by Lizzy Ford
“Docia,” he said and smiled at her. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”
“You have no business with Her Majesty, Lantos.”
I blinked. Lantos?
My Lantos?
It was the second major surprise today.
Theodocia started towards the guards.
Wait, I told her.
She stopped and faced me.
You’re Lantos? I asked the man, scrutinizing him.
“The same Lantos who used to sit beside you and watch cartoons. The same Lantos who saved your life when your priestess tried to smuggle you out of your quarters. And the same Lantos who brought you Theodocia,” he said.
The same Lantos who left me without warning and never returned, I said, frowning.
“Yes. That, too,” he said, smile fading.
“What is it you want?” Theodocia asked.
“To warn and help you.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart?”
Lantos ducked his head but was smiling.
“I didn’t think so,” Theodocia said.
I almost asked her how they knew each other so well, and why she never told me Lantos brought her into my life to begin with. Aware we weren’t in private, where we might speak freely, I resisted the urge. Day one of my reign was by far the most bizarre day of my life.
“We are defined by our positions, are we not, Queen Phoibe?” Lantos addressed me. “We must be diplomats first, people who understand the need to give and take and to negotiate.”
I found myself nodding. More questions hammered my brain, such as, where he had been for the past seven years and why he never came back to see me again. As a child, I hadn’t questioned who or what he was. He was a shadow that spoke to me and befriended me when no one else did. I didn’t know he had a form, or at least, I hadn’t known that before he mentioned the man who rescued me from the sidewalk after I tried to flee the High Priestess who treated me as a captive rather than a child.
That was seven years ago, before Theodocia, when my life was a nightmare, and Lantos had been the only good part of it. And then he did what everyone else before Theodocia did and inexplicably abandoned me.
You’re really Lantos? I spoke to him but looked at Theodocia.
“Yes,” she said reluctantly.
“I am,” he said.
I rose. We will speak in private. Without waiting for anyone to object, I strode past him, through a crowd that made a path for me, and into the hallway. It, too, was crowded, so I continued walking until I found the courtyard where the priests grew herbs at the center of the temple.
The full moon hung overhead, visible through a thin layer of yellowish smog. It was quiet and dark, and the garden was lit by a few lamps ensconced on the outside walls of the building. I stopped at the center of the walkway and turned to wait for them.
“I appreciate your attention, Your Majesty,” Lantos said, stopping a little too close for my comfort.
I gazed up at him, uncertain what exactly I felt, aside from a sudden flush of anger.
I slapped him. You abandoned me.
“I understand,” he said and touched his cheek. “I deserved that. Trust me, Phoibe, it took my world almost ending to keep me from returning.” The somber expression on his handsome face was sincere.
It sapped the strength of my anger away. I felt myself starting to fall into his green eyes again.
“I sent you Theodocia, didn’t I?” he added.
“You didn’t send me. Artemis did. If I remember correctly, she forced you to bring me to Phoibe when you didn’t want to by threatening to expose your secret,” Theodocia said calmly.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Technically,” Lantos said.
With a shake of my head, I moved around him to join the person I trusted most in this world.
“I’ve always looked out for you. Even your guardian can’t refute that,” Lantos said. “I’m here for you, Phoibe. To warn you.”
“Against what exactly?” Theodocia demanded. “This place is locked down by the royal guard, the military and SISA.”
“It won’t be enough.”
Theodocia stared at him.
Enough for what? I asked.
“The end of the world. Sort of.”
I studied him. I didn’t remember my Lantos being a madman but I never thought he’d abandon me either. I did recall how well he loved games, from board games to hide and seek to playing tricks on my caretakers. Was this a game to him?
“By midnight, everyone in this building will be dead and the city will be under siege.” Lantos spoke to Theodocia this time.
“From what?” Theodocia pressed. “What could possibly defeat our security?”
“Nothing human, for certain,” he replied. “But this attack isn’t from humans.”
I was starting to become concerned. First Death as my patron and now Lantos with an ominous message.
“I had a conversation with the Oracle of Delphi,” Lantos said when neither of us spoke.
“And you rated her attention how?” Theodocia challenged.
“It wasn’t an authorized visit,” he admitted. “But I can move through shadows, as you both well know. I spoke to her on a matter of a different nature, and in the course of our conversation, she gave me a warning for you and for Artemis. She’s the Oracle. She knew of my connection to both of you and asked me to come here and save the life of the Queen touched by Death.”
My throat grew almost too tight to swallow at his mention of Thanatos. Why would she send someone like you to warn the Queen of Greece? I demanded.
“Because she thought you might trust me more than a complete stranger. Who else would be here in this garden talking to you?”
“Lantos, do you really want us to believe the gods are going to attack this place, after the Queen just received a blessing from Zeus?” Theodocia asked.
“I do not know what the danger is exactly,” he replied. “The Oracle was reluctant to tell me. She said it would not be of a humanly nature. This, to me, indicates an otherworldly type of threat. I don’t have all the answers, Theodocia, but I do have a way out of the City.”
I had never heard of any situation this unusual. I was the Queen. But I didn’t know what the right thing to do was. Studying Theodocia, I waited to hear her thoughts on Lantos’ claim.
