Chapter 17
Motep stared at her with narrowed eyes, like he didn’t believe she was standing in front of him, real as him. His right hand glowed with shadow magic, though he stayed on the ground, on edge. A beat passed and Fay knelt down in front of him, her flat palms out to the side, a peace offering. It calmed him and the magic dissolved from his hand, though he still watched her suspiciously.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes, I should. Where’s the squad?” Fay asked, glancing around, then back to him, curious. “You were stalking me – why?”
He sat up, wincing, one hand clutching his shoulder. Blood squeezed through his fingers. A slow bleed, so nothing serious.
“Didn’t know if you were real or not. This place-“
“Doesn’t get its reputation for no reason,” she said with a wane smile, then stood and held out a hand.
He stared at her hand for a moment, then grabbed it and let her help him up. A flash of pain on his face, his mouth a tight grimace but as his hand fell away from the wound it was already healing.
“I went off to scout ahead, not too far but one minute I was in the forest, the next I was standing in some ancient temple,” he said carefully. “I haven’t seen them since. You were the first and I didn’t know you were real.”
She hadn’t wanted anybody with her when she found Andromeda but she couldn’t ditch Motep. Not intentionally, anyway. She wasn’t that cruel.
“I’m real.”
“And you’re walking somewhere with a purpose – it isn’t the squad, is it? You didn’t want to run into any of us, did you?” There was hurt in his voice, like she was fully exposed and he was seeing her properly for the first time, not liking what he saw. “Were you planning on ditching us once you got here?”
“I didn’t need you to get here,” she said coolly, then sighed. “In the beginning, yes, I wanted to join you because the idea of going into Tartarus alone scared the hell out of me. Then things changed and someone got really determined to get you here. I couldn’t stop that, even though I tried. Then I got hurt and I had to come here on my own, figure out this place on the go. Truthfully, though? I know whom I’m trying to find but I don’t know the how or where part.”
He digested her words carefully. They were honest, vague but truthful. She wanted to tell him all about Andromeda, really to just tell another real person. Closing her eyes, she reached for Andromeda, tried to sense if she was watching but there was nothing but a cold void. When she opened her eyes Motep had looked away, weary.
“Andromeda.”
There, it was out. Motep looked at her sharply, shocked, unsure what to make of what she’d just said. His eyes narrowed.
“Her? She’s your master?”
Rather than risk saying the name aloud again she nodded slowly. Motep rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then as his hand fell away, appeared to understand. It seemed that all her actions made a lot of sense because he looked at her with a kind of pity, as though it wasn’t all her fault. Somehow, that felt worse and she shifted on her feet, angsty about it. She turned sharply from him and set off.
“You better stay with me. It’s not safe alone,” she said. “Besides, I can pretty much guarantee our path will cross with the squad in the end.”
Motep limped up next to her, slanting her a long look. “You don’t want that, do you?”
And see his expression on theirs?
“No,” was all she said.
All she could say, anyway.
They stopped a several hours later and nibbled on some dried meet and hard biscuits. It was a bland meal and didn’t fill her up but it was better than nothing. To Fay’s relief the meal was silent and when they set off again the silence continued. She glanced at Motep but his gaze was faraway, his mind in another place entirely. Was it about his wife in the gardens of Elysium? Did he wonder if he’d ever see her again? Or was he thinking about the squad?
She tried not to think about it because it meant thinking about the squad, of what their reactions would be. Instead, she turned her mind to what she’d seen and all the visions she had in her mind. She tried to assemble them into a kind of time line. The earliest of which was what she’d just seen, of Andromeda in a pool, meeting the hellhound Cerberus. It was a time before humans when Zeus was a young God, whom was waging a war against his father. It changed Fay’s whole understanding of Andromeda. It meant that Andromeda had, to her knowledge, lived two lives. One, as whatever she was in the pool, then another as a human. Only, as a human, at least in the beginning, she acted like she had no knowledge of what she was. Her first life explained that mysterious shift in direction and determination in her human life. Had she in her quest to understand the prophecy remembered this first life? That, in that first life, there had been something stolen from her, that demanded to be reclaimed?
Even with all she’d seen she had no idea what exactly Andromeda was fighting for. Zeus had stolen something but what? What was worth waging a war with the Gods for? She sighed, irritated.
“Something on your mind?” Motep asked, glancing at her.
“I’m tired of feeling so lost,” she admitted. “I’ve been seeing flashes of Andromeda’s lives but I still don’t understand her.”
“Do you need to?” Motep inquired. “She’s a threat that has to be destroyed.”
She felt a flash of anger and shook her head fiercely. “That’s what everyone says about her but no one says why. Why is she waging this war? Why is she so dangerous? Why are the Gods so bloody scared of her? Why?”
To that, Motep fell silent. He seemed to think about her questions, perhaps formulating his own answers to it. She didn’t know what kind of answer to expect. Truthfully, she hadn’t ever had a solid conversation with him, save for a few snatches here and there.
“I think Zeus screwed up and betrayed the wrong person. That all of this is him trying to clean it up,” she said finally. “Only, Andromeda is determined to get back what he stole and expose him.”
“What did he steal?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. She’s been cagey on that but I’m getting close to understanding. It’s why I came here – for answers.”
