“Where I’m from?”
Nyx chuckled, sounding almost embarrassed for the gorgon. “No, dear pet,” she said. “I’m not interested in your biography. I know it already, even the parts you’ve yet to live. I want to know what you are, or perhaps a better way to phrase it is I want to know who you think you are.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
Nyx sighed, dabbed her lips with a napkin, and placed her hands on the table. “This is going to be a tedious conversation if I have to explain every exchange,” she said. “That hardly makes for a stimulating time, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Agreed,” Euryale replied as she coiled her tail beneath her. The gorgon didn’t dare ask for further clarification as to what the goddess wanted. The subject had to be one of importance to Nyx, for why else would she ask about it? And at the same time, Nyx didn’t want a rote answer, one given to anyone, anywhere. So what did that mean? What could a goddess as omnipotent as she, quite literally the eldest of all the gods, want from her that she could give?
“I’m someone desperately trying her best to save her daughter,” Euryale said. When Nyx raised an eyebrow, ever so slightly, Euryale continued. “I’m someone who’s had more than she ever wanted thrust upon her shoulders.”
“And?”
Euryale hesitated. Nyx wanted more than the superficial. She wanted to go deeper than the Abyss. “I’m someone who’s petrified of being what people think I am.”
Nyx hummed a moment to herself before replying. “Interesting. What do you think others see you as?”
“A god,” Euryale confessed.
“It’s in your title, is it not? Goddess of Stone, I believe the honors were,” Nyx said. “A goddess with a seat in Olympus, no less. That’s hardly a title thrown to swine.”
Euryale felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she tried to laugh them away. There was no stopping where this conversation was headed. “What powers do words give, anyway?”
“Tremendous,” Nyx replied, not missing a beat. “The words you listen to are robbing you of all your strength, for example.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those awful words you torture yourself with, allow your mind to be forever preoccupied thinking about, have chained you far greater than adamantine links forged by Hephaestus himself.” Nyx paused a moment and swirled the wine in her goblet. After she took another sip, she set it down and stared through Euryale’s soul. “Tell me, pet, how did it feel when you cast those chains of doubt aside?”
“When?”
“You know when.”
“When I acted without question?”
“When you acted in accordance with who you are,” Nyx clarified. Euryale balked, and Nyx gave her a nudge. “You stood up to Hera, did you not? Challenged Typhon? Even when broken and defiled, you set yourself against Zeus. How did that feel, going from meek to unstoppable in the blink of an eye?”
“It felt good,” Euryale said, the words rolling off her tongue with ease.
“Is that all? I would think stronger emotions would have been elicited.”
“And frightening.”
Nyx settled back in her chair, shifting once to get comfortable. “Frightening? How intriguing. Do tell.”
“I don’t want to fail.”
“Fail taking power?” Nyx replied. “Not likely. Not if you set your heart to it, daughter of Phorcys, she who is blessed by Cronus and now called the Goddess of Stone.”
“No, not fail at taking it. Fail at using it,” Euryale clarified. “Fail at controlling it and watching those I love pay the price—or worse, not caring at all when they do.”
“You have a fire in you, pet, a wonderful, glorious fire that has the power to shape the world around you, and despite having a heart of gold, you’re convinced it’s blacker than the wings I bear,” Nyx said, much to the gorgon’s surprise. “I have to wonder: why are you so certain you’re destined for failure?”
“I don’t know.”
Anger flashed in Nyx’s eyes, and the feathers on her wings ruffled. “That, pet, is not true.”
Euryale dropped her gaze, toyed with her hands in her lap. The answer was there, skirting her conscious thoughts, but her mind wouldn’t let it in. To do so, she knew, would be to entertain her worst fears.
“Take your time, pet,” Nyx said, her voice soft and encouraging.
Memories of her father flashed through her mind. Some warmed her heart. Most did not. They weren’t memories she hadn’t known before, but they were memories that she realized, for the first time, had had a profoundly negative effect. And they were numerous.
