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“Of course it’s not true,” Vasili burst out. “It’s a clever tale she knows we can’t prove or disprove. Where are all these children that have supposedly been taken? Why is this the first we’re hearing of it in two thousand years?”
“I will explain if you’ll let me.” I swung between the three of them. “All of this is so simple. That’s the worst part. How easy it was for her to destroy my life.”
Drakos gave a sharp, short nod.Continue.
“Lamias make their nests at the peaks of the highest, most treacherous mountains. They scuttle over those sharp rocks and fatal drops like it’s nothing. Might as well be lizards climbing a wall.” That day came in sharp clarity. I was so terrified my throat seized. I couldn’t even scream as she carried me higher and higher. “Only flying demigods could make it up there, and the one time someone did, he didn’t survive to tell anyone of the trip.”
“That’s where you’ve been the last eight years?” Remis asked. “In a lamia’s mountain nest.”
I nodded and received a derisive scoff from Vasili. “It was awful. The air was so thin, for three days I whimpered on the cave floor just trying to breathe.”
“Forgive me,” Remis broke in. “I don’t wish to call you a liar, but you give no sign of someone who’s spent almost a decade trapped in a mountain cave alone with a monster. You’re bright, confident, well-spoken, and not easily intimidated. I’d have an easier time believing you spent the last eight years on the Isle of Paradise, inhaling nectar.”
“I didn’t say she mistreated me.” The low rasp spread through the room. “And I never said I was alone.”
Drakos leaned back in his chair, hiding his face in shadows. “Explain.”
“There were other girls in the cave. Three,” I admitted. “She doted on us. Believed we were her children returned, so anything we wanted, she went out and got for us. Books, toys, food, treats, clothes. Anything except our freedom.”
“Who were these girls?” Remis asked.
“The lamia—” I would not call her Mother. Even though she made me for eight long years, she would not get that title now that I was finally free of her. “The lamia called us Penelope, Lyra, Agnes, and me, Cora. But when she was gone, we talked about who we truly were and where we came from. Iris of Solona, Evangeline of the Isle Amara, and Chloe of Port Melpo.
“In that dark, lonely cave, we kept each other’s spirits up. Iris taught us from the books. Evangeline played dolls with me. Chloe told us of the home we’d have together after we were free. That’s all we did was plan for our freedom.” My gaze sharpened. “For the day the army would finally come and rescue us. The others refused to believe that day wasn’t coming.”
“It did not come,” Drakos said, “and yet here you sit. How did you escape? Did she let you go?”
“She let us all go,” I whispered, eyes welling. “On Iris’s, Evangeline’s, and Chloe’s eighteenth birthday, she let them go... right over a cliff.”
A thick, suffocating silence filled the room.
“She killed them,” Remis said. “The children you said she doted on. The ones that brought her dears back to her. Why on earth would she do such a thing?”
My lips trembled. Echoing through my mind were the screams of my only friends. My sisters. “They weren’t her little girls anymore. What use is a child when they become an adult?”
Remis flicked off me, gazing at the commander.
I continued. “As my eighteenth year approached, I prepared to die too, but when the day came—”
“Careful, little one. Loose tongues become forked ones all too easily. You quite rudely fear my true, divinely beautiful form. All I need ever do is appear before you, and you are my pet once again.”
I breathed slow through my nose. I didn’t need the warning, but I would tread carefully all the same. I remember well what she made me do to the first and last person I told my story.
“Yes?” Drakos pressed.
Quickly, I cast about for something.Anything. “When the day came, I made a bargain with her. If she spared my life, I would go out and find her new daughters. Her Penelope, Lyra, Agnes, and Cora. I swore to her it would only take me thirty days. When I returned with the girls, she would have her family and I’d have my life. She agreed, but swore to me that if I betrayed her, she’d hunt me to the ends of Olympia and devour me slowly—one appendage a day.”
Understanding dawned in Remis’s eyes. “That’s why you ran.”
Thank gods she said it so I didn’t have to.“Yes,” I replied without hesitation. “I was never going through with that bargain. I spent my thirty days gathering supplies, then hitching a ride on any mode of transport that’d get me to the border. Don’t you see? I can’t stay here anymore.
“I’m a stranger in this land now. I don’t know how to live or fight in Olympia. I’m marked by one of the most dangerous creatures in the land, so any village, town, or city I hide in becomes the target of a beast that kills and eatschildren. Tell me what choice I have?” I looked in each of their eyes. “Demigods don’t know much about lamias, but I can tell you this. They never,everforgive.”
Drakos hummed low in his throat. “It is a strange predicament you are in. It is certainly the first time a deserter has brought me a reason that is—dare I say—noble.”
“All I want to do is protect my people. I know what it’s like when a monster takes everything from you.”
“If what you say is true, and you spent the last eight years in a cave with books and another child as a teacher, that would explain your ignorance and why you didn’t grasp the seriousness of your actions. Desertion is unacceptable even under the noblest of intentions. What you should have done is report straight to the army the second you secured your freedom.”
