Chapter 3
“May Atlantis rise again.” Theophania greeted her with the ubiquitous reminder that no woman was safe on this island. Twice Bellanca’s age and three times as haggard, Theophania hurried around as if her feet were on fire. She took breakfast plates to a table on the wide terrace overlooking the bustling agora. The castle half shaded them—thank the gods. It was already hotter than Hephaestus’s forge and would only get worse with every passing second.
“May Atlantis rise again,” Bellanca automatically responded, dipping her hands into the washing basin at the entrance to Spiro’s, one of Atlantapol’s many busy tavernas. Spiro owned, oversaw, and decided on everything within these walls because Atlantis was a disgustingly male-centric civilization. Atlantians sank to the bottom of the ocean and forgot to evolve. Maybe Atlantis couldn’t rise again because Spiro and his like were such a weight on progress and society.
The thought, while not funny, made Bellanca smile, and she ducked her head as she tied on her apron.
“What are you so happy about?” Spiro eyed her suspiciously from his throne of cushions in the center of his eating establishment, one hand reaching for a platter of various sweets and roasted almonds and the other holding a goblet of mulled wine that would inevitably leave him snoring. “You’re always plotting something.”
“Then why did you hire me?” Bellanca lifted three plates off the long counter dividing the spacious garden dining area from the tiny and suffocating kitchen. She wove through the tables that were already filling with patrons, bringing the steaming fare to the trio of men in the far corner. They were there every morning at the same time and never ordered anything different.
“I needed help at the taverna, and you were coordinated enough to carry two things at once,” Spiro answered around a mouthful of baklava when she neared him again. Bellanca had taken to eating the phyllo-encased walnut-and-honey dessert in the mornings, too, whenever she could and there was some available. It stuck to her ribs and kept her going until after the lunchtime rush passed and she could eat something again. In any case, she refused to eat pan-seared fish with a slice of lemon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which was what most people did here.
“I’m actually carrying three plates at once, so I should get a raise,” Bellanca called over her shoulder as she rushed to help Theophania serve the already seated customers.
Spiro chortled, making his huge frame jiggle. She grinned back at him, because that was the Atlantian Bellanca—one who smiled and teased and sashayed around tables. Spiro was a whale of a man and a product of his culture, but he wasn’t mean-spirited, and he loved his wife and daughter more than anything. Theophania worked hard and put the customers before her own comfort, which her husband admired. Maybe because he didn’t know how to do either.
They’d relegated their daughter, Lilika, to the kitchen with the new cook, Dimitri, because so many men in Atlantis were pigs, and the poor girl didn’t know how to defend herself. Lilika was as round and good-natured as her father, but unlike Spiro, she worked hard and stayed graceful on her feet. Her long dark hair, warm, golden skin, and irresistible smile drew more attention than she wanted and made working in the main part of the taverna difficult. Lilika never twisted an ear, stomped on a foot, or dumped hot soup in anyone’s lap. Bellanca had done all three in a matter of days and magically stopped being batted around the eatery like a plaything.
She couldn’t fathom why Carver thought she’d done something reckless. At least she hadn’t incinerated anyone.
Well, outside the conspirator’s cave. Inside, she’d done a number on those satyrs.
A mix of questions and excitement bubbled inside her. She was frankly an expert at burning things to a crisp, but she’d always needed to grab on to them first. Incineration from a distance was different. New. She could do worlds of damage just by throwing her fire, but an immense heat suddenly exploding from her and turning her foes to ash? It was fantastic. It was also terrifying. What if Carver had been closer to her when her magic detonated, or with fewer bodies between them? She’d managed to better focus her attacks after the first unexpected surge, but it hadn’t been easy. There was always a learning process with new magic, and this was just the beginning.
Bellanca’s hands heated, the desire to hone new skills and test her limits crackling inside her. Where had the power come from—this deadly magic that was a hot blast of light rather than blazing fire? She’d never repressed any abilities and had always taken what she had and tried to make it bigger, better, stronger. She was probably too old for any innate magic to be popping out at this point, but a gift from the gods was usually something a person asked for and earned before possibly receiving. She hadn’t asked the gods for anything. She’d just wanted to help Carver.
Someone called for bread from the patio, and she shook her hot fingers out before grabbing a basket of freshly baked rolls off the counter. Dimitri’s cooking was so good it was bringing in new customers, and the taverna ended up full to bursting every day now. Unfortunately, the constant demands usually kept Bellanca too busy to slow down and eavesdrop on what customers were saying. She’d accepted a position at the taverna to put her ear to the heartbeat of the city, but she was getting a weak pulse at best—and running herself ragged for it.
