Chapter Twenty-One
Ibolted upright, head whipping around.
What’s going on? Where am I?
One question was answered straight away. Alex, Sirena, and my friends were not there.
I was alone.
“Guys?” I called. “Alex?”
No reply came. Standing up, I took in my new surroundings. I knew instantly that I was in a temple.
Grand columns held up a green and gold arched ceiling. They carried throughout a large chamber where, at the end, the statue of a huge and lovely woman surveyed her domain.
Soundlessly I padded through the columns, drawing closer to the depictions on the temple wall. There was a woman. The same woman? I couldn’t be certain. There was more life in these drawings than upon a stone face.
It showed a woman—pale, lovely, and born before time. She rose from the primordial pits and...
I continued on, following the birth of the world, the Olympian gods, and the human race. The woman stood apart from it somehow. Like a shadow in a painting—there but not there.
A calm settled over me—soothing my rage, washing away my panic.
I should be freaking out, raging, and demanding to be taken to my friends, but my heart refused to stir to such emotions. This was a good place. A safe place. What if I just... stayed?
“Beautiful, wasn’t she?”
I jumped, twisting around as a woman stepped out from behind the statue. She bore a bucket and rag in her left hand, explaining why the temple was spotless. Closing the distance, I read curiosity in her acorn eyes and kindness in her smile. Wisps of brown hair escaped from her veil.
A trick,I thought, tensing. You are not safe here, Aella. Be alert.
“Who are you?” I stepped back when she got too close. The woman got the hint and came no farther. “I was with my friends. We were betrayed and— and Vasili put me to sleep.” I meant to shout it, but I summoned no more than a slightly higher octave.
Anger didn’t belong here. Why was I angry again?
“You know who I am, girl. I have been your companion for many moons.” She smiled. “It is past time we met.”
“Selene.” Again, I should’ve shouted. Again, I couldn’t.
She tipped her head. “As we speak, my allies are carrying you through the final chamber. Hesta’s.” Turning away from me, her smile fell on the paintings. “Hestia is the goddess of home and hearth. Her grand contribution to my hell was to create a safe and warm place. A home,” she whispered. “If my would-be rescuers achieved the grand feat of making it this far, this place would be their undoing.
“For what do young and small, man and women, mortal and god, seek above all?” she asked. “What else but a place where we are loved and accepted? A home where we are safe. This trap by far is most effective”—her expression changed—“and the most cruel.
“This place was also made as a respite for me, during the long, lonely years that I wasted away. Imagine that from your prisoner. Your destroyer.” She scoffed. “Of all things, pity.”
“Is my mother here?” I asked.
Selene shook herself, refocusing on me. “She is not. This is my haven. I share it with you now because I would like to tell a story. One final story before we part ways for the final time.”
“Okay.” It was so nice here. So quiet and peaceful. A story sounded lovely.
“The woman on the wall.” Selene gestured with her chin. “Do you know her?”
I shook my head.
“I’m not surprised you don’t. Many have forgotten her story.” Her gaze roamed the temple. “That’s why it’s only me here, day after day.”
“I would like to hear her story,” I said.
“Tell me, do you know of Pandora? The first woman on earth.”
I nodded. “She was created to punish man for accepting the gift of fire. Zeus gave her a box and told her never to open it, knowing one day curiosity would get the best of her. Finally, it did and she opened the box. Out flew greed, hatred, poverty, death, war, and all the ills that plague the human race. Quickly she slammed it closed, leaving only hope behind. It’s why through all our pain and struggles, humans can still hold on to hope.”
She smiled. “Very good. That is the tale of Pandora... and it is a complete lie.”
“What?”
“Lies,” she said, motioning high. “Pandora was no lowly human who fell prey to Zeus’s trickery. She was a goddess.”
“Pandora was a goddess?” I beheld the statue in new light. “How come I didn’t know this?”
“You weren’t meant to know. These walls will tell you why.” I didn’t stop her taking my hand, leading me to the painting of the maiden rising from the primordial pool. “Pandora was one of the first beings to spring from the weaving fabric of the universe. She stood aside as the Titans claimed rule of the world, and when they ultimately fell to the Olympian gods.”
We passed the scene, taking in the fall of the Titans, and the rise of Zeus.
