Chapter 28
The lieutenant stayed seated opposite her bed until the early hours of morning. Tethys watched his head nod as he wavered in and out of sleep. She’d snuck out of bed and tapped his shoulder before sending him back to his own chambers for a few hours of rest.
When she’d finally summoned the courage to descend the staircase and break her fast, she realized that the world felt different.
The staff bustled around her like they did every day, but the sunlight was a muted shade of gold as it beamed through the linen curtains.
The air smelled different. Even her coffee left a new taste on her tongue.
Araes joined her, in a wrinkled uniform and curls hanging across his brow.
It seemed like he hadn’t slept at all during the night.
Tethys thought it selfish of her to ask him to stay, to keep him glued to the settee across from her all night, but she couldn’t find it in herself to face the darkness alone.
A sharp sting across her belly sent a reminder through her.
She flinched, feeling Procyon’s fist connect with her abdomen as if it’d just happened.
“Lieutenant,” she said, pushing away the images before they paralyzed her where she sat.
She wouldn’t be weak anymore. Wouldn’t allow Procyon to haunt her very thoughts.
“I need to catch up on reviewing the council’s reports today.
If you’d like to rest this morning, rest assured I won’t try to sneak off the manor grounds again. ”
Araes chuckled, the sound sending warmth up her veins. It was a gruff, sleep-heavy sound, and Tethys found herself desperately wishing to hear it again.
“Given your track record, my queen, I don’t believe you’re trustworthy,” he replied, cracking a smile. His casual kindness was disarming to say the least.
“Was that a joke, Lieutenant? I didn’t realize you had a sense of humor,” Tethys said, her lips widening into a matching grin.
“There’s plenty you probably don’t think me capable of, my queen,” he said, sipping the freshly poured coffee before him. Tethys arched her brow and returned to the stack of messages Arissa placed beside her plate. The matron circled the table and placed a message beside Araes as well.
“Mail from a secret admirer, perhaps?” the old woman snarked, before returning to the kitchens. Araes snorted at the matron’s remark. It would seem everyone in the manor used humor this morning to forget last night’s horrible ordeal.
“Still nothing from my sister. Or Messene for that matter,” Tethys sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m at my wit’s end. How much longer do we wait before taking matters into our own hands, Lieutenant?”
“Well, you could always travel to Ursae yourself. I’m sure the northern city folk would be thrilled to see their most beloved goddess’s sister,” Araes replied, flashing a sarcastic half smile. Tethys straightened, a bold, golden glint glistening in her eyes.
“What an excellent idea, Lieutenant,” she said, rising from her chair. “It’s not like those fools on my council would even notice my absence.”
Araes didn’t offer a protest, his gaze now caught on the message beside him.
“Who is that from, Lieutenant?” she asked, feeling his aura shift.
“Another soldier of the 15th. There’s been another attack at the border…
no casualties, but a few of the 15th sustained injuries,” he replied, loosening a breath.
Tethys watched him carefully, searching for any sign of contempt or uncertainty.
She supposed it nearly killed him to sit across from her, enjoying imported coffee and fruits, while his unit held the front line.
Araes pocketed the parchment and returned his attention to the goddess though, and so she focused back on their present obstacles.
“I’m not going to rely on others anymore to solve Venia’s problems,” she said, glancing out of the window.
The morning sunlight trickled in from behind a thick grey blanket of fog stretching across the horizon.
The realm was nearly halfway through the dry season, and the city’s reserves were dwindling dangerously without the Canissaen trade routes reestablished.
“I don’t like the look in your eye, my queen…” Araes said, meeting her beside the windows. His fingers hovered close enough to hers she could feel the residual warmth emulating from his skin.
“With the rebels still a threat to our border, my husband will have his hands full in Canissa. We’ll leave for Ursae as soon as possible,” Tethys said, placing a hand to the chilled glass pane. “And before you protest, Lieutenant, I’ve made up my mind.”
“Goddess, you can’t be serious? Ursae isn’t safe anymore. Not with death wielder hoards making it as far as the Venian border. Who knows what those roads are like? Especially the un-patrolled ones,” he argued, turning to face her.
“Lieutenant, don’t press me on this. Please. I can’t wait any longer just sitting here. In this house.” Understanding flashed across his face. This proposed journey wasn’t just for Polaris’s message—it was an escape.
“When do we leave, then?” he asked, his voice softening.
She threw him a haunted smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’ll have Arissa send an urgent message to Ophis this afternoon.
I’m sure his shades have a more than discreet route out of the city.
