Frowning, she said, “Force Cleito how? A seer justsees. It’s not on command. It’s about as sure as trying to catch a stray dandelion puff on the wind.”
Carver shook his head. “All I know is that anyone who sees her says she’s in bad shape. Worse than before.”
Fire licked through Bel’s hair. “Eryx is torturing her?More?”
“That’s what it sounds like.” Anger pulsed through him for a woman he didn’t even know. “Apparently, he thinks pain brings on her visions. Maybe fear, too.”
Bel’s pale features mottled with rage, each freckle popping out like a tiny orange flame. “I’ll kill him. Appoline…” Her voice trailed off. More quietly, she said, “Sometimes, Galen would do the same.”
The seer sister she’d lost. The cruel brother who’d killed that sister before Bel’s eyes.
His gut twisted, but Carver just nodded. Appoline’s death marked the moment Bel finally stood up to her murderous older brother, the King of Tarva and an absolute sociopath. And she didn’t just stand up to him. She grabbed the bastard around the neck and killed him on the spot, leaving only a pile of ash. The Tarvan throne was rightfully Bel’s in that moment, but she handed her kingdom over to Cat and then battled alongside them to reunite the realms.
“We’ll get him.” Carver resisted the urge to reach across the table and squeeze Bel’s hand. She’d probably burn him anyway. “I don’t know when or how, but we’ll kill Eryx, and you’ll take his throne.”
She took a moment to nod back. “That’s the plan. Except the gods have made things as clear as mud.”
Carver sighed. “Outcomes up in the air and lives on the line,as usual.” They were no strangers to the gods’ twisted interweaving of free will and destiny. But he’d rather have some control over his fate than none at all. And if Zeus didn’t get the result he wanted, he’d start over with a new set of pawns.
“I’m sick of staring at this. It’s not even pretty.” Bel got up and put the amulet back under the floorboard they’d loosened to hide it from prying eyes. Lilika had come over several times, sometimes with Dimitri or her parents. So had his two friends from the king’s guard. Then there were Dione and her brood. They were always popping in and out, sometimes for hours. The kids never wanted to go home.
Once the floor looked seamless again, Bel leaned against the window frame, her long red hair stirring on the breeze. “I have a problem. Or…I think I might.”
Carver’s brows slowly rose. “The great Bellanca Tarva? Admitting to a problem? What are the worlds coming to?”
Her death glare was fabulous. “I’m serious,” she ground out.
Then he was, too. “I’m all ears.”
She hesitated, biting her lip. “We were told to back Zeus with an army of Atlantians and Magoi but”—she lowered her voice, whispering as she moved away from the open window—“what if Zeus isn’t the right choice?”
Just as quietly, Carver said, “You think they won’t back him? Because of Punishment?”
Grimacing, she rummaged for a stray scroll. Setting quill to ink and then to parchment, she wrote,What if a different god should rule the mountaintop? One who’s not so focused on control and punishment? One who mightanswerinstead of just ask?
Nervous tension gripped Carver’s middle in a tight fist. Zeus had smote humans for less than this.
Half fearing a god bolt would tear through their roof, he wrote,Who? The god who cursed Cat? And sent Pan to terrorizeThalyria? And the Gorgons to stop us from finding a cure for Cat’s curse?That’swho Zeus is up against. He underlinedThat’sthree times and shoved the scroll back at her, shaking his head. Zeus was a heavy-handed, cock-led, choleric control freak, but he’d protected Thalyria and set events into motion that eventually allowed Cat and Griffin to replace selfish, brutal rulers who could no longer be trusted with his favored world. He’d protected Carver’s family, and that was enough for Carver to protect him back.
Bel’s mouth thinned. She turned and put the parchment onto the remaining cooking embers. They watched their dangerous words burn, and he hoped to Olympus that Zeus only listened in on conversations whenever he felt like it and didn’t bother to read.
She sat across from him again. “Maybe there are no good options.”
“Maybe we stick to the mostly-absent-and-sometimes-worrisome one we know.”
She laughed without humor. “Ambitious, aren’t we?”
“Let’s be ambitious about what we can reasonably control.”
She stared at him for a moment, her head tilted to one side. “I like that. At least I think I do.”
Carver’s chest pinched. Had he said the right thing for once? It shouldn’t be this hard.
Bel still looked thoughtful. “We can reasonably control what happens to Eryx.”
“And to the kingdom.” He nodded. “After we give magic back to the island, and he gets it, too, we’ll fight him. And win.”
“If I’m challenging him for his throne, it has to be Magoi against Magoi. You know that, especially for a clear succession of power.”
