Chapter 21
Tethys excused herself to the washroom with a pair of his sister, Penelope’s, trousers and linen tunic draped across her arm.
And now, finally alone with his mother, Araes let his guarded mind take a rest. The goddess had lost control, but he had too.
The words she’d said still ripped through him, “It’s no more than I hate myself.
” Araes knew she was broken, but the depth of that fracture shocked him.
He hadn’t known what to say or how to react to her admission, so he kept quiet.
But silence only offered fuel for the fire.
Her trip to Ophis’s was a cry for help, and he’d been so clouded in judgement he hadn’t noticed it.
Maybe he was no better than the autumn king in that regard.
He sighed and combed his fingers through his hair.
At least he was home and Tethys was safe, but there was no comfort here. He sat in the same seat he always had at their old wooden table with the same mug he always used. His index finger traced the familiar chip along its handle.
“You’ve grown nearly unrecognizable from the boy who hugged me goodbye six years ago,” his mother said with a tinge of sadness in her tone.
“The war was long,” Araes remarked. He took a sip from his mug, hoping the piping hot anise tea would warm the empty chill creeping in.
“And tell me about these new orders. You’re back in the city permanently?” she asked, prodding a silvery blue eye toward him.
“At least until I’m reassigned,” he said.
“I’m not certain when that will be, though.
” Araes swallowed the thought of these being his final orders with another sip of tea.
It had taken his whole body to keep from screaming at the goddess.
She pushed his limits just up to his breaking point, and his self-control dwindled the longer he withstood her.
But last night? She’d risked so much. Too much. Seeing her exposed like that…humiliated as she was…it made him see red. His head pounded and his blood turned to ice at the sight of those men. Araes hadn’t thought twice about slaughtering those fucks.
He’d felt this unrelenting need to protect her. To defend what was his. How fucking confusing was that? She’d never be his, not if either of them could help it. Was she truly someone he desired?
“Araes.” His mother’s voice pulled him from his thoughts just as he was on the brink of spiraling. He shut down those traitorous feelings and stirred another sugar cube into the fresh cup she poured him.
“Sorry Mother, I seem to have lost myself. It was a long night,” he said, shaking away the memory of Tethys’s bare skin against his fingertips.
“Why didn’t you send word you were home?” his mother asked again. Araes focused on a healing cut across the back of his hand. “Araes. Look at me,” she pressed again.
“My orders are at the queen’s manor. I wouldn’t be able to come home anyway,” he said, risking a glance at the old woman.
“We at least would have known you were safe. Penelope barely sleeps through the night worried she’ll lose you too,” she cried, bracing her elbows against the knotted pine table.
Araes turned to the window and watched the morning sky lighten on the horizon.
The off-white linen curtains floated with the gentle cliff side breeze.
His mother had hand-sewn, then repaired them more times than he could count.
Like everything else in their cottage, they desperately needed a replacement.
He hated how quiet the home was. How empty it now felt. This place, although with comforting familiarity, was a constant reminder of Enyo. Like vines, memories clung on to every surface. They screamed his name. Even each damned nail embedded into the floorboards begged for his attention.
Araes lungs torqued as visions of his twin brother escaped the locked up place he kept them.
Enyo leaned against the cottage’s side door frame, covered in muck and dirt from a morning spent in their mother’s gardens.
The pair of them seated next to one another at the table, fighting over the last biscuit.
It was unbearable being here, sitting at this table, staring at the vacant seat opposite him.
The day Enyo died, Araes felt a part of himself rip away. What was there before, suddenly wasn’t. He had been here, in this exact chair, when he felt it—the sudden split of his soul.
“I know you miss him, Araes. We all do, but please, don’t shut us out. Now, more than ever, you need us just as much as we do you,” his mother whispered, grasping his hand from across the table. Her gentle touch knotted his throat.
“I should check on the queen. She’s been in there a while,” he said, rising to his feet. The scratch against his dry throat watered his traitorous eyes as he risked a glance down at her.
Before she could protest, Araes rounded the corner and trudged down the hallway, shielding his mind from the vicious and unwavering attack of his memories.
His chest was tight. Too tight. Air couldn’t fill his lungs.
The hallway narrowed around him, folding his limbs in on themselves.
He was captive to the panic now ricocheting through his body.
In attempts to ground himself, Araes knocked on his bedroom door and focused on the small chips in its white paint.
He counted them. There were twelve. Enyo’s bedroom opposite his own screeched at his back.
Araes restarted. Still twelve flecks. Urgency pounded in his head, he couldn’t hold out much longer.
Thinking of the queen’s reaction to the crumbling remnants of the man he’d surely become only caused his blood to thrum through him faster.
“Come in,” she called in a voice muffled behind the door.
