The Year-god's Daughter (The Child of the Erinyes)

by Rebecca Lochlann

  Aridela noted with alarm how haggard her mother looked. Her skin was sallow; the dark circles under her eyes seemed deeper than before.

  “Are you well, isoke?” the queen asked. Even her voice sounded ill.

  “But for a headache.” One of the maids undressed her and carried her gown away. Aridela descended into the water, shivering though the day was sultry, and sank down beside her mother. A priestess poured consecrated water over her hair and murmured words of renewal.

  She was glad she hadn’t taken part in the more violent interlude of the sacrifice. Instead, she and several of the other younger priestesses sprinkled Xanthus’s blood throughout the lowest regions of the labyrinth. His mystical strength would join that of other kings in protecting the palace.

  “Did you use bee-balm?” Selene asked.

  “Halia rubbed some on my forehead before we left.”

  Helice put her arm around Aridela’s shoulders. “The laurel, no doubt, disagreed with you.”

  “Themiste says women who suffer no ill-effects from chewing the leaves are born to be oracles.”

  “Your future will be glorious, Aridela. I’ve never doubted that.” Helice stroked her daughter’s hair.

  Aridela suppressed the urge to say petulantly, Iphiboë’s future will be glorious. I will be buried in the mountain caves and forgotten.

  The only singular thing allowed to the cave priestesses was a lone handprint on the shrine wall, cast in red ochre dye. There were thousands such on the walls; the oldest had flaked away.

  Someday, her handprint would disappear too, long after all memory of her vanished.

  But she kept silent, not wanting to worsen her mother’s mood and knowing she wouldn’t feel so resentful if she weren’t exhausted and in pain.

  She glanced toward Themiste, who lay apart from the others. The oracle stared back, prompting shivers in Aridela’s spine. Could the Minos of Kaphtor read what she was thinking from across the pool? Called subliquara, oracles routinely learned the method of seeing another’s thoughts, but she and Aridela hadn’t played the mind-game since Aridela was little. Irritation buried her fear. Couldn’t she have privacy in her own mind, at least?

  “Our heroes were gravely wounded in the labyrinth,” Helice said. “Rhené struggled all night to keep them alive.”

  “If it were anyone else, they’d be dead,” Selene said in her blunt way. “I saw Lycus this morning; if Rhené saves him, it will be at the Lady’s will. But the Mycenaean’s wounds are less severe. She believes our new bull-king will survive and become Iphiboë’s consort, much as she may wish it otherwise.”

  Aridela bit her lip. Part of her longed to shout all of it—the night of passion, the perfect symmetry between Chrysaleon and herself. But no good could come of such revelations.

  “Selene told me Prince Chrysaleon’s guard is Carmanor.” Helice’s face livened as she turned toward Selene. “Did you tell Aridela?”

  “She knows,” Selene said.

  “I didn’t recognize him,” Helice said. “I’m sorry for that. I should have. Today must be given entirely to Chrysaleon, but soon, I want to spend time with our young friend. Perhaps he would share supper with us. Why didn’t you tell me this if you knew, Aridela?”

  “I only realized it yesterday.” Aridela felt the burn of Selene’s accusing stare. “He’s changed. I didn’t recognize him, either.”

  “All the more reason for us to welcome him as he deserves,” Helice said. “Fate has treated him unkindly; we must try to improve his lot. He’s acquired an imposing position as personal guard to the high king’s son. I always felt there was something of consequence about Carmanor. Idómeneus must have sensed this as well.”

  “Many cannot see beyond his scars,” Selene said, “but I don’t notice them.”

  Aridela struggled with guilt and odd pangs of something she couldn’t name. She kept her face turned away from Themiste and Selene, pretending to be absorbed by the waterfall. The intimacy between Selene and Carmanor irritated her now as much as it had when she was ten years old, which made no sense at all. She was in love with Chrysaleon, and the changes wrought in Carmanor were… disturbing.

  Neoma, delicate little Phanaë, and their mother, Oneaea, descended the path and entered the pool, murmuring subdued greetings as the priestesses performed their ritual cleansings.

