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If I expected explosions, fanfare, or a fierce, cyclonic wind to blow through the temple—none of that happened.
The box lay open in my mother’s hands. Slowly, creepingly—dark, sludgy smoke leaked over the rim while my mom stood motionless. If she was covered in stone, I would’ve thought the gorgons got to her.
“To our goddess, we return your voice.” Remis slipped the bracelet off my wrist like it was nothing. She dropped it inside the box. “Queen of the broken and damned, you are Pandora. Speak and all shall hear.”
One of the followers came to her. Bowing, she held out to Remis a strange knife with a curved blade.
“Brothers, sisters, take your place.”
Remis’s order was the cue. The followers each took their place beside Alex, Sirena, Daciana, and my friends.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I asked. “Get away from them.”
They each produced vials from the folds of their robes.
“What is that! Don’t do that. Don’t—!”
They wrenched my sleeping friends’ mouths open, tipping the black liquid down their throats.
“What was that! Stop it. Leave them alone!”
“I cannot take her caterwauling,” Remis barked. “Vasili, put her back to sleep.”
Shockingly, he shook his head. “I can’t. You remember what the seer said. We will face resistance and opposition in the chamber, but ultimately, we succeed and the goddess rises. Since she could not tell us who opposes us, it is obviously the girl.” He flapped a hand at me like I was nothing. “We change anything and we risk failure. Let the girl cry and bleat all she wants. Unless she wishes to watch me separate her mother’s head from her shoulders, she will not interfere.”
“Very well.” Remis pushed a follower aside, taking their place beside Ionna. The dagger flashed. She brought it down, plunging it into Ionna’s heart.
My scream echoed through the far corners of the realm.
“To our goddess, we give you the gift of prophecy.” Remis chanted over my screeching—undeterred. “God of the sun and light, Apollo is a speck before you. You will see all that can be seen.”
I gagged, choking on my tears. Before our eyes, something small, glowing, andwonderfulfloated out of Ionna’s chest. We were nothing before it for it was everything. The life-giving warmth of the sun bathing the fields, and a day of play with your friends. It was the freeing joy of music—turning even the worst day around. It was the beauty of poetry, the wisdom of the oracles, and the savior of medicine.
Gently it floated over our heads, and fell within Pandora’s box.
Remis moved over to Theron.
“No, don’t do this,” I cried. “Please, just stop and think—”
She plunged the dagger into Theron, ripping a frustrated cry from the pit of my soul.
“To our goddess, we give you the gift of the horror and destruction of war. God of the battlefield, Ares is a speck before you. You will destroy all who stand in your way.”
A glowing orb floated out of Theron, and I threw my head away, unable to look at it. This was not the warmth and music of Apollo’s essence. Blood and pain resonated from that light. I swore I heard dying screams as it floated into the box.
“Guys, wake up,” I rasped through a burning, aching throat. “You have to wake up and fight back. Wake up!”
Remis crossed the temple, and stopped beside Alex.
“No!”
Enough. Fuck Vasili’s threats! I wasn’t lying around and letting this happen. If the threads closest to me were my recent past, I would swim out farther, grab the later threads, and go back to before Marinos and his invisible acolytes jumped in with us. Before Maximos killed Drakos. Before the barriers fell and the monsters attacked, and before Calix force-fed me Lethe water. I’d do it all over again, and do it right. What could the bitch stuck in a box do about it?
Nothing.
Closing my eyes, I willed my entire being into the thread space.Come on. Come on!
Noise smothered—blocking out Remis’s chanting and the sound of the knife striking flesh. Blinking, I arose in the space outside everything that is or will be.
