Chapter 42

ChapterForty-Two

The journey nearly turned her insides out. Greed’s guard, a man who refused to share his name, set a pace that would have killed even the healthy. She pressed a hand to her chest and kept going, no matter how hard it became to breathe or how her lungs screamed.

Though she didn’t like the pace, she could admit he was doing the right thing. With every step, she felt herself growing weaker and weaker.

It felt like they had been walking for days, though she knew they’d only stopped for one night. And every second of that night, she’d flinched at the barest sound near them.

Greed’s guard had made fine work of setting up a quick shelter. He’d only grunted when she thanked him and then pointed to the small mat of leaves and moss he’d made for her. She fell asleep fitfully, certain that every sound was Lust coming to get her. She feared he’d drag her out of the little lean-to and throw her back to his castle, where they would both have to suffer through this mess.

But every time she’d awoken, Greed’s guard had been there. The man’s eyes glowed with the firelight, and he never once looked back at her. Instead, he stared into the fields around them. The muscles in his shoulders were never relaxed, his body never once at ease. He always looked like he was ready to kill something.

That shouldn’t have been as reassuring as it was.

The sun had barely lifted on the horizon before he woke her. A gentle, but firm, hand on her shoulder and a quick shake, so she knew there was no arguing.

Selene rolled back to standing and knew her time was even shorter than she’d imagined. Her face felt cold, and her hands were difficult to use. Her fingers were so stiff she could barely hold on to the walking stick the guard made her.

By the time the Tower came into view, the icy winds whipping at the cloaks around their shoulders, she saw worry in the guard’s gaze for the very first time.

He looked her over, then looked at the Tower on the horizon. “Can you make it?”

“On my own? Absolutely.” She tried to curl her fingers around the walking stick a little more firmly, but her fingers creaked with the movement. The bones snapped and popped as though even that little movement could break her. “You shouldn’t get too close. They aren’t very friendly toward men.”

“I’ve heard.” Though it was the first time she’d spoken with him, Selene had expected the gruffness of his voice. The harsh tones made him seem a little less human. “I was tasked with seeing you there safely. Leaving you here alone is not completing it.”

“Then stay here.” She nodded toward the horizon. “You’ll see my path. I’m the only dark thing in these fields. You’ll know when I reach the Tower.”

“And then?”

“Even if I fall, you leave me.” He jerked at the harshness in her own voice, but Selene continued on as though she hadn’t shocked a man bred for war. “It’s not so surprising, is it? You knew you were bringing me here to die.”

“Greed said they would save you.”

She looked at the Tower and felt something inside her heart break. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t suspect they will.”

And still, she soldiered on.

Selene didn’t look back at the poor man who had thought he was saving her. She didn’t look at the silhouette of the castle beyond him. The shadowy outline had always been there on the horizon, just out of her reach. How many times had she stared at it while she was here? How many times had she thought that maybe she’d visit Lust’s sacred castle? As a child, it was a place out of reach but full of wondrous secrets.

Now she knew that it really did contain treasures. She could only wish that her sisters were so lucky as to see it someday.

The walking stick helped as she trudged through the snow. But the snakes underneath her skin grew angry the closer she got to the Tower. They rolled under her skin, coiling around her heart and squeezing until she felt it struggling to beat.

All they had to do was squeeze a little harder. Just a bit more. But all she had to do was keep her feet moving.

She recited spells under her breath, lessons from when she was a child. Each one grew more difficult than before. The elements. The kingdoms and who ruled them. The laws in each kingdom and why it was so important to know them. Etiquette. What was required to be a woman in a kingdom like this. Why she should hate Lust and why all of those rules were wrong.

And then she stood in front of the Tower once more.

Selene stared up at the monolith of white marble before her. It split the very sky, like a massive cloud in the middle of all that blue. So much blue.

Only then did she look behind her and see the guard still standing there. The wind whipped snow around him, trying to shove him back from his vigil, but he remained until the very last moment. And then he lifted his arm, a dark smudge against the horizon, and turned to leave.

She was on her own.

Again.

