped out of the tunnel and waited while the door swung shut. Em winced as the grating sound of rock on rock echoed throughout the room.
Moving silently, Em made her way to the door with Thea at her side and held her breath as she tugged on the antient handle. As the door swung open without so much as a creak, she froze. “Thea…” she whispered, glancing
behind to see if her sister realized what was about to happen.
The door exploded out, knocking her back into Thea and onto the stone floor. Wild screams spilled from the lips of the priestesses, who surged through the door as Em scrambled to her feet and stepped back, holding up her hands to ward them off.
“Stop!” She roared, hoping the strength of her powers would be enough to catch them off guard and give them a moment to regroup. But they didn’t blink, didn’t cringe back. The small room filled with fierce eyed women, all of whom would give their life for their goddess and her temple.
Thea stepped up to stand beside Em, holding out her hands as well. “Don’t do this,” she warned the women. “We were one of you,” she implored now and the sound of her pain pricked at Em’s heart. “Our sister is dying and we need something here to save her life.”