Araes swallowed hard, desperately trying to shut his wave of grief down. He entered and clicked the door shut, leaving his twin’s shrieking bedroom door to its own vices.
“Lieutenant…are you alright?” she asked, palpable concern wrinkled in her brow.
“Y-yes. I’m fine.” He cleared his throat. Araes inhaled through his nose and held the air for a few heartbeats. He learned to compartmentalize during his basic training. Shut this shit down, he repeated to himself. He couldn’t afford to crack right now. Not in the presence of the goddess.
“Are you sure?” she asked, rising from her chair.
She’d washed and brushed out her knotted curls.
The blonde locks hung down her shoulders and fell perfectly across her breasts.
He made every effort to stare at her brow.
The powder-blue tunic she wore was just sheer enough that he could make out the faint outline of her nipples.
If it weren’t for the immense weight of his memories now crushing his chest, his cheeks may have reddened at the sight of her.
“Yes,” he said, smoothing back his hair. Sweat beaded on his brow as he fought to extinguish the wildfire now blazing through him.
Tethys rose to her feet and stepped toward him, meeting his eyes with a concerned expression. Her lips thinned into a line as she reached for him with a palm hovered over his chest, as if she questioned the decision to touch him, and then pressed gently into his tunic.
“I can feel your heartbeat racing, Lieutenant. I don’t know what causes you such distress, but it’s alright. I’m safe. You’re safe,” she whispered, her face a gentle contradiction to her usual hardened expression. Her lips parted at the rapid rise and fall of Araes’s chest.
“I assure you Goddess, I’m fine,” Araes said through shallow breaths, but he was on the brink of losing control.
The glistening sweat across his forehead was proof enough, let alone his rapid pulse.
The walls of his bedroom constricted and the air felt thick as smoke when he inhaled.
Enyo’s face flashed through his mind again, sending him to his knees.
Tethys lurched for him as the giant of a man collapsed to the floor.
Araes clawed at his throat now tightening beyond allowing airflow.
He couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t fucking exist.
Black speckles spotted his vision as his lungs burned for oxygen.
He’d had panic attacks before. Especially when he was stationed at his outpost on the Venian border, but this…this was far worse than he’d ever experienced before.
Two cold hands cupped his cheeks and shimmering golden eyes met his. Tethys knelt before him and brushed her thumbs along his tightly clenched jaw.
“Breathe, Araes. Look at me,” she whispered, her golden gleaming eyes blazing into his. His hands shook as he wrapped them around her forearms, entirely at the mercy of those burning irises.
“Good. Another breath.”
He struggled to inflate his lungs, but the coolness of her palms against his cheeks relieved the burning in his throat just enough for air to slowly trickle in.
“Good. One more,” she said, her eyes flashing with a gentle encouragement that felt so foreign to their usual glitter of disgust. The unbearable ache in his chest released and he felt the sweet relief of his lungs fully expanding to take in a breath.
“You’re safe here. Just focus on your breathing,” she said brushing away a stray chestnut curl at his ear.
They kneeled together on the floor until Araes felt like he was able to control his body once again. Without speaking, they took seats opposite each other—Tethys on a lumpy old wingback and Araes at the oakwood desk in the corner.
“Thank you for that, my lady,” Araes murmured, feeling his cheeks warm. How could he have allowed himself to show her such weakness? Such utter loss of control. Shame deepened the pit now burrowing in his stomach.
“You don’t have to tell me what caused such a reaction, but I’d like you to know I’m no stranger to anxiety and panic attacks myself,” Tethys said, tapping a dainty bare foot on the floorboards.
The room, once ablaze, now felt cool with the midmorning breeze flowing through the open window.
Songbirds chirped their sweet melodies from their perches in his father’s orchard.
“It hasn’t been easy since the war ended. Especially being here, but I assure you it will not happen again,” Araes remarked.
“And if it does, there won’t be even a drop of judgment.
I’m sure the nightmares of war change a person far more than they let on,” Tethys said, her features soft in the daylight.
She leaned over her knees and looked at him with those infuriatingly beautiful golden eyes.
His breath hitched. She really looked at him.
It was as if she could see every crack and crevice within him. Every shadow that haunted him.
How could she be so gentle, so free of judgment after everything said mere hours ago? You’re no queen of mine. The memory of his anger cut into him once more.
“We should return to the manor,” he said, abruptly rising from his seat. “Before any suspicions arise.”
“Yes, let us depart then,” Tethys replied, her lips narrowing as she, too, rose from her chair.
The songbirds continued their cheery tune as they said their goodbyes. Araes kissed his mother and handed her a note for his sister.
“Please come home again soon, Araes,” his mother said, a tear welling in her eye.
Araes grunted a reply before clicking the cottage door shut.
He couldn’t bear to face her, not like this.
So, he turned his back on his family’s home and left the memories, like demons snarling within its crumbling walls.