Chapter 17
The last candle had long since burnt out in the slumbering manor’s sconces. The only sounds escaping into the heavy onset of silence were the occasional scurry of a field mouse who’d infiltrated the smallest exterior crack, or the shift and groan of the foundation in which the home sat.
Tethys listened to the tick of the grandfather clock below as she stared at the same green mural above her bed. She’d counted every leaf on its vine at least three times over, impatiently awaiting the clock’s chime. Finally, its brassy tones alerted her of the midnight hour.
As quiet as air, she flicked off the silky duvet and tiptoed to the armoire opposite her bed.
The heavy door let out a creak of defiance as she slowly pulled the handle.
In reality, not a soul would expect her out of bed at this hour.
However, the risk of being caught heightened her anxiety over the sound enough to make her forehead dewy.
She hastily threw on a lilac shift with matching velvet cloak, not bothering with its buttons, and stepped into a pair of leather sandals. With her golden curls piled atop her head, she softly clicked her bedchamber doors and started down the unlit hall.
The grand staircase’s pearly bannister glistened in the moonlight that showed through the rounded crystal windows. With a quiet urgency, Tethys scanned the shadowy hall once more and slipped out the manor’s front door.
The crunch of gravel beneath her feet made her quicken her pace. She was exposed now that she’d made it outside. There was nowhere to hide if needed as she sped down the manor’s drive. If she could just make it to the road that’d lead her up to Antares, then she’d be safe.
Crickets chirped as her heart pounded so violently she felt its beat in the corner of her jaw.
She raced further, further, further down the drive.
Her sandals, although still dainty, were much more conducive to movement than those wretched slippers her handmaidens insisted she wore.
Her shift fell loose around the curves of her abdomen.
She could breathe without the restriction of a boned bodice.
A tendril of blonde hair, now luminous in the moonlight, loosed and fell across her brow. This was who she wished she could be.
A woman free to embark on moonlit escapades as she pleased.
A woman with a fire in her heart that burned her throat as she slipped silently past the long since extinguished lamppost.
The horror of last night’s nightmare faded away and the weight of her world lifted just enough for that withering head of hers to color back to life.
“I was beginning to think you had been caught,” Jaide said, grinning widely as she turned to face Tethys.
Her hair was braided and now hung loosely down her shoulders, stopping just above her hips.
It seemed that Tethys wasn’t the only one of the pair that’d taken extra liberties with her appearance.
“I had to wait until that brute of a lieutenant retired for the night. I swear, Jaide, if I have to endure this for much longer…” Tethys trailed off, thinking of Araes sleeping peacefully in the spare bedchamber across from hers.
“Brute he may be, but gods that man has a great ass. I’m almost jealous.” Jaide chuckled, grasping Tethys’s hand and leading her down the sidewalk. Tethys snorted in response and the pair hurriedly followed the road up to Antares, through the working district, and past the merchant markets.
The city, in its slumber, was enchanted with an eeriness that crept down the curve of Tethys’s back. She loved how free it felt to roam these empty cobblestone streets, but she didn’t gaze too long into the dark alleys or whispering shadows.
“So, tell me about your travels before we get there. How was Canissa?” Jaide asked, peering at her friend as they matched each other’s stride.
“It was…well, it was,” Tethys replied. The goddess recounted the journey as they crossed sleeping streets, leaving out the vision of her future son.
She wasn’t ready to share him with anyone else.
Keep fighting, Mama. His little voice carried her home.
Pink hydrangea bulbs, now pale in the darkness, swayed with a gentle breeze.
“Gods, my lady. I’m so sorry,” Jaide replied, as she hopped gently over a puddle from the morning’s rainstorm. It was the first in days since the drought began. It’d been a short spurt, not nearly enough to saturate the farmer’s fields.
“It’s nothing I haven’t endured before,” Tethys said, following Jaide across the puddle. “Jaide I…I’m sorry for being cruel. I guess I was ashamed and I didn’t know how to ask for help.”
Jaide paused before crossing the dark cobblestone street.
“I’ve known you for long enough to know you didn’t mean it.
Think of it no longer. I’m here for the good and the bad, Tethys.
Always.” Her words were a warm hug against Tethys’s frozen flesh.
