Page 41 of Minas (Dying Gods #4)

Lykos

The gods have stripped every star from the sky and set me adrift in the darkness.

“Lykos. Lykos. You have to let her go.”

I glare up at Britomartis. This is her fault, just as much as any god. It was she who told Sira that story of the minas fighting to defend her people. She must have known what effect that story would have on Sira. Sira, who has only ever spoken of protecting her people. Sira, who couldn’t even stomach the thought of raising a weapon against all those who imprisoned her.

“I would rather follow her to Potina’s underworld,” I retort, grasping Sira to me. Her skin is growing cold beneath my fingers and her cheeks are pale but the shape of her in my arms echoes like the most beautiful memory.

“Then carry her.”

It’s the Bull of Crete who speaks. At least, I assume that is who he is, this giant of a man with a face as tear streaked as my own. The man who called Sira sister . The man with that starry god’s blood running in his veins.

I stare up at him. For all his sorrow, this is his fault too. After all, he left Sira alone at Xenodice’s mercy. If I hadn’t intervened, Sira would be halfway to Mycenae by now, sharing my brother’s bed.

She would be alive though , a little voice whispers. At least then she would be alive .

I swallow, my throat feeling like sand. Because this is my fault too.

“Carry her, Lykos,” the Bull of Crete repeats, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “She must go to Potina’s temple.”

I shake my head at that. No. Not Potina’s temple. Not when she had fought so hard to escape from there. Not when that place had only ever been a prison for her.

“I will not leave her there,” I rasp.

To my surprise, Britomartis nods in agreement. “Nor will I. Carry her, Lykos, and we will both watch over her until dawn. And then we will lay her beside her mother and sister. It is…”

Britomartis falters, her expression twisting as she fights to keep her composure. She finds it though, quicker than I would, her features smoothing into the implacable mask of a priestess accustomed to dealing with death.

“It is what she would have wanted.”

She wanted to live , I want to scream at her. She wanted to see her people free and happy and prosperous. She wanted to make love to us in the dark hours of the night, and wake between us warm in the morning sun. She did not want this .

“I will keep watch too.”

It is the strange, pale-eyed one who speaks. The one who glows like the moon itself. I have been doing my best to ignore her until now.

“It’s the least I can do.” She takes Britomartis’ hand in her own. “If we had gotten here sooner…”

“This is not your fault, little goddess,” the Bull of Crete rumbles, narrowing his eyes at Britomartis. “If Britomartis hadn’t stolen my ships…”

“Careful, Asterion. They listen. Save your squabbles with my sister for a more private moment.”

It is the scarred one who speaks.

So, this must be Kitanetos, the famed sea-farer. The Theran. Brother of Britomartis. The one who was promised to Xenodice and chose Astarte instead.

I steal another glance at the one the Bull of Crete called ‘little goddess’. She looks like she is carved out of lightning and moonlight, cold and deadly.

A sickening dread mixed with anger twists in my stomach at the sight of her. Because there is only one goddess she can be…

“Since when do I care what the lawagetas think,” the Bull of Crete grumbles sullenly. But he must care a little, because he keeps his voice low.

“I will speak to them,” Britomartis tells us, swiping her palms against her skirt as she rises to her feet. But her hands are still damp with Sira’s life-blood, and it leaves its mark on the linen. “And we will speak later of what must be done.”

I stare after her in wordless confusion. What must be done? What is there to do when Sira is gone?

“Good people of Knossos,” Britomartis begins, turning to address the waiting crowd. She is poised and powerful as carved stone, and I hate her for it. “Your Minas has fallen. Sacrificed herself to free you from the usurper, Xenodice. She has fallen, but she has fallen victorious, with honor on her soul…”

I squeeze my eyes shut as Britomartis’ words fade beneath the roar of my own grief.

“… to Potina’s temple, so that she may begin her journey to Potina’s sacred halls...”

“Who will be Minas Crete?” someone asks. “Sira had no heirs.”

