Chapter 11
Carver walked the perimeter of the throne room with Dex and Silas. They were all on the quiet side today, which suited him. He had a lot to think about. Besides, conversation wasn’t as easy in the throne room as elsewhere on the castle grounds or around the city. They’d been promoted thanks to a lucky break—or an act of Zeus?—but now they had to watch Eryx hold court with his fawning nobles and take out his frustrations on an increasingly confused and terrified Cleito.
Seeing the king abuse his oracle made Carver sick. Not doing anything about it made him even sicker. Every passing minute got him more thoroughly on board with Bel’s plan to steal the Chaos Wizard. Cleito would be a lot better off with them than with Eryx, even if their motivations weren’t exactly selfless.
Carver already knew the castle inside and out except for the mostly unused upstairs rooms where Eryx slept and kept Cleito. He’d described the layout to Bel, and they’d agreed that going into some rooms blind was better than risking a daytime raid on the castle. Their chances of success and continued anonymity were already high thanks to Bel’s fire magic and those hideous harpy helmets, but the fewer people that got in their way, the fewer potential casualties. They weren’t here to kill Atlantians, and the only one he really wanted dead was Eryx.
Dex nudged Carver as he glanced over at Eryx and Cleito. “What kind of ceremony do you think he’s trying to get out of her? He’s been tormenting her for hours.”
Carver followed Dex’s troubled gaze across the cavernous room. He barely swallowed a rage-filled growl, his muscles coiling with the need to race over there and gut Eryx. It was a nice daydream, but he wouldn’t survive it. He might be good with a sword, but he couldn’t defeat an entire castle garrison on his own without magic. Carver’s whole unit was in here or else nearby at the ground-floor entryways, with Silas in charge due to his seniority and experience. Another unit was just outside on the castle’s inner grounds and at the gate, that one led by a man named Pavlos. Carver had crossed paths with him several times and knew he had a quick mind and a strong sword arm. Another unit would be patrolling the sprawling, terraced gardens. That was a lot of soldiers within shouting distance.
“Something about reversing Punishment,” Carver answered stiffly. “What else?”
Three of Eryx’s usual advisors and a few noblemen from around Atlantapol stood near the oracle as well, all pointing and prodding and offering suggestions. Her head down, Cleito shrank away from them, hunching her shoulders and picking at the frayed pleats of her gown. Lank hair hung in her face, a shield that wouldn’t protect her. Carver saw a flash of golden eyes through the orange-red curtain before she shrank further in on herself, ducking away from her abusers.
“Seems pointless.” On Carver’s other side, Silas shrugged his broad shoulders, a frown pulling at his mouth. He might be one of the oldest men in their guard unit but only a fool would mistake his graying hair for weakness. Muscle rolled under his copper-brown skin, and his tawny eyes flicked everywhere with their usual attentiveness. “It’s been generations since the last people who actually knew—or had —magic died and went to the Underworld. We do fine without it.”
“If your family had been Magoi, you’d probably be more interested,” Dex said a little sourly.
Silas conceded Dex’s point with a wry nod. “Interested, yes. Ready to torture a confused young woman, no.” They all glanced at Cleito again. They couldn’t seem to stop. “Your family were healers, weren’t they?” he asked Dex a moment later. “Before Punishment?”
Dex nodded. “Healing magic ran strong in the family for centuries. My father died of a tooth infection, and he cursed the gods on his deathbed for taking magic from the island.”
Lingering resentment hardened Dex’s features as they turned a corner and Mount Olympus came into view through the wide, arching windows. On a clear day, Atlantians could see the high peak from almost any hilltop on the island. All three of them took in the imposing sight before returning to their hushed conversation.
“Maybe still cursing the gods is what’s keeping Punishment in place here.” In Carver’s experience—which was greater than most people’s—Olympians didn’t like their methods being called into question.
“We still go to the temples and pray like we’re supposed to, but should we thank them for depriving us?” Dex—who’d never known a hint of magic in his lifetime—held on to the same bitterness of all ancestral Magoi here about the loss of it. “I suppose, at this point, there’s no way to know if the healing gift still runs in my bloodline. It could be gone, even if Eryx manages to bring back magic.”
Silas sighed. “What are we deprived of? The island gives us everything we need, and absent gods might not be a bad thing considering the power they wield.”
