“Above it?” I asked lightly, thinking of Zeus’ palace and avoiding Alec’s haunted expression.
“Especially,” he promised, and it was I who shivered this time.
I could hardly focus on the animals, I just wanted him to take me in his arms. I wanted to abandon all of this and just be one with him and he must have seen it on my face because his already tight jaw ticked and his eyes were sharp as glass watching me, waiting…for what?
But what stopped our madness was the small motion as something loosened from his neck and came dancing across his skin to the edge of his palm until it formed its full self and watched me from Alec’s hand.
“A scorpion,” I said, but not with disgust. She was quite beautiful to me. Black as onyx, deadly to be certain, but also, I got the sense of her curiosity. Her eyes were keen and full of thought.
I held out my hand and Alec passed her to me.
She quickly scurried up my arm, across my neck to the other arm and back down again. I laughed. “She’s lovely.”
“It’s a he,” Alec provided but I shook my head.
“No,” I said softly as she roved up to my neck and settled there underneath my hair. I could feel her playing with a strand and I smiled. “She.”
A slight sting made me freeze, but Alec assured me, “She will not harm you. That’s the imprinting is all.”
And he was right. She’d burrowed into my skin in a glowing spark and then was there, a white mark of her outline around my neck, yet black still at the center.
“That’s a good place,” Alec said. “She senses you are in danger and longs to protect you.”
“A gift,” I said, touching my throat where her claws and tail nearly touched. Fighting emotions, I took his hands. “Thank you.”
He kissed my knuckles and I leaned in for more, but the doors were thrown open. Milos ran in, hair wild, eyes wide.
“War!” he cried, and the bells went off at the same time.
Chapter 18
My father was an evil god. He was a devious and careless god. And he was as cunning as he was any of those things. But most of all, I had not seen the last of his tainted reach.
He’d sent his ships and armies to attack the islands. On the wind, he’d no doubt heard of my sentencing. The confusion amidst those who’d supported Alec as Hades judged his ward. The loss of the goddess Aphrodite no doubt, had pricked the ears of my bloodline, and they’d been plotting to make their move while we’d been distracted.
And without care for me, my father had said to himself, perhaps now is the time that I should attack the islands despite what pain it will cause my daughters. Perhaps now I should take my final blow. My daughter has helped open the way into the weaknesses of my enemy.
“He must have Poseidon’s aid,” Milos said grimly as we watched the ships already at our shores.
Ours, for I had come to think of these shores as my own.
It was a lifetime between what I’d seen as home and what I was beginning to recognize as the place I longed to stay. Bearing the flags of my family, the pale wood of hundreds of large war ships shone brightly with freshly painted gold, decorated with billowing white sails. Like floating suns lighting the way to my demise they carried their glimmering warriors, my uncles and cousins, the many who’d shown to fight against who I saw as my real family now, all of them matching in gold armor.
“Both regular humans and demigods have already disembarked on the village,” Milos said. “How could we have missed this?”
“He’s had more help than only Poseidon,” Alec said and none of us dared look up into the sky.
I would not even think the name of the king of the gods. My blood boiled, imagining the assault on the village. The demise of Alec’s people, another blemish on my record of death brought into his realm. The sky filled with smoke in the distance and my heart stuttered.
If I strained my ears, I could hear the screams as their king tensed next to me, tethered to their misfortune by duty. Gazing long, his power flowed from him like a black mist towards the ships still arriving. The wind carried the pain along and more ships were coming as he flooded them with agony.
“Freya,” he said through clenched teeth, because I had touched his shoulder, and he wanted me to stop.
His power bit deeply into me, and he could not restrain himself while attacking the armies of my father.
But it was by design. I wanted some of his pain. Needed it.
Hopefully it could fuel me to an end. I had to try.
This was my family. I felt responsible and useless standing on the shores as they chased down Alec’s people with their swords. As they struck down men, women, and children.
Closing my eyes, I opened myself up, let myself be flayed by his darkness.
“No,” he shouted but it was too late.
I swayed, murmuring to him, “Let go. Please.”
He did so, but I could sense his fear through the blackness that blossomed from my center as though it pierced my very soul.
I found the small trail inside of me, a thread that was thin but strengthening my power. A well hidden within that I could not access fully yet but some day…and soon.
And then the cold came. It rushed through me and to me from both in and out. I dropped my hand from Alec, and I opened my mouth, but words were gone, and wind billowed out instead.
A fury of sound built in the air and a storm answered my howling as my hair strung out tightly to its end. I could not imagine what I looked like or had time to care. I was a vessel for nature, and the wintry kind. My skin felt the snow, and it reminded me that I’d brought some to the shores of a warm and summery island.
I would bring more. Enough that this war should end. If I had to freeze the entirety of everything, that it should stand still forever more…so be it.
I blinked at the dark thought.
“Freya,” a whispering voice called.
Only it wasn’t a whisper, it was Alec trying to shout through my storm.
