Erolina tied a lifeline around her waist, then jumped over the side. She surfaced in the swirling waters, Storgen clinging about her neck.
“Thanks, Erolina,” Storgen coughed. “I’m not as good a swimmer as I used to be.”
“You did well, husband.”
Rodania and the amazons formed a line and hauled them up. They came up over the side and landed with a wet splat.
“I never thought I’d see the day,” Rodania praised. “Finally, our people will be free.”
Suddenly, Erolina’s face became pale, and her muscles began to tighten.
“What’s wrong?”
“This feeling…it’s coming back!”
A strange look washed over Rodania’s face, and she coughed up blood.
“Rodania?!”
The old amazon slumped over dead, revealing a javelin made of silver light protruding from her back.
“Rodania!”
Silver javelins thudded across the deck, striking amazons and sailors. Erolina managed to protect Storgen with her own shield just before one ran him through.
“Everyone, shields up!”
Metal clanged as more javelins fell down, biting deeply into the amazon’s shields.
Erolina forced herself to look up, her neck muscles tight and cramping. Flying above them was a giant hawk made of silver light. It settled atop the main foremast and changed shape into that of a man with curly golden hair and kind eyes. Above him in the sky, the eye of the curse wept and shuddered, being slowly destroyed from within.
“Krýo,” she struggled. “What are you doing?”
Several of the amazons fired their bows at him, but his hand became a shield and they pattered off harmlessly. “You shouldn’t have thrown away your trump card. That stone was the only thing keeping me at bay. Now that it’s gone, I can finish the job.”
Erolina painfully rose to her feet. “Krýo, you don’t have to do this. The curse is breaking. The amazons aren’t going to attack people anymore. There’s no need for you to do this!”
“Justice demands that the amazons be extinguished. The blood of countless innocent victims rise up from the very dust of the earth demanding it!”
The darkness was receding further into the dying eye. On the horizon, the burning shape of Themyskira became visible again. Krýo looked out on it with relish. “Before this day is out, every amazon who remained will be dead. All that will remain are the few on these tiny ships. All I must do it wipe them out, and your race will be gone forever.”
Erolina held out her shaking fingers. “Krýo, just wait and you will be free. The love you feel will no longer be turned into hate.”
He tilted his head. “You think that…”
He burst out laughing. It began as a chuckle, then evolved into a rolling, roaring laughter.
Storgen and Erolina looked at one another. “Oh, this can’t be good.”
Krýo tilted back his head and sighed. “So, you are my replacement. Tell me, did she ask you to nibble her ears yet?”
“You close your trap!” Storgen bellowed angrily.
“She also loves it when you pull her hair.”
“I said shut up!”
Lightning flashed as Krýo laughed.
Placing her dagger in her mouth, Apollonia carefully inched her way to the far side of the foremast and began to climb.
Krýo wiped a mirthful, silver tear from his cheek. “You never did ask me where I come from, Silver Reaper. It’s not surprising. The whole time we were married, all you ever talked about was yourself. I know your opinion about every single kind of pie, but you never even bothered to learn my middle name.”
“Stop saying that. We had a good marriage, a happy life, before the curse made a mockery of it.”
“Oh, the amazons made a mockery of it long before we were married.”
He looked off to the east. “Just off the coast of Lliólousto in Agadis, there is a tiny island. Don’t bother even looking it up on a map, it doesn’t even have a name anymore, but the people who lived there called it Lliólousto Lófo. That was my home. I was only a small child when the amazons came. They pounced on our little village in the middle of the night. Our men only had sticks and fishing poles to defend themselves, and they were cut down in the fields, their bodies left to rot and be picked at by birds. When the women and children resisted you amazons as well, you set the fields alight.”
Krýo’s kind features twisted into an ugly and hateful sneer. Behind him, more of the darkness was sucked into the eye, cracks and fissures appearing along its surface. “I watched, Silver Reaper, I watched as my mother and sisters burned to death when our hut collapsed on top of us. Didn’t you ever wonder where the burns on my legs came from? No, it never even occurred to you to ask, did it? Three weeks later, I was found by a passing fisherman, half-starved and alone. He raised me as his own. He thought I would have been too young to remember. But I did remember. How could I forget what I saw? What you animals did to my family. To my friends, to everyone who I ever knew! How could I love you, when you are drenched in the blood of my people?”
Erolina’s face was pained. “What…what are you saying?”
“You moron! The curse didn’t make me hate you! I have always hated you! I never loved you. I only pretended to destroy the amazons. When I saw you, I knew I would have my chance. A chance to topple you butchers from within. And you, my ex-wife, you were so desperate for affection, you were willing to marry me. Me, a complete nobody. It’s pathetic.”
“It’s…it’s not true. You did love me.”
“Don’t be so naïve. By tricking the crown princess into abandoning her duty, I destabilized your island. The amazons would have torn themselves apart from within, but then you had to go and screw everything up by stealing the heart of the forest for your mother.”
“Is that why you…?”
“Oh, so only now you’ve figured it out? I didn’t care about the nymphs, I was trying to stop your mother from consolidating her position. You screwed up everything, and it took me more than a decade to come up with a new plan to destroy the amazons.”
