Shadows Before the Sun

Note to self: using food to induce a calm state of mind while imprisoned is not the brightest idea in the world—I woke to an aching ass, stiff neck, and a really pissed off stomach.

My feet were freezing cold, but at least the ends of the gown had dried. I got up and brushed off my gown, then worked out my stiff joints.

The door to my cell opened. I glared at the siren guard, all my earlier ire resurfacing. I did not plan to be a good prisoner or make it easy for my captors; it was the principle of the thing. “It’s about fucking time.”

He grabbed my arm to pull me to the door, but instead swung me in an arc so that I slammed into the wall next to the open door. “Oops, sorry,” he said, and then jerked me through the door and into the hallway.

Asshole.

But I did note, as we went down the passageway, that his voice didn’t have much effect on me. The Circe were another matter, of course, but I’d been caught off guard before. This time I’d be better prepared.

I was taken into the main chamber, the massive cavern where the sea flowed in and out, the sound echoing off the walls. Some of the white blossoms we had placed in the water during the Panopéic rites remained in the calmer pools. The Circe were gathered behind the altar, their attention fixed on the altar’s surface.

The urge to be sarcastic and disrespectful almost had me saying Yo, bitches. But I said nothing and parked a glower on my face as I was led forward.

They looked up in unison and I decided the whole triplet thing was getting old. I glanced down and saw what they’d been hovering over. Oh great. A certain stone tablet, yea big, with rounded corners and symbols just as Leander had described.

There was my ticket to free my sister and the others from their ash addiction.

Ephyra stepped around the altar and grabbed my right arm, holding it out to examine the writing as I concentrated on bracing myself against her voice. “It is the same,” she said. Her fingers dug into my skin. My arm was still sore from the night before and it felt as though she was digging into a bad bruise, but her voice was so pretty . . .

C’mon. Concentrate on your power! I drew my energy into my core and envisioned it as a barrier against the Circe’s voices.

Arethusa shoved the tablet at me. “What does this say?”

A wave of giddiness swamped me, but I held strong to the barrier I envisioned, finally finding my voice. “How should I know?” I tried to pull away but was held tight. “You’re the old ones, not me.”

“Yet you have the same writing on your arm.”

“You must know what it means.”

I jerked out of Ephyra’s grip, rubbing the offended arm and taking a deep breath to steady myself against their thrall. “I don’t. I have no idea what my markings say or what that tablet says. It’s probably an ancient receipt for cows or something,” I added just to irritate them.

“She lies,” Ephyra said.

Calliadne touched my bare shoulder and walked around to my back, trailing her hand over my skin to the marking on my shoulder blade. Her touch made my skin crawl. Barrier. Think Barrier. Don’t let them in.“And this, do you know what this means?” she asked.

I swallowed hard, using my anger to focus. “I’m guessing the answer doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Not really,” Arethusa answered, her eyes narrowing. “All we need to know lies with another. With Niérian, as he bears the same mark on his chest.”

“His name is Hank.”

“No. His name is Niérian,” Ephyra said, challenging me with a lift of her chin.

Fury leapt hot and ready to the surface, rising in me with every word I spoke. “Well, if you wanted him to keep his given name so badly then maybe you shouldn’t have lied to him, labeled him a traitor, killed his entire family, and then tortured him to death, you stupid bitch!”

Her slap was so quick I didn’t see it coming. There was enough power behind it to send me airborne. I landed in a heap on the cavern floor, so angry that the initial landing didn’t hurt as much as it should have. I saw stars, though, and the side of my face felt numb.

That whole don’t kill the Circe thing? Fucking dissolved. Disappeared. Gone. I stood, rage tearing around inside me like a tornado.

Rational Charlie reminded me I couldn’t let loose the power gathering inside me. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t bring Sachâth here in front of them.

“Her arm, sisters, it’s glowing.”

I glanced down and covered my arm with my hand, not that it helped. The markings glowed blue from my hand to my shoulder. Shit, shit, shit. Calm down. Must calm down. Think of the bakery. But that only made me see red because I was starving, and that was another strike against them.

I never had the chance to calm myself because they approached me like I was some kind of interesting bug. A specimen. They began jabbing at me, pushing me to lose control; they wanted to see what would happen.

“Stop it!” I yelled, hearing the panic in my voice as I backed away until my foot slipped in the water. I struggled to retain my balance, going deeper into the water until it covered my calves. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

Before I could blink, I was grabbed by the neck, hauled out of the water, and shoved against the altar. The tablet was stuck in my face. “Read it, then.”

“I can’t!” I cried.

“Try,” they all said at the same time. With my defenses down, there was no barrier, yet I was brimming with divine power. When I looked at the words . . . I knew them. I began reading, not knowing what I was saying. I was just a vessel, a conduit from the words in front of me to a language that was eerily similar to the way Sachâth had spoken to me and Ahkneri had spoken in my dreams.

I spoke the words and then collapsed onto the altar, but was given little mercy as I was grabbed once again and shaken. “But what does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” I answered tiredly.

“Liar! You just read them! You know!”

I straightened, my endurance at an end, feeling drunk and reckless off their voices. I held my hands wide in a gesture that said I really didn’t care whether she believed me or not. “I don’t. Get over it, Ephyra. Now feed me because I’m hungry.”

That really got under her skin, as I knew it would.

A vein popped out on her perfect forehead and a growl erupted in her throat, which turned into a screech as she came at me. Arethusa stepped in front of her and said very evenly, “We have much to discuss. Let us convene with the oracle once more.”

That got my attention. “Alessandra isn’t part of this. She doesn’t take sides. She didn’t know—”

“Oh, but the oracle knows everything.” Ephyra smirked. “She’s ours now. Just like Panopé, just like Niérian, just like the Malakim, just like the king.”

“Full of yourself, aren’t you?” I shot back, but her words were burned into my brain and I had a very keen sense that something terrible had happened to Alessandra. I turned my attention to Calliadne, who seemed like the nicest of the three, if such a thing were possible. “What did you do to her? I swear . . . Please . . . just . . . don’t hurt her.”

A dimple formed in Calliadne’s cheek as she considered my plea, met the eyes of her sisters, and then shrugged. “See for yourself if you’d like.”

“Perhaps granting you this wish will encourage you to grant us what we wish,” Arethusa said.

They led me down the passageway to the chamber with the three doors, through the center one and then instead of going right toward the cells, they turned left, the same way they’d gone earlier with Sandra.

As we walked, I tried to prepare myself. She was probably just in a cell, or shackled to a comfortable couch or something. Who’d hurt the oracle? She was one of the most famous people alive. They wouldn’t do something so foolish as to harm her.

I’d all but convinced myself of that when the Circe opened a beautifully carved door leading into an equally beautiful room that resembled the palace in style, art, and architecture. There was power in this room. Old power. In the center was a circular hole, a huge chasm in the ground, and in the middle, in a smaller ring, was a rock jutting up from the depths of the chasm. On the rock was a statue, a female figure rising out of the waves reaching