by Rae Else
Medea’s gaze shot to El. For the first time, El felt afraid of her. There was something wild about her caramel eyes. Had something she’d thought angered her?
‘I fear,’ Medea said gravely, ‘that extinguishing the evil of my children is a far more difficult task than even I imagined. Be careful, El,’ she narrowed her eyes. ‘I sense her still … in you.’
Medea ripped up into the air, disintegrating in seconds.
El stared up, her eyes wide, shell-shocked by her sudden departure and lack of explanation. Her mouth was still hanging open as her fury crystallised.
‘Come back! Come back!’ she screamed.
Footsteps rushed along the lower deck. Her screams had alerted the others.
‘El! El!’ Luke shouted.
She seethed with blinding fury. All she wanted was for Medea to come back. So that she could look her in the eyes and kill her. She started to shake. What was she thinking? She didn’t want that. Sickness roiled through her. She crouched on the deck, hugging herself, her nails digging into her arms and burying her head in her knees. No, no, no…
Luke knelt beside her, trying to get her to look at him. She gripped her arms harder. Medea’s words seized her: Be careful, El. I sense her still … in you.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She was sobbing. She felt the panic building in her chest, her lungs and struggled to drag in air.
‘El, El!’ Luke still called to her.
She didn’t want to look up. She was afraid. Her thoughts spiralled out of control. Where had that thought come from? It hadn’t been her. But … it had. It had been something … inside her.
‘Theon! Get her hands!’ Luke shouted.
Theon pulled El’s wrists behind her and pinned them tight.
‘Breathe,’ Luke whispered. ‘Just breathe.’
His forehead was against her head. She calmed and her mind stopped spinning. She felt the cold breeze biting the tops of her arms. She turned her head, looking down at her right arm, then her left. She’d pierced the skin with her nails: dug into them. The skin was raw and angry, blood oozing from the wounds.
She watched the droplets of liquid seep down her arm, wetting her lips, imagining the iron tang. Revulsion filled her, even as her eyes still lingered on the trickle creeping down her arms, her mouth suddenly dry and parched.
‘What happened?’ Luke asked, his hand drawing her face up to look at him.
Her eyes were wide and her lip trembled. ‘Medea. Medea was here.’
His expression grew fierce. ‘What did she do?’
El shook her head. ‘We talked.’
But words could do a lot. I sense her still … in you. The echo of her words pierced her with awareness. The anger she’d felt towards Medea: some of it had been her own, but it didn’t all belong to her. Her feelings and thoughts were being overtaken by something … by someone.
She felt another bout of sickness at the thought of the thing inside her. Rosa’s life force, her power, her Chi as Talus would have called it, had come to her.
But that wasn’t possible. It had gone back to Medea. That’s how she had managed to come back to them, wasn’t it? Yet even as she denied the possibility, she knew that something of Rosa was left over in her: a residual power.
‘Please, El, tell me what she did?’ Luke asked softly.
El was distracted by her fervid thoughts and hadn’t realised Luke had been speaking to her. Once more the blood oozing down her arm seemed as tantalising as a fresh spring on a hot summer’s day. Theon had let go of her arms and she ran her finger through the blood.
‘We need to get those bandaged,’ Luke said, bringing her back to the moment.
She nodded. She’d wanted to bring her finger to her lips to taste it but instead wiped it on her shorts.
‘Can I have your hoody?’ El asked Luke.
He shook his hoody off and wrapped it around her. She eased her arms through it. She couldn’t think straight, looking at the blood. She hadn’t been aware of scratching her arms until she’d calmed down … as if someone else had been in control of her body.
Luke was gazing at her seriously. ‘You need to tell us what happened.’
Theon had moved away a little, leaning on the railing tentatively as if ready to restrain her again if necessary.
A tremor of fear ran through her. She felt on edge about Theon’s proximity, remembering him binding her wrists. She felt something brush at the edges of her mind like a caged bird, its soft feathers touching the bars.
Don’t tell them.
El hugged herself again. What was happening to her? She tried to open her mouth and explain but each time she did, the malignant heat rose up in her and warned her.
Don’t.
Finally, El said, ‘I don’t know what happened. I was angry at Medea for not telling me more. For not warning me about what would happen today, about not telling me that Alex … and Talus would…’ Tears welled in her eyes but she blinked them away. ‘Then,’ she continued, ‘Medea got angry, her eyes were wild … it felt like she burnt me again.’
No … no it didn’t, El screamed silently from inside her own head, but she heard her voice continuing calmly, ‘I could feel the heat inside. That’s why I hurt myself. I didn’t realise I was doing it. She must have put me in some kind of trance.’
As Luke enfolded her in his arms, El didn’t feel the usual comfort from his embrace. She felt like she was sinking into the darkness again … drowning. Some other presence stirred beneath Luke’s caresses, preening beneath his touch. El railed against it and knew that she was trapped. They were both trapped in here and … Rosa was winning.
- Glossary -
Types of Arete
Arete
a.reˈti
Drakon
drá.kɔːn
Fire serpent
Hydra
haɪdrə
Water serpent
Ladon
ˈleɪdən
Earth serpent
Typhon
tiˈfon
Air serpent
Siren
ˈsaɪɹən
Water manipulator
Harpy
ˈhɑɹpi
Air manipulator
Aurae
ɔːaɪ
Air nymphs
Dryad
ˈdɹaɪəd
Earth nymphs
Hesperides
hɛˈspɛɹɪdiːz
Fire nymphs
Naiad
ˈneɪæd
Water nymphs
Arachnids
əˈɹæknɪd
Strength and agility
Ancients
Empousa
ˈem.pu.sa
Vampire
Gorgon
ɡɔːrɡən
Medusa, slain by Perseus
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the second instalment of The Arete Series. If you enjoyed the book and have a moment to spare, you would make this writer very happy by posting a review on Amazon. I really appreciate your help in spreading the word about arete and making their magic more discoverable to others.
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Acknowledgements
Thank you first to you, my readers, who have journeyed this far into the arete world. I am truly honoured that you’re here with me!
I’d like to thank Dave for his continued support and belief in my writing, as well as his creative efforts on my cover design and attention to detail in the line editing stage. Thank you again and again for all your help with my arete world.
A huge thanks to my critique partner, Don B, AKA Barbara Murphy Mar
der. You have been indefatigable in reading drafts and shaping book two. Thank you to Sam Nash for lending her authorial eye and beta reading too. I feel very lucky to have both of you awesome authors in my life and am grateful for your unstinting encouragement and kindness.
Thank you to my family for their interest in reading El’s story and helping provide me with early feedback. Particularly to Ronan and Ruairi Turner for taking my characters as seriously as I do! Also to Pauline Else for helping me develop the characters more fully and to Krystyna Korsak for talking the events of the story through. I really enjoyed fine-tuning these things with you guys.
Finally, thank you to the authors in the Facebook groups who have helped me introduce more readers to the arete world and been generous with their advice and guidance this year.
Table of Contents
Rites
Civilian
Wanted
Trojans
Unravelling
Fault Lines
Reflections
Scylla and Charybdis
Truth Will Out
In Our Coils
Live Fast
Pathways to Power
Kairos and Chronos
Suitors
Can’t Pretend
Fortune Teller
Island Hopping
Breaking and Entering
More than Meets the Eye
The Assembly
The Laws of Hospitality
The Book of Helen
Awakening
Helen of Troy
Fissure
The Calm Before the Storm
Unfocused
The Arete Council
Shedding
The Die is Cast
In the Blink of an Eye
Caged
Types of Arete
Acknowledgements