“The Olympians had no quarrel with Pandora until the birth of man. You see, the humans’ faith and worship made her stronger as it did the Olympians. She became a mother,” the woman breathed, tracing a description of Pandora holding a babe. “She birthed many children. Geras, Apate, Moras, Momos, Eris, Nemesis, Oizys, and Keres.”
My brows rose with every name. “But— But they— They’re the spirits of old age, deceit, doom, blame, strife, revenge, suffering, and carnage.”
“They are.”
“So, Pandora didn’t release these spirits from a box of trickery. She birthed them. They were her children.”
“And they were despised by the Olympian gods,” she said, moving on. “Her children caused untold harm to their pet humans, but not even they came close to the suffering she brought on them.”
“No wonder she wasn’t a favorite among the gods,” I mused.
“Oh?” She faced me, head cocked. “Were the gods any kinder? Was Hera the sweet, benevolent queen—cursing and killing Zeus’s mistresses? Was Athena the wise and noble beauty when she punished Medusa for being raped by Poseidon? Was Poseidon the rapist an honorable god?
“Make no mistake, young one. The gods were never a friend to man.”
“That’s true,” I heard myself say. I couldn’t say anything else. Demigods only existed because humans couldn’t stand the cruelty of the gods for a moment longer.
“When man forced the gods from Mount Olympus,” she said, following my thought. “Scattering was their last and final hope. There was only one issue: Pandora.”
“Why her?”
“Pandora refused to join them. She existed before the earth and man. She would exist long after them. But for the scatter to work, and for the gods to one day return to Mount Olympus, they needed humans to believe in them again. They had to create demigods who’d spread far and wide, repopulating the earth with humans who could not deny their existence, because they were living within them.”
“But what did that have to do with Pandora?”
“Demigods couldn’t spread far and wide with her and her children preying on them. They didn’t trust Pandora to behave while the temple was empty—so to speak. With no one in her way, she’d be free to claim the throne of Mount Olympus and create a world where she and her children ruled unchecked.”
We moved on, stopping before a drawing of the Olympians huddled together—plotting.
“There was no war, no battle, no warning. One day, the Olympian gods attacked her. With the combined strength of their powers, they stripped her of form and bound her within a cage for all eternity.”
“Pandora’s box,” I whispered, coming face to face with the box of legend. “It wasn’t hope or evil spirits inside. It was her.”
“Oh, yes. That silly story about Earth’s first woman and false wedding gifts was Zeus’s ploy to further humiliate her. The world forgot who she truly is—a goddess. An all-powerful being. Instead, they tell their children about some stupid girl who couldn’t heed one rule.”
“That’s awful.”
“It is indeed,” she said, patting my hand. “You understand her fury. You see why she bided her time for thousands of years, waiting for the day she’d burst forth from her prison and destroy all the Olympian gods ruined her to protect.”
The corner of my lips tugged down. Pulling free, I backed away from her.
“And for years she did wait,” the woman cried, holding her hand up to the statue. “With her box hidden beneath the bowels of Deucalion Academy, she bled into the sleeping, troubled minds of demigods—finding and influencing faithful worshipers who’d hunt till the ends of the earth to free her from her fate.”
The hairs rose on the back of my neck. No. It can’t be...
“Worshippers who would bring her worthy sacrifices to give themselves to the right and just glory of her ascension. Without legs, without arms, without form, without belief—she couldn’t carry out her plan.” She snapped to me, shooting my heart into my throat. “But now.... I have you.”
“Pandora.” The name scraped from my throat. “It’s been you the whole time. You’re Selene. You’re the goddess.”
“I am so much more than a goddess,” she cried, eyes lighting in fervor. “I am the mother of misery. The devourer of hope. The queen of suffering.
“I am Pandora,” she shrieked, morphing before my eyes—becoming the shining, burning, terrible, wonderful shifting monument of divinity. “Goddess of despair.”
I fell to my knees screaming, crying, clawing my eyes for daring to look upon her. I was worthless before her divinity. A speck before a giant. Mud on the slippers of an empress. Let me die for being in her presence. Let me burn!
“Calm, child.” Pandora tipped my chin—once again the sweet, beautiful washerwoman. “You needn’t be afraid of me. My gratitude to you knows no bounds. Because of you, I will wash away all the Olympian gods hold dear.” She pressed her lips to my forehead. “You have served your goddess well.”