Spiro should’ve hired at least two more people to help with the influx of new patrons, but since none of his staff of three had keeled over from exhaustion yet, he apparently wouldn’t consider it.
At least he’d hired her—and that was before word fully spread about Dimitri’s skills in the kitchen.
The previous cook at Spiro’s died of old age—and probably asphyxiation, considering the working conditions—leaving Lilika behind the counter trying to help Dimitri get plates ready and Theophania about to crack under the pressure of having to serve everyone by herself while her husband munched honey-sweetened nuts, gambled at dice, and chatted with the regulars. All Bellanca had done shortly after arriving in Atlantis was help steady a precariously tilting platter while she waited for her order of… That’s right— fish . At least there was some variety in types and tastes, but there really wasn’t much else on the menu. The next moment, she’d had a job, which she’d definitely needed.
She and Carver had arrived with only the clothes on their backs, the weapons on their bodies, and that fortuitous pouch of royal jewels. After paying up front for a year’s worth of coveted, harborside lodgings, her long-dead mother’s remaining treasures had run out faster than Bellanca expected, and they couldn’t exactly use their Thalyrian coins in Atlantis. She’d melted down what they had with her clandestine magic, and Carver had sold off the metal for its base value. Once those profits had gone into feeding, clothing, and arming themselves, it was either find employment or turn to thieving.
She’d suggested the latter. Carver rejected the idea.
Now, Bellanca understood that Spiro had protected her that day. She’d been on one of her first forays into the center of Atlantapol without Carver, and she hadn’t yet realized that women didn’t eat outside the home without a male family member. Considering the number of male patrons who’d been eyeing her suspiciously until she suddenly became a server who ate her fish behind the counter at Spiro’s, Bellanca wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been targeted for sacrifice soon after.
Everyone here was always trying to throw someone else’s wife, mother, or daughter under a Cyclops’s boot simply to keep their own wife, mother, or daughter from getting tossed into the sea for Poseidon.
The need to protect own or self over other was human nature and something Bellanca understood all too well. She’d lived it for most of her life, and it was nauseating to be back in a powerless, waiting position while murderous royals took innocent lives and devious gods moved pawns into place and gambled with the fate of worlds.
Bellanca didn’t want to play her hand in Atlantis until she had the key to rekindling magic, which left her on edge all day, every day as she helped Theophania with the orders coming out of the kitchen. Unlike most men in Atlantis, Dimitri worked like a dog, cooking the orders as fast as they came in and keeping his broad shoulders between Lilika and the atrocious heat coming off the ovens and friers. As the morning rush continued, even beautiful, fresh-faced Lilika started to sweat and wilt as she raced to prepare plates and pass them to her mother and Bellanca over the counter.
Spiro let out a bark of laughter from his tower of cushions, and Bellanca internally scowled. At least someone was having fun. And at least she had some fresh air, unlike the poor duo in the kitchen. Outside, she could hear snippets of conversations, and minimal gossip was better than none. Right now, someone yammered on about Poseidon. Save us. Save us. She almost rolled her eyes. Why didn’t anyone turn to Zeus for help or forgiveness? He was the one who’d punished Atlantis to begin with.
Maybe an island people just couldn’t think beyond Poseidon. But why hadn’t either god stepped in? Someone very powerful was after Zeus’s throne. War loomed on his doorstep. The Olympian brothers needed allies right now, and all they’d done was send her instead of simply giving Atlantians what they wanted—magic and the true horizon.
It wasn’t so hard, especially in return for loyalty. So why the games? Why her? Who was making these decisions? Because she didn’t like them.
Bellanca dropped off more plates, deflecting a lecherous look from a man about Spiro’s age by flashing her ring. The simple band of metal was turning out to be her most useful purchase in Atlantis—along with the dark-brown shawl that barely showed her singe marks.
The man shrugged and turned back to his companions. “Did you hear? Two more taken from their homes last night. Both ancestral Magoi.”
Bellanca slowed her steps, lingering near the table. She bent to pick up fig leaves that had dropped from a nearby tree onto the big, russet patio stones.
“Twelve and thirteen years old, I heard,” another man said.
The last one grunted. “Boys, too. What’s this island coming to?”
Bellanca crushed the leaves in her hand. They started smoking, and it took a concentrated effort to keep them from catching fire. Little girls went missing, and it barely merited a conversation. Boys, though. That was a problem.
