Chapter 43
OKEANOS
Surrounded by the rest of her Blood, my queen looked at me and smiled. “Ready?”
Already in my kraken form, I nearly filled the hot spring. My tentacles spilled over the slick rocks. :I have Undina’s position, my queen. She’s expecting us.:
Without hesitation, Shara stepped off the ledge onto one of my larger tentacles, holding on to a smaller one for balance as I pulled her closer. “Thank you, my kraken.”
With my queen in my grasp, the Deep Blue beckoned.
Water so deep it seemed bottomless. So vast as to feel like infinity.
One drop of her blood bloomed in the water, sharpening all the shades of darkness into brilliant indigo and blue.
Streams of light flowed from her, brighter than any sun rays that might cut through the surface.
Always guiding me home.
For a moment, we hung suspended in the Deep Blue. Just me and my queen, surrounded by the ocean and all its creatures. Her hair slipped free to undulate and twine with my tentacles. I’d been overjoyed to assist her beneath the Delafosse house, but this moment was even more divine. More sacred.
In my element. My domain. Allowed to serve her in a way only I could provide.
Without hesitation, she lay against my monstrous body. No fear. No disgust. She pressed the small puncture to my beak and allowed me to taste her blood.
We didn’t move so much as the ocean moved around us.
Shifting its tides and currents to suit her will, taking us to our destination in seconds.
The bottomless depths shrank to crystal azure water and glistening golden sands.
Vibrant coral grew like humps and hills, bushes and caves, providing homes for a multitude of colorful fish and creatures.
All of whom fled and cowered as my shadow swept overhead, though they were all safe from me now. I only hungered for my queen.
We paused in the shallows, waiting for the rest of her Blood to pass through the watery portal and take up defensive positions on the shore.
Seaward, House Ketea’s floating coral nest shimmered like opalescent shells in the sunlight, though Undina waited for us on the sandy beach, along with several members of her house.
A white and coral-pink house sprawled across the hillside above the private beach.
No humans encroached in this area, or perhaps Undina’s people had already sent them away.
Winged Blood shot up out of the waters, creating glittering fountains to cascade over us as they soared into the air.
Then Rik, Guillaume, and Sekh, forming our queen’s closest, most personal guard.
The rest of her Blood flanked on either side, closing ranks to cover our exit as we advanced to the waiting people.
“Greetings, House Isador,” Undina said. “It’s a sad day to visit the beautiful Aegean Sea.”
“Greetings, House Ketea. I agree, it’s a lovely place for such a travesty.” My queen made no move to release me, so I continued carrying her across the sand toward my mother. “You still haven’t seen any hint of life within?”
“None.” Undina’s eyes tightened, her sharp teeth flashing with rage.
“Perhaps if I hadn’t moved the nest out of the Aegean, I may have noticed unusual activity.
Basilia despised unwelcome attention, even from Skolos.
It was easier to move my nest further out into the Mediterranean than deal with her biting remarks every time we met. ”
Shara’s lips quirked, though she said nothing out loud. :That says a lot about Basilia’s personality if even Undina wearied of her. Your mother doesn’t exactly have a winning personality.:
:Undina did not win her position on Skolos by being amiable. In fact, she devoured her predecessor.:
:Interesting. Do you know who it was?:
:Queen Annelyse of House Taratta.:
Aloud, she said, “My flying Blood will scan overhead and report back shortly.”
Streams of images already poured through our Blood bonds as they reported to our alpha.
Nothing moved in the vicinity, even inside the blood circle.
I saw meticulous gardens and green lawns surrounding the house, though even in one short week, they were overgrown and dying, as if used to regular watering.
Stone statues dotted the lawn in a haphazard design that made no sense to me, but what did a sea creature know?
I much preferred the rambling coral decorated with shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean.
:Get back!: Mehen roared, darting past the slower moving phoenix. :Don’t fucking look at her!:
Something moved in a dark cleft of tumbled stones in the rocky hillside near the rear of the nest. Mehen flared his wings out wide, shielding the other Blood from whatever lay in the recessed darkness.
