37. Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
Ty looked over at Ena, the two of them exchanging a heavy look. How much did they want to tell them, and when should they open that jar?
“Yes, we are now, but the trip was not without its…challenges,” Ty said by way of explanation. “Nor was the birth. And there is much we have learned from being with the stryx.”
Greya, who had flitted into the kitchen when Steig entered, came back into the room, carrying a tray of biscuits, jam, and clotted cream, along with a steaming pot of tea, and Ena thought she had literally passed into a dream.
Not only had breastfeeding made her ravenous, but she hadn’t had a full, hot, cooked meal since they’d left the Underworld almost ten months ago.
They’d been surviving on hunted and gathered foods, which she’d become accustomed to.
But still, it wasn’t the same. Not nearly.
She didn’t even have to ask—Ty immediately began slathering jam and cream on a large one for her, before handing it to her so she could eat while Ladon fed.
“How’s that going?” Greya asked, looking down at Ladon on Ena’s breast.
“It’s…okay, I think,” Ena answered honestly.
“It’s all been very overwhelming, and difficult, but Ladon is healthy and so…
wonderful.” She didn’t know how else to describe it.
How to describe someone who felt brand new and like a part of her at the same time.
Someone who brought her both joy and frustration in equal measure, and someone who made her feel like a totally different person, and yet somehow, without him, she felt incomplete.
“It’s a big change,” Greya said, sitting beside her as Ty, Turner, and Steig caught up with one another on the other side of the room. “I’m sure you’re still adjusting.”
Ena appreciated her sister’s wise words, and yet “big change” felt like the understatement of the year. Sometimes, it felt more like she’d lost everything she’d ever known. But she knew that feeling wasn’t solely because of Ladon’s birth.
“Speaking of change,” Ena said, finishing her biscuit and brushing off a few wayward crumbs that had landed on Ladon. “There’s something…big I need to tell you. About Dad.”
“Dad?” Greya said, confused surprise in her voice. “What could you possibly have learned about Dad while you were on the other side of the Chasm Mountains?”
“Remember how I told you that the story—the one you learned from Dad that you used to tell me when we were little—was true?”
“The one about the men from the other side of the Chasm Mountains and the bad storms? Yes.”
“Yes, well, it wasn’t just the part about the bad storms that was true,” Ena said, wondering where to begin.
“The men from the other side of the Chasm Mountains were a group of stryx who had been sent here to try and scout for a place to relocate. And the seer in the story who rescues them…she was our grandmother.”
“What?” Greya said in disbelief. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but it seems the most likely explanation for everything,” Ena explained. “Because, Greya, the thing about the stryx that I haven’t told you yet is…they drink blood. It’s part of what fuels their magic.”
“Oh,” Greya said, crinkling her nose slightly. “Well that’s certainly…novel. And what exactly is their magic?”
“They call it the Change—they can transform into other beings.”
“Gaia,” Greya said, her eyebrows flying up. “That sounds…incredible. But I still don’t see what that has to do with our grandmother and our father.”
“When the seer and the stryx man made a baby, that baby was part stryx, and when that baby grew up, he had two daughters, and…they’re part stryx too. They have to be, because it became very apparent right after I left here that I was starting to crave blood.”
“You were craving blood?” Greya repeated, her brows furrowed. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. It’s a long story about how we found out, but essentially, because I drank some of Ty’s blood accidentally, it awakened my stryx side, and now I need his blood to live, or I descend into madness.”
Okay, hearing herself say it all out loud, Ena recognized that she sounded insane, but Greya, the lovely sister that she was, didn’t laugh at her.
“It makes a lot of sense when you think about it,” Ena continued, filling the silence as Greya attempted to process everything.
“It explains why I was given a Gift that is also a daemonic Power. There’s another stryx woman, Xena—you’ll meet her, she’s Ty’s sister—and she’s half witch, half stryx, and she has a Gift that’s a Power too. ”
Greya rubbed her thumb against the spot between her eyes, as if her head had suddenly begun hurting. “So let me get this straight—you’re saying our father was half stryx, and that you also drink blood now?”
“Yes. Specifically Ty’s blood, because he’s my bloodmatch—which just basically means that his blood is special to me.”
“And you can Change into another being?”
Ena’s heart stuttered. “Theoretically, yes. But I haven’t tried.”
“Why not?” Greya asked, as if this was a strange answer.
“I—” Ena cut herself off, not knowing exactly how to answer that.
Because, somehow, the idea of doing it made her heart beat a little too fast, and her breath come too short, not unlike when she’d had the panic attack after Ty was lost. Somehow, she felt like if she did that…
then there’d be no going back to how things were.
To how things should have been. “I don’t know,” she finished lamely.
“Okay, well, what about me? Does that mean I’m part stryx too?”
“I think so, yes,” Ena said. “Though your side has not been awakened, and might never be, unless you drink the blood of your bloodmatch. You haven’t been craving any blood, have you?”
“Not that I know of,” Greya said, looking extremely bewildered by all this. Ena felt a tad guilty all the sudden, for always being the one to drop extremely unlikely knowledge on Greya’s lap, but Greya was strong enough to handle it. She had always been the strong one.
Just then, Perse came back in the room. “The horses are being tended to as we speak,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “And I know it’s still the morning, but I think this reunion calls for some ale, don’t you?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Turner replied as he followed Perse into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, the two of them came back with several mugs and a jug full of ale. They passed them around, one by one, and filled them, before all lifting their glasses.
“I know we still have so much to discuss,” Perse said to the group, “but damn, it feels good to have you all home.”
“Cheers to that,” Steig said, looking significantly less grumpy than normal as he smiled at Ty and Turner.
“And to the new arrival,” Greya added, beaming at the baby in Ena’s arms.
“And to the woman who worked so hard to give him to us,” Ty said, squeezing Ena’s knee affectionately.
“And to everyone being alive,” Turner added, side-eyeing Ty.
Ena couldn’t help but laugh, her heart swelling at the merriment in the room. “Yes, everyone except Cole,” she added. “Because that fucker is going down.”
Everyone burst out in laughter, and echoes of her sentiment rang through the room as she brought her ale to her lips.
As she drank, she felt the coolness of the ale and the warmth of her friends and family’s company temporarily wash away the knot of anxiety in her chest.