Chapter 20 - Calliope

Pain. It slices through me, heavy and hot, a relentless pulse of agony. I can’t move; my limbs feel weighted, pinned down by invisible chains. But something else—a shadow, looming and watching—keeps me rooted in place even as I come to, my vision blurring in and out, swirling with shapes and smudges of light.

The scent hits me next. Smoke, iron, and the faint tang of some kind of herb—a pungent mix of pain and healing, as though the room itself is caught between the two. I squint at the ceiling, then around me. I don’t recognize the room I’m in. High, iron-detailed windows stretch toward an ornate arched ceiling. It’s incredibly intricate, the room filled with books and complex tapestries, a golden telescope mounted at one window.

And as my eyes adjust to the dim light, I see him.

He’s sitting close, elbows on his knees, broad shoulders blocking some amount of light from me, leaning toward me as though expecting some revelation to spring forth the moment my eyes open. His gaze is a weight of its own, scrutinizing, piercing, not allowing me even a second to gather myself.

“Calliope.”

Arvoren’s voice is a low command, one I’ve grown all too used to, though it strikes differently now, less an order than a strange, forceful plea.

I shift, swallowing hard against the dryness in my throat.

“Arvoren,” I manage, my voice raspy. The name comes out as if dredged up from deep within, coated in the memories of every argument, every fear, every trace of hatred. I find his eyes, dark and unyielding, but there’s something else there, something new in the way he looks at me, though I can’t yet understand why. My memories of what happened are so fuzzy.

“You survived,” he murmurs, almost to himself, his tone threaded with an unfamiliar roughness.

A vision of the sanctum—of glass shattering, relics breaking, colors bleeding into darkness—returns to me in a dizzying wave. I see the tapestry of our wedding night unraveling, feel the stone floor beneath me cold and unforgiving, then the warmth of Arvoren’s arms—no, I can’t think of that. I swallow and look away.

“You don’t look pleased about it,” I say, a touch of bitterness slipping out despite my effort to keep it contained.

He sits back, crossing his arms, his face hardening into the expression I’ve come to know. He’s judging me unworthy.

“Pleased isn’t the word I’d choose.” He pauses, eyes narrowing. “Tell me, Calliope—did you know what you were? Or were you simply hiding it from me?”

“‘What I am?’” I echo, incredulous. “Do you think I wanted this? Do you think I have a clue what that was? You saw what happened. I was …” I stop, forcing the rest of the words down. I was terrified. “I don’t know what happened, or how, or why.”

Arvoren regards me for a long, quiet moment, his gaze flickering as though weighing every word, every breath. “Tell me everything. About your family. Your bloodline. I want details, not some trite tale you’ve told to placate me. If you truly aren’t a witch, then you are something far, far worse than that.”

My heart stutters, and I meet his gaze, searching for any sign of understanding. But his expression is unyielding. He doesn’t want to understand. He wants control. I should be furious with him for that; I am furious. And yet the phantom warmth of his arms around me, protecting me, lingers on my skin, a rash, a disease. I cannot shake myself free from it.

I hesitate, the memories of my grandmother’s stories filling my mind like echoes in a chamber. She may be long dead, but since I got to this wretched place, she hasn’t left me.

“My grandmother … she used to tell stories,” I begin slowly, my voice almost a whisper. “About her mother, and her mother’s mother before that. Stories about what we could do.” I shake my head, feeling the weight of his gaze. “We were called witches by the people of the village. And she told me it was because they were too afraid of what we really were, to admit we were something far greater. But that was nonsense, childhood tales. She said it to offer me some comfort. I was a lonely child.”

“And yet here you are,” he says, his tone hard, but there’s a flicker of something else in his eyes. “Clearly, there was some truth to it.”

I lower my gaze, letting the ache in my limbs ground me. “She told me stories of a power that could shape storms, bend the very air around us. Passed down, mother to daughter. But it was all fantasy to me. I never—” I swallow, feeling the painful dryness of my mouth. “I never believed it was real. She was a storyteller. An old woman with dreams. I never knew my mother. She died giving birth to me. How could someone with such power …” My words trail off. I suddenly feel very childish, a scared little girl repeating fairytales.

Arvoren’s silence is a heavy one. Its weight presses upon me. And though I don’t look up, I can feel him considering every word, every hesitation.

He leans closer, and I feel the warmth of his presence, a kind of quiet intensity that feels almost possessive. It spurs me to keep talking. Fear or desire—I cannot tell the difference anymore.

