Chapter 8 Aethra
Aethra
Exhaustion swept over me the moment we left the lake behind. Breathing heavily, I followed my escort through the ancient halls, wondering if this place had always been meant for torment.
Phaedrus said monsters the likes the Merchant Isles had never seen roamed this land. Would there be more like the hydra awaiting us further in?
Perhaps all creatures of legend hailed from a long-forgotten truth.
“So.” I turned to the guard on my left. “What happens if we win your little games?”
“Few have ever passed the trials,” he answered in an even voice.
“What happened to them?”
He looked away, remaining silent.
“What an encouraging response,” I muttered, scanning the halls.
I had no sense of where we were, how deep underground, how close to an exit. Planning an escape would be difficult without a lay of the land. Dark corridors branched off from the one we walked, leading to cramped dungeon cells.
An isolated cell at the end of the hall was our destination. Pulling the heavy stone door open, they pushed me through and moved to lock it behind me.
Hurried footsteps echoed through the halls. Leaning out of the cell, I saw a torch approaching us through the gloom, carried by the nobleman from before.
“Hold a moment,” he ordered, silver eyes flicking to me. “I have orders to take this one elsewhere.”
Throat tightening, I shrank into my cell. Noticing my hesitation, the guard I’d tried speaking with caught my arm and dragged me outside, shoving me toward the noble. Sweeping aside his deep blue cloak, he laid a hand on the pommel of his sword.
“Turn,” he ordered.
Cradling my injured arm, I obeyed. He grabbed my wrists, yanking them behind my back to lock into shackles. Grimacing, I bit back a yelp of pain as my injured arm twisted.
When he released me, I scanned every inch of his appearance, trying to learn as much as I could from a mere glance.
If the Oracle had been a queen, this man was a wealthy merchant, at best. Fewer jewels encrusted his tiara, and while the Oracle’s dagger had been decorated with enough gold to pay off my debt, this man’s sword was of relatively simple, if elegant, make.
A lesser noble? Maybe I could use that information to my advantage.
Tilting his chin up, the nobleman peered down his nose at me like a bird of prey. He was sizing me up, too.
Grabbing my shoulder, the nobleman steered me ahead of him, guiding me down a new passage. Carvings of ancient heroes and tormented souls alike watched us pass.
Lifting my chin, I caught his eye. “Who was that girl?”
“Girl?” He asked.
“The one who was sent out to die with me.”
“I don’t know. I don’t make a habit of keeping up with every prisoner,” he drawled.
“Then why did you ask to see me?”
He paused, regarding me closely. “I heard unusual captives were rounded up near Naunet. Judging from your performance in the hydra’s chamber, I’d say the rumors were true.”
Rolling my tongue in my mouth, I fell silent. If he sought the Elpis maiden, as the Hades Knights had, I would need to choose my words carefully.
Biting my lip in concentration, I threw up walls around my thought. This man might be a psyche.
At the end of the hall, he opened a door and beckoned me inside. A beautiful ivory piano sat on a rug in the corner, but other than the instrument, only a thin wooden bench and armchair decorated the stone chamber.
Pressing a hand to my shoulder, the nobleman shoved me down onto the bench and pulled up the armchair across from me.
“Do you run this place?” I asked.
“I frequent the Duat often.” His eyes darkened. “Though surely you know that.”
“No. Who are you?’
A twitch of annoyance curled his lip. So he did lament his lower position in the hierarchy.
“The last of the Elpis maidens will appear on the Naunet shore,” he said. “She will be unmistakable in mien. Do these words sound familiar to you?”
I shook my head, but made a note of his words. ‘Unmistakable in mien.’ The Oracle had spoken true.
“Unmistakable?” I repeated. “I’m not particularly striking.”
“No, you aren’t,” he agreed. “But I suspect our Oracle is being vague purposefully.” He leaned forward. “And what of the man imprisoned with you? The chthonic with the red eyes. What’s his name?”
Giving an answer was a bad idea. Instead, I tilted my head. “Why didn’t you ask him?”
“I did,” the nobleman said. “He offered a ridiculous lie.”
So this man wasn’t a psyche. Good to know.
“He calls himself Burgundy Rose,” I said. “Did he tell you something different?”
The nobleman’s eye twitched. Seth had given his ridiculous title in answer. No wonder he’d fooled us all. The man had con artistry mixed into his blood.
That was probably why I liked him.
Standing, the nobleman lifted his chin. “You’re lying, Elpis,” he spat.
I kept my face straight, straining not to react.
“The Oracle is hiding something, but they’ll never take my word over hers.
