He knew so little.
And how the hell was he supposed to get anywhere near Ravi Apostu, alone?
He shook his head in disgust and bewilderment.
None of it made any sense.
Yet Jessenia had been so insistent.
So sure.
He absently pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to focus his thoughts. There was one thing she had said that stuck with him, that almost made sense, like a portent from his nightmare. “Before the sun sets this night, every male in this kingdom will be punished—they will be changed into vile creatures of the night, forced to feed on the blood of the innocent.”
It was exactly what he had seen in his dream.
What he had been in his dream.
Timaos stared at the desolate floor, ignoring the angry guard behind him who was now cursing in his ear, demanding that he rise.
He had no idea what to do.
Every bone in his body rebelled. If he fought his captors, if he died now, going to his grave like a warrior, he could at least perish in peace, meet his death with his conscience intact. He would see Jessenia soon after—they would be reunited in the Valley of Spirit and Light—and hopefully, they would live there forever, loving on the other side.
His soul ached with the desire to end it, and still he wondered: Will she ever forgive me for not heeding her words? Surely she would understand that he just couldn’t do it, that he just couldn’t betray all that they were.
He was just about to rise up and snatch the bad-mannered, overblown idiot behind him by the throat when he felt a shattering blow to the back of his head. The guard had struck him with the hilt of his sword…or maybe it was a rock or a piece of…
All the world went black.
five
Jessenia donned the white virginal gown that her captor gave her without resistance. She braided her hair in extravagant plaits, just as her guard instructed, and then she drank the bitter tea he handed her without hesitating—it was some revolting concoction of herbs meant to keep her from struggling, as if such a thing were possible.
As if it would make any difference.
She tossed the tin cup to the floor with cold contempt.
Nothing mattered at this point—absolutely nothing.
Except Timaos.
Her fate was sealed—she could never fight Prince Jaegar’s men. All that mattered was making sure, knowing in the end, that her death had not been in vain.
She could only hope as they led her through the Courtyard of Justice—the ancient ceremonial grounds where accused criminals were brought to trial, where they were tortured into making confessions and then executed on sight—that she didn’t see any evidence of recent bloodshed. She could only pray that as they led her beyond the ghoulish rack, the wooden stockade, and the chilling guillotine, she did not see any fresh crimson stains. For that would mean Timaos was already dead.
If she could just get through the courtyard unscathed, knowing Timaos survived, then she could somehow endure the rest: the steep walk up the grassy slope to the top of Executioner Hill and then one final trek to the sacrificial stone.
She could get through it.
She had to.
She would be brave if it was the last thing she ever did.
She cringed at the words—of course, it would be the last thing she ever did.
She shook her head to dismiss the thought and held her breath, reaching deep within for courage, and then she turned to face her calloused accuser. “I’m ready,” she whispered, her voice quaking with the truth of her fear.
The cruel, heartlessoverseer reached out to thumb her hair, admiring the plaits as if such a thing mattered at all, and then he cocked his head to the side and grinned, exposing a dark, unsightly gap in his teeth. “You are a pretty one,” he said crudely. “It’s too bad we never spent some private time together before today.” He shrugged. “But Prince Jaegar is dead set against it, so…oh well.” His deep, boorish voice trailed off, and Jessenia retched in her mouth, her stomach turning over in disgust.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled, spitting the bile out on the floor. And then she added, “Well, at least the black-hearted pig got one thing right in his useless, despicable life.”
The guard struck her so fast she never saw it coming, the back of his hand stinging the side of her cheek.
The blow bit into her flesh.
The force stunned her senses.
And the vibration rattled her wits, causing her to stumble back, stagger sideways, and clutch at the stony wall in order to regain her balance. Once she had regained her bearings, she straightened her spine and glared at the degenerate with contempt. “Go to Hades, you ugly swine!”
He raised his hand and held it just inches above her uninjured cheek, suspended in an unspoken threat, as he glared at her with hate-filled eyes.
She refused to flinch.
Finally, he lowered it back to his side. “Watch your tongue, wench,” he growled, forcing himself to take a levelheaded step back.
Jessenia bit her tongue and averted her eyes. Apparently Prince Jaegar also frowned on beating the sacrifices before their executions, or this brute would have already done it. Just the same, she needed to maintain her composure just a little while longer.
This was not her battle.
Not here.
Not now.
She wasn’t about to challenge this caveman any further; but she had to admit, for the first time since she had seen the vision of the Curse, she reveled in the clandestine knowledge: By night’s end, you will be nothing more than a piteous animal, crawling about the ground in agony, wracked with pain and hunger. The torture you visit upon me will be revisited upon you a million fold, for as many years, and I hope you burn in the sun, slowly, like the dark, soulless creature you are. She spat the words in her mind, and then she reeled at the intensity of their venom.
No, she did not mean it, not a single word.
For the very same torture would be visited upon Timaos if he chose to live, if he fought to survive. It would be visited upon all the followers of Prince Jadon as well.
She swallowed her anger, her fear, and her pride, and she forced herself to press on. “Let’s just get this over with,” she murmured, stunned at her bravery.
