She laughed, bumping her shoulder into his. “But you’re on the outside. You can go anywhere you want.”
Shaking his head, he stared out over the pool. “I’m not as free as you think.”
* * *
Tavyss landedoutside the garden gate that night and entered the stone cottage that served as his home, feeling a sense of joy he hadn’t experienced in decades. Medea was the reason. Spending time with her woke him up. She saw beauty in the simplest things, things he took for granted. After starting a fire, he watched the flames dance inside the hearth and thought of her until the peacock feather he kept in a glass vase on his hearth began to glow. Then he thought of nothing. He schooled his features and prepared himself for the arrival of the goddess.
“I need your help, dragon.” The bright light morphed into the familiar figure of a woman.Hera.
Her blond hair and silver-white gown emitted a luminescence that filled the modest cabin. All gods emitted their own light, similar to a star or other celestial body, but Hera’s was not a warm, comforting glow. Her light always carried an edge. A threat. A flare before an explosion. Tavyss feared her, and rightly so. Only a fool wouldn’t.
“Hera,” he said by way of greeting. He fell to his knees and bowed his head. “What is it that brings you into my company?”
“Oh, get up. Aren’t we beyond this now?” Her fingers hooked under his chin, and he rose to look her in the eye, then quickly glanced away. Her hands lingered on his face, on his chest. His stomach squirmed at her touch. The sensation was too warm. Too strange. Still, he dared not pull away. One did not intentionally spurn a goddess.
He cleared his throat. “How can I be of service?”
She smoothed his shirt over his chest. “I’ve recently learned that something very important to me has gone missing.” She backed away. “A golden grimoire, a gift from Zeus to atone for an… indiscretion. It was stolen from its protected shrine in the underworld.”
“When did this happen?” Tavyss asked. If the theft was recent, he might be able to pick up the scent of the perpetrator.
“Sometime within the past fifty years.”
“Fifty years—”
“A blink in the eternity that is our immortal existence, wouldn’t you agree?” She folded her arms. “The last time I saw the book was around fifty years ago. Hades notified me it was missing yesterday. When exactly it went missing is anyone’s guess.”
Tavyss rubbed the back of his neck and the short hair at the base of his skull. He was neither a seer nor a bounty hunter. What did she want from him? “I don’t understand. What can I do? It’s likely been too long for me to pick up the scent of the thief.”
She paced to the other end of the room, gliding her fingers across the back of the single wooden chair he kept there. “I have reason to believe the thief took my book to Ouros.”
He shook his head. What would someone from his home world want with her book of spells? Unless it was one of the witches from the kingdom of Darnuith, but the notion that they would both know of the book and have the power to retrieve it seemed unlikely.
“What would lead you to believe such a thing?”
She scowled. “Because the indiscretion my husband was atoning for when he gifted me the grimoire was with the Goddess of the Mountain.”
Tavyss inhaled sharply. The Goddess of the Mountain, Aitna, was the patron goddess of Ouros and the kingdom of Paragon, his homeland. All dragons came from the mountain and returned there if they were killed. Aitna was the goddess of all dragons, their most holy of holies.
“Zeus, you see, gave me the grimoire but gave his lover something as well. My scrying glass will not show me Paragon. I cannot go there. I cannot search the five kingdoms of Ouros for the book myself.”
“Do you believe it was Aitna herself who took the book?” Tavyss asked, despite his better judgment. Normally he would not question the goddess, but her accusation was too far-fetched for him not to. “As far as I am aware, she never leaves her mountain.”
Hera grunted. “I know not who took it, only that, aside from this garden and Ouros, my looking glass sees all. We both know it’s not here in the garden—”
“No, of course not…”
“That leaves only Ouros.”
“Are you suggesting I go there to search for it?”
“More than suggesting. You will go and you will find it.”
He bowed his head. “Forgive me, but I cannot. I am no longer welcome in Paragon or the Obsidian Palace. If my brother ever knew I had returned to Ouros, he would immediately have me killed. I am a threat to his crown.”
She sighed. “Dear Tavyss. I wouldn’t ask you to risk your immortal existence if it wasn’t entirely necessary.”
“You don’t understand—I have no power there anymore. I abdicated the throne. My presence… will be distracting and ineffective. I will have no hope of finding your book. The Paragonian regency is even now in transition. My sister will take over the throne from my mother this very year, and my younger brother will rule as co-regent at her side. My presence, as the older sibling, will be viewed as a threat to them despite my renunciation of the crown.”