And mis -wielded sometimes. Olympians brought down unjust punishments just as easily on their own kind as on human beings and on entire worlds.
Carver’s eyes strayed again to the palace-topped peak of Mount Olympus through the next open window. As far as anyone knew, the gods hadn’t visited Atlantis since Punishment, but everyone still avoided the northern part of the island like the plague. Magical creatures lived there, and just like in Thalyria, there was an unspoken divide. Humans and monsters could live in peace as long as they stayed out of each other’s territory.
They fell silent and the footsteps of all three slowed as they walked down the north side of the throne room in what felt like the shadow of Mount Olympus. Carver eyed the opulent palace, or what he could make out from this distance. Marble always glinted in the sun, and the entire mountaintop looked hard, showy, and treacherous—just like the gods.
Their path took them through the narrow space behind the throne dais and then put their backs to Eryx, offering Carver a blessed moment without having to consciously avoid staring at Cleito. They finally started down the east, ocean-facing side of the room. Hot, dry air breezed through the windows, smelling of salt waves, warm rocks, and orange blossoms. Carver breathed deeply, rolling his shoulders. Once they’d put some distance between them and Eryx, he turned his attention back to his friends.
Emotion snapped in his chest. Friends. He spent most of his days now with these two men. Silas—older and probably wiser than him, with his casual outlook on life, thick muscles, and reddish-brown skin. And Dex… Dex could almost have been Carver’s brother if he’d been born with gray eyes instead of hazel with definite hints of Magoi green. Carver was taller and maybe a little leaner, but their longish black hair and perpetually tanned skin were almost the same.
These were people he knew and liked, but they didn’t really know him, and he couldn’t count on them, or at least he didn’t think so. So was friend the right word? The important people in his life had always been family, whether they were blood-related or not. Or Konstantina.
The tightness in his chest twisted into pain. Carver let out a long, slow breath, loosening the ache. He truly hadn’t thought about her much lately, but there she was, back on his mind. He’d loved her for so long, and then the ghost of her, thinking they’d meet again in the Underworld, and he’d win her back. But when he thought about his future now, in this world or in the next, Konstantina’s face blurred and faded behind a wall of flames.
Frowning, he forced Konstantina from his mind. Devotion was supposed to go both ways.
“Getting magic back is one thing,” he said. “Using it is another. It might not be as intuitive as everyone hopes.” Carver gave Dex a pointed look as he returned to the conversation they’d let trail off as they’d walked past the king and his entourage. “There won’t be anyone who actually knows how to use magic if Punishment ends. No one to teach anyone else.” Bel could help with anything fire-related and the basic dos and don’ts of other powers, but what about the rest?
“Wouldn’t that be a mess?” Silas chuckled. “Magoi will all be like virgins fumbling in the dark.” He arched salt-and-pepper brows, the sheepish humor in his voice seeming to indicate personal experience.
Sacrificial virgin. Carver glanced at Cleito again. “Yeah, something like that.”
Dex pursed his lips. “There are writings.”
“There are writings for sex, too.” Silas clapped Dex on the back. “Not sure I’d have so many kids, otherwise.”
All three of them huffed a laugh, Carver smiling despite his preoccupation with the Chaos Wizard and Eryx. Dex looked genuinely intrigued, as though he’d never considered the idea of self-improvement in the bedroom. If he married, Dex’s future partner should thank Silas for that little pearl of wisdom, especially if Dex was smart enough to borrow some detailed scrolls—with illustrations.
“I’m not convinced magic really needs teaching.” Dex glanced at Silas, then at Carver. “Don’t you just…do it?”
“How should I know?” Carver murmured, even though he did. Magoi spent their entire lives discovering new abilities, honing their skills, and testing their limits. Just look at Bel, suddenly throwing magic from her entire body like a sun flare that was somehow more white-hot light than actual fire. The eruption had been new and unexpected in the cavern and—he thought—accidental on the beach. And luckily, less powerful, or else he’d have been burned to a crisp. Bel would need to master this new magic in order to control what came out of her, when, and how lethal she wanted it to be. It was a process he’d seen unfold with Cat when new abilities, or repressed ones, cropped up. Now Bel was experiencing the same thing. “But sex might actually be a good comparison,” Carver said thoughtfully. “You can probably just do it, but doing it well is something else.”