“If there is a threat,” she started slowly, “We’re going to leave through our means, not yours. With the queen’s approval, you will either be arrested and forced to accompany us, or you will leave this place immediately.”
Lantos smiled and held out his hands. “Arrest me. I don’t mind handcuffs.” He winked at me.
I didn’t understand what he was inferring and glanced at Theodocia, confused as to why someone would want to be arrested.
She rolled her eyes. “Gladly.” Waving to the guards lurking in the shadows, she glanced at me. “With your permission?”
I nodded.
“Arrest this man and prepare for an immediate departure of Her Majesty,” she directed.
“By air,” Lantos added.
Theodocia studied him. “Very well. By air.”
One guard cuffed Lantos while another darted away to inform our cadre of personal assistants.
“He goes with us.” Theodocia told the guard before she turned to me. “I need to grab Tommy. Would you like to come or remain here?”
I will stay, I said. I didn’t want to slow her down. The crown and scepter were causing my muscles to start to ache, and I couldn’t move fast or well in this dress.
“Quickly,” Lantos urged.
“Stay between them,” Theodocia said to the guard. She strode away, back into the temple, leaving me with Lantos and the guard.
I found myself studying Lantos once more, recalling how good of a friend he had been to me when I was younger. Theodocia once told me that it was almost impossible to understand the depths of anyone’s heart, even when we cared for someone and believed we knew them. I had l
oved Lantos for loving me when I had no one else. How had I not known he would abandon me?
Why did you leave me? I asked him.
He glanced at me, away, then back. “I had little choice.”
You could have told me farewell.
“You were a child, Phoibe.” His expression held genuine warmth. “How could you have understood if I said I had to leave and never come back?”
I thought about Tommy and what it would be like to try to explain to him if I decided to leave him forever. We lived an extremely isolated life. He had no real friends, aside from me, and rarely left my apartments. He wouldn’t understand – at least, not at the age he was.
I would have understood later in life, I told Lantos defensively.
“I believe you,” he replied. “Maybe this is as much about me as it is about you. Maybe I felt like I was doing you a favor by leaving you in such a way you wouldn’t want anything to do with me ever again.”
His words bothered me. I didn’t fully grasp his meaning – but I sensed there was more to what he said. Theodocia, who had more life experience, would no doubt understand, and I made a mental note to ask her.
“I’ve been asking myself why here and now,” he said and looked around, as if waiting for a monster to leap at him from the shadows. “Then it hit me. This is the one event every generation where the Sacred Triumvirate, and every other person of influence and power, is located in one place. Every twenty to thirty years, there’s only a three to four hour window when world leaders, every deity of consequence and the richest people in the world gather … right. Here.”
Again, I was left trying to understand what he was really saying. The coronation tradition had not changed in ten thousand years. What he said was correct, but how he said it left me uneasy.
“We should hurry,” he finished in a whisper, his eyes on the full moon.
Something in his expression scared me. We stood in silence for a full five minutes, waiting for Theodocia. I heard the distant thump of a helicopter, a sign Theodocia hadn’t just requested our transportation but had to have called in an emergency order for them to be in the air this fast.
She, too, felt something was wrong. Her relationship with Lantos troubled me, not because he brought her to me, but because she had never spoken to me about him. I had told her when I was younger about my shadow friend. I wanted to believe she didn’t bring up meeting Lantos because she didn’t want to upset me. However, after witnessing their exchanges, I had a feeling there was more than a simple meeting between them.
While young, I had learned the hard way, at a very young age, how to read people and to be cautious of their true intentions. I was in a position many envied and which led many more to try to use or influence me. I had dealt with enough people to know Theodocia’s reaction to seeing Lantos was born of deep distrust, the kind someone had to earn. Even so, she believed him about the threat. I struggled to reconcile how she could both trust and distrust him, or perhaps, trust his warning without trusting him.
It seemed likely they had dealt with one another on many other occasions. I was not entitled to know Theodocia’s personal business, but this wasn’t on the same level of Theodocia dealing with the father of her son.
Whatever was between Lantos and Theodocia, it seemed to revolve around me. I didn’t expect Theodocia to keep these kinds of secrets from me.
“Chopper’s coming,” Theodocia said, returning to the courtyard with Tommy in tow. She had an overnight bag slung over one shoulder. “This way.” Her gaze lingered on Lantos, and her jaw ticked. But she didn’t object to him accompanying us.
We hurried through the temple and behind it to a common park area inhabited at night by the homeless. My personal guard closed in around me as we crossed the street. Unable to hold the scepter upright any longer, I let my arm fall to my side then picked up my skirts in a very un-royal way in order to quicken my pace.
The deafening sound of the helicopter prevented us from speaking as we waited for it to touch down in the center of the small park. Theodocia left Tommy with me and trotted to the head of my guard, who stood at the helicopter. Releasing my dress, I took his hand, and we waited with my royal guard.
Theodocia soon waved us over, and we joined her at the helicopter.
