Chapter 26
Carver couldn’t help the dive his stomach took at Bel’s horrified expression. Well, now you’ve done it was written all over her heated glower.
“Apparently,” she muttered back to him.
He nodded, trying to encourage her. He’d just taken the step he knew she’d balk at but could handle like the queen she was meant to be. The Queen of Atlantis.
And just as he knew she would, she pulled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and got down to business.
“My husband speaks the truth.” Her emphasis on the word, the slight acidity, caused his eyebrows to slide up his forehead. Yes, he’d forced her hand, but he didn’t regret it. It was the only way out of this without bloodshed.
“What truth, then?” Silas asked, nothing in his tone giving away that he already knew certain things. Behind him, Dex nodded, looking equally eager for information.
Gratitude flooded Carver, and in that moment, he appreciated his friends more than ever. They were the only reason the fighting hadn’t started yet, and they were giving Bel the chance to state her facts and convince the soldiers.
And it was a damn good thing, because Bel would burn her way out of this if she had to. She’d hate it, but she’d do it. No one would take them to Eryx.
“You win,” Bel grated for his ears only. He couldn’t help a quick, satisfied smile. She’d never uttered those words to him—or likely to anyone, ever. Raising her intentionally dampened blue-green gaze, she looked beyond him to the contingent of soldiers. Voice clear and carrying, she said, “In a story that’s long and complicated, there are only a few things that matter right now—here—in Atlantis.” She paused, looking slowly from Silas’s unit to Pav’s and taking in all the soldiers. She stopped on the leader she didn’t know. He was the one who needed convincing. “Zeus wants to end Punishment. He wants to bring magic back to Atlantis and lift the island back to sea level. But Zeus also needs to safeguard the people of Atlantis against leaders who would abuse magic and use it in terrible ways and only for their own gain. The problem is Eryx—and his fathers before him—all the way back to Punishment. Your king is obsessed with regaining magic for selfish reasons and has gone about his quest with violence and ruthlessness since the day he took the throne. Carver and I”—she swept a hand toward him—“are Thalyrian. We’re not from here.”
Noise rumbled from the soldiers. “Not possible!” shot across the space between them.
“It is possible,” Bel called back. “We crossed worlds to come here, for you , and only Zeus can sanction humans crossing into other worlds. You know this. Everyone does.” The only successful exception she knew of was her newborn sister, somehow smuggled here by Hera.
Eyes narrowing, Pav asked, “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”
Bel exhaled heavily. Her eyes brightened, her hair started to glow, and slowly, she lifted a hand and brought magical fire into their world. “Because I’m Magoi. And no one born in Atlantis has magic.”
“It’s her!” several of the soldiers shouted. Accusations and finger pointing swiftly followed.
She killed…
She burned…
She whipped King Eryx.
“Yes, it’s me,” Bel solemnly admitted. “And I never wanted to hurt anyone except for Eryx that night I came to the castle. I’m so sorry about your friends. Those soldiers…” She shook her head, regret dimming her fire until it vanished from her eyes and extinguished from between her fingers. She lowered her hand, a final flame flickering down her braid. “I defended myself the way I did because I had to get Cleito away from that monster before he killed her. Cleito was the only one with vital information about Zeus’s project for us here in Atlantis. I had to protect her and get the information. I swear to you, that’s all I wanted to do. That, and punish Eryx for what he did to Carver.”
The grumbles slowly quieted. Every single one of them knew exactly what she was talking about. These men Carver had served next to and trained with looked at him, some with compassion, some with suspicion. Swords stayed up, but no one moved a muscle.
Pav finally jerked his chin at Carver. “Half these men saw you take twenty lashes and barely stumble out of the castle. With help.” His suspicious gaze slashed fleetingly to Silas. “The other half heard about it. In detail . How are you traveling and moving around so easily after what just happened to you?”
It was a good question, and Carver hoped the honest answer would help them. “Persephone came to us the next day and healed me.” Instead of more surprised muttering, total silence followed except for the creak of armor as forty men shifted nervously. “As I said, we were sent by the gods. They need us to accomplish this mission for Zeus as quickly as possible.”