We’ll leave in the morning,” she said, returning to her seat at the table.
“Now, why don’t you take some time this morning to open the message you slipped into your pocket. ”
Araes’s shifted his weight. “Goddess—”
“It’s fine, Lieutenant. You’re exhausted, I can tell.” Her eyes softened. “Get some rest before Euda’s lesson this afternoon.”
? ? ?
“Now, General Galaxya offered her armies to the Ursaeans to face the legendary beasts of the northern realm, but in doing so left Venia unprotected from the threats to the eastern shores. All the while, Aquilae and Canissa with their significantly smaller armies couldn’t offer help as they faced their own prehistoric threats from the sea.
” Euda, in the midst of her history lesson, spoke with a tone that reminded Tethys of a simple, single note on the piano played over and over again.
She’d heard the story a million times over.
The dark age of mortal history, as it was referred to, was a time of violence, bloodshed, and near human extinction.
Phosphora and Obscuros realized they needed to intervene or else witness the fall of humanity entirely.
So, they banished the creatures of old to the Rift.
The Rift, created with a slice of Astraeus’s blade at the beginning of time, was described as a blackness, void of all time and space.
The two worlds ebbed and flowed around each other, but never intersected.
Time, like a roaring river, flooded from one to the next through a singular gateway, but so long as Obscuros and Phosphora maintained their wards, that gateway remained locked.
The Rift, even now, was just a whisper in back alleys, and soon enough, without written history, the mortals would forget the magic keeping them safe. They’d remember their armies and the legendary generals who led them as their glorified saviors. Not the gods. Nor the shadows where demons lurked.
Without Darkness and Light’s ever-flowing balance, the entities banished to the Rift could tear a rip in the shimmering curtain that kept them separate and once more cross into the mortal realm.
Or so the fable told.
“Yes, Euda, I know and then the mortals lived happily ever after,” Tethys sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Preparations for their midnight journey to Ursae were well underway, and with only a few more hours in the suffocation great hall, Tethys felt the spark of nerves spread like wildfire through her body.
“My lady, this history isn’t something to simply brush aside. It’s what shaped our very world,” Euda cried, rising from her stool. Her delicate little heels clicked as the mouse of a woman approached Tethys.
“Euda, I know who and what and how our world came to be, please. Let us discuss something new,” Tethys said, grumbling as the copyist outstretched a palm. She took it reluctantly and allowed Euda to lead her to a dusty shelf of ledgers and leather bound texts.
“Do you see these books?” Euda asked, pushing her rounded spectacles up her narrow, pointed nose. Those damned spectacles. Her voice was an octave higher than the average mortal, squealing at inflection points that crawled up Tethys’s skin.
“These books are the bones in which our very existence is shaped. Their words are the blood flowing through each and every one of our veins. It is of the utmost importance that as our ruler you are intimately familiar with every intricacy in history. Every tiny little detail. There are mortals that would argue against your judgments, and it is only with a wholehearted understanding of human history that you may sway their favor,” she said through exaggerated gasps.
Euda’s short knees quaked as she continued with her lecture. “How you can stand there and act as if your own people’s history is so insignificant it’s not worth your ear, I will never understand. If I were queen, well I—”
“But you are not, Euda. I am. Just because my power falters does not make me any less so. Eos above, I am at the mercy of your lessons every week, and every week you declare how ungrateful, irresponsible, and undeserving I am of the crown. You can only beat me so many times with the same bat,” Tethys cried.
She turned on her heels, making eye contact with Araes. His features were drained of any and all emotion, but his eyes trailed her throughout the room as she paced. The floodgates opened and words poured from Tethys’s mouth into the open air.
Thickening it. Saturating it with the buzz of a reckless loss of control.
When finally Tethys found herself empty, she grew quiet. Euda stood still, her hair and complexion paler than usual.
“You will never be a leader. Not until you rid yourself from these conjectures of the human experience. Never in all of my years have I wished I’d been born a northerner until now. Your sister would never belittle her people as you have.”
Tethys’s face whitened at the mention of her sister. Her heart twisted in its cavity and she stopped in her tracks. She watched Araes raise a brow and straighten from the doorway he’d leaned against.
“And why would I be so loving of a people who never accepted me as their own, Euda? I entered this world as a pathetic babe, and that’s what I’ll remain for every generation of Venian to walk this soil.”
She looked at the woman, a fire kindling in her honey gold eyes.
“The lessons have concluded for the day. You are dismissed,” Euda said, shaking her head in disbelief.
Before tears could well in her eyes, Tethys raced for the door and stormed out.