“No!” I swiped, narrowly striking her across the face as she smoothly moved out of reach. The peaceful calm of this home shattered. My rage roared up unbidden. And unchecked. “Knowing your name and story makes no difference. I will do whatever it takes to stop you, Pandora. You’ll never get out of that box!”
Her grin stretched wide. “Oh, child. It is much too late for your swearing and bluster.” She laughed. “Much, much, too late.”
“No...” Awful realization sunk to the pit of my soul. “What did you do?”
“What did we do.” She winked. “Nothing yet.”
Moving fast, Pandora shoved me—flinging me into another bottomless abyss.
“—TO THE GODDESS, WEoffer these keys. Separate they are insignificant, together they are power.”
I jerked awake, screaming—scattering the cloaked figures standing above me.
I was in a temple. Dirty, cracked, and crumbling. Piles of dead, unswept leaves blanketed the floor and rimmed each stone table. Horrific depictions covered the cracked walls and ceiling, telling stories of death, human sacrifices, and a face—beautiful yet monstrous—painted over and over. Traces of her beauty remained, but it was overshadowed by the glowing eyes; cavernous, sharp-toothed maw, and streaks of blood for tears.
Candles burned in polished copper holders, casting flickering light on the stone tables, and the gagged, sleeping figures upon them. The only difference between us was that at my feet was an ancient, symbol-covered box... being held by my stiff, unseeing mother.
“Mom!” I screamed through the gag. “Stop. Let go of us!”
“It’s much too late for that, Aella,” said Madame Remis. She understood me easily. Even more, she pulled away my gag. “The ritual is almost complete. Our goddess returns to us.”
“Why are you doing this?” Chills leaked through my body, giving way to the altar’s biting cold. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. You don’t know who Selene really is! She’s brainwashed you. All of you,” I yelled at the figures hovering over my friends. “You don’t want to do this.”
“We are not brainwashed, novice.” Vasili spoke as clear and calm as he always did. “We know our goddess Pandora, the mistress of despair is confined with that box. We free her from eternal imprisonment on this night, and right the wrongs of the fallen gods.”
I gaped at him. “Why the fuck would you want to do that!” Panic turned my voice up a dozen octaves. This wasn’t happening. How could this be happening?
“Is this wise, dear?” Remis hissed at him. “Every second she’s awake is a second she could use to go back in time and ruin everything we’ve worked for.”
“Calm, kara.”
I gagged to hear him use the same word of love and affection that Alex called me.
“The goddess has had many months to weave her essence within the fabric of the girl’s mind. No one else knows when she’s gone back and changed the past, except for the goddess. If she attempts such a thing now”—he latched onto me—“your mother will be killed. Without hesitation or remorse.”
My lips trembled, literally shaking with all the pain and rage I wanted to unleash on him. All I could do was look at my mom.
I came all this way to save you, Mom. I can’t lose you now.
Balling my fists, I fell silent.
“Excellent.” The triumph in his voice burned me. The evil bastard believed he already won.
But there’s a way out of this for us. All of us. There has to be.My eyes rolled in their sockets, sweeping every inch of the dirty, forgotten temple. I just have to think of something.
“Now, let us continue,” said a woman I didn’t recognize. Lines crinkled the corners of her mouth and eyes, and heavy streaks of white were sharp contrast to her brilliant, red hair. “To the goddess, we offer these keys. Separate they are insignificant, together they are power.” Our hard-won keys to the prison appeared in her hands. “Hermes, messenger of the gods. Apollo, god of the sun. Aphrodite, goddess of love. Ares, god of war. Hephaestus, god of the forge.” She listed them as she lined each key on an empty stone table. A silly, ridiculous display that gave me time to think.
I lit upon my dagger resting at the end of the table at my feet. The leather bindings around my wrists and ankles were tied too well—may Vasili rot in hell. I couldn’t get out of them to reach the dagger, which I needed to get out of them.
There must be something. Maybe while they’re distracted, I could—
“And, Zeus, king of the gods,” she cried. “We call on you, reform! Return the power of the gods!”
Blinding light burst in the temple, bleeding out the high, stone widows to pierce the starless blackness outside. I blinked away dancing white spots, straining to see.
Vision clearing, I landed on an unbelievable sight.
