Tethys’s feet hit the floor.
“What…what happened? Aryx? Where is Aryx,” she cried, her head pounding. The magic settled back into herskin, wriggling and whirling through her veins.
“He’s safe, sister,” Polaris called, returning from the alcove. “He’s safe.”
Relief washed through her like the flooding tide. Her son was safe.
“Bind her!” Obscuros commanded. Crucis, from behind her, leapt for Tethys then. The wolf’s flashing canines sunk into her skin and she fell to her knees. Her father’s shadows wrung themselves around her once more, grasping her wrists and ankles.
Tethys’s vision clarified long enough to take in the bloody death that stained the courtroom floor. The pristine white walls, now speckled with blood, shivered as she looked upon them. Her court and the mortal nobility all lay dead, their limbs tangled and bent in unnatural directions.
“I did this?” she breathed. “I killed them?” Tethys, still shock-stricken, couldn’t feel the shadows wriggle and writhe up her body. They encased her in misty darkness.
“Bring me my child, Obscuros,” she hissed.
“Enough!” Obscuros’s voice was a crack of thunder on her pounding head. “Not until you hear me.” The primordial stepped from the dais, wiping the sweat from his brow. “How do you know of Vorthal and your lineage?”
Tethys stayed silent, still taking in the silent carnage. Guilt pressed in on her chest, forcing the breath from her lungs.
“Ok, daughter. I’ll try again. When did you cross into the Rift?” he asked. The primordial knelt beside her, his nose mere inches from hers. “If you want to see your son again, you will speak.”
She flinched at his bark, but still didn’t speak. Images flashed through her mind…the death, the chaos, the theft of innocent, mortal life.
“Keeper Obscuros, if I may…” a crackling voice chimed in, and Euda appeared from the corridor behind the throne. Tethys’s heart stopped as the ancient woman kneltbeside her.
“Tethys, there is a reason your mother asked me to keep our histories from you, to keep them from the realm,” Euda said, pushing her spectacles up her nose. Tethys glanced at Phosphora, praying she’d return to this world, but the primordial’s eyes were glazed in milky vacancy.
“Euda…” Obscuros protested, but the copyist raised a palm to silence him. Maybe in another life, Tethys might find her command amusing. This all-powerful primordial, silenced by an aging mortal no more than five feet tall.
“It’s time we tell her, Keeper Obscuros.”
The primordial swallowed his words then, and let Euda continue.
“When you first arrived in this realm, Phosphora had a vision…one she described to me in a moment of clarity. The realms burned and chaos reigned. It wasn’t Vorthal that led the massacre, my queen. It was you. Phosphora spoke, albeit in riddles, of your connection to the Rift. Your fate beside Vorthal.”
Tethys’s stomach lurched. Memories of the vision Vorthal planted in her mind flooded in. The bloodied marble throne, with two rulers overlooking a scorched continent infected by hatred and death.
“We decided then that we could never tell you the truth of your lineage. Nor of your connection to the Keeper of Chaos,” Euda said, watching Tethys carefully. “For the sake of the realms, you needed to remain without your magic. We don’t know exactly why or how he channels through you, but we feared he might use you to return.”
Tethys was quiet, unable to comprehend Euda’s words. She felt Vorthal’s influence run rampant through her when her magic manifested, when she sliced through the realm…when she slaughtered her entire court, but Euda’s words were blades to her chest.
“It seems, perhaps, he already has,” Obscuros said, curling his fists. “When did you cross between worlds,Tethys?”
“Before Aryx’s birth,” she said, finally. “There were Venian children slipping through. Altair, Polaris, and I opened the gate and I searched the Rift to find them and bring them home.”
“You…opened the gate?” Obscuros’s eyes blazed.
“Yes, but we sealed it with Phosphora’s key. It remains sealed,” she said, her gaze darting from the primordial to Euda. The two shared a fearful glance.
“Tethys…” Obscuros clenched his teeth. “Sealing the gate between worlds requires it to be held frombothsides, not just ours. Why do you think Eos and Astraeus sacrificed themselves?”
Tethys drew in a breath, steadying herself against the stone wall. “You mean to tell me it’s still open? But I couldn’t feel the Rift once the doorway locked. Its essence faded.”
“Good gods…” Euda breathed, her hands trembling as she rose to her feet. Tethys’s eyes caught on the shimmering curtain, reflecting the realm as if it were a mirror. “The gate shows you only what you wish to see. You wished the doorway to seal, and so it showed you an altered truth.” Obscuros followed her gaze and approached the glimmering veil, skimming a pale hand through it. It vibrated in response to his primordial power.
“Do you…” he breathed, kneeling by the golden blade, his cloak pooling at his knees. “Do you know what this is?”
Tethys sobbed, barely registering his remarks as she crawled to her lieutenant. She tugged on Araes’s chains, her newfound magic glowing on her fingertips. Vines sprouted from the mortar, fracturing the stone tiles as they crept up the chains and snapped their metal links.
