When we reunited, I would come clean to Aethra about my past. All of us had hidden ourselves away, terrified of the others’ reactions, frightened to relive our traumas. But we needed to trust one another. Phaedrus was right.
Psyches could control people, pull them like puppets on strings. One by one, I’d led men I hated into the Empty, searching for a means to step into its bounds and survive.
A fate they deserved, I told myself. A cause worth sacrificing for.
But I’d taken pleasure in their pain. In the control I wielded over them.
I’d felt those wretched yearnings for the first time in almost a decade, when Seth had fallen to his knees, bending under my will. I’d made him understand true suffering.
A splash of red caught my eye, and I stopped. A flowering plant poked out from the sand, round and squat. Kneeling with some difficulty, I touched its strange, rough surface and inhaled, pulling my finger back. The thing was covered in prickly spikes.
Retrieving a dagger from my belt, I struggled to cut a chunk of it loose with the use of only one arm. Sandaled feet appeared beside me. The Oracle lifted her gown and knelt, taking my dagger and cutting the flower for me.
“You like flowers?” She asked.
“No, that’s Lady Aethra’s hobby,” I corrected, taking the cutting. “I’m testing plants for medicinal properties.”
“You’re on the right track,” she said, dusting the sand from her skirt. “This one makes a soothing tea and a poultice.”
Glancing behind her, I saw Percy talking to Seraphim. “I’mlooking for a cure,” I admitted. “Do your people know of a disease that causes the muscles to atrophy?’
“ . . . Yes.” She nodded. “It withers them unto death.”
“But can you . . .”
Cerys’ eyes darkened. “We can bring them comfort, prolong their life. But, no, we know of no cure.”
A flash of rage burned in my chest, and I shoved it back. “Maybe you simply haven’t discovered it yet.”
Shoving the cutting into my bag, I walked around her.
“Eleos,” Cerys called. “Some things are not worth hoping for.”
“Everything is worth hoping for,” I called back.
Biting my lip, I turned around. Hope had brought us this far. It would bring us unto the end.
For if we lost hope . . . what would we have left?
Ruin. The same kind Phaedrus wanted to bring about.
15
Aethra
Sand at the beach had been unpleasant enough, but an entire landscape filled with it? Athena had been frightened to cross the desert at first—watching Seth try to coax her out onto the dunes had been a much-needed, humorous break.
For a while, it had felt like the sand sea would simply swallow us. This morning, we’d happened upon a river, its brilliant blue waters guiding us toward Seth’s home.
Grabbing onto the saddle, I leaned around Seth’s shoulder, taking in his mother’s city.
I had never seen anything like it. Multi-colored buildings, some white, some the color of the desert, others brick red, gathered around a lush oasis, their towering heights covered in creeping vines. The eye Cerys had embroidered on her headdress gazed down upon us from the peak of a strange triangular building.
“That.” Seth nodded. “Is the Pyramid of the divines.” A flash of annoyance crossed his face. “My mother should have been buried there, with her family.”
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
He smirked. “Wait until you see the palace.”