“I have my family’s blood,” I continue quietly. “But I have never felt any power … not until last night.” I glance up, catching his eyes. “Believe me or don’t, but I didn’t want any of this. Whatever power you think I have, it’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you. For all you’ve done to me, Tyrant, I have not yet lied to you.”

There is much I’ve hidden. I think of Linus, of Lyra, of the plotting in the city, the sheer chance of my escape.

Nonetheless, it’s true; I have not lied.

Arvoren is silent, his expression unreadable, but his gaze is sharp, calculating.

“If that’s true,” he says slowly, “then what happened to you wasn’t a choice. But it was also … not entirely an accident, was it?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper, feeling the tremor of uncertainty settle deep within me.

“You should know,” he says, almost harshly, though there’s a hint of something else there—fear, maybe? No. That would be impossible. Arvoren does not fear. “Is the prospect of being my queen so incorrigible? Did it seem so wretched a possibility? Speak, or I will take your silence for what it is.”

I bristle at the thinly veiled threat in his words, but I hold my tongue. I don’t know what to say, don’t know if there’s anything I can say to sate his rage, or even if I have the energy to do this, to tame him.

A long silence stretches between us. It seems to distance us from one another. Finally, after a long while, he rises, his movements measured, deliberate.

“Tonight,” he says quietly, “my advisors return to me. They will inform me of what they’ve learned so far. Of you, of your family, of what, precisely, was unlocked in the sanctum. I suggest you prepare yourself, Calliope. The truth is coming. We shall both have to face it.”

With that, he leaves, his footsteps echoing down the corridor, leaving me alone in the heavy silence of these chambers— his chambers, I realize now, with no small amount of breathlessness. I’m in his bed.

Somehow, it’s the least of my worries.

Night settles over the castle, its silence a momentary reprieve from the rain and storms which have plagued Millrath the whole time I’ve been here. Arvoren never returns to his bed. Is he sleeping elsewhere? Is he sleeping at all? Any moment now, he could join me in this bed. The thought should keep me awake, but it doesn’t. My exhaustion weighs on me like a shroud, and I doze, but cannot seem to sleep deeply. Every noise, every faint rustle of fabric or flicker of torchlight keeps my senses heightened, straining. It’s as though the very air is restless, vibrating with something beyond the human realm.

And then, in the stillness, footsteps echo outside the door. A murmur of voices. Commander Darian’s, low and intense, mingling with Arvoren’s.

I close my eyes, feigning sleep, though every fiber of my being strains to listen. I hear fragments, pieces that slip through the heavy wood.

“… Windwakers … powerful… a bloodline… the Gods themselves…” Darian’s voice trails off, a soft murmur that I barely catch.

Arvoren’s response is harder, laced with tension. “And if they mean to oppose us?”

Another murmur, a pause. “The Gods are … displeased,” Darian says. “They seek to extinguish her bloodline. If they are awakened now, they will not rest until they see Millrath burn.”

The silence that follows is deafening, thick with an undercurrent of dread. I don’t move, but the words cling to me like cold, wet cloth. The Gods themselves … against us? Against me ?

The voices move down the corridor, their murmurs fading, leaving behind an echo of their words in my mind.

Awake for good now, I turn onto my back, staring at the dark ceiling above, my heart thundering in my chest. The Gods—displeased, angered—seeking to end my line, to destroy my blood.

My mother’s blood. My grandmother’s blood.

A shiver runs through me. Suddenly, the power I’d felt, that violent surge of energy, seems small compared to what lies beyond, the weight of a realm that does not want me to exist. If Arvoren knows, if he truly understands what he now faces, he might not even need to kill me. The Gods, the forces of the dead … they will do it for him. It will not take them long.

But as I lie there, the terror shifts. I survived once, against all odds. If there’s anything I know how to do, it’s to keep fighting, to survive. It is the thing the women of my bloodline have always done best.

The night passes slowly, each hour stretching on as I turn the words over in my mind. By morning, a strange clarity settles over me. He won’t kill me. I’m certain of it. I know now that Arvoren and I are connected in ways neither of us could have anticipated. He might still be my enemy, but our enemies … they are greater than either of us. And, for the first time, the thought brings me a strange comfort.

I might be alone in my fight, but I am not alone in facing it. I know now that this is the beginning of a strange but necessary alliance of convenience.