“Power corrupts, makes people abuse and abandon those they shouldn’t,” she said. “I don’t want to be someone like that. Someone who can never be content.”
“Your sister craves power,” Nyx pointed out. “Will she abandon you?”
“That’s not a fair question,” Euryale said, recoiling.
“Why? Because it’s not easy?” Nyx said, tilting her head and looking at the gorgon as if she were a curiosity she’d never seen before. “I thought we were getting to know one another, and we’ve come so far. I must say, I’m enjoying this heart-to-heart you’re indulging me with.”
“I…”
“Don’t hold back, pet,” Nyx coaxed. “That’s not you. Yes or no. Will she abandon you for her own gain?”
“I would never,” Stheno cut in, slamming a fist on to the table. “How dare you suggest such a thing.”
Nyx drew back the corner of her mouth and arched an eyebrow. “Your sister has spoken, pet. Now I’m curious as to whether you’d rather avoid confrontation or be honest with someone who means a great deal to you?”
Euryale narrowed her eyes and glared, hating the predicament she was in. “Why do you care?”
“I’m genuinely interested to see which direction you’ll take at the crossroads,” she said. “There’s no going back, whichever way you travel.”
Euryale’s eyes drifted to the side and lost their focus. Her mind blanked for who knew how long, but when she eventually snapped herself back into the moment, both Nyx and Stheno were staring at her, waiting for her reply. “She likes to think she wouldn’t,” she finally said. “But she would. Eventually. Everyone who craves power does, eventually.”
Chapter Interview with a Goddess
Stheno dropped her jaw, and she felt her heart split in two. “How could you say that?”
“I’m sorry,” Euryale said, shaking her head and avoiding looking at her.
“Don’t apologize, she set you up,” Stheno said, pointing her finger at Nyx. “She’s toying with you, with us, for her own sick, selfish—”
Nyx snapped her fingers, and thick braids of copper rope wrapped themselves around Stheno’s wrists and neck and pinned her against her chair. “Shhhh,” the goddess said, placing a finger against her lips. “Childish outbursts have no place at this table. You’ll have your chance to speak, provided I needn’t deal with your behavior again.”
Stheno glared as her heart hammered away. Her claws dug into the armrests, and though she didn’t say a thing, she entertained fantasy after fantasy of how it would feel to slice Nyx’s face to ribbons.
“Before I get to your sister,” Nyx said, looking back to Euryale. “Indulge me in one other question. What of your dark side? I want to know more about it.”
“That’s a big question,” Euryale said, clearing her eyes. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“It is,” Nyx said, acknowledging the point with a nod. “I’ll spare you the gauntlet, for now, pet, since you’ve been so forthcoming. I’d like to know who you’re jealous of the most. Not the girls with pretty hair or anything of the like. That’s too obvious. Who has what you so desperately want, that you’d cast aside all your morals to be like? There has to be someone out there, otherwise, you wouldn’t have such a terrible fear of misusing powers gained.”
“Who am I jealous of?” Euryale said, repeating the question for her own ben
efit.
Nyx, however, seemed to misunderstand. “You’re not going to pretend you aren’t, are you?”
Euryale laughed. “I’m jealous,” she said. “By the Fates, am I ever jealous.”
“Of?”
“Those who had parents who didn’t treat them as an afterthought, and all those who don’t have to struggle as much as I do. Those who live their lives in peace, whose houses are in order without the world trying to constantly tear them down. Those who have families that only know love and laughter.”
Nyx smirked. “Such beings do not exist. You’re jealous of shadows.”
“Am I?” Euryale retorted.
“There are countless billions of souls who would swap places with you in an instant, goddess—to be free of the shackles of mortal life and able to provide the most basic sustenance for their children without having to devote a second thought.”
“I never said I had it the worst.”
“Even the kings and queens of the earth struggle, as do the gods,” Nyx went on. “Achlys spares no one, and one day, neither will Cronus. No one is free of strife and sorrow. Why should you be any different?”