“Oh.”
As the road curved to the right and widened onto the bank of a rushing river, she paused and knelt down, scooping up some water into her hand. She got no more than a drop on her mouth and spat it back out, her mouth twisting into a scowl.
“Salt.” She pushed herself to her feet with a groan. “So much for hoping to come onto a new-“
Her voice trailed off as she saw Cerberus appear through the trees, jogging to the water – and behind him, Andromeda. Only, she was semi-transparent, whereas he was solid. Behind her, Motep’s breath hitched, which assured her she wasn’t the only one seeing it. Cerberus stopped at the river and turned around, his chest heaving with exhaustion, though a smile nearly split his cheeks. There were no shadows under his eyes, like there had been when he met with Calypso and Lupus. Instead, he seemed free, happy.
Without thinking she moved closer. Motep grabbed her arm but she glanced back at him.
“This is how we learn, Motep,” she said softly. “I thought she only lived a couple thousand d years ago but what we’re seeing? That was before Zeus killed his father, before men even walked the earth.”
As she turned around to watch them he followed her gaze. Cerberus reached out and ‘cupped’ her cheek – he leant forward but his hand fell through her face. His hand fell to his side.
“I wish you were here,” he said softly, so quietly that Fay had to draw closer to hear.
She lifted her gaze to his. “I will be soon.”
He froze. “How?”
“I spoke to Zeus. He-“
“Andromeda – why?”
Andromeda. So, had she come up with the name on her own? Or had he? A name that had carried onto another life, no less.
Cerberus turned from Andromeda, a hand to his mouth, dragged it down with a soft hiss. When he glanced back at her, his eyes were grim. Whatever laughter and light had been there was smothered. In turn, Andromeda’s face darkened and she lifted her nose, a little defiant, angry even.
“Because I want to be free! Really free! Not just me, my kin, too,” she said heatedly, with the same fire Fay knew so well. “Why are you angry with me?”
“Because he is dangerous!” Cerberus thundered.
Her eyes bled black and she looked more like an angry Goddess, rather than a human. She stepped towards him and to his credit he held his ground, though perhaps it was because she wasn’t really there. Fay watched on, engrossed, when Motep gently nudged her and gestured to Andromeda’s feet. The ground had turned black beneath her, like rot.
“I am dangerous.” She pulled back, her eyes returning to normal, falling to the blackened earth. “Chaos saw the Gods and wasn’t pleased with them. He made us to replace them, though he didn’t say when. It sparked something in us, Cerberus, a desire. One we cannot stifle anymore. We demand when we will be freed but he says ‘when it is time’. Even my sister, whom is to be the Goddess of Fate and Time, doesn’t know. He has blinded her to it. So, we sit and wait and I see this world, then they see it through me. We were made for this world, Cerberus. So, yes, I took my fate into my own hands and decided to find a way to free us!”
Cerberus didn’t look convinced as he frowned. “You believe Zeus can do all he said? He will betray you and I will lose you.”
This time Andromeda reached for him and her ghostly hand lingered on his cheek. “My love, this has gone beyond us and what we have. It is time. I feel it in my heart, the one you taught me to feel. You gave me the fire of this world and now I seek to light the darkness my kin and I are in, to guide us here.”
The pair of them faded away, as if they’d never been there at all. Fay shot Motep a look, as if to say, see, I’m not crazy. There is more to this than anyone wants to realise. He threw his hands up and sighed, then stalked off. Conversation would have to wait for the moment as Fay hurried after him, then fell into step, glancing back for only a second to where Andromeda and Cerberus had stood.
They followed the river, walking on aimlessly, waiting for something to appear – anything aside from the thinning forest that seemed to stretch on forever.
“Have you considered Andromeda might be tricking you? She was in league with Eris,” said Motep finally.
“I have but every time I’ve tried to fight it, to see the lie in it, I can’t. I can’t explain it but something has been leading me. It always has, even before I turned even. I was always an outcast, always searching for something that I couldn’t define. Part of me felt like I was missing something and only once I started down this path did I start to feel that void being filled. It is the only thing that has felt right.”
He shook his head. “You are a strange one, indeed. Leila would like you.”
“Your wife?”
“I do not want to know how you know that,” he said. “But yes, my wife. I was tricked when I was made. All I wanted was my wife to be saved and she was. As was I. Only, it was not the fate I imagined. I became a hound and she, a slave to the heroes in the afterlife. It is only by the pity of some that I even find the chance to see her.”
He sounded resigned to his fate, grateful for what he had. There was something both admiring and depressing about that. How he had no rage for the God that tricked him and his wife into an eternity of servitude was beyond Fay. She’d be furious…and so would Andromeda. The terrifying thought that was perhaps the pair of them were far more alike than Fay would’ve ever believed. The harder she looked the more similarities she saw; at least, in personality, anyway.
With a sigh she wrapped her arms around her waist and let her mind drift. She was far away, thinking of desert lands and a girl whom defied the Gods, when Motep suddenly grabbed her arm. She looked at him sharply but he merely gestured ahead. Following where he pointed, she saw a woman standing in the middle of the road, clad in black. There was no mistaking whom it was.
Eris.
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