Or playing games of chase and dice with Maia. The two of them shared a bond that warmed my heart. Acheron never hurt her or raised his voice. He very seldom even touched her. And when it came to her incessant questions, he had more patience than anyone I'd ever seen. Even Petra commented on it and how grateful she was that Maia had found a willing playmate.
Earlier today, we'd been out in the orchard, trying to find fresh apples even though it was past season. Acheron had finally admitted to a preference for the fruit-it'd taken me weeks of trying before he would admit a preference for anything.
'Do you think Father will come soon?' he asked.
I swallowed in fear. I don't know why I'd kept up the lie. Except that the truth of Father's feelings was something I didn't think he needed to know. It was easier to tell him that his family loved him-that they all felt toward him as I did.
'Perhaps.'
'I would like to meet him,' he said as he peeled an apple with his knife. It was the only one we'd found and though it wasn't quite fresh, Acheron didn't seem to mind. 'But it's Styxx I'd like to meet most. I can only vaguely recall him from before.'
He'd ceased speaking of himself as a whore, said nothing of torture or abuse, not even when I asked him for details. His eyes would become haunted and he would hang his head low. So I learned not to ask, not to remind him of anything about his years spent with our uncle.
The only telltale sign of his time there was still the way he moved. Slowly, seductively. He had been so thoroughly trained as a prostitute that even here, he couldn't shake those movements.
The only other reminder of his past were the balls in his tongue that he refused to remove and the brand on his palm.
'It hurt too much to have it pierced,' he'd told me when I'd asked about the balls. 'My tongue was so swollen that I couldn't eat for days. I don't want to have to experience that again.'
'But you won't, Acheron. I told you, I won't let them return you there.'
He'd looked at me with the same indulgence he'd given Maia when she told him that horses could fly-like a parent who didn't want to spoil the child's delusion with the truth.
So the balls remained.
But then so did Acheron.
January 20, 9531 BC
I sat for hours today, watching Acheron. He'd awakened early as he often did and walked down to the beach. It was so cold that I feared he'd become ill, but I didn't want to infringe on his freedom. He'd lived so long with rules dictating his every movement and opinion that I never wanted to impose any limitation on him.
Sometimes the mind's health was even more important than that of the body. And I believed he needed his freedom more than he needed to be protected from a small fever.
I kept to the shadows, just wanting to observe. He walked for almost an hour in the freezing surf. I had no idea how he withstood the coldness of it, yet he seemed to derive pleasure from the pain.
Whenever one of the sea animals from the water washed ashore, he took great care to get it back into the water and send it on its way.
After a while, he climbed up the craggy rocks where he sat with his legs bent and his chin resting on his knees. He looked out across the sea as if waiting for something. The wind blew his fair hair out and around him, his clothes rippled from the force of it while the water plastered the light golden curls of his legs to his skin.
Still, he didn't move.
It was almost noon before he returned. He joined me in the dining hall for our midday meal. As we were being served, I saw the jagged cut he had on his left hand.
'Oh, Acheron!' I gasped, worried about the deep gash. I took his hand into mine so that I could examine it. 'What happened?'
'I fell against the rocks.'
'Why were you sitting up there?'
He pulled away, uncomfortable.
That only worried me more. 'Acheron? What is it?'
He swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. 'You will think me mad if I tell you.'
'No, I won't. I would never think such a thing as that.'
He looked even more uncomfortable before he spoke in a thin tone. 'I hear voices sometimes, Ryssa. When I'm near the sea, they're louder.'
'What voices?'
He closed his eyes and tried to withdraw.
I gently took his arm and kept him by my chair. 'Acheron, tell me.'
When he met my gaze, I saw the fear and anguish inside him. It was obvious this was something else that had caused him to be beaten in the past. 'They're the voices of the Atlantean gods.'
Shocked by his unexpected answer, I stared at him.
'They call to me. I can hear them even now like whispers in my head.'
'What do they say?'
'They tell me to come home to the hall of the gods so that they can welcome me. All but one. Hers is stronger than the others and it tells me to stay away. She tells me that the others want me dead and that I shouldn't listen to their lies. That she'll come for me one day and take me home where I belong.'
I frowned at his words. By his eyes, everyone knew Acheron was the son of some god. But to my knowledge no demigod had ever heard voices of the other gods. At least not like this.
'Mother says that you must be a son of Zeus,' I told him. 'She says that he must have visited her one night, disguised as Father, and that she didn't know he'd been in her bed until you were born. So why would you hear the voices of the Atlantean gods when we're Greek and your father is either Zeus or a Greek king?'
'I don't know. Idikos drugs me whenever I hear them until I'm too dizzy and numb to notice anymore. He says it's a figment of my mind. He says…' His face stricken, he looked away.
'He says what?'
'That the gods have all cursed me. It's their will that I serve as I do. It's why I was born so unnaturally and why everyone wants to sleep with me. The gods all hate me and they want to punish me for my birth.'
'The gods don't hate you, Acheron. How could they?'
He wrenched his arm from my grasp and gave me a look so insolent that I was shocked by it. Never had he shown this much spirit. 'If they don't hate me, then why am I like this? Why has my father denied me? Why would my mother never even look at me? Why have I been kept as an animal whose only role in life is to serve as my master bids me? Why can't people look at me without attacking me?'
I cupped his face in my hands, grateful that he no longer tensed when I touched him. 'That has nothing to do with the gods. Only other people's stupidity. Has it never occurred to you that the gods sent me to free you because they didn't want to see you suffer anymore?'
His gaze fell. 'I can't hope for that, Ryssa.'
'Why not?'
'Because hope scares me. What if this is all I am? A whore to be bartered and sold. The gods make kings and they make whores. It's obvious which role they chose for me.'
I winced at his words. Honestly, I preferred the weeks when he refused to mention being a whore. I hated the reminders of what had been done to him against his will, especially those wretched balls in his tongue that flashed every time he spoke.
'You are not cursed!'
'Then why when I tried to gouge out my eyes would they not stay out?'
Paralyzed by those words, I couldn't breathe for several seconds. 'What?'