Or stupidity.
The male regarded her from head to toe, as if taking her full measure for the very first time, and he nodded. “Very well,” he grunted, pointing toward the dark, vacant corridor, in the direction of the final vestibule to the courtyard. “Walk.”
Jessenia took a tentative step forward, realizing she was trembling. She stopped, took a slow, deep breath, and then proceeded to walk more slowly. The ground felt uneven beneath her feet; the cool, damp musk of the corridor smelled especially pungent, and the large wooden door at the end of the hall—thick from its weighty construction, tragic with the silent stories of so many women—loomed like a predator masked in a fog, just waiting to collect its prey. And then the torchlight went out, the guard fumbled with his heavy keys, and the iron lock was opened at last.
Jessenia took three courageous steps forward, stepped out into the Courtyard of Justice, and collapsed.
“Noooooooo!”
Her scream echoed through the square, ricocheted off the hillside, and traveled toward the heavens, wracking her body with grief. Any courage she had possessed, any strength or determination, was utterly and indelibly gone.
The guillotine was stained with fresh crimson blood.
The blade was resting at the bottom of the structure, rather than perched along the top, and on the ground, just beneath the pewter bucket, was a stagnant pool of blood, the hideous stains still oozing along the sides of the bucket.
She wrenched at the fabric of her garment, her uneven nails ripping the cloth. “Timaos…” She cradled her stomach with her arms and rocked back and forth in regret. “No, no, no…no.”
Her captor, who had remained indifferent until then, snatched her by the crook of her arm
, yanked her onto her feet, and began to drag her mercilessly behind him, through the Courtyard of Justice, toward the bottom of the hill, and then slowly up the steep, grassy incline in the direction of the inevitable stone.
She kicked and screamed and bucked against him, no longer caring if she provoked his wrath, no longer caring if she lived or died at this very moment.
All of her courage was gone.
All of her dignity was wasted.
There was only pain and loss and unmeasurable sorrow.
None of this had meant a thing.
Timaos was dead, and she was going to be slaughtered like an animal—Prince Jaegar would win in the end.
Oh dear celestial gods, why?
Why had the great ones abandoned her?
Why had they abandoned her people?
six
Time stood still, the heavens grew quiet, and the earth failed to spin on its axis as Jessenia floated in a haze of unreality, as the guard dragged her across the field, along the leafy hilltop, and to the base of the executioner’s stone.
The sun seemed unusually harsh, unbearable hot, as the merciless rays shone down upon her in an utter act of hypocrisy: There was no light left in the world. There was no warmth or goodness. The sky could not be blue, and the day could not be peaceful. There was only pain and sacrifice and torture and death.
There was only evil and the triumph of the wicked.
She thought she felt a rough pair of hands pressing against her shoulders, forcing her to kneel, but she couldn’t be sure. Her body was numb and her heart was racing, yet her mind was retreating into a cavern of denial, curiously detached from it all.
To the right of her, towering above her, she saw a silhouette of the high priest. He was adorned in all his ceremonial regalia; his dark-brown hair whipped about his collar as if stirred by a turbulent wind, and his cruel, impassive shoulders were hunched forward in an angry, concave line, as if he were the one being affronted. And then Prince Jaegar approached the stone from the opposite side, stooping down to take her full measure—smiling in the sunlight—as he spoke her name out loud, before reciting some blasphemous invocation from what was once a sacred religion.
He was a terrifying sight to behold.
His unjustly handsome features were nearly demonic with perversion; his thick crown of hair was like a dark, menacing cloud; and his overbearing presence descended upon her, swirled all around her, like a violent midday storm.
But thank the gods, Jessenia couldn’t see his wicked eyes.
She was too far gone.
Too lost in terror, too consumed by grief, to bring him fully into focus.
She was too devastated by the loss of Timaos to think of anything but his plight.
And somewhere in the distance, she thought she heard a recurrent siren, a repetitive, ear-piercing wail, and then all at once it registered—the sound wasn’t coming from a distance at all—it was coming from her throat. That gnawing, guttural, inhuman cry was her own piteous protest, her own plaintive moans.
Still, she remained detached.
Lost.
Spinning in a whirlwind of despondency and grief.
And then the priest handed the sacred goblet to Prince Jaegar, the vessel he would use to catch the first drops of Jessenia’s blood, to drink them like a cannibal. He unchained her hands from behind her back and bound them, once again, about the circumference of the stone. He withdrew an emerald-tipped dagger from the scabbard at his side and stepped silently toward her, even as another pair of hands—whose were they? She couldn’t tell!—pressed her head to the slab and told her to be still.
Be still?
Be still!
She arched her back and tried to wrench her head free from the stone, twisting wildly in her desperation, bucking like a wild steed, driven by all-consuming terror.
Oh, gods; oh, gods; oh gods…noooooooo! “Help me!”
The cry crackled through the meadow like thunder, even as the surrounding males began to chant, and then she began to hyperventilate. “No, no, no!” She couldn’t catch her breath. “Please, please, please.” The air was much too shallow. “Don’t, don’t….don’t!” She was truly lost in a panic.