Sighing, she struggled to the door and lifted the knocker. Once, twice, three times, and then she fell to her knees before the door.

Selene had no idea how long it took them to open the door and see her there. Probably longer than she wanted to know. Whoever had opened it stood there for a long time, staring down at her crumpled form before they burst into action.

She was rolled onto her back, her listless eyes seeing the blue sky above. When had it become so difficult to keep them open?

“Selene?” Oh, that was Sibyl. Her dark red hair had been shorn so close to her skull that she was nearly bald. There was a black smudge underneath one eye as well. A bruise?

“Help,” she whispered, the words hard to get past her thick tongue. “Please. Help me.”

“Mother!” The scream echoed in her head, the pain arcing through her entire body until she couldn’t think around it. The pain didn’t stop at the scream.

Oh no, the snakes had felt her pain, and they congregated around it. They coiled through her, zeroing in on what had caused her pain and indulging themselves in the sensation. She endured the spike of that headache over and over again, countless times, until she wanted to scream through it.

And then a cold hand pressed against her forehead and it all magically disappeared. She shifted toward the touch, seeking the brief relief from her torment.

“My daughter,” Minerva said, her touch as soothing as it was poisonous. “You’ve returned to us.”

This was her chance. This was her moment to lie and claim she was sorry for all that she had done. That she could be the daughter her mother wanted her to be in every other situation, just not with him.

Though it was a struggle, Selene lifted her arm and grabbed onto Minerva’s wrist. “Forgive me, Mother. I failed you, and I know it was wrong.”

“I raised you to be a goddess,” Minerva whispered, her fingers combing through Selene’s hair. “You were supposed to be everything that you ever wanted to be. Powerful. Strong. Better than all the others because you would be the one to bring us to the castle.”

Why did her words hurt so much when her touch was so gentle? Tears pricked Selene’s eyes even as she knew Minerva would punish her. “And I am sorry to have failed you.”

“Have you come to tell us all his weaknesses? To bring about the age when the sorceresses will sit upon that throne?”

The lie stuck in her throat. She wanted to tell her mother that yes, she was here to do just that. She’d do anything if Minerva would save her life. But Selene couldn’t force herself to lie about him.

She opened her eyes again, though it felt as though they were full of sand. She met her mother’s waiting gaze and slowly shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. “I am here to beg for my life. As your daughter. As the child you found in the cold and now a woman who owes you her life.”

Minerva gently lifted her head, cupping the back of it and holding her suspended above the snow. “You owed me your life when I sent you to destroy him, and you returned to me not only empty-handed but as a disappointment. What makes you think I’ll save you now?”

“Hope,” she whispered, and her gaze met Sibyl’s behind Minerva’s head. “I have never given up hope that you are not the monster I always feared, Mother.”

“I’m not your mother. But you have given me a unique opportunity in coming here. I will fix you, Selene, and I will destroy him in the same breath.”

Why did that sound so menacing?

Her mother stood and the cool touch disappeared. Selene tried to follow it. She tried to lift herself up, but her body betrayed her. She fell back into the snow with a wheeze of breath that didn’t seem to reach her lungs.

Two pairs of hands reached underneath her and dragged her upright. The world spun. Trying to get control over her senses and her suddenly squeezing stomach, she blinked a few times to clear her vision.

Sibyl had helped her up, and Bathilda was on her other side. They held her with quiet strength as they strode into the Tower.

Minerva strode in front of them, her voice ringing through the Tower. “You have shown me that there are other ways to get what I want, Selene. If you could deviate from your plan, then so could I. The High Sorceresses before me were so certain of one thing. The demon must die for us to take the throne."

She had heard all this before. The death of Lust would bring about a new age. Selene couldn’t have killed him on her own, but that was the intent. If they could not enslave him to her wiles, a very small chance at that, then they would destroy him with whatever secrets she’d learned. But there were no secrets. He wasn’t even a man. He was a spirit.

Selene wouldn’t be the one to tell her. She’d never let her mother know the truth, just to spite her.

“We don’t need him dead.” Minerva started up the stairs and her sisters forced her to climb. Together, they all made their way up the countless steps that led up the Tower. “We just need him out of our way.”

