by A Lonergan
A soft giggle bounced around me. “The one and only.”
I sat up straighter, at least I imagined I did.
“I need you to remember what happened in Apollo’s Prison.”
Confusion flooded me. “I do remember.”
“Not everything, I shielded your mind from the pain and some of the things they did to you in there. It was all I could do to help you.” Sadness coated the air around me in a thick fog.
I gulped. “You mean how he mentioned that he tried to cut my gold scar out? I thought I had just been unconscious through all of that.”
A soft glow appeared in the darkness and I sat face to face with my goddess. Her dark hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders and she wore a white gown with a bow and arrow strapped to her back. She had gold leaves in her hair, placed like a crown and her equally gold eyes shone through the blackness around us. She sat cross-legged in front of me and held her hand up in front of my chest.
“I’ve also been hiding these from you but I can no longer do that. You must see what every one else does. You must experience the pain and remember.”
“Then why did you take it away in the first place?” Her delicate eyebrows drew up at the tone of my voice. My tone was harsh but I didn’t care. I felt cheated.
“You wouldn’t have escaped. The Fates told me so. If you had known, you would have lost your strength. Now that you are here with Keenan, I know that he will help you find your strength again. You will need him.”
“What about Crawley?” I asked.
A soft smile touched her lips. “He waits for you like he always will. You will find that strength before he needs you the most.”
I nodded my head even though I was perplexed. I knew I wasn’t going to get the answers to everything. I had so many things I needed to say, to ask and I knew I didn’t have much time left to do so.
“Are you disappointed in me?”
Artemis wrinkled her eyebrows and leaned a little closer to me. “Why would you ever think that?”
“I killed Gemma and Crawley still lives.” I hung my head.
A soft touch lifted my chin. Artemis’ eyes had grown cold and empty. “Apollo wanted that. Apollo wanted to see you react like a god would. He was growing tired of Gemma. You passed his first test. I will never hear the end of it but you must do what you need to, to survive and for that I will take it all.”
Before I could ask another question, she was gone.
I blinked my eyes rapidly against the assault of lighting in Keenan’s living room. I could hear talking up the stairs but it was muffled like my ears couldn’t receive the information going on around me. I pushed myself up slowly and felt a tug at my chest.
I didn’t want to look down; I knew what I would see. Everything Artemis had hidden from me. I felt agitated that something else had been taken from me. Something so important, again. It wasn’t my place to hate her, I knew she had rules to follow too but how much of this was rules and how much of it was her own desire to have control?
I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the conversations above me but I couldn’t. I looked down at my chest and it was like I was snapped back like a rubber band.
Oh, Artemis and her tricks. I pulled the neck of my shirt down and stared in horror. Little small silver and pink scars crisscrossed my chest. A deep one across my collarbone caught my attention last and I let out a wail. I could hear the footsteps pounding down the stairs but my attention didn’t leave my marked body. My scarred, damaged body.
Anger pulsed through my veins and I couldn’t breathe. Something broke inside of me. It cracked open so wide I thought I was going to faint but I knew that this was bigger than me. I knew that Artemis had hidden my pain and scarring for a reason, a reason bigger than myself. Apollo wanted me to act like a god; he didn’t know what was coming. My chest heaved with anger.
“Jessa!” Shaskia’s voice rang from the stairs. “Are you alright?” Keenan was next to me before Shaskia even made it down the stairs.
“I’m fine.” I growled, unable to stop myself. Vengeance would be mine.
“You don’t look fine, Jessa, your eyes are blazing.”
I refused to look him in the eye as I pushed myself from the sofa.
“Jessa, Keenan is right. Your eyes are bright gold. You’re actually kind of terrifying.” I ignored her words and pushed past them both. My anger was going to fuel me and I didn’t need them to slow me down.