White had descended from the sky to the point that I could no longer see through it and at some moment in my blindness of power, I had walked forward. My mind rejected this as impossible. I would have had to be on top of the waves to do so.
But when I risked one single glance downward, I found ice beneath my sandals. Thick ice, instead of ocean.
All around me the water was still and there was nothing but dark glass as far as I could see.
The ships were caught in it. They were standing still as I’d hoped they would, and the snow kept falling, but I managed to stop that finally with some small amount of control.
But that voice…the one that had told me to make it like this for everyone and everything, for the rest of our eternity, to paint the world white, to make the Olympians nothing but sculptures of frozen cold, it was singing to me now once more.
With my hands up I brought the giant pieces of the ocean, now solid, rising higher. The cracking sound was loud enough that my ears went deaf from what felt like the world breaking apart.
The loose pieces could be manipulated by my hands.
I orchestrated their movements.
I sent them towards the ships.
I watched them batter the sides and split them into splinters.
I watched thousands of men sink into the cold.
I saw this all… and it was good.
Chapter 19
I didn’t remember leaving the shores. I didn’t remember Alec tearing me from the ice that was already melting as my power faded. I didn’t remember fighting him, but I knew that when I was myself again, he had a bruise along his jaw, and his eyes were wild.
We were at the palace. Milos was calling the men to arms, saying that despite the victory on the beach, those who had already landed in the village were still thousands strong and decimating the capital of the island with ease.
They would ride out to meet them.
Alec, too.
In a strange fog, I followed him as he transformed into his armor.
Black and silver rather than yellow and gold. His black hair was free behind him as he strode quickly through and his shoulders were set for battle.
I trailed behind him at a trot like a dog. I knew not my place.
My power had ebbed, and I was weak as a kitten.
I wanted to stop him but how ridiculous was that idea?
Cenia and the rest had fled to the deeper parts of the island, and I was grateful for it, but it only made me even more lost.
Charon too stayed within sight, watching, waiting, and I knew I had little time to say goodbye, but I’d be dammed if I was going to leave before I saw the last of Alec’s shadow, even as he ran to war.
I lost sight of the king and so I was almost run down by the horses galloping from the stables, now covered in armor. They curved around me, just barely missing me and my robes. Then there he was. His white horse was the only bright thing about his ensemble, and I gaped at the crown he wore. Sharp and made of twining metal vines, it wove up from his head to the sky.
His horse stamped and circled me, as the stable emptied, and then Alec grabbed my hand, but horns sounded in the distance and not without regret, he put his heels in his horse’s side and let go.
Our fingers were still reaching as he began to gallop off.
What could we have said that we hadn’t already?
I watched him go, my heart in more pain than Alec’s power alone could have caused.
His chin tilted to the side as he almost turned. Alec, King of the Seven Islands, brother to Persephone, son of Acheron and Demeter, he threatened to look back just once, but wisely did not.
I would have cared for a lesser man if he had, because his focus was now on his people as it should be, and I was proud of him.
And then he was gone.
And Charon was there at my elbow. “Child. It’s time.”
A wind not unlike the one I’d brought down before tore at me, ripping my clothes and hair, screaming into my face so loudly that I could not fall over and weep on my knees as I wanted to.
Instead, I blinked, and I was at the base of a mountain with snow falling all around me that I did not create. And Charon was a spot of black in the white, and we were alone.
I sank to my knees and made a sound I pray never to make again.
My agony was bone deep, and I grew so weary that I almost hoped it had been a dream. All of it. I almost wanted Charon to tell me that I was on my way to the underworld and that my punishment was that I’d never have to feel ever again.
That I’d never imagine a life like I’d been imagining these past hours.
That I’d never crave another immortal as I did so now.
I latched onto Charon’s robes and pulled him to me, huddling into them so that my voice was muffled. “Tell me he won’t be in your boat next. Tell me I did not leave him to his death and doom.”
Charon was as kind as he could be without allowing me to fall apart. He pulled me to my feet. “The only ones who know his fate and yours are at the top of this mountain waiting for you.”
“I cannot bear it,” I said quietly, and he nodded.
“Oh, but you must.”
Chapter 20
I could barely recall his directions. The list of things that I was to do fled from my head, chased out by visions of Alec riding away from me to fight with my own family and their armies.
He was so strong, but was he strong enough?
My uncles were many and some older and perhaps more powerful. I’d never measured them or Alec for that matter, enough to know.
The sight I’d seen while leaving would be remembered all of my days. Black hair flowing freely beneath his twisted, shining crown. His tall posture proud, but too rigid to be only such.
Of course, it was when I stumbled up the mountainside, too steep to climb while remaining vertical, so I’d clawed my hands into the frigid soil to aid my ascent, yes, only then would I admit the word I’d been hiding from: Love.
I loved Alec with every force of my being, and I’d been too stupid to admit it. Too simple minded to say it. And too much a coward to perhaps never hear it said back.
So, I was climbing my way up this gods forsaken peak, no matter what it took.