“Such things cannot be discussed until Appaliuna brings the new day, good mother. But come here tomorrow when the sun is high, and we will discuss it.”

“Who are you to decide such things?” another calls out. “You are not even Keptui, Britomartis of Thera...”

“Come.” A strong hand grasps my shoulder. “Come, brother. Help me bring my sister home.”

Brother . Not barbarian. Not Achean. Brother .

It is that word that has my legs drawing up beneath me, that has me bending to lift Sira into my arms. It is that word that has me following these strangers through the unfamiliar streets of Knossos, with Sira’s head clasped to my chest, against the mark of my pledge to her which has not yet healed.

Brother .

I carried Sira like this once before. Then, she had been warm and soft. She had smelled like blue lily wine and poppy smoke and perfume.

That was less than half a moon cycle ago. Mere days, really. Now, the smell of blood and the salt of my own tears fill my nostrils.

Potina’s temple is empty as a tomb, and I follow the Bull of Crete blindly through the unlit halls, scarcely aware of the others who trail after us.

“No, this way.” Britomartis orders, her footsteps pattering over stone as she rushes to catch up with us. “That is the way to Potina’s sacred pool. Those waiting to enter her realm must go here.”

Britomartis ushers us towards the heart of the temple, to a small, empty room with low stone platforms, cold ash-filled braziers interspersed between them. I balk at the sight of it.

“I will light the fires,” Britomartis says, speaking more to herself than anyone else. “Lykos, lay her there.”

I frown at the smooth stone.

“Here, let me help you.”

It is the pale one who speaks. Astarte, if my estimation is correct. The sight of that pale goddess reaching for Sira—those pale hands, no longer glowing but certainly inhuman, her deceptive beauty—it is too much.

“Do not touch her,” I hiss. “Don’t you think you have done enough?”

The goddess steps back, her pale eyes flying wide in surprise. I should stop. I know I should stop. I know that to challenge a goddess is to wish for death.

And yet I cannot.

“Cursed Astarte,” I bite out. “What right have you to interfere in the lives of mortals? To interfere in my life? What right did you have to make me love her and then tear her away from me?”

I tighten my hold on Sira, not caring when her unsheathed blade—still clutched tight against her chest—scrapes against my bare stomach.

“They say your gifts cannot be forced, and yet you pierced my heart with your arrow, just as surely as Xenodice pierced Sira’s heart with her sword. I felt it. I, who would have been content to love only myself. I felt it.”

This last word ends on a sob. The goddess opens her mouth as if to speak, but I go on, my voice echoing off the walls of the temple, raw and thick and loud enough to shake the stone.

“Do you deny it, Astarte? Do you deny sending that bird, drawing me to Sira’s side before I had even met her? Do you deny using me, like you have used so many other mortals before me? How long have you been planning this? How long have I been a piece in the game of the gods? Since my very birth? Since the start of time? You gods, who delight in toying with the love and lives of mortals, who treat us like animals to be slaughtered for your whims—you don’t know what it is to have a heart. What it is to live and love and want until even death itself would be sweet. But I do. I do. And I am telling you—goddess though you may be—you will not touch her. And if you put her on that stone, I will lay there with her, and I will not rise until she does. Even if that means following her to Potina’s dark realm and beyond. She is mine. Mine. I have given her my pledge and even death itself will not take her from me.”

Astarte’s men come forward, as if they mean to place themselves between me and their goddess, but Astarte stills them with one raised hand. The Bull of Crete scowls, while the smallest of them—a golden skinned youth with features better suited to smiling—glares fiercely in my direction.

“It is true.” Astarte dips her head. “I do not deny it.”

A cry of surprise catches in my throat, and Astarte lifts her eyes to meet my own. I expect to see challenge there, or censure. I don’t expect to see tears.

“Except, I do know what it is to have a heart.”

She lifts one trembling hand to the center of her chest, to where a pale, pink scar runs along her breastbone.