The keys were gone. In their place rested a gleaming, gold scepter topped with a fierce and undefeatable golden eagle. The symbol of Zeus.
“It can’t be,” I whispered.
“It can.” Vasili beamed at Remis, face lighting up with joy I’d never seen him feel before. “By the goddess, it can. She was right, my love. It is exactly as she said.”
“Let us wait not another moment.” Excitement laced Remis’s voice. “Free her. Let our goddess walk among us!”
Vasili claimed the scepter and made for my mother. All too quickly I understood, he was opening Pandora’s box.
“Don’t do this,” I cried. “Pandora is insane! She wants to destroy Olympia and rub demigods off the face of the earth. Everyone will die!”
“Simple, dull-witted child,” Remis snapped. “You do not understand. You do not see! She has a plan for us. She will wash the weak and unworthy from this world, and rebuild it as a temple to strength, power, and freedom. Too long we’ve festered in this pit of monsters, fighting a war we cannot win, and pandering to a weak-willed council too frightened to do what needs to be done.
“We are gods,” she hissed, insanity brightening her eyes. “We are the rightful rulers of this and every dominion, and under our goddess’s mercy, we will return to our birthright.” Remis shared a smile with the other batshit crazy followers. “Mount Olympus.”
“You’re insane,” I cried. “You’re all insane!”
She tsked. “Now, now, you know better than anyone insanity exists at the limits of your enemy’s knowledge and imagination. Every revolutionary was insane... until they won.” She jerked a nod a Vasili. “Do it.”
There wasn’t time to scream.
Vasili wielded the scepter, and roared—coming alive with shining, radiant, godly light. The power filling him was so immense, it overwhelmed me. Such a thing was not of this world, it was never of this world. That scepter belonged to the king of gods himself.
Vasili smashed it on the chest and burst the lid open.
If I expected explosions, fanfare, or a fierce, cyclonic wind to blow through the temple—none of that happened.
The box lay open in my mother’s hands. Slowly, creepingly—dark, sludgy smoke leaked over the rim while my mom stood motionless. If she was covered in stone, I would’ve thought the gorgons got to her.
“To our goddess, we return your voice.” Remis slipped the bracelet off my wrist like it was nothing. She dropped it inside the box. “Queen of the broken and damned, you are Pandora. Speak and all shall hear.”
One of the followers came to her. Bowing, she held out to Remis a strange knife with a curved blade.
“Brothers, sisters, take your place.”
Remis’s order was the cue. The followers each took their place beside Alex, Sirena, Daciana, and my friends.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I asked. “Get away from them.”
They each produced vials from the folds of their robes.
“What is that! Don’t do that. Don’t—!”
They wrenched my sleeping friends’ mouths open, tipping the black liquid down their throats.
“What was that! Stop it. Leave them alone!”
“I cannot take her caterwauling,” Remis barked. “Vasili, put her back to sleep.”
Shockingly, he shook his head. “I can’t. You remember what the seer said. We will face resistance and opposition in the chamber, but ultimately, we succeed and the goddess rises. Since she could not tell us who opposes us, it is obviously the girl.” He flapped a hand at me like I was nothing. “We change anything and we risk failure. Let the girl cry and bleat all she wants. Unless she wishes to watch me separate her mother’s head from her shoulders, she will not interfere.”
“Very well.” Remis pushed a follower aside, taking their place beside Ionna. The dagger flashed. She brought it down, plunging it into Ionna’s heart.
My scream echoed through the far corners of the realm.
“To our goddess, we give you the gift of prophecy.” Remis chanted over my screeching—undeterred. “God of the sun and light, Apollo is a speck before you. You will see all that can be seen.”
I gagged, choking on my tears. Before our eyes, something small, glowing, and wonderful floated out of Ionna’s chest. We were nothing before it for it was everything. The life-giving warmth of the sun bathing the fields, and a day of play with your friends. It was the freeing joy of music—turning even the worst day around. It was the beauty of poetry, the wisdom of the oracles, and the savior of medicine.
Gently it floated over our heads, and fell within Pandora’s box.
Remis moved over to Theron.
“No, don’t do this,” I cried. “Please, just stop and think—”
She plunged the dagger into Theron, ripping a frustrated cry from the pit of my soul.