I’d finally stopped keening like a babe, and determination fueled me instead.
But I’d paid little attention to Charon’s important instructions. They were jumbled now, so I cursed myself for what bits stood out amidst the madness that brought me here: Climb on the south side. Do not climb the north. Go straight up from here and do not bend around the peak. Even when the weather turns worse, stay your course.
Also, the last: To turn back is torture then death for even a god.
And so, I tried to obey him.
I did my best.
But the wind began to howl so foully that I imagined even Charon had gotten it wrong. Halfway up the mountain I felt myself become disoriented in the blowing flakes of a blizzard. Twice I had been knocked from my perch and fell increasingly further downward.
The last fall had been so far, that I’d struck the rocks with such force that blood poured from a wound on my face into my eyes. Also, my arm suffered, and I left red dots on the trail as I went.
Even though I had been warned, I could tell the north side had almost no weather. And I eventually cut across the path and around until I could rest against the mountainside and be tempted to climb back down no matter the cost.
Perhaps I could speak with Hades just one more time. Perhaps Persephone would help me.
Even a glimpse of Alec and I could start again.
I could tell him the truth of how I felt and…
My injuries were not healing. I might as well have been a mortal.
At last I stood, shakily on my feet, swaying with dizziness.
Only one step. Just one. Back down the trail.
And then another…
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a soft but deep voice from a cliff just above me.
I jolted in surprise, freezing in place. Then I had the good sense to creep underneath the overhanging and hide. Anyone on the mountain surely was in trouble, cursed, or worse, looking for me.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, sounding rather weak.
“How do I know you speak truth?”
He laughed, softly, wearily. “I have nothing else left to speak, Freya.”
“How do you know me?”
“Since you were a girl, I’ve known of you well. As well as your father would allow us.”
I frowned, weighing my options, until I thought how it was that I was afraid of a random immortal on the mountain and not of whom I should be most afraid: the Fates.
“Coming up,” I called, as if that should somehow keep me from harm.
It took some climbing and I strained over the edge, and onto my side. This part jutted off into nowhere, into the clouds, and these were not the clouds of the mortal realm. This mountain was part of Olympus. I may as well have been human, my powers were suppressed, and I was covered in sweat.
I gaped as I got to my feet to find a man—no—a god, chained to a rock by both wrists. Sweat beaded his brow. His golden skin was pale and loose on his frame. He was not beautiful in the way that Olympians were. He was very strange.
And then it occurred to me. “Are you a titan?” I asked.
“Certainly,” he said as if he could barely lift his head to look at me.
“What….what madness is this?” I motioned towards the bindings.
“Have you not heard? I gave fire to the mortals long ago….”
“No,” I whispered, horrified to realize who he was.
He was not only a titan but related to me distantly and sorrow bent me over as I watched Prometheus living his perpetual torture.
“Does it really come here?” I asked, my voice shaking, my eyes scanning the horizon.
He nodded just barely, his cracked lips bleeding as they pulled into a smile. “He does this, you know. The story is that I gave fire, that�
�s what you have heard, but there is more always more. Let’s just say, Freya the Fallen, it is no surprise that you too are paying penance for merely existing.”
I nodded, sitting down because my legs would no longer hold me. “How does it happen?”
“The bird comes daily to slice into me, and he eats my insides. All the while I do not die and then after the agony has forced me to pass out, I wake up healing, and starved and thirsty and the day has begun over again.”
“He is cruel,” I sputtered, refusing to name the king of the gods. “A monster,” I spat, my voice cracking as I lunged forward to pull on the chains. “I will stop this.”
My voice sounded panicked. Most likely because I was afraid of how spooked I’d become in the face of what could be myself. What if I went to the Fates and they chained me, too? What if every day my torture was unending until I passed out as well?
Prometheus gritted his teeth, sweat beaded on his lip. “It’s best that you go,” he said, his sad, strange eyes watching me with half curiosity, half regret, and lastly clouded over by fear. “You must abandon me, Freya. No good will come of this. You cannot save me. Leave it. And run before it comes again.”
“It’s not but a bird,” I muttered, more to fool myself.
I’d lost control of my senses much like a horse in a barn fire. I was kicking the walls of my mind, the edges fraying under the flames.
Struggling with the chains that would not move so much as a tiny bit, I cursed Olympus under my breath. “I will scare it when it comes,” I told the titan when I could not make him free.
A shadow cooled my spot and I glanced above, shivering. “What was that?”
“You can’t scare this bird,” Prometheus said, his voice shaking. “Freya, listen to me now. Do as I say. Run!”
But I hovered over him searching the skies before I saw it and dread built at my core.
It was no mere bird. It was three times the length of myself and its claws could carry me with ease. It had the head of an eagle, but its wings were pure gold. I cried out, throwing myself over Prometheus. “No!” I screamed as it swooped low, reaching for his body to feast on it.
Beware the Fallen: Young Adult Mythology (Banished Divinity Book 1) Page 21