He held out his hands. “And now, there are only a few little boatloads of you left. My revenge is nearly complete.”
Apollonia snuck up behind him and struck, stabbing him in the gut with her dagger. Krýo grunted in pain, looking down at the knife protruding from his belly. “You can’t kill me, amazon….”
He spun around, the blade tearing his shirt open as it was yanked free. He grabbed Apollonia by the throat and held her aloft. The hole through his chest was now clearly visible, golden light pouring out from within.
“…like my people, I’m already dead.”
He looked at her strangely. “Apollonia?”
She gasped for breath.
“It is you! Such a strange way to greet your father.”
Apollonia’s face went pale. “My father?”
“Put her down!” Erolina pleaded.
Krýo reached out and touched her cheek tenderly. “You look so much like your mother did when she was young…”
Catching himself, he shook his head
Nearly falling over with pain, Erolina clung to the mast, meaning to climb.
“Please, if you want me to snap her neck, continue to come closer,” he warned.
Erolina growled and allowed herself to slide back down.
Krýo looked up at Apollonia with pity as he squeezed. “Because you are my own flesh and blood, I will give you a choice. Would you prefer a quick death by decapitation, or a slow death by strangulation?”
Apollonia hacked and coughed, her face turning blue. The fear of death caught her, and as she struggled, she looked out at her burning island in the distance.
“I…”
Krýo leaned in close.
Her eyes began to roll back into her head.
“I want to live…”
“Hey, Krýo!”
Krýo’s attention drew to the forecastle, where Storgen had a cannon aime
d and lit.
“That’s not how a father should treat his child!”
The cannon fired, the ball striking Lord Krýo in the face. His head exploded in a splatter of silver fluid. Despite her aching muscles, Erolina lept into the air and caught Apollonia, while Krýo splattered onto the deck.
Apollonia weakly opened her eyes. “You saved me...why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Because I love you.”
“You idiot! That hurt!” The remains of Lord Krýo rose up, forming silver tentacles that lashed, slashed, and based at those on board. Sailors were snatched up and hurled into the sea. Amazons were bound tight, wrapped with supernatural strength. Warriors from other ships fired into the flailing creature of light, but their shots merely sank into its gelatinous body, and they, too, were snatched off the deck by its long tentacles.
Erolina tried to move, but her muscles were now spasming out of control, writhing in agony beneath her skin. “Run, daughter…run, I cannot move.”
Storgen rolled away as a tentacle smashed the forecastle to pieces. “I thought you overcame your addiction.”
Erolina fell to her side, her back bowing torturously. “I didn’t overcome it,” she screamed. “I learned to live without it. But I will constantly crave it. Every moment, until the day I die.”
“That day is today!” Krýo said in a gurgling voice. One of his tentacles became a razor-sharp spear point, and he thrust it down at her.
Erolina closed her eyes, waiting for the death blow, but instead there was a heavy clang of metal. She forced her eyes open, and found Apollonia standing over her, holding a cannon in her hands. The glowing spear tip was embedded into the heavy cast iron.
“Don’t touch my mother!” Apollonia shouted.
“You will die! The blood of the innocent demands your execution! I will have my vengeance!”
The blob of light grew out in all directions, grabbing dozens of amazons at a time from every ship. Hundreds of tentacles filled the sky, holding their squirming captives tightly above the waters. Sailors fled, jumping into the waters and swimming away as fast as they could. Erolina and Apollonia were caught up as well.
The bubbling monster rose up to its full height, like a twisted tree, the hole through its chest glowing brightly. His face formed within the mass, cackling madly. Above in the sky, all the darkness had gathered into the trembling eye. It cracked and hissed, light and ichor spewing out of the fissures. All of the amazon’s chains began to burn brightly.
“THIS is for my people!” Lord Krýo roared. “The ones who you left to rot in the fields! The ones who you burned alive, even as they cried out to you for mercy! This is for the people of Lliólousto Lófo! Die amazons. DIE!”
He began to squeeze with unstoppable force. The amazons screamed out in pain, their armor and weapons crunching beneath the strain.
Then there was a sickly, slurping crunch, and the pressure slackened.
Krýo looked down, and found a fist plunged into the hole in his chest. He glanced back, and found that Storgen had pulled himself up his back, and was now clutching the heart of the forest tightly.
“No…” Krýo gurgled. “My revenge! They need to die.”
“They deserve a second chance.”
Storgen pulled hard, tearing the heart of the forest out from behind. The glowing tree of tentacles began to disintegrate. Amazons fell from its clutches, falling into the water and landing on the deck.
Above in the sky, the eye cracked even further, and for one excruciating moment, it was a thing of pure darkness, then it shattered completely.
Amazons swam to the ships, helping each other up and assisting the sailors secure the rope ladders. The burning chains about their bodies dissolved into ash, blowing away into the wind as if they had never existed at all.
For a moment, they stood there in shock, not knowing how to react. They looked at each other with strange expressions, a mixture of relief and amazement. Then one of them began to cheer. Another took up the call, then a third. All of the amazons cheered, falling upon one another. Many of the older ones wept openly. Many fell to their knees and thanked the fates.