The look on Bel’s face when they stumbled onto the orgy in the cavern suddenly filled his mind, and heat branched through his abdomen.
“You and that feisty wife of yours obviously figured out how to do it right.” Grinning, Silas dug an elbow into Carver’s ribs.
The heat grew and crawled up Carver’s neck. “Why do you say that?”
Silas scoffed, still smiling. “The way you two look at each other. Like no one else exists.”
“It’s true.” Nodding, Dex chuckled. “You lucky bastard. Tell us the secret.”
Carver’s skin prickled all over, a hot-cold chill running the length of him. His heart beat hard. Bel was Bel—irritating, obtusely blunt, powerful, a pain in his backside, and the only person who knew him, inside and out. They were a team, but they’d never been intimate. So why was getting his lips on hers suddenly all he could think about?
His voice rasping, he said, “I don’t kiss and tell.” He cleared his throat. He didn’t kiss at all. One failed attempt had left him with singed eyebrows.
He’d been close to trying again last night and had almost convinced himself Bel might welcome it before realizing he shouldn’t push. He’d never seen her as shaken as after the automaton attack. A lot had already happened, and then he’d put some things out there that might be even more shocking than another attempted kiss.
What if it doesn’t have to be fake anymore? Panic jolted him. Had those words been a huge mistake? He couldn’t believe he’d uttered them. Stranger still, he wouldn’t take them back. He couldn’t imagine a lifetime—and beyond—with Bel. They’d kill each other a thousand times over. The problem was, he couldn’t imagine a lifetime and beyond without her, either. She’d somehow become his whole world.
Mounting horror made him break out in a cold sweat as they continued their ambling patrol around the perimeter of the throne room. Bel hadn’t exactly reacted to those words as he’d hoped. Her skin had turned a violent red, and her shock-wide eyes had stopped him cold in his tracks. The look of complete and total alarm on her face punched him in the gut again, just as it had last night. What if he’d destroyed the only thing he actually had? What if he’d made them both uncomfortable to the point of ruining their friendship? All he’d truly gotten out of Bel last night was that she wanted what she already had—a partner and a friend.
For the first time in a while, Carver’s throat ached for the burn of cheap wine and the emotional dullness enough of it eventually brought. He swallowed, not sure if he found the imagined taste in his mouth comforting or revolting. Resisting a grimace, he walked straight ahead, his measured pace unchanged despite the turmoil inside him. Was it his destiny to choose women who didn’t choose him back? The idea filled him with such dread that his next step felt like he dragged an anchor from his boot.
Dex broke into his spiraling thoughts, still musing about what-ifs and potential issues that could only come with the end of Punishment. “You’re probably right about learning how to wield magic, at least somewhat. It’s probably part instinctual and part training. If I have the gift, I’ll bet healing people easily and quickly takes practice. Maybe years of it.” He sounded as if he counted on becoming a real Magoi in his lifetime and not just an ancestral one.
“We might find out soon enough.” Silas tipped his head toward Eryx, his brow lowering. “Seems like he’s on to something.”
Carver looked across the throne room. Shock halted him midstep. His eyes widened. Eryx held Cleito by the neck. She stood on her toes, her head forced back at a hard angle. Gasping for air, she frantically pulled at Eryx’s wrists, her small feet scrabbling for purchase. Her golden eyes got impossibly bigger, and a frightened, pleading sound slipped from her mouth.
Razor-sharp anger sliced through Carver. He’d seen too many helpless people abused by powerful ones to stand there and not try to help. There had to be something he could do—now, today —without signing his own death sentence.
“Four.” Eryx shook Cleito roughly. Her clumpy hair swayed around her like seaweed on the tide. “You said there were four parts. Ceremonial knife. Chalice. Virgin blood.” He lifted Cleito right off her feet, and Carver took an instinctive step toward her. “What’s the final part?” he growled at the oracle.
Silas grabbed Carver’s arm, gripping with enough force to make him stop. Carver turned, his jaw hardening. Their eyes met, and the older man gave him a stiff shake of the head. “Don’t.”
Dex gaped at them both. Then he snapped his mouth shut and focused on Carver. “She’s not your problem. Just guard the room.” He glanced at Cleito, a wince denting his forehead. He looked away just as fast.
Carver demoted them both off the friend list. “He’s hurting her,” he snarled.
