I freed a hand and raised it. His eyes widened a degree, and it was all I needed. My body swelled with power, but it topped out, and ended, flattening and whisking away from my center.
My fingers curled. I longed to strike him. He’d lied to me. It was all a lie. I saw it in his eyes. For once, the real Alec was standing there and not some sort of sweet guardian who massages my hair from its bindings.
I’d surprised him, too. We both would do what we must to survive. It left no room for whatever….I’d thought might be between us. “Never again, Alec,” I hissed, fury making my voice shake. He blinked at me, but I was too shaken to care that I’d won a small battle between us. “Don’t you ever lock me in a room like that again.” My voice rang with the clattering of the power in my veins.
It took everything in me not to test it once more. Alec saw it, his face now turned granite, and waited for me to brave the chance. Instead, I shoved away from him and fled down the hallways.
My heart beat as fast as a mortals. I wasn’t sure if it was an omen or a truth I felt, but it was something to do with my sister. It was dark where I thought of her. I knew that she needed me or would need me.
I raced to my rooms and threw open the door. “Cenia,” I called and then quieted when I found her sitting at the table with nymphs all around her, toying with her golden hair, and rubbing her golden feet.
Aphrodite was there too, sitting across from Cenia, Eros at her calves.
“Sister,” Cenia said, eyes and face bright with joy.
I was so surprised at her rising to come to me, that I balked, staring at the others before Eros rose to his feet and approached me. “Isn’t her hair glorious?” he asked, and he reached for my mane with elegant fingers. His voice, soft as a flower petal, was tinged with awe. “My queen,” he crooned to Aphrodite. “Should I make a poem about the titan-blood’s hair?”
Cenia clapped. “Oh yes! Can he?”
Aphrodite smiled, and though it was unmarred in any way, it was perfectly brittle as well. “Certainly,” she said.
I heard little of his recitation because I was busy staring at the heaps of presents on my sister’s side of the room. “From Apollo,” Cenia said. “More come every moment.”
But she didn’t seem as thrilled by that, rather, she returned to her seat and was reading something. “What is it?” I asked her and she hid it away. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Aphrodite,” she called. “Have you seen my sister’s owl? Come, he’s huge and he’s flying just now.”
Eros held some of my hair, still singing my praises, but I gently pushed his hands away. He pouted prettily then went to the balcony with the rest. They all stood out there together while I quickly read a letter to my sister that must’ve been from Apollo. He spoke of her charms and wit. Interesting, the wit part. He said she was far more beautiful than any queen and that he wished to keep her. The rest was written in a masculine type lyric, pure lewdness, but in a poet’s hand about her body.
I flushed reading it. Her hair was a halo, and her breasts were like mounds of victory. Her skin as a dove’s feathers, stomach and thighs the plains on which he’d hold battle for what was held between them. And there he would find what was more precious than jewels, a place to conquer. A place to find his rest. He asked her to cradle him there between perfect legs for all of eternity and I fanned myself. Gorgeous, the wording, and more than I had guessed Apollo capable.
Not that I knew him.
A woman arrived at the door bearing more gifts. These were clothing of the finest silks. “Apollo sends me to dress your sister,” the woman said, and I nodded letting her in.
My sister went to her and sat without so much as a thank you, letting the woman start to fix her hair. My room no longer felt like my room, so I hovered at its edges until I saw my owl there waiting for me.
I went to the balcony and found that Cenia was right, my owl was flying and diving and swooping just out of reach. I held out a hand, but he remained. He didn’t come to me and I sighed, leaning on the railing.
“This view,” Aphrodite said, moving gracefully to my side. “It’s breathtaking is it not? I’ve stayed in these rooms more times than I can count.” She propped her round hip on the edge and watched me instead of the view.
I frowned but didn’t rise to the bait. Perhaps it was at gatherings when she’d stayed. Perhaps it was in Arman’s arms. Or Alec’s. Even after rest, the blue flower made me sleepy, and I was too tired to care.
