Chapter Two
Thalia
Mykonos purred incessantly as Thalia stroked along the creature's back, itching up her spine. It was funny—in all her years she had never once thought to name the creature, her psychí was one and the same with herself. Yet, when Katrin had muttered the word—the reminder of their true home—Thalia couldn’t help but feel a sense of kinship.
Mykonos. A need to feel, to see what the princess saw in this small animal. Hope. Belonging. Fierceness. Truth.
Freedom.
A thing that had lingered for many years, but somehow just out of reach.
Something she had reduced to a dream aboard The Echinda.
And now she had it. All the freedom in the world—except she was tasked with escorting Ander’s brother across the seas and to Skiatha.
Little did that obnoxious, foul man know, but Thalia had other plans.
If Mykonos had to shift and claw the young prince, so be it.
She didn’t mind. Seeing him at wits’ end would be a sight, especially after watching the brooding prince stand scowling in the corner of her room the last few weeks.
It is my duty…My loyalty to my brother demands it.
Thalia would have preferred to never see the brute again and, gods, did Mykonos agree.
Yet now she would be confined to such a small ship with him for weeks, not to mention having to train with him—or at least teach him how to train her fellow soldiers.
There was no way someone as cocky as him had the delicate nature to train another without pummeling them into the ground.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel grateful for Dimitris agreeing to go after her sister.
The folded piece of parchment still lay on his desk.
Come and get her if you dare, was all the letter said, accompanied with a cut of raven black hair and a ruby pendant that belonged to Dafne.
The twin to Thalia’s amethyst she so often kept around her neck.
It was a surprise the men that had her didn’t keep the gemstone as a sort of prize—their greed was unmatched—but this was clearly intended as a message.
A lock of hair and a necklace now, what would come next if she did not show? A finger? An ear? Her head?
Now she just had to devise a plan to slip away from the ship and venture to the club.
It would be dangerous, Thalia understood that, especially when she would need to leave Mykonos behind on the Aphrodite.
If they caught her psychí once more—Thalia didn’t want to bring back those memories, the way the men of the Legion had chained the creature before they were sold with the same stone used on Ander.
The gold substance prohibited Mykonos from shifting, from having the connection that flowed so easily between seer and animal.
It had been as if Mykonos was dead. The tether had disappeared and it was worse than even the pain she felt now.
Wailing, Mykonos jumped into her arms, butting her head against Thalia’s chest.
“I don’t like the idea of you going alone,” Mykonos said.
“Neither do I, but it is not the prince’s problem to solve, nor do I trust him, and I will not risk bringing you,” Thalia replied.
“I don’t trust him either, but you need someone there to watch over you. What happens if your plan does not work?”
“My plan will work.”
Mykonos swatted with her paw. “You act as if I cannot feel your apprehension.”
“And you act as if I will take anything you say into consideration.”
A small hiss left Mykonos’s mouth as she let out her claws. “Take him, or I will be forced to shift and follow you there myself. You forget, sometimes, that I am not beholden to your orders.”
“Mykonos, I am not ordering you, I am asking. Begging even. I will not be far and you will be able to feel my presence still. I just cannot lose you again.”
“You know, I rather like that name.”
Thalia laughed. “Do not change the subject!”
“You know us cats…easily distracted,” she purred, flipping her paw into the air and pretending to stare at it.
“I’ll think about it, alright? Bringing him…” She gazed down at her psychí and Mykonos nuzzled against her. “I love you too, little one.”
Slapping of waves turned to a low swoosh of the water against the hull. They had left port. They were one step closer to finding Dafne and bringing her home.
Usually, Thalia took her dinner alone in her quarters—it was the only time she had true peace and quiet—but Cal had requested her to join them and she couldn’t say no to that old fool.
He reminded her of the father she’d never had, or at least the father she could not remember.
The Order of Delphine had taken her and Dafne when they were only five years old, when the inkling of power began to form.
It was her sister who first showed the signs of becoming an oracle.
Thalia could still remember the night as if it played on a constant loop in her head—and maybe it did.
Violent screams woke her in the middle of the night, the full moon through the windows of their shared room casting an eerie glow about.
Dafne clung to her sheets, her back arching up and her eyes wide—their usual brown hue was no longer there, instead they had gone a milky shade of white.
When the screaming subsided, she began to chant words that no five-year-old in the farmlands of Anatole should know and when it stopped, her eyes washed over a shade of ruby so deep it looked as if every blood vessel in her eyes had popped.
Their mother and father ran into the room toward the end and dropped to their knees, praying to the gods for protection, but it would never come.
The next night, the same thing happened to Thalia.
They were sent to Delphine the following day.
Those three days were all Thalia could remember from her childhood.
They were all she wanted to remember, at least.
After years of servitude to the oracles with only a harsh mentor, followed by a year of being held captive, Thalia met Cal. The bubbly and squat older man immediately took her under his wing and she couldn’t help but feel a preternatural kinship.
Cal was the one who taught her how to string a bow, how to never miss a target, though he claimed there was some power lingering deep within her that seemed to make her immediately adept at the task.
Thalia explained that she was the kind of woman that had to excel at everything she did—it was the only way she learned to survive.
There is more to life than just surviving.
Gods, was that true. The words he spoke to her the first day they met had become her mantra, the reason she woke each morning with a purpose, a renewed outlook on what it truly meant to live.
It was that respect, that kindness, that loyalty which led her to Dimitris’s chambers for a second time today.
Because she wouldn’t dare slight Cal, even when she desperately wanted to be alone.
Although, she did revel in the uncomfortable twist to Dimitris’s mouth when her psychí pranced in behind her and took up immediate residence on what looked to be his chair—stretching out and kneading her paws into the gray linen fabric.