When I opened my bedroom door a blast of cold air hit me in the face. I ignored it. I didn’t need anything to slow me down, no matter how strange. I shoved the closet door open and ripped a thick sweater off of a hanger. I pulled on some thick jeans in a drawer at the bottom of the small room and searched for some boots. A pair of hiking boots caught my eye. I shoved my feet into them hastily then pulled a coat down. I didn’t know how cold it would be in the mountains right now around the Valley, but I needed to be prepared.
I didn’t bother with a bag, I didn’t intend on staying anywhere for long but I thought better of it as I passed the kitchen. I grabbed a plain backpack off of a hook by the stairs and marched passed Shaskia and Keenan again. They had their mouths hanging open and were just staring at me.
“I have stuff I need to get done. So, either you’re going to come with and help or you’re going to stand there like two gaping idiots.” I retorted.
“Rude.” Keenan whispered under his breath. I glared at him but stopped short.
Speaking of short…
“What the heck?” I reached my hand out to his shorter locks and was immediately reminded of my vision in the Valley. I filled my lungs up with air but couldn’t finish the breath. I was too stunned.
“I don’t want to talk about it, just like you don’t want to talk about what just happened to you to make you jump up like a crazy person.” His tone was harsh but I didn’t let him know it affected me. I didn’t need him stopping my mission.
I needed to find Crawley then I was going to rain down on Apollo’s Prison like the fourth of July. Crawley didn’t need to spend any more time in the hell he was in and he would be a valuable asset in taking down the place that had held me captive.
“Alrighty then, are you coming with me to get Crawley or not?” I planted my fist on my hip.
“Well, of course.” Keenan frowned at me.
“Then come on. I don’t have time for you to lolly gag around.” I gave him an impatient look.
Shaskia gave me a nervous glance but I chose to ignore it, I didn’t have anything to say to her. I wanted to be able to talk to her and have a relationship but it was just too much right now. It was just too much to try. I had too much to worry with and I didn’t need any other emotions crowding my mind.
I looked at Keenan out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t know how to avoid the man but at the same time I didn’t want to. I knew that he was trouble and now that his hair was cut, it was going to get even worse. He had a special purpose and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was yet. It scared me and I didn’t have time to be scared. I needed to be angry and on a mission. I needed to get to Crawley and I needed to find out how I was going to take down Apollo.
Okay, that was a bit much but what else could I do with him? He was supposed to kill me or at least try to, I needed to prepare myself for whatever he had up his sleeve next. You could never predict a god’s moves.
I looked back at Keenan out of the corner of my eye and stopped walking down the snow-covered mountain. We had set out shortly after Shaskia had left to go home. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was supposed to “want to go” but I just thought of Crawley and the last place I had been before I had stumbled onto Keenan’s cabin. At this point, we had been walking for hours and nothing looked familiar. Everything just looked white and hilly. There were no animals and the only sound was the wind whistling around us. We were in a winter waste land.
I took my backpack off and pulled a random water bottle free. My mouth had gone dry a long time ago but I hadn’t had
the time to stop and take care of myself till now. I didn’t have a plan, so what did it matter if we stopped briefly? It wasn’t like we had found a clue as to where Crawley was.
Keenan stared at me with curious large eyes.
“When I came back, did you notice these scars on my chest?” I touched the thick one on my collarbone, unable to stop the shiver that ran up my spine. It made me uncomfortable to bring it up.
“Yes.” He narrowed his eyes at me, questioning.
“I didn’t know they were there.” I whispered.
Keenan’s mouth dropped open and he resembled a fish for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Artemis hid them from me.” I pulled my sweater back from my wrists and licked my dry lips. “I knew about these and the ones around my ankles. They were terrible and that’s a story for another time but the ones on my chest and stomach… I don’t remember getting those. Artemis said that I would remember soon and well,” I bit my lip, nervous all of a sudden. “I’m kind of scared to know what happened to me in there. This is why I haven’t talked about it. I’m not ready. ”
Keenan just stared at me some more. “You had to wait to tell me this. You had to wait till now, now that we are looking for Crawley and we are in the middle of nowhere. You just had to wait…” His voice trailed off to a whisper and I didn’t know how to respond. Everything had happened so quickly. How else was I supposed to tell him?