She murmured huskily, “Even the king’s room doesn’t give you such a bird’s eye-view.”
This time, I turned to face her, and saw that she was braced for a reaction. Wisely, I gave her none.
“He does this, you know,” she said quietly, and sadly. “One moment you’re all he sees and the next… He’s so kind, you think it’s love or something close. The next he’s back to whatever it is that drives him to this human living madness.” She shrugged, but it was petulant. “Alec is not made for the type of romances of the young. The “forever” type of love doesn’t work for those from the underworld most usually, but the King of Men, he especially takes relish in not linking himself to another.”
When I didn’t respond still, she cut me as deeply as she could. “He has taken in more than one…broken winged bird. You are not the first, Freya, and not the last. Go ahead, ask him about the other poor maidens caught up in his world. Perhaps you should be very careful with yourself.”
I spoke in hushed tones. “Hades and Persephone seem to be the exception. They seem to love and are of the underworld.” Bile moved to my throat as I heard how hopeful I sounded. And for what? For love from Alec? How terribly naïve and stupid.
Hadn’t I seen Hades kidnap Persephone first? Perhaps her enduringness was rooted in agony.
And Alec, had he not done the same thing, taking me and my sister? Had I not seen his darkness just moments ago? He had barred me from freedom. Perhaps it was a test. Perhaps it was for protection. But he’d do it again, of that much I was certain.
She moved her curling hair away from her face until the locks floated around her once more as a cloud. “They are one in thousands and more. None other have their devotion. Alec, most of all.”
“Why would you warn me?” I surprised her with honesty. “You think this is love? I danced with the king. That’s all. I’m his prisoner.” I lifted my hands and she saw the scratches healing there.
“You are a fool.” She smiled, but it was still brittle. “What could a man love more than total and complete control? Except, that grows tiresome and he will bore of having you so easily. Not that he would let you go. His hatred for your father will be like a poison between you. It will breed more than you shall, I wager.”
I could see a poison, all right, and I was shocked by how much I believed about my situation. But Aphrodite was jealous of his affection for me. Why? I couldn’t see Alec with the queen whatsoever. I could not see the queen lowering herself to an immortal who brought himself so close to mortals.
Then again, I knew so little of this world, and Aphrodite…here she was. Jealous. Of me.
The thought of them together was so repellent I rejected it straight away.
A man approached my place and he told me he had a message for me from the king to meet him in the stables. “He’s asked if you would dress for riding.”
I was angry with Alec and I wanted to say no, but with Aphrodite watching, the pettiness won over. “Yes, I think a ride with the king would be lovely.” My teeth were clenched and…well, now who was the jealous one, Freya?
“Heed my warning, titan-blood,” she called to my back, and I kept walking.
With each step, I felt as though I perhaps had misread the king. Aphrodite’s splinter of doubt wormed its way inside of me with ease. She was right. I knew that she told what she thought was the truth to me on that balcony like I knew my own right hand, but which parts? The poisoning parts. Those parts.
The stable’s smell swept away the fear and doubt and r
eplaced it with something much more peaceful. Horses and the sounds of mortals working away brought me to another existence, a much less political one.
Alec was mounted and he motioned at my dress. “Will you ride in that?”
“Oh.” I changed my clothing with thought, and he laughed.
“That is much better,” he said dryly, and I must confess, it was a tad overdone.
Perhaps it was too fancy for the occasion and I blushed because I had obviously wanted to look nice for him. My hair, however, was still down and I had nothing for it.
“What would you have me wear, my liege?” I offered, giving a hearty bow that made Alec throw his head back and roar with laughter.
This time I saw it for what it was. Alec would laugh and smile and massage a sore spot on my head, all the while, hiding behind those actions what he really was. I didn’t think Alec was evil, not on purpose. But I didn’t think he wasn’t evil either.
He sat wheezing in his saddle until I sighed. “It wasn’t that funny.”