Cleito gasped. The rip of fabric slashed across the room, and Carver pivoted again, his eyes narrowing. Eryx forced the top of Cleito’s dress down her arms, baring her upper body to everyone. He spun her around and shoved her to the floor. With a slap of skin, Cleito landed on her hands and knees in front of Eryx’s throne. Her gown hung in shreds from her belt, and her limp red hair swung down, hiding her face and dragging on the floor.
Carver sucked in a breath at the sight of Cleito’s scarred back. Eryx was a monster, and Carver was done standing by and watching this. He tried to pull away, and Silas’s hand tightened on his arm.
One of Eryx’s advisors put a whip in the king’s hand, and fury exploded inside Carver almost violently enough to make him forget that running Eryx through right now would also mean his own death.
Silas yanked him back a step, bringing Carver close enough to whisper, “She’s the only seer in generations. He won’t kill her. He needs her visions. You, though…” The other man looked at him hard, trying to convey a message of self-preservation that Carver rejected outright.
“What’s the point of living if you can’t live with yoursel f?” he hissed, trying to shake free of Silas’s steely grip.
Silas flinched but didn’t let go. Carver finally ripped his half-numb arm from the other man’s hand and lurched back a step.
Dex slid sideways to block Carver’s path. “This is how it is,” he urgently said. “The king does what he wants. We can’t do anything about it.”
Carver shook his head, seeing the rot of Atlantis tainting them both. Cleito would live as long as she was useful—a life full of fear and pain and abuse. And Eryx would kill a woman today, maybe even a child, as long as she was a she . A new family plunged into mourning every day. Why didn’t anyone resist? “‘Can’t do anything’ is a luxury for the young, the old, and the sick.” Carver gave them both a scathing look. “For anyone else, it means you’re a coward.”
Shock stamped across their features as he turned with a low curse and bypassed Dex. To the Underworld with the consequences. This wasn’t part of any plan, and he didn’t know what might happen next, but he was not a man who stood by and watched .
Cleito tried to crawl away from Eryx, her head low and her tangled mane sweeping the floor. She was reed thin, her skin almost translucent and whiter than the stone. She didn’t get far. She shuddered, too weak to crawl. Eryx yanked on her leash, pulling her back. Whimpering, she curled into a ball.
The certainty that he had to help Cleito now rose inside Carver like an ocean squall. “Your Highness!” he called. His footsteps echoed in the huge stone hall. Eryx turned, eyes seething, his hand back and the whip already poised. The blood-dark cord trailed to the marble floor. Carver’s pulse pounded. “Surely there are other ways to encourage your oracle’s visions?” he said in the smoothest voice he could manage around the rage and disgust roughening every word. He spread his hands, even dredging up a smile. He’d spent enough time in the throne room in Castle Thalyria to know how negotiations started.
How they ended… That was unclear, especially right now.
Eryx sneered the cold, humorless, confident smile of a man who didn’t understand his days were numbered and that Carver would help bring them to an end. “The farm boy dares to counsel a king?” He looked back and forth between his advisors, his dark eyebrows lifting in scorn. “Shall we invite him to join your ranks?” The advisors all chortled. Cleito trembled at their feet.
Carver swallowed his loathing and produced what he hoped was a neutral expression and not one that blared his desire to kill the bastard with the blunt end of a sword. “Not advise, Your Highness. Merely suggest.”
“ Merely, ” Eryx mocked in an exaggeratedly refined voice. He looked Carver up and down with a contemptuous smirk. “Listen to how the farm boy talks. You’d think he wasn’t raised with sheep and goats.”
Livestock was a step up compared to Eryx and his entourage. Carver simply waited, using everything inside him to maintain that neutral expression and not draw his mediocre, guard-issued sword and run the son of a Cyclops through. His family might’ve been farmers before they were royalty, but they’d always been warriors. He could sow, harvest, and slaughter. Royal life had just perfected his fake smile.
Carver stayed silent. The king would talk first. He was sure of it.
A muscle feathered in Eryx’s jaw. “I know how to tame my oracle’s visions.”
“Is that so?” Carver arched his brows. “If that were the case, you’d have the information you want instead of a terrified girl.”
Turning stone-faced, Eryx looked at his advisors. “ This is what wanders in from the countryside? What imbecile is hiring my soldiers?”