” His eyes drifted to the piano, and he slowly approached it, trailing a hand across the keys.
“This is your last chance to come clean.”
“I have,” I insisted. “My father and I were out gathering herbs when the knights attacked us.”
Sighing, the nobleman played a few notes. “Prince Set was exiled over a decade ago. He would be allowed home only when he prostrated himself before his father and begged his forgiveness. A tale you’ve surely heard.”
I nodded, though the groveling bit was news to me.
“That man with you looks strikingly like him.” His eyes narrowed. “But you claim he’s a mere thief?”
“Yes. If there’s more to his identity, he’s hidden it from me.”
The nobleman’s hands danced up the piano, playing an eerie tune. “Tell me. What do you fear?”
“Quite a bit.”
Lifting his hand from the piano, he marched toward me and grabbed me by the neck, hauling me from the bench and pressing my back to the wall. My hands twitched behind my back, desperate to peel him off. Pain screamed through my elbow.
The man’s color-drained eyes drank me in. He tilted my head, gaze running down my neck. “Someone’s tortured you recently. You hated it—being under someone’s control.”
My fingers curled into a fist, and my mind raced. How did I get out of this situation?
“You asked me about that girl,” he continued, tilting my head the other way. “Even in danger, your thoughts lingered on her. You wondered if she deserved her fate.” He leaned closer, mouth to my ear. “She did not. Her lover was an insurgent, and she was apprehended alongside him.”
He pulled his face back, and I searched every pore, trying to discern if he lied.
“Do you want to know what she felt, in those final moments?” He breathed. “Abandoned. Betrayed. Alone?”
Loosening his grip on my neck, the nobleman tossed me to the ground. I landed on my injured arm and gasped in pain.
“You fear someone you loved faced a similar fate,” he continued, drawing his blade and running a finger along it. “You worry he suffered, betrayed by someone he once served.”
Ainwir. My lip quivered. Gods, I couldn’t stand the idea of him suffering before the end.
For me.
“You fear losing someone who has lived in darkness.” The nobleman lowered his blade. “You fear your lover will betray you again.” He crouched, bringing himself to my eye level. “But most deeply, you fear what your torturer showed you. That this world isn’t worth saving.”
How did he know all that? Had I misjudged him, and he was a psyche after all?
“Let me show you what that girl felt, as she died,” he whispered. “A taste of what so many go through, though they don’t deserve it.”
Standing, the nobleman stepped aside, and another man entered the room. He towered above me, draped in a voluminous black cloak.
At first, I thought it was Seth. Hope leaped in my heart to see his familiar black waves and scarlet eyes. But the smile growing on my lips slowly faded as I took in his sharp features and bare chest.
Tattoos covered nearly every inch of his skin, but none matched the pattern Seth wore on his arm. And though his facial features were similar, slight differences appeared: his nose was broader, his eyebrows thicker, his hair longer.
This was his father.
The man Seth hated and feared—who he believed would inflict upon me pain worse than death.
Haimyx. The god of life and death.
Raising a hand, Haimyx dug his nails into his palm, and blood seeped from the thin wound. A jagged dagger grew in his grip, still slick with fresh blood. He paced toward me, and a drop fell from its tip onto my face.
I tried to rise, but he reached me first. His knee slammed into my chest, knocking me flat. I caught a glimpse of his face: familiar yet foreign, as he loomed above me and raised his bloody dagger.
He plunged the blade into my shoulder, effortlessly severing bone and piercing through to the floor. I shrieked, clawing at the blade to get it out of me. Haimyx’s other hand clamped down on my uninjured hand, pinning it to the floor as he twisted the blade into my shoulder.
The nobleman’s voice carried from across the room. “Tell me what I want to know,” he ordered.
My mind stalled. What . . . what was going on? How long had Seth’s father been here?
Haimyx grinned wickedly as he planted a knee between my legs, and my skirt hiked up my thigh.
Tremors snaked through my body as I gleaned the intent in his eyes.
Yanking the blade out, Haimyx drove it into my other shoulder. My hand went limp in his grip as pain flared through my chest and radiated down my arms. Gritting my teeth, I tried to stifle my scream, and it emerged as a strangled moan.
The nobleman knelt beside me. “Give me the truth,” he said gently. “And I’ll make it stop.”
I stared up at the red-eyed man, remembering Seth’s words. Remembering what he said befell women like me: a fate so vile, Seth had preferred leaving me in Phaedrus’ hands than allowing me the chance to happen upon his father.
Death would be a preferable end to whatever awaited me if I revealed myself.
Haimyx twisted the knife, and I bit my lip, drawing blood.