Chapter 44
METILAI
The room Xoran had found for them was spacious, but had a musty smell. All of the furniture was shrouded when they’d first arrived.
Migela helped Cassandra pull them off the table and chairs. Vassori had gone into the bedchamber and snapped the curtains open, stirring a flurry of dust. She coughed as she ripped the coverings off the bed.
“It’s too cold to open the windows!” Cassandra had snapped.
Vassori gave her a disgruntled look over her shoulder. “And it stinks in here. A few minutes of discomfort won’t kill you.”
She crossed to the bed and grabbed the blankets off, hauling them to the windows to shake them out. Cassandra shivered, watching Vas go about her work with a mutinous look on her face.
“You know, not all of us are from places so cold it’ll freeze your nose off as soon as you step outside. Some of us are from climates with beautiful, sunshine-filled warmth, where birds sing and the water is so crystal clear you can see the colorful fish darting about.”
“Where is that?”
“Troy,” Cassandra grumbled, her face falling as her thoughts drifted away. Terena sat in a chair at the table in the adjoining room, her head in her hand as she watched the two argue.
“Never heard of it,” Vas said as she took the pillows over to the windows. She grabbed a brush from the vanity nearby and wiped it on her pants. Using it to beat the pillows, she glanced over her shoulder at Cassandra. “Where is it?”
Cassandra sighed. “It’s… not in this world.”
“What?” Vassori snapped upright, dropping her arm and the pillow as she regarded the seer. “What’s that mean?”
“Cass is from a world called Earth,” Terena called out, her head slipping into her palm. She shrugged when Vassori gave her a quizzical glance. “She was Apollo’s lover apparently, although she never did tell us the whole story.”
“Well,” Vas flapped her arms out after tossing the pillow. “We’ve got time now. I want to hear more about this place that was so beautiful you left it to come here.”
Terena chuckled as Cassandra crossed her arms in fury.
“I didn’t choose to come here,” Cassandra snapped.
“Then why are you here?” Vas flashed her a skeptical look before turning back to the bed. Flopping down on it, she crossed her booted feet and wiggled her brows expectantly.
Terena looked up at Cassandra from her contemplation of her fingernails when the silence stretched. The woman had a haunted, faraway look in her eyes and the hand she raised to the necklaces dangling from her neck shook.
“There was a war,” Cassandra said in a low voice, and Terena leaned forward. A sense of inevitability settled around them. Terena exchanged a look with Migela, who sidled closer to the seer.
“I am not Greek,” she continued, swallowing. “I am Trojan. My father is… was… King of Troy. And aye, a more beautiful cityyou’ve never seen. In my years here, I’ve not seen a city to rival its splendor.
“When the Greeks invaded, I was in Apollo’s temple. I ran.” She rubbed at her forehead. Her voice was small, shaking. “I wasn’t fast enough.”
Migela moved to sit beside Cassandra, her hand wrapped around the woman’s arm.
“Cassandra…” Terena started before her mouth went dry.
The seer shook her head and tears slipped from her eyes as she aggressively wiped them away.
“By the time Agamemnon, one of the kings of the Greeks who invaded my country, brought me to my father, I…” She wiped again at her face and shuddered. “Apollo had forsaken me.Iwas the one violated.Iwas brutalized by those men, but Apollo punishedme.”
Terena gripped her hands together so tight they shook.
“He could not take away my gift,” Cassandra continued, her voice breaking, “so he altered it instead.” She laughed bitterly. “He raged at my infidelity. He wouldn’t even listen to me, even when I pleaded with him, telling him I loved him. The god made it so no one believed my visions afterward.”
Lifting her gaze at last, Terena was struck by the rage blazing in the woman’s slate blue eyes.
“Do you know what it’s like, to see the ruin of your home, the deaths of your family and countrymen, and not be able to do anything but watch as it happens? I warned my father. I warned my brothers.” She shrugged. “No one believed me.”