They snickered again, this time uncomfortably. None of them answered.
Eryx moved his hand, and the end of the whip slithered across the floor. “And what’s your suggestion, farm boy ?” It was more insult than question.
Carver’s expression hardened to match the king’s. “Ask her nicely.”
It took a moment for Eryx to smirk again. A malicious glint suddenly lit his moss-green eyes as he turned the whip in his hand and presented it to Carver, the bulbous tip of the thick, string-wrapped grip first. “Why don’t you do the asking?”
Carver stared at the grisly offering, his heart slamming against his ribs. The dried blood on the leather turned his stomach. He shook his head. “Not with that.”
The handle of the whip hovered between them until Eryx took a firm hold of it again and snapped the cord with a crack. Everyone around the king flinched except for Carver. Cleito bleated like a little russet lamb, and Carver resolutely stepped in front of her, making his position clear to anyone with eyes in their head.
“Either you whip her—twenty real lashes,” Eryx growled, “or I whip you , and you never show your face here again. Your position is on the line, farm boy . Along with your skin.”
Carver’s rioting pulse echoed throughout his body. He’d been sliced, stabbed, burned, locked in savage battles, pitted against monsters, and plenty of other things, but he’d never been whipped, and he’d for godsdamned sure never whipped anyone. He wasn’t starting today. So what options did he have?
His nostrils flared. He could kill Eryx right now—and he was sorely tempted—but he’d never make it out of here alive. There were too many soldiers, including his friends . Killing Eryx himself also meant taking that honor from Bellanca. She’d been called to lead Atlantis, not him. He’d just forced his way in. And she’d said it herself: Magoi had to fight Magoi for a clear and indisputable transition of power. Besides, if he died today, it meant leaving her in Atlantis without any help. That seemed worse than his own demise, especially after he’d left everything behind just to make sure she wasn’t alone.
“I will never whip her,” he ground out. “And you shouldn’t, either.” Eryx was too cruel and ignorant to know Cleito was precious . She held the knowledge of the gods, and getting it out would take kindness, not this nightmare she lived in. Magic had been gone from Atlantis for so long the king didn’t even understand the gift he had in front of him. But maybe that was because Cleito wasn’t a gift for Eryx. She was a gift for them.
The realization hit like a lightning bolt. Carver hadn’t doubted he should protect Cleito, but now he knew it.
Eryx turned to Silas and Dex, already seeming to understand that they were Carver’s usual companions after only two shifts in the king’s immediate vicinity. “You two. Over here.” They obeyed, of course. “Take off his tunic. Hold him between you.” The wrath in the king’s voice—the sheer, unfettered fury—echoed throughout the throne room. Everyone else went so still and silent that the approaching men’s footsteps boomed out like thunder.
Dex and Silas wouldn’t look Carver in the eye as they did as the king commanded. Silas ducked his head, shaking it as a heavy sigh left him. Frowning, Dex took Carver’s sword and then handed it to Eryx when the king snapped his fingers for it. Disdain contorting his features, Eryx threw the blade across the room, luckily not hitting anyone. It clattered to a stop, and no one touched it. Dex tucked Carver’s tunic into his own sword belt and then took a hold of Carver’s left forearm, squeezing once as if in sympathy. Carver ignored him. Silas picked up his right arm, and they held him firmly by the wrists, spreading his arms between them.
Carver’s mind flashed back to the automaton harpies holding Bel in the exact same way. It wasn’t even a day ago. His muscles ached from the effort of pulling the metal beasts apart, and his back would certainly still bear the evidence of scraping across the floor. No one said anything. His new bruises and old scars couldn’t go unnoticed, either, but this wasn’t about who he was or what he’d done. This was the punished wanting to feel powerful again by punishing someone else.
Dex and Silas turned him and positioned him to face a now-kneeling Cleito, fully offering his back to the king. Cleito clutched her ripped gown to her chest, her knotted hair spilling down her upper body. Carver looked right at her. She looked back at him, and for a split second, her swirling eyes focused.
“It’s almost over,” he whispered. The whipping today. Soon, her life with Eryx. He’d get her out of here. He vowed it. “Have courage.”
The seer’s lips parted on a sad smile. Her face softened. Carver missed having sisters to love and protect, and in the second before the first lash crashed into his skin, he imagined adding Cleito to whatever family he managed to cobble together in Atlantis.