  Helice’s moment of energy faded. “Nothing purifies my pain.” She rested her head on a pillow as a handmaid ladled water gently over her hair and shoulders. Tears trailed from her eyes. “It would have pleased me to spend the rest of my life with Xanthus. I know it’s selfish to say such things, but queens on Kaphtor forego much.” She wearily made the sign against evil, to prevent angering the spirit of Xanthus and forcing him to return for vengeance or mischief.

  “I remember one day when he, Iphiboë and I chased butterflies near the bullring,” Aridela said. “They were unafraid, and rested on the backs of his hands, on his shoulders, even on top of his head. They seemed to think him a flower filled with nectar.”

  Helice straightened, her dark eyes beginning to sparkle. “He appreciated simple things. Though he knew his life would be short, he cared only for bettering Kaphtor. He was an honorable bull-king.”

  “My father was a good man, too,” Aridela said.

  “You know he was.” Helice’s brief pleasure disappeared into a frown. “Don’t… don’t speak of him today.”

  “Forgive me, Mother.” Aridela wished she could take back the words. It seemed everything she said or did lately was wrong.

  “I saw Sidero as we left the palace,” Neoma broke in. “Does she always have to be assisted now?”

  “Yes,” Helice said. “Her legs no longer support her.”

  “She keeps repeating those words,” Aridela said, unsettled by the memory of the woman’s blank white stare. “What does it mean?”

  “‘The holy triad.’” Helice shook her head. “I know not, but it meant something to Themiste.” She turned her gaze toward the oracle. “Can you tell us, Minos?”

  “It has to do with old prophecy, my lady. Not something to be spoken of lightly, in the presence of so many. I don’t feel I’ve determined the full meaning anyway.”

  The others accepted this excuse and spoke of other things, but Aridela, glancing toward the oracle, was again disturbed by the way Themiste stared, so intently, back at her.

  Iphiboë, her brow graced with a green and white garland of myrtle woven around a circlet of gold, approached from the path. She walked on her own, though she did lean upon the arm of her handmaid.

  The maid removed Iphiboë’s gown and the binding around the knee. Iphiboë entered the water, saying, “Rhené told me there are minerals in this mud that will help the ache.”

  “May it be so,” Helice said.

  “It’s still swollen,” Aridela said. Bruising extended from the knee like tendrils of black-blue vines.

  “Yes, but Rhené thinks it will heal faster if I walk on it a bit. She has me bending it several times a day.” She floated to her mother and sister, sighing. “Mother, I heard one of Prince Harpalycus’s slaves is fighting with a farmer from Tamara, right in the palace courtyard. Apparently, wagers are being placed.”

  “Did someone break this up?” Alarm sharpened Helice’s voice.

  Iphiboë said she didn’t know.

  “I won’t tolerate impropriety in the Mistress’s temple.” Helice beckoned to the maids and waded toward the shallow end of the pool.

  “Send someone else,” Aridela said. “You’re tired. You don’t have to take care of everything.”

  “No, I want to deal with this. Both of you stay here and rest. I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Themiste said. The maids dried the two women. As soon as they were dressed, they hurried away.

  Aridela rubbed her eyes. “Mother is ready for you to be queen, Iphiboë.”

  “Xanthus was kind.” Iphiboë’s voice quavered.

  “He made the great sacrifice for
the good of Kaphtor, for all of us. Where would we be without it?” Yet Aridela couldn’t stifle a sigh. Why did the land require so much blood? It was endlessly thirsty and accepted only the blood of the finest men. Prophecy stated that one day, a man would be born who would become Kaphtor’s greatest ruler. His arrival would herald the end of the sacrifices. Kaphtor’s common language called this man the Great-Year-King; in the archaic tongue now spoken only by priestesses, he was known as the Thinara King.

  Aridela wished this event would happen soon, but it seemed unlikely. The prophecy had existed for thousands of years without any sign of coming true.

