Page 54 of Queen to the Sunless Court (Brides of Myth #2)

Frozen

Calliste

As her pendant guided them, Calliste wondered how much energy it would use. Its light stayed gentle, only brightening to show the way, yet she was aware of its ebb and flow.

“So far it’s been two right turns, then one left,” Theron said as they faced another split path.

She gave him a questioning look. “Huh?”

“I memorized our turns. Let’s see if I’m right.” He pointed to an entryway. “It should be this one.”

She lifted her pendant, smiled at him as it glowed to confirm his words, and then put it back around her neck, letting its power dissipate.

As they turned the corner, instead of more winding paths between towering walls, they stepped into a small clearing with trees and shrubs silvered and glowing, bathed in moonlight, even though there was no moon anywhere.

Theron squinted at it and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I don’t remember seeing this from the outside.”

“No,” she replied. “But we couldn’t see everything. Or maybe Eris was frustrated with our progress and added something new.”

The clearing was eerily lifeless, but as soon as they stepped into it, a distant, melancholic tune filled the air.

Theron halted suddenly with a peculiar expression on his face.

She squeezed his hand, glancing up at him.

“This tune... They played it at my parents’ funeral.” He closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and unsheathed his sword. His pendant flickered to life. “I don’t like this. It feels like she’s planning something again. Stay close—we need to cross this clearing to see what she’s up to.”

“Last time, she made a cage from flowers,” she said. “That’s how she separated Hypnos from me. Anything that looks innocent could be a trap.”

“Noted,” he said, advancing in the sorrowful melody.

It was definitely putting him on edge; Calliste could sense the taut stillness about him as he tried to move quickly while watching for any danger in the shadows.

Something shifted ahead.

Theron froze, raising his sword.

A towering man staggered into the clearing, moving slowly and wheezing. When he emerged from the shadows and the silver light illuminated him, it was clear why. He was wounded with a dozen arrows, all jutting from different places in his body.

Calliste’s breath caught when she saw his breastplate, identical to Theron’s.

Theron’s face twisted in pain, his breaths becoming uneven. “Gods. That’s my father as I found him on the boat.”

The dead king paused and stared directly at Theron with lifeless eyes, his face streaked with blood. An unsettling silence thickened around him before he fell to one knee.

Theron jerked forward to catch him, then froze, shooting Calliste a quick look, realizing that he’d left her side.

A streak of silver glinted on the ground between them, and before Calliste could react, a wall of thin ice rapidly unfurled from that streak, splitting them apart.

“Theron!” she cried, slamming her fists against the ice, seeing his horrified expression on the other side. It grew blurrier as the wall thickened. She dashed along it before it separated them completely, but it extended with no end in sight, trapping her behind the blinding whiteness of ice.

***

When she realized she couldn’t outrun this wall, Calliste returned to the clearing where she’d last seen Theron, her lips and throat parched from clipped, frantic breaths.

The wall cut across the space, with no visible end or top. No sound came from the other side at first, then she caught a faint crackling, like that of…

She glanced down—

Like that of the ground frosting over, a glassy white overtaking the black earth. She took a sharp step back, retreating from the spreading frost, but it caught her foot, the lace of ice freezing it to the ground.

Reaching for her pendant by reflex, she started praying—hoping—that Epione’s energy would melt it, when a splash of color drew her attention to the wall ahead.

An idyllic image spread across the ice, gradually gaining startling depth, revealing a garden on an opulent marble-and- gold terrace, with orange and lemon trees against the turquoise sky of the heated noon—and Theron.

He was relaxed, smiling, wearing only his undertunic and sitting on a comfortable reclining couch with pillows beneath the shadow of a bleached-linen awning.

Her breath escaping in a shocked puff of air, Calliste stared at the woman sauntering over to him.

She was bare, her shapely body glistening with water droplets, as if she had just finished a swim.

She held half a peeled orange in her hand.

When she stopped in front of Theron, Calliste recognized her: the candidate.

One of two noblewomen she had met in the corridor, the one with raven hair, a seductive smile, and a honey-drenched voice.

“Kleio,” Theron’s eyes raked over her, a corner of his mouth curving in appreciation, his arm draped along the back of the couch. “Come here.”

That’s her name, Calliste remembered.

Kleio pouted. “I’m getting impatient, Majesty. How much longer will you spend with that priestess?”

He tilted his head. “I’m keeping her sweet. The more invested she is, the more effort she’ll make for Kalias.”

An acerbic taste rose at the back of her throat. This is Eris trying to drive a wedge between us, she reminded herself, yet she couldn’t look away from the scene before her, fixated on Kleio’s perfect, unblemished body, comparing it to her own.

“That ugly temple mouse would make the effort anyway. It’s her duty.” She shrugged. “You’re giving her so much attention that I’m tempted to think you like her.”

“Oh, come,” Theron’s eyes glinted. “It’s a game I must play for my son’s sake. I’ve already explained it to you.”

Iciness bound Calliste’s feet, creeping upward like invisible tendrils, chilling her body. He would never say that. It’s not like him to play spiteful games.

Kleio stepped closer, standing between his open thighs, her pose challenging. Her sleek raven hair cascaded to her waist. “You seem to have lost yourself in your game.”

“I do what I must.” He shrugged. “I need her for my son, nothing else,” he added, his regal profile tilted up at Kleio.

