Chapter 15
The Last Daughter
Pain forked across Danae’s skull. Something hard pressed against her face. It took her a moment to realize it was the floor. She was back in her body, inside the chamber of the oracle.
Her thoughts blazed, flames ghosting her vision. It felt like she’d touched the mind of a god.
Something was different. Her head still spun with the heady scent of the room, but the air was cooler, clearer. Then she was yanked off the ground and as the room tilted the right way up, she saw the stone floor was now coated with a fine black powder and tiny pieces of obsidian rock.
The oracle was gone.
The walls of the sanctum were cracked, and a scar ran along the floor where the crevasse containing the oracle had been. It was sealed so tightly, no vapors could escape.
She became aware of voices and movement around her.
She twisted to see an armor-clad guard holding her arms behind her back.
Four more guards in maroon cloaks rushed in through the now open door, swords drawn, all pointed at her.
Behind them was a priestess of Apollo. Then she noticed the Pythia being held against the wall by a sixth guard.
“I don’t understand,” Danae shouted. “Tell me what the vision means!”
The Pythia laughed, her hoarse cackle echoing around the walls. The guard holding her smothered her mouth, then dragged her from the chamber.
“No!” Danae struggled, but her guard held her tight. “Please help me!”
Sobs heaved her chest, her mind still a cacophony of burning gold. She’d come to Delphi believing she would be cured. She’d never dreamed her curse would destroy the oracle.
The cell was damp and devoid of sunlight. The only light trickled in through a grate in the door from a wall-mounted brazier in the corridor outside. It was completely bare and stank of stale human waste.
Danae knew she was underground. She hadn’t felt the warmth of the sun since they blindfolded her, then marched her at sword point from the inner sanctum.
She could feel the weight of the city pressing down on her.
Every part of her revolted at being below, like she was a dead thing buried in the ground.
She stayed sprawled where they’d thrown her for some time and forced herself to relive what had happened.
She’d touched the oracle. It had shown her a vision: the tapestry of light, the tree, the strange hooded figures, the reaching hands, and her burning them all.
While experiencing it, she’d felt so powerful.
Now the image horrified her. She didn’t know how she had done it, but she knew she had destroyed the oracle.
The shriek of wood grating on stone pulled her away from the vision and back to the cell.
She shuffled away from the door until she smacked into the wall.
A priestess stood in the doorway, silhouetted in the flickering brazier light.
Four armed guards fanned out behind her, two carrying flaming torches.
They shut the door and flanked the entrance, while the other two grabbed Danae’s arms. She had no strength left to fight them.
Slowly, the priestess moved toward her and knelt, placing a small wooden box on the ground. She undid the clasp and opened the lid.
A hiss issued from inside the box. Despite the cold, a trickle of sweat ran down Danae’s back.
The priestess reached inside and drew out a snake.
Danae would have screamed if her throat hadn’t been locked with fear.
The serpent’s scales were bloodred, and a black diamond crowned its flat head, repeating down the length of its body.
It moved lazily, winding its way around the priestess’s fingers, clinking her gold rings.
A high-pitched ringing exploded in Danae’s ears. She squirmed.
“Keep her still.” The priestess moved forward.
Finally, Danae found her voice. “No, please! I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, please don’t...”
The guards tightened their grip.
“It’s just a little scratch.” The priestess spoke as though she were soothing a frightened child.
The rough stone wall raked Danae’s back as the priestess lowered the snake, and pain jolted through her forearm. The guards let go, and by the time she blinked, the priestess was fastening the lid of the box.
Danae looked down at the two red pinpricks swelling on her skin. The priestess sank back on her heels and peeled the veil away from her face. She was beautiful, her skin golden, her irises so dark they were almost black.
Danae sagged against the wall.
So, this was how she died. Perhaps it was for the best. She would see her sister again. If she was allowed to enter the Asphodel Meadows after what she’d done.
“How long does it take?”
The priestess tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“The poison.”
She laughed. It sounded like the tinkling of bells. “That was just to relax you.”
Danae stared at her. She did feel calmer, like she was floating in a warm summer sea.
“What is your name?”
“Danae.”
“Where are you from, Danae?”