Slowly, the last of the golden body burned away, leaving Kennid lying on the deck. Blood pooled out beneath him from the hole in his chest. As he struggled to raise his arm, his hand began to age rapidly, his skin becoming dry and cracked.
“Erolina…” he whispered.
Erolina drew near. His eyes had become milky white.
“Erolina, I can’t see. Are you there?”
She took his hand. His skin flaked away when he moved his fingers. “Yes, I am here.”
He let out a dry and coarse sigh, his face growing thin and bony. “I can feel again. For so long, I was numb with anger. It’s all I could feel…”
“But, the curse shouldn’t have affected you. You said it yourself. You never actually loved me.”
He nodded, his curly blonde hair turning white and falling away from his scalp. “That’s true. When we first met, I hated you so much. All I wanted was to see you suffer. Every moment I courted you, I had to fake a smile, and hide my rage. But somewhere along the line, it changed. I don’t know when, exactly. Maybe it was the first time I saw you hold our daughter in your arms. And I began to hate myself. I felt like I had betrayed my mother, betrayed everyone from Lliólousto Lófo for loving you. And so, when the curse took hold of my heart, I welcomed it.”
His legs and arms began to crumble away into dust. “I’m sorry.”
Erolina looked at him with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, too.”
His body disintegrated away into dust.
* * *
Erolina stood in a spot she never thought to see again. Before her was the great tree of Dasikí Chará, the empty knot where the heart had once sat. The branches were barren, the wood faded, yet it still clung to life after all these years.
She held something in her hands. It was neither mist nor spark nor flame, but somehow all three at once. A glowing collection of pure essence in the shape of a seed.
Erolina stepped into the dry cavity and knelt down. “Long ago, I took something that didn’t belong to me. I was wrong to do so. Please forgive me of my sin, and bring life back to this place.”
Erolina held out the heart. “I am sorry.”
The heart levitated out of her grip and merged into the center of the hollow. Fresh roots began to connect it to the surrounding wood, and faintly, gently, it began to beat.
Erolina wiped the tears from her eyes and left. Outside, Apollonia was waiting for her.
“Will the forest recover?” she asked, looking out at the endless expanse of brown wilted trees.
“I think so.”
“Will the forest nymphs return here?”
Erolina sadly placed a hand on her shoulder. “I hope so.”
“I don’t understand. You won. So, why do you seem so sad?”
Erolina forced herself to smile. “Sorrow is the price of victory.”
Erolina removed her hand and walked away.
“Wait.”
She turned around, and found Apollonia looking conflicted. “I want you to know that I was wrong about you. You are not who I thought you were. You are not what I thought you were.”
Apollonia looked at her the way she used to. “What you did was very brave. I want you to know that I’m proud…very proud, to be your daughter.”
Erolina’s eyes became moist, and the two of them embraced.
* * *
As Erolina and Apollonia walked out to the shattered remains of the docks of Dasikí Chará, they saw the nine remaining sailing ships waiting for them. On board, the amazons were making furtive conversation with the sailors. It made them visibly uncomfortable, but they were willing to try nonetheless.
Storgen was waiting for her at the end of the dock, and she smiled to see him. “I used to think that I had lost my honor forever. That it had been stripped from me, and the best I could hope for was to lie and pretend that I still had it.
I deceived everyone into thinking I was a proud warrior. Even myself. Now I realize that no one can take your honor from you, nor can they grant it. Honor is something you earn yourself, when you do what is right.”
She ran up to Storgen as he wheeled himself towards her, and they kissed passionately beneath the sunrise. Many of the sailors hooted in approval. The younger amazons looked on in fascination.
Storgen let the kiss linger on as long as he could.
“So, what happens now? I hadn’t really planned on anything beyond this.”
Erolina thought for a moment. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
Apollonia caught up with them. “Where do we go? There’s a rumor that the war has ground to an uneasy cease-fire. Some sort of plague.”
Erolina looked out into the distance. “So, Kennid did save the world, just like he planned to. As for us, I’m not exactly sure where to go.”
Storgen and Apollonia looked at one another. “So, what do we do, then?”
Erolina put an arm around each of them and pulled them in close. “We will survive. We will live. We will listen to the small voice in our hearts and follow it, wherever it leads.”
Gáta ran up and jumped atop Storgen’s head. The four of them looked out and watched as the sun rose above the horizon.
“The future ahead is unsure,” she explained. “The road ahead is unknown. But, if you follow your heart you can always be sure that where you are and where you’re heading is the right place to be.”
The End
Chapter Thirty Seven
What is the most important day of our lives? It is the day we are born? No, when we are born we are helpless and can do nothing. Is it the day we die? No, for when we die all we will do ends. The most important day of our lives, is the day we discover why we were born.
- Parable from the Holy Scrolls of Soeck, Fifth Binding, Thirteenth Stanza
“Agaprei,” Storgen answered as he lay in his bed. “It was always Agaprei. From the moment I was born, I have needed her more than food and water. She is my sunlight and my air. What voice other than hers could have reached me in void? Her feelings drew me up out of despair.”
Ambrosia Page 101