So I shrugged and kept walking because letting out that small bit of information drained me. I knew what he was thinking. He was probably imagining the worst. I didn’t blame him because I was too.
Chapter 8
Keenan
How are you supposed to process a bomb like that one? Hades. I shook my head. She sure knew how to drop a mic. How the heck was I supposed to help her now? Maybe a secret for a secret?
“I spoke to Chloe.” If she could drop a bomb, so could I.
“Well, that almost tops my information.” She snickered. Her eyes were cold and so was her expression.
“At least I think it was her.” I shrugged.
She stopped walking and lifted an eyebrow at me. “How could you not know? She was your wife.” Her voice went flat and I wondered if she had lost her soul while she had been unconscious.
Probably.
“She sounded just like her but then she spoke of us being a family once more and said that we could raise our son together.” I wrung my hands in front of me. I felt uncomfortable dropping more information than she had.
“I didn’t know you lost a son.” She frowned.
“I didn’t.” I scratched at my chin.
Her mouth made the perfect O and I was able to briefly see past the mask she had conjured to keep me at bay.
“Is that why you cut your hair off?” I nodded and looked to the cloudy heavens.
“Artemis came to me.” She started, hesitantly. “She sat in front of me and told me that I needed to remember what happened so it could fuel my anger to push me out of that cabin and get to work. Well, she didn’t say that she wanted my anger to fuel me, but I catch on fast.”
I frowned. “She wants you to do her bidding and plan the revenge for her.”
Jessa shrugged before she replied. “I’m not sure. I think she’s angry about what happened to me in that prison but she does have her own agendas. Don’t all the gods?”
I scoffed. “The gods always have tricks up their sleeves.”
I didn’t reply because I didn’t feel bad for them. I saw the guilt and pain flash across her face and wanted this to all be over with. When would it be finished? When would Apollo’s ‘games’ be over and done? He made the rules, so there was no telling. I was tired of being a piece in their game.
The rest of the walk was silent. I didn’t have any idea where we were headed and the way Jessa kept staring off into space meant that she didn’t have any idea either. She had been there with him when it had all happened. Wouldn’t she remember?
I shrugged to myself. Probably not, Apollo would have cloaked it all probably, if this was all in his plan.
We didn’t even know if Apollo knew Crawley was alive. I couldn’t imagine Apollo popping in to check his dirty work.
As we continued to trudge through the snow I noticed Jessa starting to shiver, though she was hiding it pretty well. Her lips had turned blue and her face was bright red. She wasn’t used to this weather and it was going to kill her if we didn’t stop soon. I wrapped my fingers around her thickly covered wrist and pulled her to a stop.
Her voice came out in a forced whisper. “We need to keep going. We can’t stop.”
“I can promise you he can wait another day.” I bent forward and put my hands on my knees to catch my breath.
She ripped her hand out of mine. “And what if he can’t?” Her voice was too high pitched, as she looked around us frantically.
“Then that’s the chance I’m willing to take. You can’t keep going like this and the sun is going to go down soon. It’s only going to get colder.” I said.
She nodded and threw herself down into the snow. She had lost her mind, I was almost certain.
“What are you doing?” I asked, exasperated.
She shrugged against the fluff against her back. “I’m tired and you’re right.”
“That doesn’t mean we should stop here.” I helped pull her out of the melting snow and helped her make the trek up the side of the mountain. I had no idea where we were and I was starting to get nervous. We needed to find a cave or some type of shelter.
Then we would need to find a road in the morning, which was the only way that we would find Crawley. They had been driving along a road when everything had happened.