Where were they taking her? Selene’s neck spasmed and lolled forward. She couldn’t keep it upright, no matter how hard she tried.

“Selene,” Sibyl hissed in her ear. “Help us, please.”

Her tongue was too thick to talk. She couldn’t even lift her feet to help them anymore. They dragged her up the stairs with her boots clunking against each one. Her sisters were breathing hard, but then she wondered if they were really her sisters. If they were so willing to help Minerva in whatever madness this was, were they family?

Or was that guard who had been so reluctant to leave more family than they were? Or Greed who had listened to her every word until he decided that he’d let her go? He had helped her even though it would anger his own family.

Her head wasn’t on right, that much she knew. And she wouldn’t live that much longer if Minerva didn’t do something.

Oh, Lust, she thought. I’m so sorry.

If she was going to die, then she should have stayed with him. She should have been in his arms right now, letting him wash the sweat off her forehead while he whispered how beautiful she was. How much she had changed his life.

“Here,” Minerva said, and Selene couldn’t guess how long it had been.

She’d hidden away in her mind the last bit of this journey. So when she blinked her eyes open and saw the vast landscape of the entire kingdom laid out before her, a gasp escaped her lips.

Selene had forgotten how beautiful it was here. The world looked so lovely while she stood so far above it.

“You will stay here,” Minerva said, standing in front of her. “He will come to us and we will trap him. The Tower will become his tomb, even if he’s still alive within it. We’ll see how long it takes for him to crack open like an egg tossed off a counter. But for now, you will remain here as bait. And once he arrives, I will deal with you.”

At her nod, her sisters released their hold on her arms. Selene crumpled onto the floor, but it was easier to breathe up here. Almost enough that she had a little energy.

The circle of magic, she remembered. This was where they had cast the spell, and perhaps this was where she could break it. Power still lingered in the air and it gave her strength.

Shoving herself up onto her forearms, she looked at her mother and croaked, “Are you leaving me here to die?”

“No. I will come back and I will change you into what you should have been long ago.” Minerva lifted her arms and magic swirled at her fingertips. A storm built at her beckoning, raging toward them in a sky that gathered lightning. “With my power heightened by this place, you will become my right hand. The way you should have been years ago.”

Selene felt it. The power that built around her as though it were all created here in the sky. Except it wasn’t. Hadn’t Minerva said this was the most powerful place in the kingdom? Perhaps years of sorcery in this tower had actually given power to this place. Enough to keep her alive.

“How do you know he’ll even come for me?” she asked.

“Because he’s already coming. I can feel him,” Minerva sneered. “Now stay here and try to stay alive.”

Her mother swept out of the peak of the Tower, beginning her long journey to the bottom. Bathilda started after her, but Sibyl hesitated.

Selene reached out a hand for her sister. “Please.”

Sibyl shook her head, backing toward the door. “You shouldn’t have come back here, Selene.”

“What is she planning to do?” Selene tried to clear her mind enough to ask the question, but she couldn’t say it properly. The garbled words were even hard for her to understand.

“Nothing any of us can stop.” Sibyl’s usually beautiful face twisted with sadness. “She never trained us to be more than servants, Selene. Look at us. You can conjure light. Bathilda sees the future. I can only conjure illusions. Even Ursula only summons the wind. We are nothing compared to her. We cannot stop this, we can only endure and hope she doesn’t do to us what she—”

Her sister stopped talking, but Selene already knew what she was going to say.

Her sisters could only hope to avoid Selene’s fate.

“Will she let me die?” she asked, the words quiet and contemplative.

Sibyl’s expression cracked, and she pressed a fist to her mouth before shaking her head. “No. But I think you’ll wish you had.”

And so her sister fled, down the stairs and away from Selene, who rolled onto her back and stared up at the open sky above her. The top of the tower was surrounded by columns, but no roof. She could see the clouds as they rode the wind to pause above her. The great mist and blackened edges opened up.

She was glad to feel the rain. It was cold sliding down her cheeks, but the feeling was so much better than being numb.