“Naxos.”
The priestess smiled.
“That’s a long way from here.” Her voice was like honey. Danae could have listened to it all day. “How did you get to Delphi?”
The edges of the room were soft, she hadn’t noticed that before. They blurred into each other, like she was inside a giant egg.
“A cheese boat. They took me to Athens as a slave.” She grinned. “But I got away. I slept in a tree, then Athena gave me a cloak and I...” She frowned. There was something itching at the back of her mind.
“Go on.” The priestess leaned forward.
“The oracle... I can’t go home without a cure for my...my...”
The priestess watched her intently. “Who helped you?”
“My Pa...” Her eyes drifted out of focus, and the priestess morphed into her father. Tears ran down his weathered face, trickling into his beard.
The priestess snapped her fingers, and her father’s face dissolved. “Who helped you get inside the oracle?”
“The... ?” The itching became gnawing, like there was a fly in her brain.
“King Theseus sent you, didn’t he?”
It was hard to focus on the priestess’s words, the drone was so distracting.
“How did you do it?” The priestess was standing now. “How did you close the crevasse and destroy the oracle?”
Danae’s limbs went slack, and she began to shudder uncontrollably.
The priestess let out a sharp sigh and floated the veil back over her face. She picked up the box and turned to the guards.
“We won’t get any more out of her for now. Do not let anyone enter this room. Understand?”
Danae slid to the floor, streaks of red and gold dancing across her vision as the guards bolted the door behind them.
Danae had no idea how long it took for the snake’s venom to work its way out of her system.
Hours might have passed, or even days. She had no way to mark time in her sunless, windowless cell.
After the convulsions ravaged her body, she passed out.
When she came to, there was a cup of water and a stale hunk of bread next to her.
For some reason, they wanted to keep her alive.
She felt untethered, adrift in a sea of fear. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t see a way out. She leaned back against the wall, the cold rock connecting her to something solid.
When she was little, her father had taught her how to mend fishing nets.
They would sit for hours on the hut floor, clumps of netting spread out in front of them.
He showed her the trick of methodically running each section through her fingers so she would never miss a join.
When mending was needed, he bent her fingers around the needle, fashioning them into the correct hold.
“Loose and nimble,” he used to say. The flax had to be darned just so.
Even one small hole could ruin a day’s fishing.
If the links were too weak, the strength of the shoal would break them.
She lifted her empty hands and ran through the pattern like it was a dance. It was comforting to retreat into muscle memory. A place where she didn’t have to think or feel.
The lock clicked. Instinctively, she grabbed the empty cup and thrust it out in front of her, despite having no idea how she could use it to defend herself.
The door creaked open. A guard in full helmeted armor entered the room. He looked like he was going into battle. Her fingers dug deeper into the wooden cup.
“You’re to come with me,” he said in a gruff voice.
She didn’t move. They were going to torture her. That’s why they’d let her live.
The guard edged a hand to the pommel of his sword. “Now.”
In the face of his blade, she reluctantly got to her feet, the useless cup tumbling from her hand.
“Lose the cloak.”
She hesitated. “Why?”
“Take it off.”
She undid the clasp and reluctantly let the novice’s blue cloak slide to the floor. It had, briefly, been the most expensive thing she’d ever owned. Well, stolen.
Impatiently, the guard grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out into the empty corridor.
He marched her swiftly through a labyrinth of tunnels.
The cells seemed endless. Door after door punctuated the catacombs.
She wondered why a city dedicated to worship needed the capacity to hold so many prisoners.
“Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer, but his stride quickened. Fear bubbled in her throat. She had to jog to prevent herself from tripping as he hauled her along. Two more guards came around the bend from the opposite direction. Her guard’s grip tightened around her arm. The men nodded and passed them by.
She was breathing hard by the time they came to a thick wooden door, secured by an iron lock. With his free hand, the guard drew a ring of keys from his belt. They jangled together as he slid the first one into the lock.
It wouldn’t twist.
He dropped Danae’s arm and tried the next, then the next, swearing under his breath as the bolt didn’t move. There was something different about his voice, it didn’t sound as deep as it had done in the cell.
She stepped away from him. “Who are you?”