“And my gift, you took that freely. Even if you regret it now… it can’t be forced, you know.” Her throat bobs, and she turns to look at Britomartis. “Brita. Brita, tell him.”

Britomartis stares back at her. Cold. Unmovable. Except even through my tear-stained vision, I can see the rapid rise and fall of Britomartis’ chest, the wild fluttering of the pulse at her throat.

“I told you once…” Britomartis rasps, pain cracking through her stony expression, “that I was ash. That only the goddess knows how many times she will destroy our hearts. I… I did not expect you to make me so again.”

Astarte makes a choked sound, one hand flying to her mouth as if she means to stifle it. I glare at her. What right does she have to cry? What right does she have to feel anything?

“You’re right.” The admission is soft and raw as the edges of torn papyrus. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry Brita.”

Britomartis presses her lips together, one trembling hand resting on the stone bed reserved for Sira, as if that is the only thing holding her up. I see now that her poise and control was only a performance. I step towards her, Sira clutched against me, that ache in my chest growing at the sight of Britomartis’ unspoken pain, as if I mean to take it on myself and bear it for her. I can’t, of course. But that does not mean we can’t bear it together.

“Here,” I croak, blinking down at Sira’s unmoving form. “Help me.”

Britomartis shudders, like a tree hit by a gust of wind, then reaches to take Sira, moving with me as we lower our lover to the stone. Britomartis lifts that cursed blade so that it rests against Sira’s bloodied chest, the hilt still wrapped in Sira’s lifeless fingers.

She looks small there, cold and vulnerable. Even with that blade in her hand.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

A hand folds around my own, callused and strong and slender. I squeeze it back, then pull Britomartis to me, until we are standing shoulder to shoulder. Until I can feel the trembling, restrained agony shuddering through her, like a silent echo of my wracking sobs.

We are tied together, her and I, though it may only be for this moment. For this day. After this, we may never see each other again. Perhaps she will sail back to Thera with her brother and I will take my brother’s ships, and we will lose each other in the vast sea that separates our worlds.

But right now, our souls are twined, and I hold onto her hand, as if it is the only thing keeping me from sinking beneath the waves.

“ Fhuk, fhuk, fhuk .” Astarte wrings her hands, her strange words whisper soft. “ Houw dhoo ahy phix thies ?”

A curse, no doubt, spoken in the language of the gods. I glare at her, daring her to curse me. The goddess looks past me, wringing her hands as she stares beseechingly at Britomartis, her pale features drawn.

“I’m going to fix this, Brita.” It’s a plea more than a curse.

My brow dips. She does not sound like a goddess.

“You can’t fix it, Adrienne.”

Britomartis’ words are brittle as the broken shards of shell, and just as sharp.

“She is gone. Potina has claimed her as she claims all mortals. And Sira bled for her—I am almost certain that is why she stepped forward to fight Xenodice. To make a blood offering to Potina. Probably to protect her people. To protect us.”

Britomartis’ voice cracks, and I tighten my grip on her hand.

“Because I was foolish. I was foolish enough to tell her some story, some myth, and she was desperate enough to believe it.”

“It’s not your fault,” I rasp.

As much as I would like to blame her, I know she is as little at fault as myself. This was the doing of the gods. Only… only, Sira wasn’t a mortal. Not really.

“But Sira was not a mortal.”

The words burst out of me, desperate and hopeful.

“She was sired by the Starry One himself, remember? She has a blade forged from a fallen star as proof. And I’ve seen the way she heals. She is not an ordinary mortal.”

The big one, Sira’s brother, goes still at my words, color draining from his face as he stares down at Sira. At the silver blade in her hands, still stained with Xenodice’s blood.

Britomartis shakes her head, looking desperately between me and Astarte. “She is still mortal, Lykos. And there are some bonds that cannot be broken. Bonds of blood, for example.”

Her eyes dip to the barely healed wound on my chest. The mark of my pledge to Sira. Unconsciously, I lift my fingertips to it, pressing lightly against the raised, tender mark.