“It was. You were, only seconds ago, raging at me in all your glory, Freya. Then you bow and simper in jest, but like a venomous viper ready to strike my heel.”
Ah. So, he too saw the same thing in me. Was it possible? Were we a pair of liars?
My gaze snapped to his. Venom… It brought to mind poison and the discussion I’d just had. His eyes sparkled as if daring me to ask. There isn’t anything the king doesn’t see a hundred ways…. Arman’s words were still true.
My frustration won the day. “What would you have me wear, Alec?” I said flatly, deflated by so much perspective of my situation in one hour that my naïve mind was at war.
“Nothing.” Then his cheeks held a glow, because he’d not meant it, even though perhaps another time he might. He’d spat the word at me in irritation, not to mean that I should undress myself.
Still, the stable lads all scampered away when they heard it very much sure that the immortals would do such a devious thing right here and now.
“I meant only,” Alec offered, fixing his reins that needed little fixing. “I would prefer we damper ourselves as humans for the time being. Do you know how to do that?”
“Of course not.”
“All right. I’ll go first.” Alec was Alec and then at once he was dimmer. Still an appealing version of himself, but now I could smell his sweat and hear his heartbeat. He was wearing the clothes of a landowner, not quite a peasant, but nothing so royal as to gain notice. I had learned many things lately in my study of his palace. His eyes were still the same, but when he smiled, the sharp points on his two teeth were gone.
“Oh my,” I said. “I’m not sure…”
“Try it.”
I closed my eyes, and Alec coached me through the process. I failed at first, but he quietly instructed me again and again. Soon, I was tanned skin, hair much shorter, only to my back, and my clothes were a simple dress, itchy, but I was still me.
“Can I be hurt like this?” I stared at my strangely lined hands. Hands that had aged and not healed over time.
“Yes. You can. So be very careful. Come.”
And Alec didn’t even bother to try to give me another horse. He simply pulled me onto his white one, and we rode from the stables and onto the beach where Cenia had stolen the shell that brought us here. Where I had killed a man in the waves not knowing how to touch a human without harming them.
And now, I was one.
The horse was spirited, and I clutched his mane, tangling my fingers in it, and gripped him with my legs fearfully. I could fall and break my neck. Would I die? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
This animal was not a tried and true veteran, and it was obvious when he bucked beneath us and threw his head at the sound of the waves. “What’s wrong with him?” I cried, imagining myself tossed off, left bleeding on the sand with every equine rebellion.
“He’s young. Full of vigor. I’d give him his head, but you would need to let go. You’ve spooked him, Freya.”
I let the animal go and Alec immediately tightened his arm around me, before he gave the reins away and clapped his legs. The horse snorted, a magnificent animal that was a ball of muscle. He realized his freedom and took off.
We flew over the sand and the animal relaxed, his rhythm increasing, while his anxiety lessened.
“I’ve got you,” Alec said near my ear, and I finally relaxed against him so that my hips could move with the back of the horse and with Alec’s hips in time.
Loving the feeling of flying in this impossible body, I grinned.
The horse found a new pace that was beyond anything else I’d ever felt. I flew without wings. With my hands out, I pretended I was. Me. Freya. Who’d walked on the face of the moon. Even so, this was somehow more thrilling.
Alec chuckled, his chest against my back, his thighs flush to mine, his pelvis thrusting with each gallop. I was as keenly aware of his body as I’d never been before, and darkly sure that no matter how wary I would become of Alec and his pretend charms, I would always perhaps give in to them.
I knew where we were as we flew past the place right in front of the balcony. Aphrodite, I would later learn, had watched from above. They all had. And Cenia would tell me how she’d waved at me and delighted in seeing our race across the sand.
When we arrived where we were going, the same village in fact that Arman had taken me not so long ago (even if it felt a lifetime), Alec slowed the horse, and patted his neck. “He’s going to be much better now. Aren’t you, boy?”
The animal tossed its head and Alec smiled.
