“Youcan, Aethra.” He said firmly. “The psyche can imbue happiness and sorrow. The muse can create sweet music and dreadful screams. Chthonics can shape both terrifying weapons,” he pinched his palm with his fingernails. Scarlet seeped from the cut, gathering into a blooming rose in his palm, “and declarations of love.”
Nostalgia and unease plagued me near the Empty. Fear of the abyss, and a beckoning to become one with it.He was right.
My fingers tightened around the glass. “Are you mad? The last thing I’d ever do is help youkilleveryone.”
Drinking heavily from his glass, he slammed it onto the end table and stalked to the fire, eyes ablaze. “Come here, and I’ll show you why.”
My stomach dropped. What did he intend to do? I felt like a lead ball weighed me down as I joined him by the mantle. He took my hand gently, pulling me to his side.
“Think of your companions. Take the bard, for example.” Phaedrus brushed back his bangs. “Did he ever tell you why he’s tainted?”
“No,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to pry.”
“Nor should you have.” Phaedrus lifted his chin. He slowly twisted my hand.
Aches grew in my joints, and my muscles throbbed. Despair raked at my brain, whispering my time was running short. I stared at my palm, terrified it would disintegrate and be gone.
“I read his thoughts,” Phaedrus said. “When he learned of his illness, his slow decay? When he learned he had been condemned to a short life of suffering, he did what any sane man might do. He sought a quick, painless end.”
A hollow formed in my chest. The distress and desperation passed into apathy. I wanted everything toend. Wanted the pain to go away. Wanted anything but to suffer andsufferuntil the gods decided to cease my torture.
The Empty beckoned. A simple, instant end. Painless. All I needed to do was step forward into its shadowy embrace.
Fear twisted in my gut. I couldn’t go through with it.
I wanted tolive.
My heart flipped. Phaedrus was a psyche. He was controlling my emotions—making me feel what Percy did.
“But this is perhaps the kindest tale,” Phaedrus said in a hushed tone. “Reflect on the path you took to reach this place, and recall the thread connecting each day.”
My memories whirled past, like the pages of a book flipping in a stiff breeze. The heavy emotions Percy carried with him lifted from my soul as Phaedrus took them away.
“Your tale began with a wretched young woman,” Phaedrus laid his blood rose atop the marble mantle. “Enslaved. Forced into a life of servitude, allowed not even the glimmer of hope. Your sorry tale would have ended when a deal went wrong, and a client you should never have crossed slit your throat.”
“You’re probably not wrong,” I agreed.
His hand tightened around mine. “Seraphim buys you from your owner, offering you freedom in exchange for your life.” He paused. “I need not say what punishment some think my sister deserved. The lives she took.”
Pain laced through my lungs, stealing my breath. Tears glimmered in my eyes as grief like I’d never known ripped through my entire being. I wanted to sob, to expel the anguish, but my throat went dry.
“The world took first her wife and child, but refused to stop there.” Grabbing a log from the edge of the mantle, Phaedrus tossed it into the fire, showering sparks across the stone.
I flinched from the rush of heat. Pain flared across my back, as though from the sharp sting of a whip. A horrible sinking sensation swallowed me, as though high walls confined me within their grasp.
Stuck. Tormented. Denied an end.
Gasping through the pain, I tried to meet his eye. “Shouldn’t you want to help her?”
“I do.” He said earnestly, tilting my hand. “Just as I imagine you want to help that poor scholar.”
Rage bristled through my veins, like fire setting me alight. I wanted to scream, to tear out someone’s throat. But beneath the anger, frigid sorrow encased my heart.
Disoriented under the assault of foreign emotions, I tried to back away from Phaedrus, but he only pulled me closer.
I wanted to kill him. I wanted her back. I should have protected her. Words that didn’t belong to me circled in my head.
Loathing consumed me. Forhim. For myself.