She was this close to losing her sanity.
The priest crouched down to place the blade against her throat, and she utterly lost her way. “Oh, gods, no, no, no…please, please, please…no, please, no, please, no!” Her body shook like she had tremors and her breath caught in her throat; yet and still, she begged and pleaded and wailed. She couldn’t stop. She couldn’t help it. She knew her eyes were as wide as saucers. She knew she was only making things worse. If anything, she would only prolong the pain and suffering, but she was entirely out of control.
Prince Jaegar pressed his large, ring-clad hand against the small of her back in an effort to hold her still, and she was struck with a sudden wave of nausea.
Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pair of freshly pressed trousers drawing nearer to the base of the stone, the elaborate, plaited hems brushing along the ground. The male was adorned in the traditional white-and-red garb of the sacrifice, and as he came closer, she noticed that he also wore the customary band of the house of Jaegar wreathed about his upper right arm. “Jessenia.”
He only spoke one word, and her heart stopped racing.
Her body quit protesting, and her mind quit reeling.
Dearest goddess of mercy, it was Timaos.
The blood had not been his.
He bent down to meet her eyes, and his gentle hand took the place of Prince Jaegar’s. “Shh,” he said, his voice as calm, calculated, and contrived as it was familiar. “This is almost over, female,” he said, careful to play his expected role. “Quit fighting it.” On one hand, he sounded every bit like a follower of Jaegar—cold, indifferent, and piteously unashamed. But on the other hand, he sounded like the Timaos she knew—artful, determined, and fastidiously in control. “Stop resisting, and it will soon be over.”
She parted her lips and measured her breaths. “Timaos?” She knew it was him, but she just had to be sure.
“Shh,” he repeated, deepening the pressure of his hand, moving his fingers in small, imperceptible circles, in an effort to lend her his strength. “Just breathe.”
He could not say he loved her.
He could not offer her words of comfort or free her from the stone.
As it stood, he was taking a huge risk by approaching her like this, yet he was walking a delicate line with both courage and grace. In a calculated moment of defiance, he glanced askance at the high priest and narrowed his gaze—his pupils were positively glacier—and then he turned his attention back to Jessenia. “Forgive my betrayal, but I have seen a brighter future, and I know what I must do.”
Somewhere in the background, Prince Jaegar cleared his throat—he may have even chuckled—but Jessenia didn’t care.
She understood Timaos’s words clearly.
Intimately.
Timaos Silivasi had not betrayed Jessenia. He had not betrayed their love. Rather, he had chosen to betray his own conscience. He had chosen to betray his deep-seated hatred of Prince Jaegar. He had chosen to betray his own will.
Timaos had swallowed his pride, embraced his grief, and chosen to join the lost males in order to comply with her wishes.
Timaos had chosen to live.
He had resolved to kill the high priest, and he had done it for Jessenia, so her death would not be in vain. He had done it for their people, so that all would not be lost.
He removed his hand from her back, held her gaze one second too long, and then he stood up with iron determination and backed away from the stone. Drawing a deep, singular breath, he began the sacrificial chant once more, and all the males chimed in.
The sound should have terrified her.
The rise and fall of their collective, deep voices, resonating with so much hatred and inequity, should have tormented her soul; but instead, it gave her peace beyond imagining.
/>
It was, indeed, almost over.
Timaos was there—he was with her—and she would die with her beloved at her side, in the only way he could be.
She would pass into the spirit world knowing that their love would live on in his heart, knowing that the faces she had seen in her vision, that remarkable generation of males, so noble, proud, and worthy, would one day come to pass.
She closed her eyes and stopped struggling.
She stilled her mind and ceased trembling.
She dropped her ear to the stone and relaxed her shoulders.
And then, she began to chant beneath her breath, along with the other males, only the verse she repeated was a very different refrain: Timaos…Timaos…Timaos.
Timaos Silivasi watched as Jessenia grew enigmatically calm.
As she ceased resisting, stopped begging, and prepared to embrace her passing with both resolution and pride.
With every ounce of his being he wanted to go down fighting, to spare her from this indignity, to defend her life and her body, and to take as many of her executioners to the grave with him as he could. But he would not dishonor her so, not when she had pleaded so valiantly for his submission, not when he had already debased himself in order to convince Prince Jaegar that he’d had a change of heart.
Not when so many future generations were riding on his decision.
Stepping away from the stone, he began the unholy chant, forcing himself to speak the irreverent words with false but convincing conviction.
And then he shut his eyes.
He could not watch.
He would not watch.
As the priest brandished the blade once more and ended her precious life.
Rather, he held onto her spectacular vision, he got lost within her dream, and all the while, he replayed her words like a prayer for absolution: Stay alive. Pledge your allegiance to Prince Jadon. Slay the wicked priest.
Protect the unknown child with your soul.
He is the key to the future.
Right then and there, Timaos Silivasi made the most sacred pledge of his life: He vowed to do all Jessenia had asked of him, and he swore he would not fail, no matter what occurred.