“Like a blood oath or pledge. Or the bond that forms when women give their sacred blood to Potina. If she made a bargain with Potina—and I suspect she did—then it would hold her, even if she was a goddess.”

“Bonds,” Astarte murmurs, gaze going distant. Or Adrienne, as Britomartis called her. “Bonds of blood and bonds of heart… that is what the Oracle said. I thought they were talking about me. Of course I did. But it goes deeper than that. I’d forgotten then. I remember now... fhuk .”

“Adrienne, what are you thinking?”

It’s the dark one who asks, the one who tried to heal Sira earlier. Adrienne turns to him, grasping his thick forearms with her hands, looking for all the world as if she could collapse beneath the weight of whatever thoughts are running through her mind.

“‘Bonds of blood and bonds of heart’, that’s what the Oracle said. And that is how we stopped him. But Potina knew. They knew, Jadi. They knew it wasn’t permanent. All bonds can be broken, if you know how. And this is how—I’m almost certain of it.”

She turns to me, eyes wide. “You said that blade was made of a fallen star? From the god Asterion himself?”

I nod, my mouth thinning into a grim line. “I saw the stone after it struck down Sira’s enemy.”

“And that god told Sira to have it made into a blade?” Jadi asks.

I give another nod, this one wordless, and Jadi turns to give Adrienne a pitying look. “And you gave this Achean your gift?” He tilts his chin in my direction, but keeps his eyes fixed on his goddess. “Struck him with your arrow, as he says.”

There is the faintest twist of his lips at that, as if he finds my description of Astarte’s gift amusing.

“I gave many my gift that day,” Adrienne protests weakly. “I sent it out like a storm, like a thousand messages carried by a thousand doves. It was all I could do. I did not know you all were coming for me. And I didn’t make him take it.”

A frisson of fear and uncertainty runs down my spine at her words. She gave me her gift without knowing? Without even foreseeing the consequences? I had imagined the gods to be more all-knowing. Had thought that, at least if we were their playthings, their game-pieces, that it was a game they understood.

I am now starting to suspect that the gods are as blindly disconnected from one another as the rest of us.

Adrienne lets out a sharp breath. Jadi frowns, looking over his shoulder to where Sira’s brother is scrubbing one big hand over his bearded face.

“What does this mean?” I croak, releasing Britomartis’ hand so that I can drop down to Sira’s side. I drape one arm over her protectively, as if I can somehow shield her from whatever fears these newcomers are entertaining. “What does this mean for Sira?”

“It means…”

Jadi lowers to his knees across from me, on the other side of Sira’s platform, so that I am staring into his broad, scarred face. His gaze drops to Sira. To the blade clutched to her chest. He hovers one hand above her body, above that cursed blade.

“It means Sira’s battle is only just beginning.”

Jadi’s eyes roll back, only the whites visible, his expression going slack. The voice that leaves his lips is otherworldly, like gravel dragged beneath the waves, like whispers echoing off empty caverns.

“It means she must face the storm. A darkness to swallow up the sun and stars. A wind to fell even the strongest tree and topple the proudest mountain. It means all of life, everything we know, rests on the edge of her blade.”

I feel my lip curl in distaste, and tighten my hold on Sira’s unmoving form. “What does that mean, Keptui? Spare me your god-blessed speech and talk plainly. What does that mean?”

“It means…” Kitanetos steps forward, answering when Jadi cannot. His long hair is draped over one shoulder, not quite obscuring the scars that run from temple to throat. “It means she will soon face one of the most deadly of gods in Potina’s underworld. My sire. Velchanos.”

I stare unblinkingly at him, then at the others.

Velchanos . The god my people call Zeus. What has Sira ever done to incite the anger of such a god?

“Impossible,” I rasp. “You can’t know that.”

“No,” Astarte agrees, gracefully sitting on the other end of the stone platform at Sira’s feet.

