WithMedea’s help.
“How long have you been gone?” His voice was weak.
“A day.”
Stryker swallowed. “Are you ill?”
“No.”
“Then you shouldn’t have returned. You should have stayed where the illness couldn’t reach you.”
“I couldn’t leave you sick like this.”
Stryker reached for his wife. “She’s been so strong until about an hour ago.” A tear ran down his cheek.
Falcyn pulled the cover back to see an angry rash that covered Zephyra’s pale skin. The blisters had opened to festering wounds. “I won’t let her die. Don’t worry.”
For the first time, he felt Apollymi approach him with something more than hatred or suspicion.
She actually put her hand on him with a tenderness that was completely unexpected. “Can I help?”
“Take Medea from here so that she can’t be infected while I work.”
Nodding, Apollymi held her hand out toward Medea. “Come, child.”
Medea hesitated. “Falcyn—”
“Please… I can focus better if you’re safe.”
As much as she hated to go, she inclined her head and let go of her father’s hand, then followed Apollymi from the room.
Chewing her lip, Medea hesitated at the door to look back and listen as Falcyn chanted quietly under his breath. He cupped his dragonstone in his hand and turned it over and over. A powerful glow from the stone shot between his fingers to illuminate his face with shadows.
Apollymi pulled her from the room and closed the door.
“He’ll heal them, right?”
“Yes, I think he will.”
Then why was her gut so tight? Why did something feel so wrong? She was home now.
Yet…
Medea was so unsettled.
Apollymi hesitated as if she heard her uncertainty. “Are you all right, child?”
“I don’t know.”
Apollymi glanced back toward the door and sighed. “I should have known Apollo would do something like this. He was ever a treacherous bastard. They all were.”
She caught the heavy note in the ancient goddess’s voice. “They?”
“The Greeks. Upstart bastards. The whole lot of them. I blame Archon for their rise. Lying piece of shit. They all should have been drowned the moment they first crawled into being.”
Archon had been the king of the Atlantean gods, and Apollymi’s husband. “Why did you marry him if you hate him so?”
“He lied to me. I thought he was my Kissare returned to life. But he wasn’t. Too late, I learned it was a trick played on me to keep me under control.”
