Page 13 of Those Fatal Flowers

What if that voice is nothing more than a hallucination produced by a terrified mind? But Proserpina doesn’t abandon me as I abandoned her.

Sing, Thelia,she urges once more, and I swear that I feel the warmth of my name whispered against the back of my neck. It undoes my resolve, and my mouth falls open, letting the same notes that once comforted us as children fill the cave until they eventually spill onto the beach.

Pisinoe and Raidne join, and before long, the song takes on a shape of its own, a plea for release with the knowledgeone won’t be coming. Except, inexplicably, the sailors listen. With clouded eyes and slackened jaws, they untie our bonds, then fall back on swaying legs. We scurry from the cave and take to the sky, circling overhead. The melody still tumbles from our lips. Our voices have always held power, to coax out smiles or tears, but these men aren’t temporarily entranced in the face of art. No, this song contains something new: the promise of their futures, courtesy of either Ceres’s curse or Scopuli itself. We don’t know which, but they’re bewitched by it. The sailors reach for us again, this time in exultation, but it’s too late. All our truths are laid bare, and there’s no taking them back. The terror passes, leaving fury in its wake.

They make us into monsters.

Are all human men like this? Vessels for profound violence that simmers just barely beneath the surface, ready to overflow when they believe no one watches? In the safety of Ceres’s palace, there was little need to think of them at all. But now, staring into those clouded, stupefied gazes, we’re presented with our own tantalizing promise: bloody, painful vengeance.

Together, as one, we take it. Pisinoe, with her keen attention to detail, becomes the eyes. Raidne, the quickest, is our hands. And me? My rage has only one outlet.

I am the mouth.

We stop wearing clothes; we let our hair go wild. Scopuli’s game, once abundant, begins to dwindle. Her deer become ghosts that haunt the twilight, dissolving into the night before we can hunt them; her fish, slippery shadows beneath the waves. Even her beach plums and hickories yield less and less fruit.

And so we purposefully lure a ship to shore, hypnotizingthe sailors with our song, and we gift the worthy ones to Ceres in feral, offensive displays. Her curse is what locks the chains around our wrists, and her growing apathy is what keeps the animals from our traps and withers our fruit on its vines. It’s her we must appease.

We follow the old rites, the ones we’ve seen priests and priestesses perform countless times before, though their gifts were bulls, sheep, and pigs. But our offense was great, and so too must be our offerings.

We purify ourselves in the sea. We lead our victims to our altar. We pour libations over their heads. The first sailors know the rules of sacrifice: They’ve seen the same trick pulled on livestock to make them bow their heads, to make them consent. But observing is different from experiencing, and each man drops his gaze to keep the wine from trickling into his eyes, and in doing so, agrees to his fate. We slit their throats, and Raidne reads their entrails for signs of forgiveness. Then we burn them on a pyre, and the smoke delivers our gifts to Ceres.

Our hatred for Dis, for those first sailors, transfers onto each man who wrecks here. We make them suffer. We bleed them slowly, paint our bodies with the gore, and revel in the pain our power brings. Their bodies belong to Ceres, but their suffering is ours alone.

Compassion never squirms its way into our hearts, but even if it did, we wouldn’t stop. We can’t. Ceres promised our lives would be defined by death and darkness, and in the smoldering light of that first pyre, we watch as our time collected here melts from our skin. She cursed us with unending life, but not eternal youth, and yet…

Their souls make us ageless.

4

Now

“Loyal subjects of the Crown, allow me to introduce Lady Thelia!” Thomas bellows, his voice an axe to the moment that held only us. Proserpina’s double cuts her attention to him, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. My mouth turns sour. If she really was Proserpina, surely she would’ve acknowledged me by now. Unless—

She despises you,that ancient fear chides.How could she not?

I force myself to stand tall, to stay still, refusing to succumb to the very real desire to fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness.

It’s not her. It’s not her. It’s not her.Is the realization a blow or an answer to a prayer? It’s a bit of both, though it still feels like being pummeled by Scopuli’s waves.

The room is disturbingly silent. Perhaps my ruse is easilydetected, and they’ve already determined I’m not who I say. I turn to Margery for guidance just in time to watch her step away from me. Mistress Bailie rises from her chair, a sickeningly sweet grin painted across her lips. It takes all mystrength to keep from collapsing beneath the weight of her stare—does she mean to introduce me or decry me?

The older woman fans out her arms in a display of presentation. I think of the sweet-eyed cattle that humans paraded through the village streets during my childhood, straight to the center of the town, where they met their fates as gifts to the gods. Is this what it feels like to be an offering? I’ve never been on the receiving end of a sacrificial blade, and I don’t doubt that, given the opportunity, Mistress Bailie would happily drag one across my throat.

“When our fair queen granted us our charter, she entrusted us to explore these remote and dangerous lands with the intention of establishing the first permanent colony in the Americas. We’ve secured our outpost here, on Roanoke, but our queen also wished for us to seek out and meet other peoples,” Mistress Bailie says, projecting her voice to fill the large space. “Tonight, we do our queen proud. Lady Thelia comes to us from a land called Scopuli. Her people, as you may have suspected, are noble and wealthy. We’re proud to have her as our guest, and we look forward to forging a fruitful alliance between our countries.”

The townspeople turn to one another with excited chatter. I use the cacophony to ground myself. The next few minutes will be important. I must appear strong, not meek, or else my ruse will never work. Raising my chin higher, I push forward to the center of the room to face Thomas and the woman who must be his betrothed. His love, though she looks so much like mine.

“I thank you all for your kindness,” I say. “I was at sea for several weeks, afraid the waves would claim me, unsure of what to expect if they didn’t. I’m so grateful I washed upon your shores.”

“And what, exactly, brings you here?” Thomas asks for thecrowd’s benefit, though after his meeting with the Council, everyone likely already knows.

“Scopuli has run out of eligible suitors, so I’ve been sent to find a worthy man for my hand in marriage. The treasure you saw is only a fraction of my dowry, but I hope it’s enough to convince you of the seriousness of my offer.”

Another burst of prattling fills the room, and Thomas offers me another toast. “To the mysterious and beautiful Princess Thelia! May she find her king among our ranks!”

“Hear, hear!” Everyone raises their glasses in unison. I bow my head in thanks, trying not to lose myself in my racing thoughts. The details of my story swirl around the one thing that dominates my attention: the woman before me, the very likeness of my stolen love.

“Come, Lady Thelia. Sit and enjoy the meal!” Thomas motions toward the seat beside him where Proserpina’s twin is currently positioned. “Cora, do you mind?”

---