I curl my lip at the sight of her there, but if she notices my disgust, she does not show it.

“But if we are right, if that is the destiny the threads of fate have woven for her, then there is a chance I can bring her back. And she should not have to face Velchanos alone. Even weakened as he is.”

Weakened? How could a god such as Zeus be weakened?

I scrub at my face, ignoring the feel of dried blood flaking on the palms of my hand, and give Britomartis a questioning look. But she is silent and looks just as confused as I am.

“Adrienne, what are you doing?” Jadi barks out in warning, eyes wide with alarm when Astarte lays down on the other end of the stone platform—a platform reserved for the dead.

She gives him a look full of apologetic determination. “I can’t let her face him alone. And she won’t know how to come back without me to guide her.”

“What do you mean, guide her?” Kitanetos steps forward, looking for all the world like he means to pull the goddess from the platform with his hands. “You cannot… we nearly died in Potina’s underworld, Adrienne.” He gestures at his scars, his voice echoing against the temple walls. “Do you not know what it cost to enter her realm last time?”

“I’m sorry, Kit.” Tears well up in the goddess’ pale eyes, her lower lip trembling as she stares up at the dark stone ceiling. “I had forgotten my own power, my own history.” She squeezes her eyes shut, silver tracking like moonlight down the sides of her face, dropping hot on the cold stone. “I remember now. And…” her voice quivers, dropping to a whisper, “I no longer have a mortal heart to hold me back.”

I see the moment life leaves the goddess’ body.

It is different to death. Different, at least, to the countless deaths I’ve seen at the end of my blade. There is no choking breath, no desperate clawing towards life. Just one last exhale, and then stillness. An unblinking, unbreathing sleep.

The big one roars, an inhuman sound. Jadi flies to his feet, eyes wide, hands outstretched as if he means to use his power to force her back into the realm of the living. Kitanetos’ face is contorted with rage, as if he means to battle the goddess herself for daring to leave him.

“Don’t touch her.”

It’s the smaller of her men who speaks, his voice sweet as a siren from Poseidon’s depths. The others turn to look at him, taking in his grim confidence with questioning looks.

“She has cast herself into Potina’s underworld, Nerites,” Kitanetos argues, words sharp with anger. “After everything we did to get her back… Foolish, foolish…”

He shakes his head, fingers flexing at his sides. Around the room, the braziers flare to life as if in answer to his words, filling the room with acrid smoke. “You can’t expect me to allow this.”

“Enough.”

Nerites strides forward, placing one palm on Kitanetos’ chest. Steam rises from where it makes contact, hissing angrily.

“You forget yourself, Kitanetos. You forget who she is. What she is capable of.”

Water pools at Nerites’ feet, making the stone tiles gleam.

“You may have pulled her from my father’s realm, but let us not forget who put her there. Would you seek to battle Poteiden, if his winds were not to your liking? Would you try to order Appaliuna hurry the dawn of the sun, or still the passage of a day?”

Kitanetos shudders beneath Nerites’ touch, his expression of rage crumbling like stone beneath the onslaught of the sea. “No,” he rasps. “But I do not love them . She is… she is my soul, Nerites.”

“I know.”

Nerites wraps him in an embrace. Something aches behind my ribs at the sight of them, and I look away, my gaze dropping to Sira’s lifeless form.

She is my soul , Kitanetos had said. Yes, that is how I feel too.

Is that what it is to love, then? To cut the most precious part of yourself out, and hand it to another for safekeeping?

What foolishness.

Britomartis drops wearily to her knees beside me, fingers twining with my own once again.

“What do we do?” I murmur, not sure if I’m speaking to her, or the woman who has taken a piece of me with her to Potina’s underworld. “What do we do now?”

Britomartis lets out a shuddering breath. It’s a fragile sound, as if even the act of breathing is painful in a world without Sira. “We wait.” Her hand squeezes my own, warm and strong. “We wait, and hope, and see what the dawn brings.”