“To our goddess, we give you the gift of the horror and destruction of war. God of the battlefield, Ares is a speck before you. You will destroy all who stand in your way.”
A glowing orb floated out of Theron, and I threw my head away, unable to look at it. This was not the warmth and music of Apollo’s essence. Blood and pain resonated from that light. I swore I heard dying screams as it floated into the box.
“Guys, wake up,” I rasped through a burning, aching throat. “You have to wake up and fight back. Wake up!”
Remis crossed the temple, and stopped beside Alex.
“No!”
Enough. Fuck Vasili’s threats! I wasn’t lying around and letting this happen. If the threads closest to me were my recent past, I would swim out farther, grab the later threads, and go back to before Marinos and his invisible acolytes jumped in with us. Before Maximos killed Drakos. Before the barriers fell and the monsters attacked, and before Calix force-fed me Lethe water. I’d do it all over again, and do it right. What could the bitch stuck in a box do about it?
Nothing.
Closing my eyes, I willed my entire being into the thread space. Come on. Come on!
Noise smothered—blocking out Remis’s chanting and the sound of the knife striking flesh. Blinking, I arose in the space outside everything that is or will be.
“Okay, okay.” The words left my mouth but didn’t reach my ears. Sound didn’t exist in this place. “Don’t worry, guys. I’ll save you. I’ll save everyone,” I said, looking around. “I just have to pick a thread that isn’t too close or too far.”
A riot of threads crisscrossed, looped, zigzagged, and encircled me. It was impossible to know where they began or ended. It was impossible to know which was the right one.
Taking a deep breath, I lit on a piece of thread above me. If I stretched, my fingertips should just reach it. Gods willing, I’d get back the last few days. I raised my hand.
A hard, invisible force slammed into me, throwing me and my fingertips clear. I snapped back to consciousness as a sparking, electric orb floated out of Alex.
“What? No, no! That’s impossible.” I railed against my bindings. “Let me in,” I gritted. “Let me in!”
I came to in the thread space again. Not wasting a moment, I snapped up, reaching for the—
The force slammed me again, throwing me out.
I tried again, and again, and again—sobbing my despair in the temple of the queen of sorrow. I knew even as I begged and pleaded with the goddesses who didn’t heed me, and the followers who didn’t care—the thread space was closed to me. Power I couldn’t comprehend had decided this was to be my fate, and I wasn’t changing it.
Tears soaking my face, I gazed at Alex. My love didn’t wear so much as a grimace. He lay there serene and still as if in sleep. His life was taken from him, and he didn’t get a chance to fight for it.
One after the other, my screams fell on uncaring years as Remis killed Tycho and Sirena, and gave the writhing mass of evil in the box their power.
“What about this one?” Remis asked, peering at Nitsa. “Our goddess already has power from the queen of the sky.”
“She’s useless,” Vasili dismissed. “Kill her.”
The knife flashed, splitting Nitsa’s throat. All I could do was cry. This was the true reason the seer told Vasili not to put me back to sleep. For all the trouble I caused her—my power stopping her from seeing my future and making everything harder for her—she wanted me to suffer.
“My goddess, today you rise, for we have found the perfect vessel for your might and power.” Remis picked up the box. “You will have form, you will have legs, you will have eyes. You will walk amongst us again.”
She brought the leaky, disgusting box over to me—
“No! Get that thing away from me.” I fought harder than before. “Get away!”
—and kept going.
Bypassing me without a glance, she carried Pandora over to Daciana.
“To our goddess, we give you a vessel unlike any other. A female alpha werewolf. Within her lies a power untold and unknown to any other species.” The followers gathered around the stone table, each holding the box level above Daciana. “The power of creation. Within her lives the gift to spawn an entire generation, and it is her honor to give that gift to you—that you will be remade stronger than ever before.”
Together, they tipped over the box—spilling the horrifying, writhing mass on my best friend.
The world imploded.
Power, force, wind, something unknowable blasted from Daciana, blowing the acolytes off their feet and slamming into me so hard, it was a physical blow to my body. A cyclonic torrent of wind swept through the temple—blowing out the candles and throwing the dead leaves, making it almost impossible to see.
Almost.
Ghostly figures rose above Daciana. The hideous, winged, snarling creature painted on the temple walls, and a wolf.
