Chapter 15 Before
15
Before
I dive for Pisinoe, knocking the song from her lips as we fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs and wings. Her surprise is my only advantage, and I make use of it, rolling my body on top of hers to pin her arms against her sides with my legs. Then my hands clamp down across her mouth. Pisinoe’s blue eyes flare, hot as fire.
“I’ll explain everything,” I whisper, looking back over my shoulder. Jaquob’s form has slumped into the sand, the now-empty liquor bottle at his side. He’s too drunk to notice anything amiss in the thicket behind him. “Just don’t sing.”
She growls so fiercely behind my palms that my fingers flinch, fearing her bite. But two can play at this game, especially when it’s Proserpina who’s at stake. When I speak again, my voice is a hiss. “I’m serious.”
Pisinoe grunts in assent, though she doesn’t look happy about it. When I slide off her frame, she allows me to lead her out of Jaquob’s earshot.
“How could you hide this?” she asks. “From the gods? From me?” I’ve never seen her warm face this shattered. Not when Ceres spoke those final words and sealed our fate, nor when we found ourselves deposited on this forsaken island. Not even after those first sailors bound us. Because all those times, it was never me betraying her.
I shake my head. “You don’t understand. I didn’t want to keep this from you, but—”
“But what? You hid him here by accident? It’s been six weeks since the wreck! What have you been feeding him—gods, our food? His companions? ”
“Pisinoe, please—”
She brings a hand to her lips, her teeth grazing at her thumb. An anxious habit from when we were children. “Raidne will know what to do.”
“No.” Even I’m surprised by the authority my voice carries. “You can’t tell her.”
Her eyes widen. The blue irises are still laced with fury, and she laughs at me bitterly. “You can’t expect me to keep this secret for you.”
“She’ll make me kill him, Pisinoe!”
My cheek erupts with a bright bloom of pain at the same time a loud crack fills the air, and it takes me a few moments to understand that she’s slapped me across the face, hard. My fingers reach gingerly for the site of the impact, and I wince when I find it. The initial contact was sharp, painful, but its prolonged stinging hurts more. The weight of Pisinoe’s anger truly sinks in, and tears pool in the corners of my eyes. In my life, this is the second most unforgivable thing that I’ve done, but I never had to face Proserpina after I betrayed her.
“Kill him? Kill him? ” She growls the words, leaning in close to me. “He doesn’t belong to us, Thelxiope! He belongs to Ceres.”
Anger flares inside my chest, and without thinking, I shove her away. Pisinoe stumbles back, her own ire waning in the sudden eruption of mine. There was no way for her to know that her words were the exact wrong thing to say, that while my guilt at hiding Jaquob grew, my resolve that he would never be Ceres’s only strengthened. “Mark my words, Pisinoe. I’ll never give that woman another sacrifice. She isn’t listening, so why should we keep groveling at her feet?”
She throws her head back and laughs. The sound is cruel, and my feathers quiver beneath it. There was a part of me that thought Pisinoe would agree with me, and it feels like a fool now.
“Why? Are you serious? Do I need to remind you that it was our fault her daughter was kidnapped? That we’ll never get off this island unless it’s with her blessing?” And then her eyes are on me, filled with a malice I didn’t know she was capable of feeling. “You should know that better than any of us.”
The words are an intentional blow, and they extinguish the fury in my belly that roared mere moments ago. I recoil from them, from her, and suck in a breath with surprise. Only then does she recognize the boundary that she’s broken.
“And you think I don’t? I betrayed her, Pisinoe. How many times did I tell her I loved her, and yet, she was taken because of me. And instead of returning to us, she bound herself to that infernal place—”
Confusion softens the fury in Pisinoe’s eyes. “What are you saying, exactly? You believe she chose to stay?”
“Maybe!” My voice cracks. “What if, as she held those cursed seeds in her palm, she decided she never wanted to see me again?”
“Then why send the lilies? The ships?”
I scoff. “You never believed that she did.”
Pity crumbles Pisinoe’s remaining anger away, which somehow feels worse. “Raidne should be here.”
“Pisinoe…” Desperation weaves into my voice, and a wave of self-loathing crashes over me. I’m still too weak, just like all those years ago. How can I explain to her what I haven’t been able to fully articulate even to myself? That even after all these years, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to hear her voice again.
That if she truly forsakes me for good, I’ll never be able to ask her why she did it.
“I’m sorry, Thelxiope. It’ll be better for you if we tell her together.”
Pisinoe might as well have me pinned against a tree, the bite of its bark tearing into my back. And it’s as true as it was then: There’s no stopping the inevitable.
My body quakes as the elder sister leads the younger to face her fate.
The trek back to our cottage feels like it takes hours, though I admittedly do my best to slow it down. But Pisinoe doesn’t let me dawdle for long, and soon enough she digs her nails into the soft flesh of my arm and pulls me to the sky, intent on delivering me. When we land on Scopuli’s cliffs, Raidne stands waiting, a silhouette in our doorway.
