Chapter Thirteen
Chloe
The bright light of morning had long since passed and Chloe felt no inkling whatsoever to train.
At breakfast her hair had prickled looking out to the east where the sun had risen over the mountains, but that was a common occurrence.
A need to shift more than any daunting when you are ready you will find me.
Curled up in her living chambers, she flipped aimlessly through a worn book she’d found tucked in the dresser.
It was a series of poems or riddles, inked in the Elliniká Glóssa, now since faded and barely legible.
It was nothing like the books she read at home—gods, she missed those.
Ones of epic adventures and knights that slayed mythical beings that even this world had never seen.
The library. That was where Chloe needed to go.
Get out of this secluded, dusty room and find something that could entertain her until Markos decided his vague words weren’t enough and came to get her himself.
Grabbing her sack to fill with books if anything interested her, Chloe went off in search of the room.
The corridors in the guest wing were less daunting than the ones between the entrance to the castle and the great hall.
They were decorated with paintings of the mountain ranges and forests in all the different seasons.
Interspersed near each of the paintings were intricate gilded oil candles, lighting the path out of this wing and to the stairs that would take Chloe to the main part of the castle.
Servants bustled about, tending to their early morning duties.
None of them paid her any mind as she wove through the halls, peeking into the open rooms to get her bearings.
Turning the last corner before she would make it to the stairs, Chloe slammed into someone. Screeching to a halt, she brushed her hair from her face.
“Sorry,” she murmured, attempting to take a step around the person without looking up.
“There is no need to apologize, Princess. I should have been looking where I was going,” the man said and Chloe finally looked up to see Markos standing before her.
The older gentleman was dressed more casually than the night before, a simple cotton shirt, black breeches, and only one leather holster that held a small sword. A cloak covered his shoulders, shielding from the chill of the winter’s air even inside.
“I see you are heading to the library,” he noted, “I was planning to go there myself, actually, if you don’t mind the company.”
“I was, but how did you know that?” She was not holding any books, nor had she told anyone of her plans, they had been entirely spontaneous.
“Because I’m sure that old book of rhymes I left you in your chambers could not keep you occupied very long.” He chuckled and waved Chloe along.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Chloe followed. “The book you left me? You were in my bed chambers?” He did not look like a man that would harm her, but what else could he have left there? Poison? A deadly creature? She could never be too sure someone didn’t want her dead in her thea’s court.
“I was not. I gave it to one of your lady’s maids. I heard from a little birdy that you have quite the collection back home. This is a journal of sorts.”
The pit in her stomach loosened. He was her trainer after all. It would be strange if he wanted her dead with supposedly such a good survival rate of his initiates. “The journal was utter nonsense. I couldn’t understand a single thing in it and I am fluent in the Elliniká Glóssa.”
“Ah, Princess, that is the issue. It is not the Elliniká Glóssa.”
“It’s not?” All the characters looked the same. Accents there and all.
“It uses the same alphabet, but it is code. I thought maybe the brilliant Nexian princess would be intrigued to figure it out.” Markos strode alongside her, slowing their pace with every few steps.
“Could you not just tell me what the code is then? Save us some time?”
“Ah, but that is the thing, Princess. I don’t know it.
” Another servant walked by and Markos lowered his voice.
“Keep that book close to you. There are secrets buried in it that only those who participate in the Mysteries know. In the wrong hands…let’s just say there is an Olympi who would kill you for it.
” He paused for another moment, stopping them and putting his hand on her shoulder, leaning in to whisper, “And a king who would as well.”
“A king?” Chloe questioned, and Markos held up his finger to his lips.
“That is all I will speak of it in public, Princess. But know, if you are able to translate it—if you conquer the Mysteries—you might come out with more than just a bride.”
A tingling sensation crept down Chloe’s spine, lighting a fire in her veins. “That sounds…daunting.”
“That is the purpose of the Mysteries; they are not for the faint of heart.”
“And yet, so many willingly enter?”
Markos pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sharp sigh.