  “When we take the bull-king into our bodies, he becomes part of us,” Selene said in the calm, accepting manner of her people. “He looks out from our eyes; his heart beats as one with ours. Everyone loved Xanthus. Now he lives with Athene and her son. Xanthus’s earthly days were filled with glory and he has achieved everlasting paradise. He brought life to his people, peace to the earth. We’ll see his resurrection in the new crops that feed the next generation. What more could any man want than to become a god on the day of his death?”

  “He’ll never be forgotten.” Aridela made the required motions against evil even as she thought again, with regret, of her own father, Damasen.

  Menoetius squatted above the pool, concealed by oleanders and myrtle shrubs.

  He’ll never be forgotten.

  If Chrysaleon failed to end the king-sacrifice, he would be slain like his predecessor when the heat again called up Iakchos. He, too, would be reborn in the Lady’s magical paradise and pronounced a god. Chrysaleon. The idea was laughable.

  The back of Menoetius’s neck prickled.

  A halo seemed to surround Crete’s younger princess as she stepped from the pool. Water dripped off the ends of her black hair and trailed over the curve of her buttocks, leaving a wet sheen and a hint of rainbows.

  Thou wilt give to her the offering of thy blood.

  He was so mesmerized he barely heard the faint whisper flit through his mind. A handmaid wrapped her in a fine-woven linen towel, drawing out her hair from beneath.

  Though her body was now a woman’s, he glimpsed the innocence he remembered in the way quick laughter could fade to brooding grief in the time it took her to shake her head.

  Looking at her brought back the day he’d carried her out of the shrine. He still recalled how light she was in his arms. How she’d smiled even though she was bleeding to death. Curious, the fierce need to protect that kindled inside him when she lifted her small hand and touched the side of his face.

  It is she.

  The thought drifted like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight, unbidden, lazily. It was almost lost, dismissed as idle mind chatter, but as he watched her, realization avalanched as intensely as if a spear came from behind and cleaved him in two.

  The woman from his nightmare.

  Bound within an oak tree. Guarded by the lion.

  Aridela, daughter of Queen Helice of Crete, was the woman in that incessant, torturous dream.

  He fell backward. Salty sweat stung his eyes. What little he’d eaten he retched onto a pile of leaves. Thankfully, the lively waterfall drowned out the sound.

  He saw the woman in the oak. This time, she turned her head and stared at him. He shivered as though he lay in drifts of snow; the dream-lion growled.

  What seems the end is only the beginning.

  Incomprehensible alchemy had seized the child he’d known on Crete, reshaped her into a grown woman, and slipped her into a prophetic dream.

  He lay breathless, trembling, blinded in the dazzling presence of immortal revelation.

  The scent of damp soil rose around him. A bird pecked at its wing in the branches overhead, the sound so magnified it might be next to his ear. He stared unseeing into the hot blue sky and shivered.

  She’s alive. She stands before me. The woman from my dream is real.

  In the dream, the lion’s pelt sparked golden pinpoints of light. The oak’s trunk, covered with deep runes, gleamed in rich brown; spots of rust and yellow mold spattered the base. The ivy and poppies draping the branches were darkest green and vibrant orange, fading to palest pink. A silver chalice sat on the ground beside the woman, along with a basket filled with apples of purest bright gold.

  She breathes. Her heart beats. She’s alive in this world, the world of men. I can touch her.

  A shackle bound the woman’s wrist to the inner wall. She stretched, testing, searching for any means of escape.

  He’d never wanted anything so much as to reach her; no desire in his waking life came close. When he was caught in the mystery of the dream, he knew and accepted that he was bound to this woman, as closely as any man could be to a cherished lover or wife.

  But he couldn’t get to her. The lion barred his way. One step and it was on him, gouging, ripping, tearing him to pieces.

  Six years ago, Aridela was a child. After the lioness tried to eat him alive and the dream commenced, he’d never identified that child with the dream woman in the oak.

  Lifting himself on his elbows, he stared at her through the veil of white blooms, marveling at how truth disguised itself until this moment. Such things could only occur at the command of gods. No, not any god. Athene, Mistress of this place. She caused him to see or be blinded at her whim. He knew it as though she stood before him and told him so.

