Chapter 3 #3
Attendants helped her seat her loper as he swung atop his.
Once she was comfortably on her grey, he nudged his amber to her side.
In the fetching riding trousers of Aurean fashion, she was finally able to properly sit atop the mount.
Her gown of gold and swirling blue designs split at the front to allow her ease of movement.
Today she wore no tiara of silver and emerald, but a diadem of gold wire decorated with pearls.
It pleased him to see her dressed like this—like she belonged to him.
“We ride together—as you vowed.”
“So be it.”
They led the long, encumbered line of Aureans and Viridians side by side.
Every breeze showered them with whatever droplets had held on to the leaves above, the sun filtered through their branches.
But as the day dragged on and the trees gave way once more to green, rolling fields, Aurora kept her eyes forward and her lips sealed.
The silence was deafening. So much so, he began to doubt that the lust he’d felt during their kiss was in any way shared.
Had it been a figment of his imagination, of this wretched yearning for her?
Had he so desperately wished to see affection and passion in her gaze that he’d convinced himself of something which wasn’t there? The thought sickened him.
Whenever he’d dared to look at her, her expression was closed, her posture stiff.
Had she hated their kiss?
Did she truly wish eternal torment on him?
When they rested for a midday meal, she didn’t even meet his gaze when he helped her from her mount. She ate and drank in fucking silence, refusing to look at him. It made him livid. Was civility too much to ask for?
When they were mounted again, he broke their impasse.
“Have you swallowed your tongue?”
“Obviously not.”
“And yet you’ve not spoken a word to me since we set off.”
“I vowed to do plenty to spare Stentor, but not once did I promise to speak with you, Your Majesty.”
Your Majesty. Not Theron. Damn her.
“And what would I have to do to entice such luxuries from you?”
“Be someone you’re incapable of being.”
Thrice-damned bitch! She wanted a hero—she wanted someone like Hyllus.
“Ah, you wish for me to be more like Hyllus? Powerless to save the woman he loved from all the torment inflicted on her until a goddess deigned to make a hero out of him? You should be grateful I’m nothing like him,” he bit out.
“Hyllus is a good man.” She sat straighter.
“Hyllus was a weak man until a goddess gave him strength.”
“Hyllus never would have forced a kiss on a woman who clearly didn’t wish for one,” she snarled, finally facing him.
There it was. The gut punch he’d feared was coming. But he hadn’t imagined her lust. Not unless she truly was the greatest actress in Trisia.
“Then we have something in common after all.”
“I didn’t—”
“Do you mean to tell me it was all an act for my benefit? You pulled me closer. You moaned into my mouth when I sucked on your tongue. You flushed as your eyes were locked on my lips. Did I imagine that?”
Her cheeks heated as tears threatened in earnest. He hated that he hated those fucking tears.
In the end, she bit her lip and turned away from him, her back ramrod straight and her gaze trained on the horizon.
She’d denied him an answer to his most pressing question, and he refused to demand another answer, lest he appear weak.
“Believe whatever your unbridled ego demands. I’m done speaking to you.”
They spent the rest of the day in angry silence, the dark clouds that hung over them heavy enough to agitate their mounts.
It was a blessing when he could call a halt to the day’s ride.
He almost regretted demanding she sleep in his tent, for he was certain she would find some way to ensure his rest was like one attempted on a bed of nails.
Bathing and eating didn’t help his mood one bit, nor did it seem to soothe her prickly edges. Just as he was readying himself for yet another poor night’s sleep, a messenger in Passion’s red arrived at his door.
“High Priestess Myrina requests the company of the King of Aureum.”
“I’ll see her.” He turned to Aurora, who sat mulishly on the edge of the bed. “You remain here tonight, as you promised.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Your word, Aurora.”
“Fine.”
It would do for now. He left the tent and wended his way through the camp to see his aunt.
Seated on a cushion in the middle of a great red tent, his aunt bade him to enter.
He sat down across from her on his own cushion and sighed.
Myrina’s favourite incense burned in the brazier, food, wine, and tea were laid across the table in the far corner, while supplies for the clerics’ bedding were neatly secured out of the way.
His aunt shared her tent with all who joined her on the journey, though it was mainly the paladins who slept near her as her bodyguards and attendants.
They bustled about their tasks, setting tea before him and his aunt as Theron relaxed.
Passion’s temple had been his refuge as long as Myrina had been Her cleric.
Some measure of peace found him at last.
But when his aunt bade the clerics to give them privacy, he felt even that tenuous little scrap of comfort float away.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Theron.”
His umbrage rose like a tide within him.
“You’ve no cause to be.”
“You lied to her. You broke her heart.”
“She betrayed me! She broke my h—” he stopped himself. No, she didn’t have that. He would never allow it now. “My trust!”
But his aunt had caught his slip.
“She broke your heart, didn’t she?” she asked with infuriating calm.
“I said no such thing.”
“Theron…” she sighed. “There’s a limit to how much help I can give you if you won’t even be honest with me. Or yourself.”
“You think she deserves my affection after what she’s done?! Do you? Is there no limit to how much you’re willing to overlook just because your goddess tied her to me like weights around my ankles?”
“If she is like a set of weights tied around your ankles, perhaps it is because you were about to walk off a cliff,” she replied calmly.
He scoffed, dismissing her with a wave.
And yet he couldn’t deny that he and Batea had been making beasts in Drakon’s mould.
“There is always something more at play when Passion dyes the thread connecting two lovers. Fate connected you. Passion smiled upon you. You are a great fool if you never stop to question why. Why you, out of everyone in the whole of this vast world, Theron? She must have travelled through the Between just to come here, where Fate delivered her to you. Your meeting had purpose, one bestowed upon both of you by the Triad,” she said, placing a hand on his knee.
Theron groaned, rubbing his jaw in irritation.
She was right. Of course she was right. That didn’t mean he liked it.
Just as Passion had dyed the thread between his aunt and uncle to lead Myrina away from a princess’ tiara towards the temple and the role of high priestess, so too did She lead him.
But to where was anyone’s guess. The beasts would be dealt with soon enough.
Was the purpose of their fated union already seen to?
What did that leave him but misery to look forward to?
He could not accept that his fate was to briefly care for a traitor only to be betrayed by her.
“So, what lie did you tell, my little lion?”
He sighed and lay back into the sea of cushions, his eyes tracing the patterns on the top of the round tent.
He didn’t know why he ever bothered trying to hide things from his aunt.
She already knew nearly everything about Aurora and his time with her in Boreas.
Why shouldn’t she also know about his latest bit of emotional and political turmoil?
“Batea’s beasts. Aurora seeks to kill a great serpent named Drakon. I didn’t tell her about Batea’s serpents when we met. Now Orithyia has her convinced I’m not only an agent of chaos but the creator of Drakon.”
“Are you?” she asked without rancour or judgement.
“Not to the best of my knowledge. In any case, I sent Batea a letter demanding she destroy them before I returned. I’d planned to present their corpses to Aurora when we arrived in Altanus. But no matter what I say, she spits in my face.”
Myrina was quiet, sipping a cup of tea.
“What if Aurora had kept a secret like that from you? What if she’d lived her whole life in Altanus’ palace and known the cure for torchlight fever, but had decided to keep it secret, even when Tisander was afflicted?”
Theron sat up, his blood boiling. That wasn’t a fair comparison—not even a little.
“I didn’t create Drakon.”