A stream of liquid spurted at him, bouncing off his scales harmlessly, though it popped and sizzled on the stone pavers below.
:Retreat,: Rik ordered. :Until we know what it is.:
:I know exactly what it is,: the dragon retorted, keeping his massive body between our Blood and the cave. :It’s a hydra. If you look at her, she’ll turn you into stone that even our queen won’t be able to restore, and her venom will eat through just about anything.:
:Is it Basilia?: Shara asked. :Or some other creature guarding her?:
:She smells Gorgon but I won’t know for sure until I taste her.:
The winged Blood all returned to fly in slow circles directly overhead, though Mehen dropped to the ground beside the queens. To Undina’s credit, she didn’t flinch or appear to be alarmed, though her alpha quickly put himself between her and the threat.
“There’s a hydra inside a cave at the rear of the nest,” Shara told her.
“That’s Basilia’s private grotto where she communes with her goddess,” Undina said. “If she’s there and alive, why isn’t she able to send any of her people out to explain what’s going on?”
:All of her people are dead,: Mehen said. :They’re turned to stone inside the nest. Most of them are around the cave itself, as if they tried to help her. Instead, one by one, they fucking died.:
Shara repeated the dragon’s response out loud. “Did you ever see Basilia in her hydra form? Or did she ever talk about it?”
“To see her is to die,” Undina said flatly. “No one has ever seen her in that form and lived, other than her keeper, Sikaras. Every generation, a male of the Sikaras line ritually blinds himself so he is fully immune to her terrible gaze.”
:I just saw the fucking bitch, and I’m still alive and kicking,: Mehen said.
Shara’s head turned toward him, her eyes narrowed. “And why is that, my dragon?:
He made a disgusted sound with a plume of thick tarry smoke. :Because I’m a fucking Gorgon too.:
SHARA
I wanted to be absolutely sure before I sent anyone inside. “Did you actually look her in the eye?”
:No, but I could. Her stare won’t have any effect on my dragon, the same as her venom.: The dragon dipped his head, his neck snaking along the ground, his green eyes slitted with malicious intent. :Let me go kill her, my queen.:
Delaying the decision a moment, I turned back to Undina. “Do you know if she has any rational thought or control over herself when she’s shifted into the hydra?”
“She doesn’t speak of it often, I assume because it embarrassed her. But when she shifts, her magic is in flux, causing unprecedented storms and earthquakes. So I’m surprised she would risk staying in this form.”
I nodded, letting the ideas spark and flow in my mind.
Even if there was no hope of saving her, I didn’t want to go in guns blazing and simply kill her without understanding how she was imprisoned.
There were likely traps waiting for us to do just that.
The people who lived in her house every single day had already tried to free her and died.
Sekh couldn’t See anything inside the nest—there wasn’t anyone left alive to trace.
Leviathan could show me how she was trapped. Maybe even rationalize with her, if that was possible, or at least confirm for me if she was completely insane. If he could get her to shift out of her hydra, then I could talk to her.
Maybe the blood circle around the nest could fill in some of the gaps and give me clues to how she’d been overpowered.
I walked closer to the edge of the blood circle, braced for the buzz of magic against my skin. We’d gone directly into Leonie’s nest in New Orleans using the portal, so I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure what the Dauphine’s altered blood circle would even feel like.
At the edge, I lifted my hand, palm out to the pulse of magic and vibration in the air.
It felt like my circle at home.
Because it was my circle. I controlled it, without a single drop of my blood, through the Dauphine’s blood she’d laid beneath Basilia’s.
I tasted the ophidian musk of a reptile in her Gorgon blood.
Similar to mine when I was the cobra queen, though Basilia’s blood evidently always smelled and tasted like this.
