But the day my sister took him from me—
Iphitheme.
My eyes widen with newfound enlightenment as the memory returns.
He didn’t die of natural causes. It wasn’t the natural course, or the plan Apollo had laid out. Instead, it was my sister—a priestess in my inner sanctum who took matters into her own hands. How could he have seen her betrayal coming when he swore an oath to protect her?
The jealousy lingering in her gorgeous blue eyes cripples my heart to see it again in my mind’s eye and tears pool behind my eyelids before streaming down my cheeks. My heart shatters all over again, forcing me to double over and place my head against the ground as I give in to the potency of the memories and the fallout from their revelations.
As the cognizance takes hold, it demolishes any sense of tranquility or self-assuredness I had; replacing it with doubt, agony, envy, anger, and grief at all I’ve lost. At the betrayal of it all.
The recollection of my sister and her actions rips me apart. Long gone; Iphitheme’s body is now nothing more than a dusty memory of the legacy of the Temple of Apollo. I wish more than anything I could confront her and ask her to take it all back.
Her motivations become clear as the discovery unfolds in tandem with my gifts. She didn’t want Anastasios to soil the reputation of purity for the Oracle of Delphi. She feared for the sanctity of the priestesses—and all that she worked so hard for.
But in her actions, in her fear—she destroyed it all. Both the Oracle and the priestesshood’s venerableness, not to mention, the Temple of Apollo—everything. After what she did, it all crumbled and fell apart because the Pythia was no longer operable. Not when the Oracle up and vanished.
I up and vanished.
When the memories bring me back to my starting point, the energy begins to slow down, and the revelations cease. The pain and heaviness of the past bears no weight now—not when Anastasios soul is alive and well in Blake.
I have to find him—
Kneeling, I place my hands on my thighs and straighten my back. I’m no good to anyone—not Blake, not the girls—if I’m a big puddle of mess on the floor. I force the memories inside to go into deeper waters. To calm themselves by burying them in an undercurrent so I can bring the matters at hand to the surface.
Blinking back my tears, I wipe them away with the back of my hand and take a deep, cleansing breath.
“Diana, you would not have been given these gifts if you weren’t capable of bearing their weight,” I say aloud, shaking away the inundation of emotions and images. “It’s time you stop hiding and start doing what you’re put on this damn Earth to do.”
Without skipping another beat, my resolve hardens, and I place my hands on the cavern floor, knowing I will need grounding. The space rumbles, jostling pebbles and loose stones free—this time not from Mnemosyne, but from the power and magic residing within me as I unleash my gifts.
I will find Blake before time is up.
White hot energy shoots from my fingertips as I splay them wide. Suddenly, my vision blanks out entirely and I’m consumed in a field of perception of only the color white. Though I’m acutely aware of my surroundings, my vision sees and senses the white light as if it’s the only thing that really matters—as if all particles, atoms, subatomic particles—everything exists solely in the clarity of the light.
My thoughts drift to Blake and my vision abruptly and instantaneously shifts.
My awareness spreads out, concurrently searching for Blake and the girls at the same time. Memories weren’t the only thing unlocked by releasing Mnemosyne’s symbol—the power driven by Apollo unleashes itself and I see through the lens of Godlike eyes as his prophetic vision is left unhindered and coursing through me.
I breathe a sigh of relief.
Blake is alive but bound by gunpoint further in the cave. Interestingly enough, he’s not far from where the girls are being held. Rocking back on my feet, the worries, reasoning, and thoughts of everyone in the vicinity meander into my mind as if beckoned by a lover’s hand.
“Told you it was him,” a man says.
Beside him, another man snickers—
My mouth drops open in surprise. The men who have the girls also have Blake.
I take another breath, digging deeper into the minds and memories of the two men.
One of them had been sent ahead to scout the area and radio back when tourists had left. But he had spotted Blake and acted. The grungy old man from the blue cabin back home had a surveillance system installed in his house and they had our faces. Each of them were on alert for being followed—just in case.
I dive deeper, allowing my senses to truly dig in and listen—
“There—all tied up and secure,” the first man says, wiping his hands across his green shirt. His lips curve into a sneer.
“That’s great. Really. What in the hell are we supposed to do with this asshole?” the second man says, kicking at Blake’s limp body as it rests on the ground.
Blake’s mind is blank—clearly not conscious enough to tap into yet. But his energy signature is alive and well.
“I dunno—but I couldn’t just leave him out there. As soon as I spotted him, I knew I had to act. You know what happened with the little girl back in the States. He and that bitch stole her right out from under us. Who knows what the hell he was planning to do.”
“What if he’s got backup, moron? Or maybe he’s been tagged with some sort of GPS locator. You coulda led the police right to us for all you know,” he spits. “We gotta distance ourselves from him and quick. Start rounding up the girls.”
I don’t actively go searching for personal details and yet they come to