“Show them your back,” Bel encouraged. “They’ll see for themselves that it’s perfect.”
Perfect . He huffed a wry laugh, his lips barely moving. It was scarred, but not from anything recent. Now, each mark gained while fighting beside his brothers and comrades in Thalyria was a memory to hold on to rather than a blemish.
Turning, Carver lifted his tunic. Proof was worth a thousand words, and there was no denying his back was as good as it had been before Eryx whipped him.
“Look at that! He’s telling the truth!” Silas exclaimed with convincing astonishment. This time, a real smile slipped out. Carver tucked it away before turning back around, finding Silas looking at his men—all the people who’d been in the throne room the day Eryx flayed him. “He’d still be bloodied. Scarred. You all saw what Eryx did to him.”
Several men nodded. So did Carver.
“It has to be the work of the gods.” Dex’s awed words spread to both units, his genuine amazement and fascination an unmistakable undercurrent. He looked directly at Pav. “No one else could do this.”
Pav swung a guarded look on Bel, wariness carving heavy lines into his sun-weathered features. “Maybe she’s a Magoi healer.”
“I’m not.” Bel shook her head. “I swear it. Healers don’t have any other magic. It’s a great gift, but they only heal, and you just saw my fire.”
“Lies. It could all be lies,” Pav hissed, his sword still up. “With your friends helping you.” His eyes darted to the side, but this time when he looked at Silas, questions blared from his alarmed expression rather than convictions.
“That’s true about healers,” Dex said, stepping forward. “My family might not have the magic anymore, but we’ve passed down what knowledge we could. Healers don’t have other forms of magic.”
Bel turned a grateful look on Dex, the slight dip of her chin a nodded thank-you.
Carver was grateful, too. Dex expressed his ancestral-Magoi ire often enough for at least half of the men here to know his family used to produce healers.
“We’re telling the truth.” Carver looked over the soldiers, his gaze landing heavily on Pav and staying there. “Time will prove it—to you and everyone—and we could really use your help making sure Atlantis has a better future than the one Eryx would give it. We don’t want to fight you. Please—join us.”
Pav’s mouth worked, and he seemed to chew on his words before finally launching them up the meadow. “You’re asking us to disobey orders. Betray our king. Compromise our positions. Endanger our families.”
Carver nodded. “I know it’s not easy.”
“Easy?” Pav’s harsh laugh exploded like a crack of thunder. “You want us to trust you when we hardly know you. And you’re asking us to believe that gods who abandoned us lifetimes ago are suddenly interested in us and our island. You want us to trust you when your wife just killed soldiers. Friends .” He sliced his head back and forth, gripping his sword so hard the blade trembled. “This is impossible.”
“Not impossible, just difficult,” Carver acknowledged, eyeing Pav’s weapon a little more cautiously. He knew for a fact the man knew how to use it—and probably wouldn’t hesitate once he’d made up his mind. “And Eryx kills every day. But he doesn’t kill soldiers in battle. He picks innocent women from among his subjects and murders them.”
“For us!” a soldier in the back called out. “To bring us magic.”
“To bring him magic,” Carver hurled back. He fought off a cough, for the first time managing to control the sudden spasm in his throat. “And it’s having the exact opposite effect. Eryx, like his ancestors before him, has displeased the gods so deeply that Zeus sent my wife, Bellanca Tarva, the most powerful Magoi princess of Thalyria, to eliminate him and rule in his stead. As queen. With magic . Atlantis will rise again. It’s about to. We’re on the cusp of the island returning to its rightful place, but Zeus won’t allow that to happen while Eryx sits on the throne.” He looked directly at Pav, trying to convey the truth with his words, with his eyes, with his whole body. They’d spoken, sparred, and Pav had always seemed like a man who cared about Atlantis more than he cared about Eryx. If he was right about Pav, and they could get two entire guard units behind them, they’d have the start of a small army. “Eryx is holding everyone back, and blind loyalty to a cruel and selfish ruler won’t help Atlantis. Your families are in danger every day because of him. We can stop him. We will.”
“Are you saying that Punishment hasn’t ended because Zeus doesn’t like King Eryx?” Carver recognized the soldier who spoke as Pav’s second-in-command, Mikhos. They’d sparred, too, though rarely.