“I just wish I could protect you from him. From what he does…” Jaide trailed off.
“Procyon is a fool. I’ve managed thus far in my marriage. Don’t worry about me,” Tethys replied, offering her friend an all too dazzling smile.
“I don’t know, my lady. Maybe you should speak with your mother about such things. She could offer a better solution than this ridiculous union,” Jaide suggested.
“I haven’t spoken with Phosphora in years. She’s long since lost her mind to her visions, you know that. Yes, maybe she would bring some hope, but I fear it’d be too tiresome to decipher her cryptic speech.”
The women stopped in front of a blood red door.
Its white-shingled townhome, now bleached in moonlight, highlighted the vivid color just enough to make it feel slightly jarring.
The goddess’s stomach lurched. They truly were doing this.
Her heart thrummed in her ears, but her throat burned with a dryness only a glass of whiskey could quench.
“You’re sure his summons was for tonight?” Tethys asked. Jaide gave her a confirming nod.
The quiet murmur of mischief and moonlit conversation emulated from within. Tethys couldn’t help but shiver with a silent delight as a slow smile crept across her lips.
“Tiresome it may be, but Tethys, at some point, you need to fight for a better life. Do you really want to spend your immortality simply weathering your marriage?” Jaide asked, grasping the goddess’s hand before she could cross the front door’s threshold. Her eyes quivered with concern.
“I’ve been weathering the storm my whole life, Jaide. Even if Phosphora had some all-knowing advice, nothing would change. And so, let us move on from such depressing conversation. The night is young and we waste precious time out here.”
Jaide scowled at Tethys but nodded her agreement. The two entered the townhome as if they were its prey being devoured.
The townhome’s interior air was thick as smog as the women traversed the front hall.
A small, red-faced man swaying unsteadily on his feet, nodded at them as they ascended the wine-colored carpeted stairway.
Drunken men and women littered the upstairs hall, engaged in conversations only suitable beneath the blanket of the night’s late hour.
Their whispers were a hair too quiet, their bodies a touch too close.
Tethys felt her face redden as she passed a couple lost in each other’s embrace.
Jaide guided her to the door down the hall and the pair proceeded into the main sitting room.
The interior dripped in decadence. Lavish ornaments glittered from the ceiling and the walls, a dark shade of blue, were embedded with gilded ornamental patterns.
A crystalline chandelier hung low at the room’s center, encircled by various velvet and tan leather furniture.
A narrow-faced man with slicked black hair greeted the women as they sat along a settee adorned with exquisite embroidered patterns.
“You honor me with your presence, my queen,” he said in a voice as greasy as the thick pomade caked along his hairline.
“I thank you for opening your home to me, Lord Ophis,” Tethys replied, her eyes fixed on an open door opposite the settee.
Within the candlelit room, a small crowd of people squirmed and groaned against one another as if they were appendages of some sort of fleshy creature.
Tethys blushed at their exposed bodies, connecting and molding into one another.
“You are always welcome. I brought this for you. It’s laced with nightwing threads so it will alter your features and ensure your identity and honor are preserved.
” Lord Ophis slid a golden mask across the coffee table between them.
It sparkled in the flaming light from the chandelier.
Nightwing thread, as delicate as a strand of saffron, came from a rare flower which grew only in the deepest of forests in the eastern realm.
It had various medicinal properties, but its strength came from its ability to alter the vision of those that inhaled its sweetened scent, thus making it highly popular amongst thieves and those that required their identities to be masked.
“Thank you,” Tethys said, fixing the mask across her eyes.
“No one will question your mask either; it’s quite common for nobility to maintain their anonymity. You’d be shocked to hear my regular guest lists.” Ophis winked.
The middle aged lord was notorious for holding the type of gathering only suitable under a midnight moon.
She was entirely at the mercy of his discretion, as he was to her.
His townhome was a labyrinth, its center reserved for the wickedest of fantasies and the most treacherous of daydreams come to life.
“I’ll go fetch us drinks, my lady,” Jaide said, allowing the two to speak plainly. Tethys watched as her lady in waiting exited the sitting room and slipped through the murmuring crowd at the adjacent bar.
“Now, the reason I had one of my shades summon you…there’s been some additional evidence in regard to the child abductions in Serpens.”