I scratched at my dry face and came to a stop. I had stumbled right onto a nice little dip in the mountain. It would be perfect for a fire. Jessa got as close as she could to the wall of the opening and rested her head against her backpack. She hadn’t packed for camping and I almost wanted to gloat but held my tongue. We needed to be level headed for this trip. Firing Jessa up would do no good. Fighting wouldn’t do us any good at all.
I let my backpack fall from my shoulders and gave Jessa a small smile. She frowned and looked away. She had been so determined to get out and find Crawley that she hadn’t properly prepared herself. I was thankful I listened to my gut and packed carefully before I let her drag me out. I knew it didn’t really matter because I could always call the cabin to me but it took a lot of magic to do so and it wasn’t instant for me like it had been for Jessa. I doubted that she would be able to call the cabin to her if she was with me anyway.
The cabin had been coated in a very old and in part, dark magic. Sometimes it made me cringe to think of everything Chloe had done to ensure my safety.
I had no doubt that she had used blood magic as she was dying. She knew it was the only way. I felt my eyes prick with tears and had to close the memories away. I didn’t need those sappy emotions muddling everything up.
I stared at the snow around the mountain and felt my shoulders slump. Starting a fire would be next to impossible with all this snow covering the trees and fallen limbs. There would be no dry kindling and I didn't know why I hadn't thought of this before we had left the cabin. I knew the direction to the Valley but couldn't risk the people there. I knew Jessa would object to it as well. I didn't have many options.
Jessa sat huddled against the rock of the mountain and tried to look indifferent to cold but I could see through it. She was shivering and trying not to look weak. Though, she would never look weak to me. She had always been the strongest woman I had ever met and nothing had changed. She had just gotten stronger. She frowned and closed her bright grey eyes.
I pushed my sleeve up and stared at my unmarked, dark wrists. I tried to push the thoughts and ideas away but I couldn't. I knew what I had to do.
I shrugged my sleeves down and left the small shelter. I checked to make sure Jessa wasn't watching me before I walked out of her sight. She didn't nee
d to follow me.
I went near the woods and the canopy of trees and started to gather pieces of wood and twigs. It didn't matter if it was wet or slightly dry. When I had gathered enough and could barely see over my stack, with my muscles starting to tremble, I made my way back to The Demi that had wiggled her way into my heart. Her eyes were still closed when I put the branches down and started to break them into smaller pieces of kindling.
I looked over to her once more but this time to make sure she was breathing. Her chest was rising and falling slowly and I felt my shoulders relax as I continued to work.
I set up the smaller sticks into a small structure and closed my eyes. I pulled my knife from my pocket and flicked the blade out. I pushed the sleeve back from wrist once more and sliced quickly across the thin skin there. I held in the hiss of pain and let my blood drip over the branches. I imagined the feeling of a bonfire and the smell of smoke. I had never done blood magic before and I knew it was frowned upon. It was dark magic and dark magic was dangerous. Chloe had always expressed that to me even though I knew she dabbled in it occasionally before we met.
I didn't wait for the flames to happen because I knew they would. I didn't know how and I didn't know that much about it but I knew that I had offered up enough blood for it to work. When the flames appeared and started to devour the twigs, I added a few larger pieces to the top and moved as far away from the burning pile as I could. I could hear the popping of the water on the bark as it burned.
I had only done what I had to keep Jessa warm. Everything else didn't matter. My wrist burned like it was on fire too but I ignored it. Jessa whimpered across from me and I watched her eyes fly open. Gold was slowly churning in her gaze and I knew she had seen something to set her off. Her blood reacted to her emotions. Her goddess blood.
"How did you do that?" Her voice sounded accusing but her eyes looked curious. "How did you find dry enough wood?"
I didn't answer her and turned away. I didn't need her to know about this side of me. I didn't know why I could use magic. As far as I knew it came from the Elders and me being apart of their circle. But now that Shaskia had revealed new information about my father, maybe my magic had come from his side.