“What of you, then? Who threatens your life? Heaps worry and angst upon your head? No one, that’s who. You, Nyx, will never know what it’s like to be me. So, spare me your sermon.”
Nyx leaned her head forward and made a steeple with her forefingers as she clasped her hands together and rested her chin upon it. “It seems, dear gorgon, we have come to uncharted waters, to my utmost delight.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means, I’d like you to teach me,” she said before nodding toward Stheno. “However, I have a minor conversation to finish with her first.”
“Are you going to loosen these bindings, or is this going to be more lecture while I sit still?” Stheno said.
“You’ve behaved well enough, I think, to set you free,” Nyx said. The goddess snapped her fingers, and the copper restraints fell away, leaving deep abrasions where they’d dug into Stheno’s wrists and neck. “Now, if memory serves, you’re insistent on your sister’s worries being misplaced, are you not?”
“Quite.”
“Oh, the games we play, even now,” Nyx sighed with a knowing smile. “Tell me, is your sister right not to fulfill her total potential? To grow her abilities and rule far beyond what she could ever imagine?”
“Yes, she’s wrong,” Stheno said. “That’s hardly a secret thought of mine.”
“And why do you suppose she does that?”
“Because she doesn’t understand that without spear, the quill is useless.”
“I see,” Nyx replied. She then drummed her fingertips on the table, her nails seeming to clack louder and louder against the surface with each repetition. After a few moments of neither speaking, she asked another question. “If I were to tell you I could easily make one of two things happen, Euryale on the throne or Cassandra made well, which would you pick?”
Stheno glared at the goddess. “I would never trade her daughter’s life for her ruling the world.”
“Oh, I know,” Nyx said as she leaned forward. “Honestly, that question was simply a lead for the next.”
“Which would be?”
Nyx flashed a devilish grin, and the twinkle of mischief shined in her eyes. “What if she weren’t the one who overthrew Zeus, but you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said,” Nyx replied. “That’s a future I could make happen as easily as any other. The Olympians, even if they all stood together and were a thousand times stronger than they are now, could not abate my wrath should I set my face against them. You could rule, Stheno, if I desired such a thing—you, who understands that indeed the spear is needed as much as the quill.”
Stheno felt her face blank, and as she tried to figure out whether or not Nyx was serious or if this were hypothetical, Euryale jumped in. “She can’t,” she said. “Cronus wants me on the throne.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, dear pet,” Nyx said, keeping her gaze on Stheno. “He merely likes the idea of a gorgon on the throne, and as you can see, there is more than one to choose from now.”
Stheno set her jaw in response. It had to be a trick, all of it. Another trick by another deity having her fun with them. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”
“Manners, gorgon, manners,” Nyx said, raising a finger. “If not for your own sake, then for your sister’s, or more importantly, Cassandra’s.”
Stheno pressed her lips together as her vipers drew back, longing to strike. Her spear, which lay at her feet, called to her, promising revenge with a simple throw. And at this range, she wouldn’t miss. But that was wishful thinking, she knew. She had to be stronger. Had to be smarter, more powerful. She had to wield Chaos itself if she were going to be taken seriously by Nyx, and sadly, that was a day she hadn’t reached yet. “I want my niece restored,” she said evenly. “And I do not appreciate you suggesting otherwise.”
Nyx chuckled before sipping her wine. “You try, pet, you try,” she said. “I’ll grant you that. But where Euryale keeps her jealously close to her heart, hidden from all, you, gorgon, wear it as plain as the vipers on your head. You’ve said it yourself. You’re jealous of her strength. I believe your exact words were, ‘This is so unfair. The Fates give you all this power, and you waste it.’ Feel free to correct me if I misquoted you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Let’s not let lies become us, pet.”
Stheno stood, eyes narrowing, claws digging into the table, fighting every fiber of her being not to impale the goddess with the spear at her feet. “I’m. Not. Lying.”