“That was….amazing,” I said, my voice young and human. My color was high, I knew.
Alec tilted my chin and gazed down at me, his rough stubble brushing my cheek. “Yes,” was all he said.
We dismounted and Alec was very careful with me. We were graceless beings now, tossed to and fro by the natural order of things. One wrong move, and we’d fall into putrid death like the rest of them. But even so, I was high on the idea of every breath meaning something.
I longed to grab his hand and make him look at me. Really look at me. To say to him, “I get it now. I truly do. You love them and you love being one of them.” But instead, I followed him as he led me to the market.
This time, I wasn’t beckoned by mortals or trapped. This time, no one stared at me or offered me things. I was just like them. Men did look at me, glancing again a second time, so I knew that perhaps I held still some unnatural beauty, but Alec…oh Alec was a man through and through. A virile one, but still, loose limbed and free of responsibility. It shone in his eyes more than the power of his immortality ever had. Women and girls everywhere watched him. The longing on their face was beyond a casual observer. Even muted, he drew them in.
My stomach made obscene noises, and Alec took my hand and pulled me up to a vendor with sizzling meats. The king let me choose things to eat in this form, and then we sat and feasted. No one would recognize him, and I was so different in this mortal body.
I ate with relish, my taste buds full. The wine wasn’t the special wine, but it sparked on my lips and mouth, and I licked the drops off my cup and poured it all down the back of my throat with big gulps. Sweets were too sweet, salt too salty, and sour, and bitter, and all of it overwhelmed me. Alec bought me a syrup that stuck to my teeth and said he knew he’d enjoy watching me eat it, whatever that meant.
It was work to wear it down, but I kept at it because it tasted divine and I couldn’t get enough.
All the while hooded green eyes watched me. My lips, my throat, and lower. My form was very usual in this way, but Alec could not seem to look from it, and so I heated from his glances until sweat dampened my skin.
“Am I so lovely?” I teased, licking another sweet out of cream, and he breathed deeply, answering, “Never more.”
“Then maybe I should stay like this forever.”
Alec wiped cream from my nose, and I smiled.
“To be honest,” he said, his cat eye
s slitting. “I am surprised you were even willing. Most will not dim their power. Most don’t want to live as a mortal for even a second.”
“Why not?”
“They are afraid that those who worship them might stop. Seeing them so low perhaps the reverence goes.”
“And you?”
He scoffed, watching a sultry young lady sashay in front of us for the tenth time. “I have no need for reverence.”
“Ah, but you are a king.” That wasn’t true. He was the king with people standing in for him on every island. I frowned. “When Arman was here, where were you?”
“Many places.”
“Where were you the most?”
He finally met my gaze. “Freya, drink some water. Not too many sweets, you’ll be sick.”
“I will?”
“Not too much wine either.”
I hiccupped. “You say that now?”
He gently took my hands, and I felt the angry gaze of the young lady who’d stomped away. “Perhaps it’s my fault. I enjoy indulging you. And, I am sorry that I barred you in my room.”
But he did not say it was for my protection and he did not say it would not happen again. His eyes flashed with guilt, a look he’d been able to hide as his own form, but in this one, he was an open book.
He noticed my perusal, and his countenance darkened.
“I forgive you.”
I didn’t, not really, but I just wanted him to be happy again. Just for now, we could forget. “Let us pretend that we are really mortals, Alec. No more talk of the palace.”
He smiled, and if he could pretend to be a man who was happy in life, then I could pretend that I wasn’t afraid what would happen if Alec locked me away again. I smiled back.
It was short lived though. My king’s gaze shuttered as if he held the knowledge of my thoughts. “Come.”
As I took his hand, I wondered how long I’d have to teeter on the edge of his rising and falling darkness. Back was the stern leader, even in this form. We went to the flower vendors. “Choose all that you think fitting of a funeral for Arman,” Alec said.
Beware the Fallen: Young Adult Mythology (Banished Divinity Book 1) Page 10