“One of the parents apparently found gashes on the bedroom window frame. They talked about claws or talons.” The man’s voice lowered so much that Bellanca could barely hear him. She kept her back turned, slowly picking up the last leaf—her final excuse to stay there. “Sounds suspicious.”
“What? Do they think a giant bird stole their kid?” One of them snorted. “Idiots.”
Bellanca straightened and went to collect the next orders, dumping the smoldering leaves into the refuse basket behind the counter.
Some families had been found ripped to shreds—clawed and mutilated—and the kids always disappeared without a trace. Not even a footprint. Oversized talon marks confirmed what she and Carver had been thinking about the recent rash of kidnappings and sometimes murders. Magical creatures—probably harpies like the one they’d surprised in the conspirator’s cave—were on the loose and well outside their usual boundary around Mount Olympus.
Stealing kids from their beds was bad enough, but these kids all had a potential for magic, which always manifested in early adolescence. She’d arrived to spark magic again in Atlantis, and someone was already robbing her of her future Magoi. Was the enemy promising imminent magic and indoctrinating these children to their cause before Bellanca could make her move? If so, they might’ve already gathered a hefty little force somewhere on the island while she still only had an army of two.
These latest victims were boys, but girls had gone missing, too. By her count, that was almost twenty children since she’d been in Atlantis. King Eryx hadn’t reacted so far—too busy with his own obsessive quest to recover Atlantis’s lost magic—but Atlantians were increasingly nervous and anyone with a kid was downright scared.
The whole thing made Bellanca’s stomach churn. Children were missing, families were frantic, and what if she somehow ended up pitted against these kidnapping victims in order to complete her gods’-given mission for Zeus?
A chill cold enough to douse her internal fire slid down her spine. She hadn’t signed up to battle kids.
A customer got handsy while Bellanca was distracted by her dark thoughts, forcing her to show her ring again as she wove through the tables. The wedding band was her first line of defense, and Atlantian men generally respected the ring because it meant she was another man’s property. Foot stomping and soup dumping came next, and Carver was right—avoiding them was best.
Hiding her annoyance behind a sip of water, Bellanca eyed all the platters to deliver to the terrace tables. Didn’t these people have jobs to get to? Fish to catch? Wives to harass? At least she was a wife in name only.
Actually, she wasn’t even that. She and Carver weren’t married. Her first day on the job, Spiro had said her husband needed to collect her wages, and she’d stupidly agreed. She’d later understood that it could’ve been a brother or a father—not that Carver could pass for her father—but she’d been so shocked by the idea that she couldn’t collect her own pay that she’d gone along with the husband idea, her mind too filled with indignation to come up with anything else.
When Carver found out, he just raised his soot-black eyebrows and started taking every opportunity to remind her of how they were stuck with each other more than ever now.
Despite the bizarre spark of joy her idiotic mistake seemed to bring out in Carver, being fake married actually worked out for the best. She could help Theophania on the patio, gather at least some gossip, and make a decent wage.
It turned out that earning her own way brought out a bizarre spark of joy in her . Every coin or jewel of her past had felt like carrying the bones or teeth of a noble who’d displeased her parents or the looted treasures of someone else’s home. She touched her chest, still somehow feeling the weight of the solid-gold necklace her mother had slipped over her head after a bout of violence, the metal still warm from its previous owner’s body heat. Mommy Dearest had forced her to wear the dead woman’s jewels for weeks as a reminder that Tarvan royals did as they pleased.
Bellanca stiffened at the memory. She had a thousand others just like it, many worse. At least she knew what kind of ruler she didn’t want to be. She’d never actually ruled anything, though, and the idea was more daunting than she cared to admit.
On the bright side, she couldn’t do worse than Eryx. According to Carver, he spent his days terrorizing his servants, disregarding his advisors, and pitting his courtiers against one another until he got into his golden chariot every evening and dragged an innocent woman to her death. He wanted his magic back—magic he’d never had in his life but knew ran in his family’s bloodline—and it was all he cared about.
It was the same obsession that drove him to keep a horrifically tight leash on his oracle, Cleito. The royal seer had made several accurate predictions over the years, even with the lack of magic in Atlantis, which meant Eryx focused most of his brutality on trying to beat information out of her. He understood as well as they did that if anyone knew the secret to reviving magic in Atlantis, it was someone with the gift of prophecy. Bellanca and Carver wanted the same answers, which was why Carver needed access to the throne room.