Nyx calmly dabbed her lips with her napkin before easing to her feet. “A wager, then, to put a cap on a—unique—conversation. You prove me wrong, and I’ll deliver the flower to you myself, but should you—”
“Done.”
Nyx cocked her head. “You don’t want to hear the rest?”
“I don’t need to,” Stheno said. “I’m not afraid.”
“And that is why Euryale’s fear will be realized.”
* * *
Stheno fell, catching herself on her hands and knees. A second later, her stomach emptied. When her world stopped spinning, she realized she’d nearly flattened out on a floor made from immaculately cut obsidian bricks in the middle of a long hall that seemed to stretch out to infinity in either direction.
A light fog blanketed the floor at ankle height, and both the smell and taste of copper hung in the air. Sconces made from wood and iron lined the walls, spaced at regular intervals of a couple of dozen yards, and an arched ceiling loomed over her by at least thirty feet.
The gorgon scowled as she pushed herself up and took to her feet, and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before trying to rid herself of the taste of bile with a spit.
“Hardly noble behavior, pet,” Nyx said, coming up from behind. “It’s no wonder you’re hardly taken seriously.”
“I’m serious enough to hold your attention,” Stheno said. “And by all means, turn your back if you think I’m not.”
Nyx chuckled, and as she walked on by, she reached out and played with the vipers on Stheno’s head. “You hold my amusement, pet, nothing more,” she said, presenting her back to the gorgon as she headed down the hall. After she got a few yards, she glanced over her shoulder and used a hand to bid her follow. “Are you coming? We have a flower to collect. Or are you going to stand there like a child and throw a temper tantrum?”
Stheno shook her head and rolled her eyes before starting forward. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said. “I’m not stupid.”
“And what am I trying to do?”
“Work me up, so I’ll lose this wager of yours.”
“I don’t need to do anything but let you be you,” Nyx replied.
The ground shifted beneath the gorgon’s feet, and the hall they walked down dissolved, givin
g way to a forest full of bare trees clothed in gnarled, yellow bark. With every step they took, the wood groaned, and the twisted limbs bent back.
“Even the trees want nothing to do with you,” Nyx remarked, motioning toward them. “Funny, isn’t it?”
“Or maybe it’s you they abhor,” Stheno countered.
The Goddess of Night shrugged. “Perhaps. But unlike you, I won’t let it bother me. I know my place in the world.” Nyx paused and took in everything that surrounded the pair. “Did you know Ceto once walked this place?”
Stheno felt her body stiffen at the mention of her mother’s name. She tried to keep a flat affect, but no doubt failed. “No, I didn’t.”
“She came here, not long after the three of you were born, trying to find the River of Chaos,” Nyx went on, gesturing to someplace far off and unseen. “She traveled, desperately wanting to wash the stench of disgrace from her body as no amount of scrubbing could make her feel whole again; that’s a stench your sister is all too familiar with, as of late, if I’m not mistaken.”
Stheno’s hands tightened at her sides. She’d never known much about her mother, only that she and Phorcys were her parents, both being primordial deities of the sea. Despite her lack of a relationship with her, what Nyx insinuated could not go unanswered. “Are you saying our father raped our mother?”
Nyx broke into deep, dark laughter, and once she calmed pity filled her eyes and a sickly sweet smile spread across her face. “No, pet,” she said. “She peered into your future and was so ashamed at what she saw—a needy, utterly dependent daughter who’d never amount to anything worthwhile—she dove into Chaos, only to be torn apart by the unfathomable forces contained within.”
“You lie.”
Nyx’s face lost any trace of levity, and she cocked her head. “I have no reason to lie. I’m not the one who can’t face the truth. You are.”
For the first time since she could remember, Stheno felt tears sting her eyes. “I’m going to kill you,” she said, quickly turning that sorrow into anger.
“Promises, promises,” Nyx said, walking off.
A Storm of Blood and Stone (Myths of Stone Book 3) Page 20