My eyes widened far as they could go, then farther. It didn’t matter. Taking it in didn’t make it any more believable. The creatures reared back on their haunches, and attacked.
Snarling, clawing, ripping, biting, tearing—it was a battle for Daciana’s very soul.
The wolf swiped Pandora’s face, opening vicious wounds on her cheek. Pandora’s scream reverberated in my chest, caving in my stomach. I almost threw up.
Pandora snapped back, claws cutting the air and heading for Luame’s stomach. Luame whipped around to meet the blow, and didn’t see the wing coming behind her.
“Look out!”
Pandora’s wing smashed into her hindlegs, throwing her off balance. That split second was all the goddess of despair needed. Her claws tore through fur, flesh, and bone.
“No!”
Luame stumbled, then fell over—lying prone in the air.
Pandora flung her aside. Luame disappeared before she hit the wall.
Laughing, Pandora faded from sight, and into Daciana.
Silence fell over the pitch-black temple.
“Daciana?” I whispered. “Can you hear me? Everything is going to be okay, I promise. Just stay with me. Stay—”
“Don’t you know better by now, girl?”
Goose pimples rippled down my flesh, standing my hairs on end. I knew that voice. Oh gods, I knew that voice all too well.
The candles erupted, bursting towering explosions of flame that lit up the being before me.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Daciana. It was Daciana from her wavy, long hair; sepia skin; and warm brown eyes. It was her... but it wasn’t. A thick, heavy presence emanated from her, rolling off her like crashing waves—holding me down, knocking me around, and drowning me. Before her, I felt afraid. More scared than I’d ever been in my life.
True despair was frightening to see.
“My goddess!”
The followers rushed her, falling to their feet. Their gushing cries and praise as they lay in a temple of the dead sickened me.
“What is wrong with you!” I shrieked. “You killed my friends and took Alex away from me. You put that monstrous bitch in the best person I know. Why are you celebrating!”
It was like they didn’t even hear me.
“Yes,” Pandora hissed, trailing her hands all over Daciana’s body. “I’d been observing the wolf all this time, but she’s an even better vessel than I predicted. Her superior senses. Her superhuman strength. I will not be able to shift into a wolf now that the soul leech is gone, but she will do very nicely as is.”
“You are perfect, my goddess.” Remis kissed her feet, slobbering all over her. “No one can stand against you now.”
“Mmm,” she hummed. “I feel the power of Persephone, Apollo, Hera, Zeus, and Ares within me. So many of us within an ordinary human would’ve reduced them to dust, but this creation power is worthy of the name. It remakes her as quickly as we destroy her.”
“Even so, this vessel will not last forever,” Vasili said. “That is why we work diligently to restore you to your true form and power. This will go a long way toward achieving that goal.” Vasili presented her with the scepter.
I never understood the phrase hunger in her eyes until right then. No one could ever covet anything more than Pandora did as she gazed upon the scepter. She grabbed it from him so quick, he stumbled.
“Oh, yes.” Stolen fingers traced the eagle’s wing. “The king of the heavens falls, and the queen of the damned rises.” She lashed out, waving the scepter, and the temple changed before my eyes.
Cracked walls re-knit. Dead leaves blew out the window. Marble floors gleamed. Even the stone table beneath me was made new.
Gone was the hideous beast from the walls. In their place, were beautiful portraits of the washerwoman, sitting on a throne of skulls while the gods of Olympus lay torn apart and bleeding at her feet.
“This will do quite well,” she said, returning the scepter to her side. “I have only one question left”—she turned on me—“why is this wretch still alive?”
Remis rose to her feet, but kept her head bent low—unworthy to look upon the face of her goddess. “As you know, the potion and knife do not work on demigods such as her. She does not have the essence of the Fates within her. She is merely a bridge to a physical space.
“Since there is nothing to do but kill her and stop her from ever undoing these events...” Remis picked up my dagger. “We thought you would like to do the honors?”
“I would indeed.” Pandora laughed. “For all the months I endured this stupid chit, and her pointless wittering on. I want my mommy. I’m not strong enough. I’m too weak. Help me, help me.” Her followers howled at her high-pitched mocking, heating the tips of my ears. “Nothing would give me more pleasure than to drive a dagger through her heart.”
“And this dagger is special, o goddess of despair.”
Something flickered at the edge of my vision, bringing my gaze up.