“Be a Nereid and take this to the table by the bougainvillea,” Theophania murmured as she hurried past Bellanca and put a plate of thinly sliced lemon and fresh rosemary sprigs into her hands.
Bellanca added a little clay pot of dried sea salt and took everything to the customers. On her way back, no one asked for anything, so she slipped behind the counter with Lilika and Dimitri while she had the chance.
“Ooh, baklava.” Starving, she took a piece.
“Have two.” Lilika put another triangle on a plate for her before Spiro could holler from his cushions for more and deprive them all of one of the only things that wasn’t fish around here.
“You should have some, too,” Bellanca said between mouthfuls. “You both should.”
“We did.” Dimitri tossed a very handsome smile over his shoulder. It was mainly handsome because he was one of the few men she could tolerate on this island and his sea-blue eyes were only for Lilika. “Two each, actually, and now we have to make more or suffer the consequences.” He winked at his kitchen mate.
Lilika blushed redder than the sunset when her naturally tanned skin was already pink and glistening from the cooking heat. “Father’s all bluster,” she said shyly.
Spiro was definitely a windbag. Sometimes Bellanca wanted to poke him and see if he deflated. “I’ll help,” she offered, reaching for a tray of walnuts to crush.
“Just eat your breakfast.” Lilika pushed Bellanca toward a stool and filled a glass with honey-sweetened apricot juice for her. “You’re going to be running your feet off all day here and then have to work at home, too.”
Bellanca didn’t correct her. She figured it was safest to let everyone believe she and Carver did things the Atlantian way—the men of the house sitting back with their feet up while the women worked and worried themselves into early graves. Dimitri seemed more enlightened, which boded well for her telling her friends the truth as soon as she could and was also why she approved of this funny little courtship she saw developing day by day.
“Yeah, Carver. He’s a pain in my backside,” she said around her baklava. “Never a moment of peace.”
Honestly, that wasn’t such a falsehood.
“It could be worse. At least he’s handsome.” A bright smile on her round face, Lilika started filleting fish like the expert she was. Bellanca had butchered two whitish-pink things early on and was asked not to touch the knives again. “And virile, from the looks of him.”
Bellanca nearly choked on her breakfast. “Hmmm, virile,” she mumbled, Carver’s hard, muscled chest flashing in her mind again, those sliding beads of water glistening in the morning sun.
Coughing a little, she wiped crumbs from her lip. Appreciating a good-looking man wasn’t the same thing as wanting to be definitively bound to one—especially one who was durably hung up on someone else.
She took another bite. It was a good thing the ring was false, and she didn’t have to worry about it. They already had a relationship, and she liked it the way it was, no matter how much they fought.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Hera will bless you with children soon.” Lilika’s knife still flawlessly sliced as if it had a mind of its own. Her full hips swayed, and her soft stomach pressed against the counter as she worked. Grinning at Bellanca, she added, “And they’ll be adorable—just like you.”
Bellanca hoped her return smile didn’t look as false and forced as it felt. No one in her entire life had ever thought she was adorable. And making babies with Carver? Something in her gut yanked tight. That wasn’t part of any plan. For the gods’ sakes, they were more likely to kill each other than to reproduce.
“My older sister didn’t have her first baby until she’d been married for three years.” Dimitri glanced over his shoulder at her, his face half lost in a cloud of pan-seared-fish smoke. “You and Carver only wed before moving to the city. You have plenty of time.”
That was the story they’d told. They’d left Atlantian farm country for the big city and now, here they were.
She wrinkled her nose, and not only because of the kitchen smells. First, she’d make a terrible parent and couldn’t even imagine motherhood. Second, she was pretty sure they all knew that marriage wasn’t actually a requirement for producing children, but she knew better than to shock her friends. Still, she couldn’t help bringing up the Atlantian issue that troubled her far more than everyone automatically assuming she lived to pop out Carver’s kids. “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that women are passed from fathers or brothers to husbands? You’re always a daughter, a sister, or a wife. Why can’t you just be yourself?”
“Some say it was different—before Punishment.” Dimitri shrugged.
Punishment. Bellanca pursed her lips. It wasn’t just a word here. It was an event . “But who decided that women were lesser people all of a sudden after Punishment? Why did they get to choose?” And why didn’t anyone fight back?
“Not lesser people.” Lilika frowned. “Those brothers and husbands and fathers need us. We’re important to them.”
Bellanca held back a snort. “Important free labor.”