He nodded. “Zeus cares about you enough to send a ruler who’ll use her magic to protect you and Atlantis and who’ll restore the island to glory without cruelty and human sacrifices. If you give Bellanca that chance, she can end Punishment and take the throne from Eryx.”
“Is the throne so easily taken?” Silas’s brow drew low, the question clearly genuine.
Carver looked at Bel to answer. A regal calm settled over her—one no one could miss. She radiated confidence and power without any magic spilling off her. “I’ll fight him for the throne, Magoi to Magoi, once he has magic. There’ll be no mistaking who the Atlantian throne rightfully belongs to.”
“And how do you plan to restore magic?” Pav asked skeptically. Silas echoed the question.
After a moment’s hesitation, Bel reluctantly pulled the amulet out from under her tunic, its cool, blue-white radiance chasing away the late-day shadows around her. “With this. The Shard of Olympus is a gift from Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.” Soldiers murmured in awe, and swords dropped a fraction—even Pav’s—as they looked, curious and fascinated and probably more than a little fearful. “When Persephone sent me here, in Zeus’s name and with his blessing, she called me Firebringer. My fire is meant to spark magic for the whole island, and the Shard of Olympus will help make that happen. The shard is what Cleito sent us north for. She told us where to find it.”
“Where is Cleito?” Dex called sharply.
Carver glanced at Bel. He waited to see what information she’d reveal. He’d already forced her hand once. He didn’t want to do it again, especially about her sister.
He saw her stiffen and Arete’s ears twitch as the mare tensed for action. Bel settled into her saddle, using her seat to calm her mount even as her shoulders stayed tense and her expression hesitant. Finally, she said, “Cleito isn’t just a seer. She’s what we call a Chaos Wizard in Thalyria.” She paused, but no one seemed to understand the significance, maybe because of the island’s lack of magic for so many generations. “They’re the most god-touched of oracles, a conduit for the gods and mainly for Zeus. A Chaos Wizard knows everything. Past. Present. Future. But that’s too much, too confusing, too big and overwhelming. Zeus can help them sort through all that information and produce prophecies or other vital information he wants to give.”
“And if Zeus doesn’t want to give the information?” Silas asked guardedly.
Bel’s troubled expression said it all before she did. “The Chaos Wizard resists.”
Pav let out an audible breath, and the tip of his sword hit the grass. “So all those years… No matter how much Eryx abused and terrorized her…” He shook his head, his mouth thinning. “Still, there were visions, predictions.”
“Eryx seems to have mostly tortured some kind of ceremony out of Cleito that could potentially bring magic back to Atlantis without a Magoi like me to do it. But Cleito refused to give up the final piece of the ritual.” She touched her amulet. “Eryx would need the power of the Shard of Olympus to do it, but she told us where to find it, not him.”
“We think Eryx’s ritual involves a human sacrifice,” Carver added.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Mikhos growled in a way that made Carver think the man must’ve lost someone at the high wall over the harbor—just like so many others had since Punishment.
“No, but if we stop Eryx, we stop his sacrifices.” Bel finally dismounted and stood next to him, Arete’s reins trailing from her hand. “I’m just like you, even if I’m Magoi and even if I was born in Thalyria, because I want what’s best for Atlantis and all its people.”
Pav slowly nodded, acceptance draining the rigidity from his spine and the color from his face. He believed them, even if he didn’t want to. And it made him a traitor until the moment Eryx no longer sat on the throne of Atlantis.
He pointedly sheathed his sword, the whisper of metal sliding into leather sealing the deal. “You never told us where Cleito is. Did you leave her in Atlantapol?”
Bel swallowed. She shook her head, abruptly looking at Carver to answer.
Carver turned back to the soldiers, the raw emotion so clearly clogging Bel’s throat sitting heavily on his chest. “Hera took Cleito. Right after Bel rescued her from Eryx, Hera swooped in and kidnapped the oracle.”
Dex took another step to stand next to Silas. Fury smoldered from him. “ Kidnapped her? Why?”