“Stupid girl doesn’t even know it’s an item of power,” Remis continued. “Its value is beyond measure, which means it should be with no one but you.” Turning the hilt around, Remis presented my family heirloom to Pandora.
“Sword!”
A long, deadly, unforgiving blade erupted from the hilt—burying in Remis’s chest. She fell over, dead before she hit the ground.
“No!” Vasili rushed to her, scattering acolytes out of his way.
The distraction was all she needed. Claws shredded my bindings, freeing me. I roared up as Luame faded away.
Racing across the table, I jumped off, flying at Pandora. I didn’t know what I planned to do, other than tear her apart.
Pandora snapped the scepter up to block. My hands connected with the rod, and I screamed.
Rushing, crashing, choking power surged through my body, burning away my muscles and nerve endings, and leaving nothing in their wake. The gods weren’t in my eyes. The gods were me.
I threw lightning bolts from the sky, fleeing all before my wrath. I was the spark of innovation marching societies through time. I unleashed towering hundred-foot waves. Struck love in a humble heart. Lifted a soul with the beauty of my music, and destroyed all in my path through the devastation of war. I was everything. I was all. I was fate.
I exploded.
Threads burst out of me.
“What are you doing? What is this!” Pandora wrenched against the scepter. “Let go. Let go!”
Wild, free, zigzagging, crisscrossing threads filled their new home, and there was nowhere to run.
Threads lashed around the acolytes. Wrapping around their wrists, legs, and necks, and hoisting them into the air.
I had a thought. Just one. A simple thought entered my mind and left as quickly as it came.
The threads obeyed.
Vasili thrashed. Kicking and failing around, he belted his pain as his beard grew longer and grayer, and the lines on his face deepened. Once tall and sturdy, his thick shoulders shrank and stooped. Strong bones turned weak and brittle, and thin, leathery skin hung loose off them.
The thread of his entire life played out in a single minute, until it reached the end. An emaciated old corpse hit the ground—still too kind an end for the likes of him.
“Stop this,” Pandora shrieked. She grabbed the top of my head, and visions flooded me.
Me cowering in a corner the night my mom was taken.
My own grandparents marching me to an asylum and throwing me away.
The scary, lonely nights in the hospital, dodging Trixie’s ire, and her sharpened toothbrush.
Standing so close to my mother, and feeling farther from her than ever.
Watching Remis stab Ionna through the heart, murder Alex, slit Nitsa’s throat, steal Daciana’s soul, and kill the strongest and bravest people I knew—my friends.
It all poured into me, filling my heart with despair, and the threads flew.
They flung away the dead followers and wrapped around Alex, Sirena, Nitsa, Theron, Ionna, Tycho, my mom, and Pandora.
“Release me! I command you, you human worm. You filthy beast!” Pandora cried through Daciana’s lips. “Release me at once.”
And then, I had another thought.
Pandora flung herself side to side, screaming untold agony, as she unraveled.
The thread of her life appeared before me—shiny, golden strands hovering around her body like a shimmering halo. It was beautiful.
I ripped out my sword and cut it in half.
Boom!
Heat and light exploded in my face. I flew across the temple and crashed into the wall, cracking the fresco and raining lime plaster on me when I hit the floor.
I pushed up on shaky limbs. Everything hurt. My vision spun, swirling the space on its head, when a voice rang out.
“Hello?” Pandora picked herself up from where she fell. The scepter lay forgotten at her feet. “What’s going on? Where am I?” She shrank, her borrowed eyes wide. “Who am I? Oh my gods, who am I? Who am I!”
“Please,” I croaked, stretching out my trembling hand. “Give her back. Give Daciana back.”
“Who are you!” she shrieked. “What is this horrible place?”
“P-please...” I tried to move and fell flat on my face. “She’s my... best friend. Give her back.”
“Stay away from me! I don’t know you.” Pandora scrambled to her feet. “I don’t know any of you. Leave me alone.”
With that, she vanished—disappearing far from my reach.
I tried to pick myself up and fell again. Hands caught me before I hit the floor.
“It’s okay, baby.” Mom’s warm, smiling face filled my vision. The opposite of the worry on Alex’s, Ionna’s, and my friends’ faces. “Everything is all right. I’ve got you now.”
Darkness carried me away.
“I’m here.”