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Why does my head feel so foggy?
Blinking away sleep, I stifle yawns. My arms and legs are limp. Head pressed to the warm body of a stranger. The golden horse nearly glides across the road. Too swift. Movements too smooth and too drawn out. Each rhythmic step felt too light. Straining, I want to groan at the soreness in my limbs.
Focus, I chide myself. I need to be alert. After all, who the fuck knows what’s going on around here. Definitely not me.
Cracking my eyes a bit wider, I take in my surroundings.
Nothing looked familiar.
This is a vision.
It has to be.
I need it to be.
“Not a vision,” Arista’s voice echoed. A loud yawn comes from the distance. But Ari is nowhere in sight. “This is our unfortunate reality.” My friend’s voice is distant. Like she’s shouting at me while we’re both underwater.
No.
No! Not real.
Frantically I take in my surroundings. Trying to figure out where in Hades’s name I am.
The air felt weird here. Like electricity is continuously flowing through the area. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck raises.
Rolling my head to the side, the town streets are foreign. Alabaster walls with golden roofs surround us. Everything felt so warm and so bright. Even the heavy darkness of the evening didn’t deter those filling the streets. Nymphs with brightly colored hair, satyrs with cloven feet, and even centaurs watch the procession in awe.
With vision failing me, I blink away the fuzz.
I'm the spectacle.
Bound at my wrists like an animal being prepared for slaughter.
Gulping, I hold my chin high.
If these are to be my last moments outside of the Underworld, I will not be sacrificing my dignity.
Passing through the crowd, hushed whispers fall around us. Nothing felt like words. Everything felt foreign. Even the smell felt nothing like my home. Especially not in the dead of winter. The smell of sweet wine and hyacinths surrounds me.
Gaia, I never thought I would be disappointed to see so much beauty and not be dreaming.
A gate creaks open. We pass by the sentries standing guard.
Silence falls around us. It felt jarring and out of place. The rolling hills of the estate sprawl around the large castle. Grounds feeling like they once were filled with so much life but are a shell of what they once were, it seems like I can almost hear an echo of chatter and laughter sighing on the quiet breeze.
The path to the castle was not as far from the surrounding city as I expected. Almost like the city grew up too quickly.
Moonlight glints off the oddly shining surface. Several stories of stone masonry, timber, and plaster surrounded what appeared to be a series of courtyards. Tall open columns line the building.
There are terraces of gardens surrounding the castle with trees larger than some of the small homes back in Karpathos.
Even at this late hour, centaurs, satyrs, nymphs, and a whole variety of other creatures rush around us. As though they had expected our arrival.
The horses slow their pace and others begin to dismount.
One recognizable face appears in front of me as the man I have been riding behind dismounts and turns to take me off the horse. “Phoebus!” Glaring, I struck his face. Two-handed because of them being bound together.
My hand aches instantly.