Icy tendrils crept up her body as she remembered those words. He had spoken them… once, a long time ago. Perhaps he still meant them.

“Oh, surely, you can’t be jealous of her?” Theron teased. “I find her adoration endearing, but she’s a wreck inside and out. As a woman, she doesn’t have much to offer. You should see those scars.”

“I find scars beautiful on men,” Kleio said, her eyes fixed on Theron’s chest. “But on women, they must look disgusting. Perhaps you prefer your whores a little damaged, Majesty.”

“She’s an acquired taste and has been a challenge. You know I can’t resist a challenge.” Theron leaned back, his eyes bright. “And now, she’s eating from my hand.”

Calliste wondered if her heart was slowing, its beat freezing, the chill in her chest overwhelming. A voice in her head slowly agreed that this might be what Theron was truly thinking. The scene didn’t need to be real, but his thoughts… might be.

Kleio lifted half the peeled orange and squeezed it over her breasts. Juice droplets rolled over her skin and dewed her nipples.

Theron watched with a widening smile. “Keep this up, and I might not wait until our wedding night.”

“I know plenty of ways to keep you happy until then, Majesty.” She placed her hands on his shoulders, her tongue tracing her upper lip. “Do you want me to do what you like so much?”

He grasped her waist and pulled her closer, smoothing his hand over her buttock. “Go ahead, you wicked thing. I need to recover from that dull night with her—she just lay on her back and did nothing.”

Calliste’s lips turned cold. She wanted to scream, but her breath was trapped in her throat as she numbly watched the scene unfold: Kleio lowering herself to her knees between Theron’s open thighs—

A hairline crack appeared across the picture, freezing it into a frame.

“Calliste!” Theron’s voice boomed from afar, desperate and furious.

More cracks appeared on the still image of Theron and Kleio, and then it began to fragment.

She couldn’t move her arms or legs. The vision held her in icebound, crystalline captivity. Even her thoughts stood still, fixated on what she had seen. Thorns of ice slowly pierced through her heart.

The image shattered into hundreds of shards, raining to the ground as the ice wall splintered at the point of Theron’s glowing sword. His eyes widened; he quickly sheathed his sword and ran to her.

Calliste’s vision started misting at the edges.

“Don’t you dare.” He must have embraced her—his body was scalding her. “Don’t you dare believe it.”

The heat of his body melted the ice inside her chest... but his lips did it even better.

She couldn’t return the kiss, her mouth cold and tongue glacial, but he didn’t give up, his warm breath thawing her mouth.

She wasn’t sure how long he held and kissed her. His amethyst pendant glowed, radiating warmth, slowly breaking the icy spell.

Her own pendant winked and flickered to life, lifting the icy spell. She could move and breathe, her body warm again, while Theron’s felt strangely cold.

His lips were blue; there were ashen patches on his arms as well. She touched his mouth, willing her healing energy into him. “I didn’t mean to give you frostbite.”

He smiled under her hand. “I prefer love bites from you, that’s for sure.” Then his expression turned serious. “I was on the other side of that vision and saw what you saw. You know this is as false as Kalias pretending to be reckless. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly, even though she could feel a thorn or two still embedded in her heart, icy and unyielding.

“Not all of it was false,” he said, watching her closely.

She swallowed. “No?”

“Kleio is indeed vain and entitled,” he murmured. “That part is true and precisely why I’d never...” His expression grew serious. “Calliste, given the choice, I’d rather bed a scorpion.”

“She can’t be that bad,” she replied.

“You might not realize how some women can turn out when they’ve grown up spoiled by parents, surrounded by riches and servants to indulge their every whim. But I do.”

She focused on healing the last of his frostbite on his arm while scolding herself for giving in to her insecurities. “I won’t dwell on it,” she said, watching his skin regain its healthy color and finally meeting his eyes.

“Don’t,” he replied, brushing his thumb across her lower lip.

The chill lingered in the air. The ice around them thawed, crumbling into frozen rubble and melting into silver rivulets. The stark whiteness of the horizon on both sides cut a stark contrast with the black, moonlit clearing behind Theron.

“Oh,” she exhaled. “And that specter of your father—”

“Gone,” he replied, his face turning stony.

She knew better than to ask how he’d overcome the likeness of his father, or if he had to kill him.

As they stepped into the clearing, she scrutinized the ice wall dissolving behind them, forming small rivulets that cut across the clearing as if it lay on a slope.

“The labyrinth was descending, wasn’t it?” Theron watched the water’s movement with a furrowed brow. “I’m glad something makes sense here.”

“Do you think we should follow the water’s direction?”

He nodded. “We’ve both used our powers now, so we should conserve them and take a chance with this. We can’t be far—we couldn’t see this part of the maze because it was hidden in the fog, but I remember its shape. This fog was hanging above the center. We can’t be that far away.”

“I wonder what else she’ll use to separate us.”

Theron stepped in front of her, cupping her face with both hands as if to pour warmth into her. “Whatever she throws at us, we’ll win together. I have no doubt about it.”

Calliste met his eyes, memorizing the light in his face. Her bag—the Last Pact—suddenly felt heavy, her mouth dry because all she wanted was to tell him there was a chance only one of them would return from the Underworld.

And it would be him.

But she only nodded and followed him down the slope.