Theta

by Lizzy Ford

  Before he burned me, I had admired him and his mind. Being away from him gave me the ability to see how I’d played into his hands, and how I’d allowed my infatuation with him to blind me to the truth of how he was manipulating me. I wanted to hate him but was angrier with myself for displaying vulnerability that could be exploited. I was the last person who should have been the weak link in my rebellion.

  The front door of the house creaked opened.

  Herakles left his post to greet the guard entering.

  “I think we have to go,” Theodocia said, hearing the urgent whispers. “Be careful, Phoibe. You and Tommy are the reasons I do everything I do.”

  My anger and disappointment with Lantos melted. I’m happy we had this evening to talk, I replied and wrapped my arms around her for a quick hug.

  “Your Majesty!” Herakles called. “Time to go!”

  “Be safe.” Theodocia said and released me. She ducked out the back door.

  I hurried to Herakles, and we rushed out the front.

  “I’m going with the decoy car,” he said and pushed me towards the vehicle that had followed my command truck. My assigned vehicle was marked. If SISA or the military had found us, they would know to pursue it.

  The command vehicle was peeling away from the curb by the time I managed to climb into the backseat of the second truck. We jolted forward. I snatched my seatbelt and hauled it on before twisting to see who was pursuing.

  To my surprise, Kyros-Paeon was in the third row of the vehicle. Paeon was in charge. His blue eyes glowed in the light of the dashboard. Pursing my lips again, I leaned to see past him.

  Two dark vans rounded the corner, half a block behind us. They were new, uniform in appearance, and too well cared for to belong to random bandits.

  The command vehicle stayed on this street, while we turned left and headed back towards the highway. With a combination of relief and concern, I saw the vans chase after Herakles instead of my car.

  I faced forward again. The driver ran over a sidewalk and drove between two houses and through several backyards before we reached an access road to the highway. Jarred by the trip, I hung onto my seatbelt and bounced as the truck drove into a gutter and out onto the highway.

  Only when our path was smooth again did I release the breath I was holding. No one pursued us. The farther we went, the more concerned I became, when Herakles’ vehicle didn’t reappear.

  Wary of being exposed on the highway or followed, the driver exited off into the forest a few kilometers before the exit that would take us to the compound. Herakles had insisted on creating several back routes to reach the compound, in case one became compromised. Unfortunately, all the secondary routes consisted of dirt roads or no roads. The headlights went on, and we began another journey through mud, over fallen trees, and through uneven terrain in the general direction of the compound.

  “Something’s … not …” Paeon grunted as we navigated what felt like a trench.

  The hair of my head brushed the ceiling as I lurched upward.

  “Something’s not right.” Paeon warned in a quick breath.

  My attention was on the world visible through the windshield. Branches whacked the truck. The driver and navigator were both silent, their gazes trained on the terrain ahead.

  “We have to stop. Now.” Paeon said.

  Whether or not he sensed the danger at the house, or it was coincidental, I didn’t know. I hesitated too long. An odd sound came from beneath the vehicle, and suddenly, my world slowed down almost to a stop.

  An explosion ripped through the front cabin. Flames and metal engulfed me, while the warm blood of the two soldiers splattered across my face. A massive tree rose up before us, and then, I saw the darkness of the sky through the windshield. The world shifted fast enough to render me dizzy and disoriented as the truck flipped over backwards, landed on its roof, and then flipped again.

  Pain came from my abdomen, one leg and my face. I was helplessly thrown around in the vehicle. My head smashed into the window beside me, and the world became murky, filled with blood and darkness.

  Don’t let go. Someone had my hand. My eyes closed as the truck went over backward once again. Unable to fight the darkness swooping through my thoughts, I released my will to stay awake and plummeted into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Nine: Alessandra

  “How did I go from my room to here?” I whispered.

  I stood in the gardens at one end of the mall, just past twilight. My heart was racing, along with my thoughts. I sensed no danger and witnessed no additional ribbons that might indicate anything other than inanimate objects surrounded me.

  I was alone in the balmy evening, standing in a fragrant garden whose water fountains chattered cheerfully.

  I’d been in my room, stretching to go for a run on the treadmill in the workout room of my villa, since I wasn’t allowed to leave after dark. I blinked and then, I was here. I hadn’t set foot in the alternate reality for several days and instead, focused on bringing my power into this world, where it was far more useful.

  Twisting around, I scoured my surroundings for any sign Cleon was present, in case he was the one who somehow hijacked my power to bring me here.

  If my life were isolated with Leandra present, it became downright lonely without her. What was worse: I didn’t trust the servants Cleon had handpicked to manage my household and bring me food. He wasn’t going to kill me. Not yet, at least, but I couldn’t shake the fear he would try something else.

  Perhaps it was his presence in my head, which seemed a little stronger every day I awoke. The incremental increases in his control were troubling, but not as much as realizing – after two weeks had passed – his claws were sinking deeper into my mind.

  No one was around, which left me more deeply puzzled. If he weren’t playing with my power, and I hadn’t intended to transport myself, then what happened?

  I tracked back mentally to what I was thinking about when I was stretching. My mind had been on the forest where I grew up and how I used to go running with Herakles.