Carver nodded. The day after the whipping, he’d told his friends that Hera had taken Cleito, though he hadn’t elaborated. Dex was demanding those answers now, and Carver wouldn’t deny him. “She wants to rule Mount Olympus—above Zeus—and she’s making a bid for his throne. She started a war among Olympians, and she wants Atlantians to bolster her strength and make it possible to defeat Zeus in battle.”
“How? We have no Magoi army. Only the king’s guard…” Frowning, Silas glanced at Dex, then back to them. His two friends weren’t the only soldiers who looked worried and confused, and if the situation weren’t so dire, Carver wouldn’t spread knowledge the gods had intentionally hidden for so long.
Still, he hesitated. How much to say? What consequences? Then Bel stepped in and explained.
“Hera wants me to use the Shard of Olympus to restore magic in her name rather than Zeus’s. Prayers, gratitude, and offerings to a god amplify their natural powers. If all of Atlantis is grateful to her at once, the sudden increase in her abilities will be enough for Hera to rival Zeus and challenge him in battle. She doesn’t need an army, even a Magoi one. She needs your love, your prayers, your heartfelt worship.”
“But what does Hera want with Cleito?” Dex demanded, continuing to show an uncharacteristic focus on the oracle after spending years turning a blind eye to her. “How does kidnapping her help the goddess?”
“Hera gave me an ultimatum,” Bel answered. “If I restore magic in her name, giving her the gratitude of Atlantians, she’ll return Cleito to me. If I don’t do what she wants, she’ll kill her.”
Wrath ignited in Dex’s eyes, his nostrils flaring. Whatever his friend’s reasons, Carver knew that look, the feel of it. It was a turning point. The spark that changed lives and worlds.
He’d believed Dex was an ally before. Now, he knew it.
“What’s Cleito to you?” Pav frowned at Bel. “You just met her.”
“Cleito is my sister.” Bel’s voice wavered, and she paused. She drew in an audible breath before continuing. “ She was the only Atlantian with magic until I got here because she’s actually Thalyrian. Hera didn’t just kidnap her now. She kidnapped her as an infant and somehow placed her here without even Zeus knowing where she’d truly come from. Hera must’ve known about this ceremony and wanted Cleito to help Eryx figure out how to return magic to Atlantis in her name. The shard and I are the faster, better option, so she switched her focus to me and is trying to use Cleito— again —to get what she wants. Zeus was helping Cleito hold back the last piece of information for Eryx’s ritual.” A shadow passed through her eyes. “As soon as Cleito revealed the shard’s location to us, Hera had to change tactics.”
“Are they still working together?” Silas asked. “Eryx and Hera?”
“Possibly.” A faint glow illuminated Bel’s hair again, though Carver couldn’t tell if it was an intentional show of power or red-hot rage shining through. “What we know for sure is that both Eryx and Hera want magic restored to Atlantis, and that Hera wants everyone to believe that she ended Punishment so that she can feed her godly powers with their gratitude and offerings.”
“So? What will you do?” Dex’s expression darkened ominously, and there was no mistaking he meant about Cleito.
Bel rolled her lips in, a sure sign she didn’t want to answer. Carver couldn’t answer for her and waited, just like everyone else. Finally, her voice thick, she said, “I’ll do whatever I can to save my sister. But Hera has turned into a warped version of herself. She’s rejected her sacred duty in the pursuit of power. She cursed our queen in Thalyria. She kidnapped and threatened Cleito—twice—instead of protecting her. She’s not blessing your marriages and easing your women in childbirth. She’s not protecting women in any world. She’s willing to give magic and power to Eryx, a brutal king that’s hand-selecting a woman to send to her death every day over the high wall of Atlantapol. The next human sacrifice could be your wife, your mother, your daughter. No family is safe while Eryx reigns. And this Hera is not our Hera. This Hera started her Olympianomachy and ended her obligations.”
“Olympianomachy,” Pav murmured. “A War of Gods.”
“Zeus sent me here to help Atlantis regain magic and rise again. That’s my sacred duty,” Bel said forcefully, “and I won’t betray it.”
Even for my sister hovered heavily in the air as the first bolt sped by, a whistle in Carver’s ear. Silas staggered into Dex, an arrow lodged deep in his shoulder.