Searing pain tore across his back. He hissed, arching on instinct. The solid grips holding each of his wrists intensified, helping to pull him upright. Straightening, Carver lifted his head. The middle of his back throbbed, a harsh sting cutting deep beneath a hot, pulsing ache. Breathing slowly, he waited, dread building with every banging heartbeat. When was the next strike coming? One lash was just the beginning of the battle. Twenty would be the end, and he’d come out on the victorious side of every violent conflict he’d ever been in. He’d spared Cleito the whip today. That would be his win.
The next hit bit deep enough to draw blood. Carver’s grunt of pain mixed with the crack of the cord as warm wetness welled up. His nostrils flaring, he ground his teeth. Eryx struck again and again, each lash more brutal than the last, hitting Carver’s back with salt-in-wound sharpness. Carver twisted, arching, but Dex and Silas held him firmly in place, flinching, too. The bastards. But if it wasn’t them, it would’ve been two others holding him in place.
Trickles of blood became a full, wet coating, his split skin radiating agony. Carver groaned, a dizzy sort of nausea rolling through him. He swayed, fighting the need to cry out with each new hit. He didn’t. Keeping quiet nearly broke him, but he wouldn’t give Eryx the satisfaction of hearing him shout.
Gasps still escaped him, his breath sawing in and out. His vision darkened, and he shook his head, lifting it to look at Cleito. He forced her into focus, and she kept her golden eyes on his face, her infinite gaze helping to ground him even as her mind whirled with all the knowledge of the cosmos.
Pain and anger and foreboding bled into one harsh reality, the whistle of the cord Carver’s only warning before searing, blinding torment tore through his body. As they neared twenty lashes, Eryx grunted with the effort to whip him harder. The cord cracked down with new ferocity, and Carver nearly buckled, his skin on fire.
Cleito’s gaze never left his face, pulling his wavering focus back to her. Carver held on to her bright eyes like a lifeline, their power giving him strength. “Under the surface, not above,” she murmured as the final lash hurtled down. Carver gasped. His sight dimmed, and he struggled to hear her through the rushing in his ears. “Look beneath her owl. Athena left it there.”
One leg gave out, and Carver forced it back under him, his foot slipping in his own blood. Red on white. Humanity on cold marble. His thoughts echoed from far away, distant and fading. He blinked forcefully, holding the darkness at bay.
Can’t forget. Under the surface. Beneath Athena’s owl. He knew what Cleito meant. He and Bel had seen the distinctive rock formation while searching the island for the key in their early weeks here. They’d gone dangerously far north and discovered a cliffside that looked just like a huge owl hanging over the sea. The Chaos Wizard’s oracular words nearly slid from his grasp, and he fought to maintain consciousness.
“What did you say?” Eryx jumped around Carver and loomed over Cleito. “Tell me now, you useless bitch.”
Cleito didn’t seem to register Eryx’s threatening posture. Her eyes lost focus again. “Fire in the sky. Sacrificial virgin.”
“For the gods’ sakes!” Eryx roared in frustration. He threw the bloody whip at Cleito, and she flinched as it thumped her in the face, leaving a slash of Carver’s blood across her forehead. “That’s all she’s said for days!”
Shadows crept in on Carver. He fought for clarity even though it meant keeping the pain omnipresent and pounding through him. Don’t forget. The skin on his back pulsed, hot with blood, burning with agony.
“Get him out of my sight,” Eryx spat at Dex and Silas. “If I see him again, he’s dead.” The king strode away without a backward glance, leaving even Cleito behind him.
Dex and Silas propped Carver between them and half carried him from the throne room, throwing him worried glances that Carver only vaguely noticed through a haze of pain and darkness. He closed his eyes for just a second, but when he opened them again, they were halfway to his lodgings.
Something in his chest hollowed. They were taking him home, even though they’d be docked a day’s pay for leaving before their shift was over and he hadn’t asked them for anything.
It would be stupid to protest, and they probably wouldn’t listen anyway, so Carver let them hoist him along between them, grateful for their help even though he wanted to despise them.
In the end, they were just a splotch on his mind. Other than the constant throbbing in his back, all he could think about was holding on to Cleito’s message until he could tell Bellanca.