:Fucking Gorgons,: Mehen said. :We have a very unique taste and scent, especially the queens.:
Here and now, Basilia’s blood was mine to command. The circle responded to me, her magic acknowledging me because of the Dauphine’s sick, tormented way of claiming her siblings. For all intents and purposes, Basilia was my sibling right now, even though I had never tasted her blood.
Out loud, I whispered, “Show me how Basilia fell to Jeanne Viennois.”
An image filled my mind of a night sky, here in this very spot. The natural place Aima visitors would approach the nest. I saw Basilia walking down the graveled path, stopping a foot or two away. I slipped into her image, allowing the magic to show me what she looked at.
Esetta. My mother.
I must have cried out involuntarily, because Rik immediately grabbed me, lifting me off my feet, whirling as if to take the blow into his own body.
“I’m okay. Wait. I need to see.”
Pausing his quick retreat, he slowly turned back so I could feel the rippling magic of the blood circle flowing over my fingers, though he kept me in his arms, my feet off the ground in case he needed to retreat.
I felt Basilia’s emotions as my own. Something didn’t feel right to her. She was suspicious, but also desperate.
Even to my eyes, the image of Esetta was very good. It would have fooled me—until she spoke. The tone and rhythm of her words were completely wrong. If anything, she sounded more like Leonie than my mother.
:She never wore her hair loose like that unless it was a formal event,: Lew said. :Otherwise, I agree, it’s a very good simulation.:
In the darkness behind her, a vague shadow stepped out into the open.
He looked like Lew but he didn’t speak. Esetta turned to walk away, and Basilia called out to her.
I’d been so stunned by the image of my mother that I hadn’t noticed the item in her hand, until she stretched it out toward Basilia.
“Oh no.” My heart broke, feeling the surge of hope in Basilia as she reached for the disk. “The Gorgoneion. That’s why Esetta wants me to give it to her.”
“What is it?” Rik asked.
“A disk with a typically gruesome image of Medusa’s severed head,” Guillaume said. “In Ancient Greece, it became a common symbol to ward against evil. Some soldiers even wore it like a badge on their armor or shield, and it was displayed on buildings.”
“Basilia wanted it. So badly that she was willing to risk everything to have it.”
Undina nodded, her face lined with grief and rage. “Because of Athena. Her queens all had a golden Gorgoneion in their legacy. The Gorgon queens had gotten them all back except for one, and it was Basilia’s life goal to retrieve it, even though it had been lost.”
“Who was the last Athenian queen?” I asked.
Guillaume sighed softly. “Queen Thea of House Ageleia, Triskeles Triune queen.”
Goddess, what a tangled web of deceit and deception and death.
Guillaume had killed Triskeles at Desideria’s order, so the Gorgoneion had been in her legacy when Esetta killed her.
She knew Basilia wanted it—but couldn’t give it to her without announcing exactly who had killed Desideria and risking exposure of hundreds of years of her strategy.
Esetta had kept the secret of Desideria’s death to her own death. So she could have me—and make sure Guillaume was available when I needed him.
My throat ached, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “So in a way, I am responsible for Basilia’s capture.”
“It doesn’t change the risk,” Guillaume said softly.
Closing my eyes, I nodded. Though the guilt choked me. I watched the Dauphine enter this nest as my mother, though her face slipped to Leonie’s. Another jump scare to my system. I didn’t want to watch the torture I expected after hearing what had happened to her in New Orleans.
But I had to know. Suffering with Basilia was the least I could do. Especially if I couldn’t restore her.
The Dauphine’s mighty blow of magic made it impossible for Basilia to fight back in any way. Like Thierry had described, she looked stunned, unable to move under her own power. The Dauphine tossed her down on the ground in her own grotto, unable to move or speak but feeling everything.
Ravaging hunger when her blood was completely drained. Her right hand lay stretched out beside her, still holding the disk. Though now it was silver. I tried to zoom in closer, but Basilia’s eyesight was fading.
Dread squeezed my lungs. If I wanted to know the rest…
I needed to touch the Dauphine’s memory in this place and allow her magic to flow through me.