  My surroundings didn’t resemble the forest in northern Maryland, though.

  My eyes rested on the hollowed out hole where the Silent Queen’s palace used to be.

  The lady in white, I thought, interest spiking. There was a second forest, albeit a small one, past the crater. I had pursued the woman in white through the garden where I stood now, past the Silent Queen’s former residence, and into a thatch of woods beyond. I hadn’t thought to look for her in my world.

  I started forward at a jog, suspecting I wasn’t going to have much time alone before Cleon noticed I was somewhere not on his schedule, or before one of the Cleon-loyal servants raised the alarm. The compound was littered with cameras. Niko would have no problem spotting me. He was delighted by the opportunity to tranq me, whenever it came around.

  Crossing the mall, I went around the crater and to the expanse of grass separating the buildings from the forest growing inside the fence. I picked up speed and followed a familiar path, the same I had originally traveled in the other plane. Reaching the point where I’d tried to talk to the woman in white, I stopped and looked around.

  Stars were overhead, and the leaves of the oaks and maple trees around me whispered and rustled in a warm breeze. It was hard to see far in the darkness.

  Flashlight. One appeared in my hand, along with another tiny statue of Mismatch. I sighed. Whenever I used my power in my world, I managed to produce a Mismatch toy simultaneously. It was a physical sign of how much I obsessed over a man-beast I barely knew.

  Studying the statue, sorrow fluttered through me. I tucked it safely in my pocket with the silent promise of adding it to the rest of the toy Mismatches and flipped on the flashlight.

  “Are you here?” I called quietly.

  The alarms began to wail throughout the compound.

  Where are you? Why are you there? Cleon’s voice was becoming louder than my own internal monologue.

 
“I just need five minutes alone,” I grumbled.

  The lady in white didn’t appear. Was this area at all significant? Or just where she happened to be when I saw her last? Was I transported outside my room, because I needed to be here, or because my power acted out?

  A flicker of white, so faint I wasn’t certain I saw it, came from the place where the woman had stood the other day.

  Already, I could see the flashlights preceding the group of soldiers bolting in my direction from the compound. If I returned without making them hunt for me, I’d get off easier.

  The flicker returned and flashed out of existence.

  Or I could stay here and try to talk to her. Rebelling was easy when I knew I was probably going to be tranq’d either way.

  “Hey, trees. Do this Oracle a favor and give me some time to myself,” I said, half-jokingly. When they didn’t move, I assumed my magic didn’t quite work like this.

  I sat down on the ground, determined not to waste my trip out of my villa. It would probably be my last for some time, if Cleon were angry enough, which he felt like he was.

  The ground rumbled and shifted beneath me. Tentacle-like shapes beneath the surface snaked past me. I yanked my hands away from the earth, startled by the strange movement. Trees groaned, and I started to smile.

  The trees were rearranging themselves. They closed in around me in a protective circle, using their roots to pull and push them into position.

  “Amazing,” I whispered and raised a hand as leaves drifted down to me amidst the shuffling of the great trees.

  When the trees stilled, the green ribbons that gave them life automatically returned to me. I absorbed them with no small amount of awe. Not only had my command been seamlessly obeyed, but my power had also done what was necessary and then returned to me without me intentionally controlling it. I felt at odds with my magic most of the time. It was so intangible, so completely beyond my ability to understand and sometimes, to accept. I couldn’t begin to comprehend how it worked or why it worked in some instances and not others.

  This time, it was almost effortless to use it. I didn’t try to control it, and it had flowed naturally to do as I bid it to.

  All the effort I’d been putting into using my magic the past two weeks, since Cecelia fell into a coma, was paying off.

  “Thank you,” I said to the trees. Another Mismatch statue was at my feet, and I plucked it up and put it in my pocket.

  There was a lesson in the statues, or perhaps, a reminder of how important he was. A shout from outside the safe confines of my trees disrupted my train of thought.

  “Someone get a chainsaw or axe!” one of the guards bellowed.

  I stretched onto my back and closed my eyes, determined to find the lady in white.

  It was easier to slide into the gray world belonging to Hades than it had been before. All round, my magic was becoming easier to use.

  A mirror was opposite me, a direct reflection of where I was, except that world was filled with vibrant colors. I was on the wrong side – the black, white and gray side – of the curtain without knowing how to enter the correct side on my own.

  I walked towards the mirror and pressed my hands to it. Unlike a real mirror, it gave with the softness of the veil separating me from the other world. I couldn’t pierce it, though I tried several times in several different ways.

  “Hey, Cerb -” I started and turned my back to the mirror.

  The massive, three-headed monster was already behind me.

  I swallowed hard and backed away. “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I’m Alessandra, and I’m here to –”

  Before I could complete my sentence, one of the monster’s heads smashed into my torso and forced me through the veil.

  I smacked into one of the trees on the colorful side of the curtain separating worlds.

  Grimacing at the impact, I nonetheless waved at the monster. I wasn’t going to chance pissing off a creature that had a choice between dragging me to Hades’ underworld, eating me, or sending me on my way by telling it to stop being so rough. As before, Cerberus turned and disappeared into a dark hole in the gray mirror facing me.