Twenty minutes later, we were in the air over New York City. The passenger cabin of the helicopter was opulent, designed for a queen, with comfortable, dark purple leather bench seats that reclined, an in-flight entertainment system, small bar, and very private. A secondary cabin for staff and guards was at the rear of the helicopter.
Theodocia, Lantos, Tommy and I sat in the spacious main cabin, which was almost as quiet as the temple had been.
“Are you the queen now?” Tommy asked, gazing up at me with his large, green eyes.
Shifting my gaze from the City visible out my window to the little boy beside me, I started to relax. We had taken off without any sign of danger. I wondered if Lantos were here for some ulterior motive rather than to warn us as he claimed.
I am, I replied to Tommy. Like his mother, he could hear my words in his head.
“Just like the cartoon?” he asked.
Just like the cartoon, I confirmed with a smile.
“Wow.”
Seated across from me, Lantos smiled. “It’s rare for such a gift to be passed down,” he said to Theodocia. “Will your son follow you into the service of the gods, or his father’s less honorable footsteps into the arena?”
“My son is none of your concern,” she replied firmly.
There it was again. Another indicator the two knew each other better than I would have guessed. I knew the name of Tommy’s father, but not his profession.
Why are we here? I asked, pinning Lantos with a look.
“I was about to ask the same thing,” Theodocia said.
“As I explained, I’m not completely –”
“Fire,” Tommy said. He had his face pressed to the window nearest him.
I instinctively glanced out my window and started to ask Lantos another question when what I saw beneath us silenced me.
We were high enough in the air to see the entirety of the city. From some point below us, around the same elevation as the smog, streaks of lightning and fireballs formed and flashed downward. They smashed into tall buildings and were followed by massive explosions, rendered silent by the noise cancelling insulation of the helicopter. First a few streaks fell and then hundreds, if not thousands, of bolts of lightning and fireballs barreled out of the sky. The City erupted into pockets of fire and smoke.
“I’m assuming that’s why,” Lantos said in a whisper.
Brilliant flashes of light pummeled the City as we watched.
“Mama,” Tommy’s voice was shaky.
“Move away from the window,” Theodocia said hoarsely.
Tearing my gaze away from the surreal scene beneath us, I reached out for him and pulled the little boy into my lap. Theodocia twisted away from us to speak as quietly as she could into her mobile, no doubt contacting the royal guard commander in the rear cabin of the helicopter.
Everything will be okay, I told Tommy without understanding what we were witnessing. What else did the Oracle tell you? I asked Lantos.
He, too, appeared shocked as he stared out the window. “The end of the world. But I thought she was … I mean, who would say such a thing seriously? And if it were true, how could she not warn everyone? She swore me to secrecy and sent me to save you.”
Why? I asked. While I was considered one of the most important people on the planet, so were many of those in my company at the coronation ceremony.
“I’ve spoken only once to her, but I came away believing the Oracle says what she wishes and nothing more,” Lantos said, meeting my gaze. “She does not need to explain her actions, visions or advice to anyone. She said I must warn you today, after your ceremony, but before the end of the reception.”
And you agreed, even though it sounded crazy?
“W
e made a deal,” he said vaguely. “Not one I care to discuss. I warned you in exchange for something I needed.”
Lantos hadn’t come here because he cared. Why this disappointed me, I didn’t know.
“She said nothing more,” he finished.
“It’s not just happening here,” Theodocia said. Her ear was pressed to the cell phone. With her free hand, she tapped the touch screen controlling the entertainment system. The televisions in the walls of the cabin lit up, each of them with a different station.
“… this just in,” one newscaster was saying. “The Gods Must Be Crazy sitcom has been cancelled this evening. Instead, we’ll be covering the events in New York. It appears as though fire is being cast from the sky …”
“We interrupt The Bachelor – Olympian Edition for this important news update. Seconds ago, in Los Angeles …”
“ …fireballs over St. Louis? Arty, where are the reports …”
“… lightning struck down the world’s largest statue of Zeus in Miami, Florida …”
“American Oracle will not air tonight, though you can still vote for this year’s winner online. Please stay tuned for an emergency message from this station.”
Baffled, horrified and stunned newscasters struggled to explain what we were witnessing. Theodocia began flipping channels. On every station, across the country, news tickers and reporters were popping up on the screens with breaking news of the attacks.
I don’t understand, I said as I stared numbly at the reports from around the country of fire and lightning falling from the sky.
“The gods have turned on us,” Lantos said.
I looked from him to Theodocia. My mentor didn’t disagree with him.
That’s not possible, I objected. Zeus himself attended my ceremony!
“And brought with him the omen of death,” Theodocia said. “I don’t know what this is, but Artemis would never forsake you, my queen. Even now, I can hear her whispering to me to protect you. She promises never to abandon you. I can’t think the gods would do this, either.”
“Look at the city below. This is not the work of men, priestess,” Lantos said roughly. “And you, little queen. Your Bloodline is cursed by the very gods who pretend to be your patrons. How do you believe them capable of enslaving ten thousand years worth of privileged, chosen rulers but not turning on the humans who disappoint them? History is filled with instances where the gods withdrew their favors and lashed out at those they were supposed to protect.”