“No one willingly enters the Mysteries, I can assure you that. It is at the will of the queen or the Fates. I would never speak ill of your thea, she is an exceptional woman, but she craves loyalty. The only way to prove loyalty in this kingdom is through those trials. Through risking your life for the one you love.”
The corridor grew darker as they stepped further into the castle, returning to the portion that was decorated with fearsome statues and lit by gaudy candelabras that flickered faint flames.
With every movement they took toward the library, the temperature dropped and even Chloe’s skin began to pepper with goosebumps—from the cold or what Markos had said, she was not sure.
“What if two people who are not in love are forced in?” she asked.
There was attraction between her and Farah, she could not deny that, it had never gone away. There was also a shared sense of purpose in gaining an army to fight King Athanas, King Edmund, and Hades’ other acolytes. But love? There would never be love.
“It is simple. The Fates can smell a lie. No one who lies comes out of there alive. Even those that think themselves in love sometimes realize in the abyss of the Mysteries it was not true. But you don’t need to worry about that, do you?
” He stared Chloe down in the depths of those halls, and the way his eyes dilated even in the consistent light reminded her of her own powers.
“Are you related? To Avra? To me, perchance?”
His lip curved up into a faint smile and his shoulders relaxed. “And why might you think that?”
“Because I know compulsion when I see it.” It’s the same look Dimitris had when he manipulated others and the way Acacius looked when he altered Farah’s emotions.
Markos laughed and shook his head, moving close to the only door in the hall.
“I have no powers other than mortal curiosity, Princess.” He opened the large wooden door and stepped through, revealing the elaborate library beyond.
“Now, let us see if we can find you some books that will entertain you as well as teach you something so you don’t get killed in the first trial. ”
Stepping through the door behind him, Chloe breathed in deeply through her nose.
There was nothing in this world that stilled her mind and let her heart steady than the scent of aged paper and leather-bound books.
This room was smaller than even her personal library on Nexos, but it was just as immaculate.
It was in the shape of a crescent, the entire expanse of walls covered in shelving with ladders extending ten times her height.
Positioned between each of the rows of shelves were enormous stained-glass windows.
They were all shades of green, yellow, and amber, depicting dragons flying high over the mountains and winding through to the deep blue rivers below.
They were scenes of fairy tales and myths and each was immaculate.
“Do you have any recommendations? Of where to start?” she asked, almost breathless from the beauty that was the multi-colored light refracting throughout the library.
Markos shuffled over to a table sitting between two plush chairs, each wide enough for two people, with matching leather ottomans. “I pulled a few this morning.”
Chloe padded to his side, looking down at the covered table. “A few? There’s around twenty books here. That would take me at least a week to read.”
“Good thing that’s how much time you have. We will meet here each morning and discuss what book you have made it through. They all have the same themes so it will get faster as you go.” He handed Chloe the first of the books, a worn canvas-bound tome that looked to be around six hundred pages.
“When Secrets Perish? Isn’t that a myth about the underworld from the age of the Olympi?” It was outlawed in the isles a century ago, most especially for nobility due to its crude descriptions of torture by poison and the Lethe.
“It is. But it is also a tale of relinquishing your deepest fears, laying yourself bare for the mercy of another. Read deeper, Princess, than what these fairytales tell you at first glance. There is truth in them, truth that may save you one day.”
She outlined the title with her finger, tracing over every letter, and a spark of electricity buzzed through her fingertips.
Closing her eyes, she pulled at one of her lower powers—one she loved so much.
The ability to see the book rather than read it.
Chloe let herself drop into the very story right where it began, on the shores of Avernia, the isle of Hades.
The midnight sky loomed above, no stars to be seen.
Only a pathway of blue flames from the beach to the caves that sat before her gave any light.
Shadows danced against the walls of the cave’s entrance, shaped like the daimons of the underworld.
Screams echoed out of the cave, beckoning for aid, for death, for the torture to end.
A pair of golden brown eyes shone in the dark, a creature watching her from beyond.
Is this what she could expect from the Mysteries? Torture until she revealed her darkest secrets? Or was it something worse?
Another scream sounded from the cave, and this time Chloe knew exactly who it belonged to.