  “Thanks,” I said with a grimace and straightened.

  Aware I didn’t have much time before Cleon’s soldier cut down all the trees, I glanced at my still body then floated through the tree fortress onto the other side.

  A dozen ghostly military police were gathered around the fortress. A couple of them sought some way of entering the tight ring while most appeared to be waiting for something. I wasn’t about to stick around and see how they decided to decimate my hiding spot and began walking deeper into the forest, in the direction where I’d seen the flicker of light.

  “Are you here?” I called again.

  A flash of light came from my peripheral, and I whirled. The train of the lady in white’s dress disappeared around a boulder inset with a dedication plaque at the center of the forest. Without stopping, I passed and darted around it.

  The lady in white was facing my direction, expecting me. Her unusual beauty left me speechless for a moment as I tried to determine what made her beautiful. Her features were too heavy for contemporary beauty standards. Perhaps it was the odd glow around her, how she carried herself, or the ethereal silk dress perfectly draping over her body. The combination was mesmerizing.

  With a shake of my head, I dispelled the odd enchantment surrounding this woman.

  “Hi, again,” I said and drew closer to her. “My name is Alessandra, and I think I’m supposed to talk to you.”

  As before, she didn’t speak.

  Her baffling silence and glowing presence reminded me of a video game I’d played in my early teens, where I was questing to find information from mysterious figures I stumbled upon during the course of my journey.

  The earth rumbled again, and I glanced over my shoulder. This time, the sensation was caused by a bulldozer rather than the trees moving.

  “Please,” I said, returning my attention to the woman in white. “Can you help me?”

  “You have everything you need to help yourself,” she replied in a rough, husky voice as strangely alluring as her appearance. It wound its way into my ears and through my thoughts.

  “I don’t really need any more fortune cookie advice,” I replied. “I don’t know how to use what I have, or even if it would work in my situation, since I have a parasite clinging to my power. If I don’t figure myself out, the entire world – every world – is going to cease to exist!”

  She smiled.

  “I could really use some specific advice, not a riddle,” I pressed.

  “I am the first. You are the last. I saw you, ten thousand years ago.”

  I. Couldn’t. Breathe. I stared at her until the sound of a tree crashing down beneath the force of a bulldozer reminded me of my situation.

  “You’re the first Oracle of Delphi. The one who opened the door for the gods to come through,” I managed at last.

  “Pythia.”

  “It’s an honor, Pythia.”

  She laughed. “In my time, and for eight thousand years after, we were known as the Oracles of Pythia. It was a sacred city of Apollo on the coast where I was born.”

  “Oh, sorry.” My cheeks grew warm. “I’m sure I should have remembered that from school.”

  “I prefer to recall a simpler time, when we were respected and certainly not tortured.”

  “You’ve been wandering around for ten thousand years?” I asked, horrified by the idea I, too, was destined to roam the earth as a spirit of some sort.

  “No. Hades cast me out recently,” she replied, amused. “Perhaps because he did not appreciate you trespassing.”

  “This is why I need your help,” I retorted.

  The first Oracle of Pythia laughed again. “Ignore the gods. They cannot harm our kind. They complain much but it is all wind. Hades cast me out recently, when I told him even he could not survive what was coming, if he did not free me. He cares nothi
ng for our problems, but he will not let his wife risk harm when she visits our world for several months a year.”

  I smiled despite my growing sense of urgency. I could easily believe the elegant, graceful woman before me could handle anything – even the ill-tempered god of the underworld.

  “I can guide you, but you do not need my help, Alessandra,” she continued. “Artemis has always looked out for us on behalf of her brother Apollo.”

  I glanced back and shivered, a little scared about leaving my body exposed when Cleon’s men were using a bulldozer.

  “You should be concerned,” the first Oracle said.

  “I am. Those idiots will probably run me over.”

  “No. Because of him.” She elegantly extended her arm to point.

  I followed the line of her finger.

  “This parasite can never control your full power, unless he is in your body,” she continued. “When you are here, or in any other plane of existence, he – or another spirit – can replace you. You must take care not to stay too long or go too far from your body.”

  Coldness streaked through me. Cleon’s spirit, yanked out of his body when I left mine, was hovering around me. He appeared as concerned as I was about the bulldozer and less interested in possessing my body. If he knew he could possess me and have all my powers, he would have done it long ago.

  “Is this what you saw, when you envisioned me ten thousand years ago?” I asked.

  “I saw much worse.”

  At the hushed note in her voice, I met her gaze. “The end of the world?”

  “Among other things.”

  My heart began to race. “Did you see how I can prevent it?”

  “I foresaw it is possible to prevent it. I foresaw those working to help you who may lead you to corruption instead and I foresaw the impossible.”

  More riddles. “What’s the impossible?” I asked.

  “I cannot say.”

  “Because you don’t know, or you do know and won’t tell me?”

  “Because this battle is one you must fight, and the choices you make will determine the outcome. I foresaw many choices and many potential outcomes. Only you will decide which one comes to fruition.”