Page 70 of From the Myths of Kings

Aris’s wife, Vasia, stood at his right, looking down at the dying embers. Her mouth was twisted into a frown and her golden-brown eyes shone with unshed tears. To his left, Raj leaned over the balustrade and surveyed their handwork with awed curiosity. Next to Raj, Cira was hastily wiping her damp face with the sleeve of her blood-stained tunic.

A dart of guilt lodged in Aris’s heart as he watched the new Mer Queen try to hide her grief from them. Basilia hadn’t returned home. Instead, she’d left her daughter with the fractured pieces of Elor-Wyn to cobble back together on her own.

Aris tore his gaze away from Cira. He wouldn’t feel guilty about Basilia’s death. The Mer Queen had known the risks when they’d journeyed to Anthemoessa. Everything they’d lost had been crucial, every sacrifice necessary. They wouldn’t be standing here if not for Basilia’s death. The souls of their tyrannical makers would not be bound for all eternity in the Stone Circle if it wasn’t for her sacrifice.

Every bargain came with a steep cost.

“It is done. We’re free,” came Vasia’s voice. Aris watched as his wife looked to the heavens, stained pink in the dawn. “Revelore is free.”

“History will remember this day,” Raj said. “The day when the immortals became dust. They’ll tell stories of our victory, you know. Our lives will become legend and our triumph will become myth.”

Aris felt a grimace twitch on his lips. No, history would not remember what they’d done. Not if he could help it. But history would remember Leucosia’s treachery. Generations to come would remember how the sirens betrayed them all.

“We are free but was the price to pay worth it?” a new voice asked. “Shall we become no better than our former gods?”

Aris turned to watch his sister, Pythia, step out from under an arched doorway. She took her place next to them on the parapet, looking down on the aftermath of the Titans’ binding ritual. Standing in the light of dawn with her dark black curls and apple-round cheeks, Pythia was the mirror image of their mother. Her auburn wings were gilded in the sunrise, turning a reddish shade akin to flame. A circlet of gold gleamed on her brow. Aris stared at the gap in the center of the gold band, empty of the Seer stone that had once been embedded there. She turned her sightless eyes to him, each iris the milky white of a moonstone.

Pythia saw too much, even without her Seer opal to amplify her powers. It was inevitable his sister would learn of what they’d done in Anthemoessa. She would learn about the prophecy, too. She probably already knew. As an Auran-Healm Oracle, she had the gift of Sight. She could see into the future, but could she also peer into the past?

“Yes,” he finally answered. “The price was worth it.”

Pythia stared at him with that unnerving, unseeing gaze. Sorrow welled up in his throat as his little sister silently pleaded with him. If she had already used her Sight to peer into the future, then she already knew what he would do to her.

Pythia knew she would die by his blade. She and every Oracle who would come after her.

They would all die until the magic of Sight fizzled out like a candle burned to its wick. It had to be this way. Just like bargains of magic, the cost of his sister and her Oracle Guild would protect their legacy. Aris had always known that the peace and freedom he and his two remaining kinsmen had fought tooth and nail for would have a cost. For generations to come, Revelore would taste liberation. His sister’s Sight would not get in the way of that. The prophecy had to remain buried with the sirens for all eternity.

Aris looked out over the amphitheater, a place that had witnessed too much bloodshed over the years. He’d once been a gladiator fighting in those sand pits for the callous amusement of the Titans. They had all been starved dogs in a fighting ring, forced to kill each other in a game no one could win.

“We should host a symbolic tournament here,” he found himself saying. “We should take ownership of the Stone Circle, make it ours. It will be a celebration of our victory. A new tradition to begin a new age.”

“I like the sound of that,” Raj agreed jovially. “A tournament held in remembrance of our great alliance.”

“But no blood will be spilled,” Cira said quietly. “Revelore has seen enough bloodshed.”

“No more bloodshed,” Aris nodded. “Our tournament games shall be a celebration of life, not death. All our kingdoms shall partake. We’ll wipe away the stains of the past and start over. We’ll usher in a new age of peace and prosperity. No more shall the Stone Circle be tainted with meaningless death.”

Aris felt Vasia’s fingers weave between his. She leaned her head on his shoulder, staring down at the sands of the amphitheater as though envisioning the games already. “Our children will know peace at last.”

Aris stole a glance at his sister. A single tear burned down her cheek.

What future did she see in the arena below?

Rook replayed the dream over and over as he was led to the third and final trial of Grivur’s games. With the dark hood pulled over his head, everything blazed fresh in his memory: the sunlight creeping over the Stone Circle, the raw grief stark on Cira’s face, the silver tear that carved a trail down Pythia’s cheek. The scene had been the most unsettling one yet, somehow more disturbing than Selussa’s ritual or even Princess Yrsa’s wings being cut off.

He hadn’t known the legendary Auran King Aris had a sibling, let alone an Oracle sister. Never before had the gaps in the Myths of Old been so apparent. Just like the existence of the kingdom of Anthemoessa, Pythia’s life seemed to have been scrubbed from the records of history. She had no constellation in the night sky like the other figures of myth, no painted murals on temple walls. It was as though she never existed at all.

There was something so profoundly wrong with everything he’d seen, something insidious lurking below the surface of the vision. Eleyera’s words echoed ominously through his mind: The Four Kinsmen deceived us all. Everything we know about the Myths of Old is a lie.

After seeing Aris’s memories with his own eyes, Rook knew Eleyera was right. There was something the Four Kinsmen kept hidden, a secret Aris was so desperate to hide he killed his own Oracle sister to keep her from outing their treachery. And Eleyera had uncovered the truth. Just like Aris had killed Pythia to ensure her eternal silence, the Elders had tried to kill Eleyera over the truth she was going to share with his parents eight years ago. And when they learned that Eleyera knew more than them, the Order had tortured and imprisoned her.

The prophecy had to remain buried with the sirens for all eternity.

Rook was still reeling from the discovery of Eleyera’s survival and imprisonment. He was keenly aware of the fact that he shouldn’t have made it out the night his parents died. When the Elders had ambushed their carriage, they’d intended to leave none alive?none except Eleyera, of course. If it hadn’t been for Raven, he might have been slaughtered alongside his parents.

Rook stumbled over a bit of uneven ground, catching himself before one of the underguards could shove him forward. His chains rattled as he righted himself. He could taste a bitter sort of irony as the manacles dug into his wrists. The Tournament had been formed on a foundation of lies and misguided justice thousands of years ago, and here he was being forced to endure the games of a mad king based on a similar twisted sense of justice. Could the Four Kinsmen have known their symbolic gesture of celebration would one day be used as a weapon of control? Could they have foreseen that their descendants would twist their once-peaceful tradition into a vicious game of courts?

Pythia probably knew, Rook realized with a start. When she had looked down into the arena, she had likely glimpsed a future in which their descendants fought each other to the death over a hollow crown. She’d peered into those sands like a scrying pool, seeing future Tournaments reflected at her.

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