“You make good wages,” Lilika instantly pointed out.
Ugh. This wasn’t going as planned. “We only know Atlantis,” Bellanca said. “Maybe it’s different in other places. And what happens when you get to the Underworld? More of the same? Why? Punishment—and only for Atlantians—can’t possibly extend to there. To death . I just can’t believe it’s like this in all the gods’ worlds.” She knew it wasn’t. A queen ruled Thalyria. Bellanca had led armies and gone on vital, world-changing quests. Atlantis was a kick in the teeth.
“I agree with Bellanca,” Dimitri said as he added more wood to heat the clay oven for another round of baklava. He brushed off his hands. “But a woman who stands out here is a target, which is why no sane man in a family will let that happen and no sane woman wants to try.”
“A vicious cycle,” Bellanca agreed around the last of her food. The combination of dry nuts and sticky honey made talking with her mouth full more challenging than usual. It was a bad habit anyway. She’d started doing it as a way to reject her royals-must-strictly-observe-court-etiquette-but-go-ahead-and-mass-murder-anytime-you-feel-like-it background, but it had quickly turned into an uncouth tendency she couldn’t seem to shake. Carver hated it. Admittedly, his irritation lessened her motivation to correct herself. She liked watching him go up in metaphorical flames.
“It’s been this way for as long as anyone can remember.” Lilika glanced fondly at her father as he held court from his mound of cushions under the high, thick grape arbor, his arms spread wide and his smile even wider. “It’s the only protection we have.”
“Right.” Bellanca nodded. There was no in between—except being even more likely to go headfirst over the city wall in a tragic attempt to placate a god who probably wasn’t even listening.
“I think times might be changing, though,” Lilika added, that shy smile back again as she carefully avoided meeting Dimitri’s eyes. “I can smell it on the tide.”
“Really?” Bellanca sniffed the air. “All I smell is brine and inequality.”
Dimitri snorted so hard he choked on fish smoke. Lilika grinned and handed her the last piece of baklava. Bellanca cut it into three portions and popped one into her mouth as she grabbed two orders and headed back outside to help Theophania again. The cooler air, while still hot, slapped new energy into her soul.
Or maybe that was her friends, giving her back pieces of what she’d given up the day she walked down a one-way path to Atlantis.
Being at Spiro’s was starting to feel like having a new team—somewhere to belong and where she might be needed. This team couldn’t replace the companions she’d left behind in Thalyria, but they were different from what she was used to and easy to be around.
As they worked, Spiro gathered admirers, king of the restaurant. Customers came and went. Fish got eaten. Bellanca wasn’t unused to hard work, just different work, and she couldn’t say she hated her life in Atlantis—apart from the constant threat of human sacrifice.
She smiled to herself, drawing curious but not threatening gazes. She even had plenty in common with her new friends, including a past completely without trauma. With them, she didn’t have a murderous royal family and a legacy of letting horrific things happen before her eyes for fear of even more horrific things happening if she protested. She didn’t have the nightmarish memory of an evil queen taking over her mind and making her try to kill everyone around her, including Carver. And her battle scars were all hidden under the simple, plain dress she wore where no one could see how many there were or how deeply they’d marked her.
Bellanca had learned something about herself since walking through that magical gateway. She was a natural storyteller. Or maybe a natural liar. She didn’t really care, as long as she could give herself loving parents who’d tragically died of a fever, an exasperating but fair and responsible husband with whom she’d recently moved to the big city from a farm on the far side of the island, and zero worries other than a potential push over the high wall of Atlantis in service to king and island.
The new history she’d invented for herself made it easier to keep her temper in check when she really couldn’t afford any accidental flare-ups.
She worked hard for the rest of the day with barely a moment to chat in the kitchen. Her friends supplied her with bites to eat to keep her going, Spiro waddled over surprisingly fast to swat away a group of off-duty soldiers who’d had one too many drinks and weren’t respecting the ring as they should, and Theophania treated her like a second daughter.
As usual, Carver came to collect her and her wages before sunset, his guard shift over. He took the customary and necessary quarter hour to make conversation with Spiro. Then, like everyone else—some from windows and balconies and some from street level—they watched King Eryx tow the day’s sacrifice through the streets of Atlantapol, him in a horse-drawn chariot and the sobbing, pleading woman stumbling along behind it. The cheering and jeering from Atlantians nearly sent Bellanca up in flames, but just when she was about to experience an incendiary incident, Carver squeezed her hand.
He didn’t say a word when she accidentally burned him.