“She better not tear a hole in that, seer,” he muttered, reaching for a plate on the low lying alabaster table beside the chairs.
“I assure you, if she did, it would improve the utterly mundane object,” Thalia deadpanned, popping a grape into her mouth.
“I made that myself,” Dimitris growled back, continuing to shovel food onto his plate and staring both her and her psychí down with a feral glare.
“Well, clearly you needed a better teacher,” she said, words sharp as a blade. Cal spit his wine across the room at her words. “And, gods, fengaráki, if you keep piling your plate that high I might mistake you for an underfed street dog.”
Dimitris slammed his plate down on the stone table, rattling the three wine glasses that sat nearly full near the edge. “I did not invite you here only to be insulted. To be frank, I did not invite you at all.”
With a twitch of her lip, Thalia snickered.
“No? You have my sincerest apologies then. That was the only reason I was inclined to sit here.” She leaned in, picking up the still vibrating glass before her and bringing it to her lips, taking a low sip of the crimson liquid.
Hints of pepper, cherry, and plum—it appeared the expensive taste in wine ran in the family.
“Will the two of you quit acting like children, otherwise I will have to start treating you as such.” Cal pointed his finger between the two of them.
Shit. Cal had only used that voice on her once before and it was when she not so accidentally pinned her fellow Skiathan soldier, Sebastian, to the wall with throwing daggers during training.
She was sternly reprimanded in front of her fellow soldiers, though later on Cal congratulated her on besting the overly cocky man.
For some reason, Thalia doubted he was acting just for show this time around.
“I will if she agrees to stop throwing such vitriol at me.” Dimitris brought his fork to his lips, pulling off a piece of charred lamb, all while keeping those silver orbs narrowed directly at her.
“I didn’t realize you knew such big words, Prince.”
“I said, enough!” Cal yelled, making even Mykonos stop chewing her food.
“Sorry,” Thalia mouthed at him.
“It appears you have agitated the méntoras,” Mykonos chuckled in between bites of her fish.
“You really do love to state the obvious, don’t you?” Thalia replied down the bond.
“I wasn’t sure if you noticed. Your mind does wander at times—”
A piercing pain stabbed through Thalia’s stomach. Had Dimitris thrown a knife at her? Her hand clutched her stomach, but nothing was there—no knife, no blood. Mykonos let out a wail and an equally shrill cry left Thalia’s lips as she fell from the chair to her knees.
“Not again,” she managed to get out.
“This is the fourth time today. That’s more than—” Mykonos was cut off by another wail as a second searing pain went through both of their guts.
It wouldn’t be long—at least, Thalia hoped for a quick death.
Sometimes it lasted for minutes, others only seconds.
They must be traveling near someone passing into the hallowed halls of Aidesian for the pain to be this heightened, usually it was a mere inconvenience, a headache at worst. But sometimes she could sense every trickle of pain the dying experienced.
She would be able to handle it too, if it wasn’t for the fact that Mykonos had to endure it along with her.
“Cal, go get one of your serums! It looks like she was poisoned!”
The older man raced out of the door in a blur.
“Not…poison…” she coughed out.
Dimitris moved to the ground beside her, holding her up by the shoulders. “Your face is pale, eyes bloodshot, and sweat clings to your forehead. Those are all indications of poison, I just don’t understand who could have—”
“Not. Poison,” Thalia repeated through gritted teeth. The pain in her stomach began to recede, enough that she was able to hold herself up. “It is the curse I bear—for leaving Aidesian whole. It is the cost Aidon spoke of.”
Dimitris’s brows furrowed, the corners of his mouth drooping down. “Is this the first time it has happened to you?” he whispered.
Thalia shook her head. “Why do you think I prefer to take my dinner in the privacy of my quarters?” Her gut still felt like it was bleeding out. She could barely breathe, her lungs collapsing with what little air they had left.
“I thought it was because you absolutely despised me.” His hand ran down her back, then stroked back upward, easing the pressure in her chest.
“Yes…that is another reason.” It was oddly calming, the feel of his fingers grazing along her spine, like a fire warming her bones after trudging through a snow-filled forest.
His chest rose sharply in a huff. “Glad your disdain for me hasn’t disappeared at the moment.”
“Never,” she whispered, though the corner of her lips ticked upward.
Clattering came from outside the door and Cal bustled through with a wooden carrier of six different vials of colorful potions.
“This one should do the trick.” He held out a bright green vial to Dimitris.
“It is a neutralizer. Should counteract anything except viper venom—but your veins are not blackened, so it can not be that.”
“I don’t need it.” Thalia shooed the disgustingly emerald concoction away.
“Apparently it is a symptom of whatever the mystikistí did to her in Aidesian.” Dimitris removed his hands from her and stood, returning to his seat, where a half-eaten plate of food lay, though he did not reach for his fork again.
“Is it always like this?” Cal asked, his voice softer than before.
“No—rarely has it been this bad. Usually I get a small pain in the place that caused a death. That’s what I assume it means. Sometimes it is nothing more than a bothersome headache, but every few weeks it will feel as if I am dying right beside the person passing over.”
Cal fumbled about with the remaining five vials, plucking a sapphire hued one this time. “This should do the trick. It will dull your connection to the dead—well, dying—as long as you take it every morning with your tea.”
“How did you have something crafted already?” Thalia asked, pocketing the blue vial in her leather pouch slung by her waist.
“You know me—always thinking ahead when it comes to my favorite young seer.” Cal wrapped his arms around Thalia just as the final threads of pain subsided. “I would do anything for you, kóri,” he sighed.
Water welled in the rims of her eyes, and Thalia squeezed them tight, wrapping her arms around the old man’s neck. “Thank you, Cal. I don’t know what I would do without you.”