At first, she doesn’t see us. She’s facing Scopuli’s woods, her black hair spilling over her shoulders. She thinks I’ve been hiding in the meadow these past months. It’s not until we’re closer that her attention wanders toward the cliffs. She raises a hand in a wave, and then her face crumples as our expressions begin to register. Her eyes implore Pisinoe’s as we approach, rapidly growing alarmed.
“What is it?” she asks. “Another lily? Another sign?”
Pisinoe pushes me forward to stand between them. “Tell her.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I shake my head.
“Tell her, or I will.”
Raidne turns to me, her muscles tense with worry. “Thelxiope?”
I lift my chin to face her, this woman who raised and sheltered me as best she could. Determination lifts me to stand straighter, to show her that I’m a woman now, too. That I have been for centuries. That I get to decide what happens.
“I found a man.”
Raidne’s lips purse, as if I’ve spoken one of the countless unknown languages from the book pages she collects. She raises a questioning eyebrow at Pisinoe, who has suddenly become very preoccupied with her feet.
“A live man. The day after the wreck.”
I watch as her mind clicks the pieces of the puzzle into place, clasping my hands behind my back so she can’t see how badly they tremble. Raidne’s dark brows crinkle together, her confusion deepening.
“That’s not all!” Pisinoe interjects. Despite her insistence that I bear the news, it seems she can no longer stand to carry my secret. “He’s still alive—she hid him from us. On Rotunda.”
I brace myself for the rage that’s certain to barrel toward me like a horse bitten by a fly, but it doesn’t come. Raidne’s eyes are locked on me, but where Pisinoe’s held fury, hers hold only hurt.
“I don’t understand,” she says softly. “Why did you keep this from us?”
“Because Proserpina told me to.”
A loud gasp tears from Pisinoe’s throat, and I flinch beneath the doubt it holds. But the sound doesn’t break Raidne’s focus. She’s appraising me once more, just like she did when I told them about the lily.
“So tell us now, then.”
“I found him on the beach the first time we went salvaging. But when I started to call for you, I heard her. She told me not to. I’ve been hiding him ever since, waiting for her to explain why she wanted me to save him, waiting for her to reveal his purpose—”
“And has she?” Pisinoe interrupts, and my cheeks burn crimson.
“No.”
Pity draws the corners of Raidne’s lips up into a sad smile, and only now does she turn to Pisinoe. The two conduct the next part of the conversation in pointed looks, as if it’s a language I don’t understand.
Has she gone mad, Raidne? What are we going to do?
The only thing we can.
She’ll never agree to it!
Raidne sighs softly, and she reaches her delicate fingers to cup my chin. “What about the women, Thelxiope? Why would Proserpina want to save someone capable of such brutality?”
Her voice is surprisingly gentle, and when I meet her stare again, so are her eyes. The care she takes brings mist to the corners of mine, and I blink back tears as I remember the wraiths from my dreams, as I remember their anger.
“He said he didn’t know anything about them,” I answer, but the words sound so foolish spoken out loud. My chest tightens at my na?vety, at my willingness to be deceived. Of course that’s what he said, and I accepted his lie readily. But even if they’re right, even if Jaquob is as much a monster as the other sailors who washed ashore here, I refuse to dedicate him to the Mother of the Fields.
“You should have told us,” Raidne continues. “We could’ve been done with this weeks ago.”
Anger brings the sour taste of bile to my tongue, and I scoff. “If I’d told you weeks ago, he’d either be ash on the wind or salted meat in our stores. He wasn’t fit to sacrifice until I healed him!”
Until I healed him. The ground tilts beneath my feet as understanding prickles across my skin, raising the hair on the back of my neck, nearly stopping my heart. I can’t breathe, oh, gods, I can’t— Of course! Of course!
Raidne’s right: Proserpina wouldn’t want to save a man capable of such brutality, not unless…
“Thelxiope? Are you—” Raidne reaches for my swaying frame, but I raise a hand to silence her.
“He wasn’t a fitting sacrifice until I healed him,” I repeat. A shaky laugh rises from my depths, and I can feel my gaping mouth curl into a slow smile. “But he is now.”
Yes, Thelia, yes…!
That voice makes my head fall back and my eyes roll up to the heavens. Above me, the night sky twinkles with the brilliance of infinite stars, their light smearing together through the tears that now fall freely. I open my arms to them, ecstatic, as relief spins me in circles across the cliffs. She speaks, she speaks. My queen finally speaks.
“Did you hear that?” I call to my sisters as their blurred forms draw together. They must think me mad, but I don’t care—let them. “I know what he’s for!”
Yes, tell them…
“All those years, it was Proserpina sending us ships. And all those years, we gave their spoils to Ceres. Don’t you understand?”
All I can do is clap my hands in giddy excitement as I watch Raidne solve the riddle, her gray eyes bright as the answer comes to her.
“So instead of Ceres…”
He’s mine…
“Yes.” My mouth is hers as my taloned feet carry me to my sisters, my arms extended to find their hands. Pisinoe grins as she accepts one, and though it’s not as large, Raidne’s smile is just as fiery, lit by the thrill of defiance. “The Queen of the Underworld is owed her due.”