  No doubt Aridela’s difficulty recognizing him, even when she looked right into his face, had more to do with Athene’s will than his appearance.

  He watched her like a drowning man breaking the surface of water and taking his first life-saving breath. She peered at the waterfall with the same concentration she displayed in his dream as she ran her hands over the smooth inner walls of her oak prison.

  The woman in my dream lives. She stands before me.

  A roar, like sea tides running before storm winds, thundered in his ears before another thought intruded.

  The lion. The lioness.

  The woman in his dream, whispering. You will give to her the offering of thy blood.

  Had he? In the claws and teeth of the lioness? Had the Goddess commanded it?

  His heart raced. He shied away from the unbearable possibility.

  A woman he’d believed carved from imagination had kept him solitary, isolated for six years. He couldn’t even give his whole heart to the lovely Selene; such was the dream-woman’s hold on him. She commanded his single-minded devotion.

  Now Athene allowed him to see. She wasn’t a specter. She was alive. He could speak to her. Touch her.

  And, if he were honest, covet her. As he stared, lust overtook all notions of the noble champion.

  He could leap from his hiding place, send the maids scattering like sparrows. He could rape her right there, on the ground next to the pool. He was angry enough, with both her and her Goddess, who’d tricked him for so long, who played with them all. It would be done before anyone could interfere. He would be slaughtered, but he didn’t particularly care.

  He pushed himself backward and slipped. Pebbles and dirt cascaded down the slope. It sounded loud to him, yet no one below paid any attention. Kaphtor was as safe to them as a mother’s womb; it was inconceivable that a man could be spying on them or plotting mischief.

  Odd, this rage that set his bones shaking. But was it? Aridela was beautiful still. He was ugly. Once, he’d held her heart in his hand. Now she was repelled. How could he ever touch her? She would never allow it.

  And of all the men she could have chosen to place her hopes on since he’d last seen her, she’d picked Chrysaleon. She’d given herself to the arrogant, callous prince who could never love her in return, who would lie without conscience to achieve his own ends. Chrysaleon and the lion in the dream. Both kept him from her and made him face his cowardice.

  Alexiare often insisted that dreams weren’t small things, to be dismissed or forgotten. They were gifts or curses, a way for Immortals to communicate with the beings they’d created.


  Aridela, now dressed in a blue gown, waited idly while a maid combed tangles from her hair.

  Chrysaleon will find a way to lie with her again.

  His brother seemed fascinated in a way Menoetius couldn’t remember ever seeing before. But he knew it wouldn’t last. Chrysaleon would grow bored. He always did.

  Now that he’d recognized her, maybe he could stamp out the dream for good. Long ago, he’d saved her life; surely that was the source of the dream, of the need to protect. She was a beautiful girl, but there were thousands of those in the world. Selene for one.

  Even through his gritted, clenched attempts to dismiss, to calm his arousal, to flay the obsession of her out of his soul, his mind whispered on.

  I will follow. She is the one. The only one. I will never leave her again.

  There would be no rape. Not with her. Not ever.

  All day, while Aridela and the others rested and made offerings on the sacred mountain, Knossos resounded with its celebration of Prince Chrysaleon of Mycenae, who must now be thought of as Zagreus of Kaphtor.

  One of the maids mentioned assisting Rhené. Aridela pulled her away from the others and demanded every detail. The biggest fear, according to the maid, was death from the loss of blood, or, if he survived that, an infection of what little blood he still possessed, which often happened to warriors. There was also a serious blow to his head, causing him to fade in and out of consciousness.

  The news left Aridela nauseated with worry and fear. Lycus was in even worse condition; a penetrating sword wound threatened his internal organs. Celebrations in town should have been postponed. For the first time in her life, Kaphtor’s entrenched fidelity to tradition struck her as cruel and needless. It was almost impossible to lie in the grotto where she was supposed to be resting, and pretend no more than normal, detached concern. She returned to the palace as soon as was reasonable with the intention of visiting both contenders, but a messenger who found her first gave summons from the queen.