The Black God (#2, Damian Eternal Series) (36 page)

“
It’s not an
employer.”

The car wasn’t there to take me away to the
real world, and I doubted it was the first zombie from the
apocalypse we were preparing for. Therefore, the vehicle’s
appearance meant nothing to me. “Okay. I’m going to my room.”

Herakles paid me no heed and jogged towards
the car.

I circled the house to the back entrance
where the stairwell leading directly to our rooms was located. I
took the stairs two at a time and strode down the landing of the
girls’ wing towards my room.

“
Lyssa!” someone called as
I passed.

“
What?” I paused and
stepped back, peering into the room of one of the nymphs, a willowy
blonde named Leandra. She was finishing her makeup and wore a
sparkly party dress.

“
Wanna go to town with us
tonight?” Leandra asked innocently.

“
I hate my life,” I
muttered.

She laughed.

But I didn’t leave. Playing on her
television were news clips of the footage I’d missed two weeks ago
when I spent my eighteenth birthday in the middle of the forest,
shivering and buried beneath leaves in the final cold snap of
spring, during one of Herakles weekend tests. The priests censored
everything that reached us from the outside world, including the
news. They removed what they didn’t want us to see before letting
us watch what was left.

“
Hey, is that …” I asked
and walked into her room.

“
Yeah.” A wistful note was
in Leandra’s voice.

It took a lot to make the perfect, beautiful
nymphs envy someone else. For once, I understood where she was
coming from.

“
The Silent Queen,” I said
in awe, gazing at the television. The Queen of Greece, known as the
Silent Queen because she hadn’t been seen or heard from until this
month, was plastered everywhere on the news. A girl my age, she was
stunning with white-blonde hair, pale blue eyes and a jawline sharp
enough to cut ice. “Wow.”

“
She’s just a symbol of the
unity of gods and mankind. No real power.” But even Leandra sounded
enthralled by the woman on the television. “She can’t speak. She
gave her first address in sign language.”

“
Wow,” I murmured again. In
a sparkling diamond tiara and radiant silk dress, the teen looked
more godlike than human. She was flanked by the Supreme Magistrate
– the powerful political representative of humanity – and the
hooded and masked Supreme Priest – the gods’ advocate on Earth. The
three most powerful figures in the world were known as the Sacred
Triumvirate, and each had his or her own private security force,
according to the priests, which was how they balanced their
power.

I couldn’t look away from the Silent Queen.
The priests had drilled the history and importance of the
hereditary Bloodline into us since we arrived. The Silent Queen’s
ancestors were touched by the gods, and it was said only she could
appeal directly to them in a way that defied even the priesthood.
Throughout history, once Greece fell as a global power, the most
powerful nation on the planet was given the sacred duty of
protecting the Bloodline and housing the royal leader, which was
how she ended up here in the United States. “She’s amazing.”

“
I’m sure she’s been
Photshopped for television,” Leandra said somewhat
defensively.

I rolled my eyes. The nymphs knew they were
special. There was something strange about thirty orphaned women of
extreme beauty and charm, all born within three months of me, all
under the strict protection of an orphanage run by priests who
didn’t hold weekly worship ceremonies but taught us instead the Old
Ways, as they called them. They were positioning the nymphs in
places of eventual power, where they could then share the Old Ways
with others.

If our world was strange, we had no idea. As
far as we knew, this place and its customs were normal.

“
I’ve been assigned to her
court,” Leandra said.

“
Seriously?”

“
Yep.”

It made sense. Leandra was a hair prettier
than the others and quite a bit smarter, according to the priests.
I was suddenly crushed that I might end up taking food orders from
hung over college students the rest of my life while the others
went off to positions I could only dream of.

“
Where are you going?” she
asked, green eyes finding me. “To live with the Mountainman on some
isolated peak?”

“
He’s not a Mountainman,” I
said, bristling. “He’s the greatest Olympic athlete in
history.”

“
A disgraced one who
ditched his wealthy benefactor to live in a forest with us. He’s
absolutely mad, and he’s turned you wild and ruined any chance you
had at a decent future.”

My anger bubbled. I knew better than to
cause a fight. I had stopped that nonsense when I was fifteen, but
there were moments when I wanted to sock the pretty, perfect women
around me.

My biggest issue with Leandra wasn’t that
she was mean. It was that she was often right, and her words about
Herakles stung. There was something wrong with him, and I sometimes
thought maybe that meant there was something wrong with me, too. It
was why I didn’t turn out like Leandra and the others and why I was
definitely not going to the Silent Queen’s court.

I squinted to see the
ticker at the bottom of the news.
Civil
unrest grows. Supreme Magistrate places five more states under
martial rule over SISA’s objections.
That
made about forty states under martial rule by my count. The priests
refused to tell us about the civil unrest when we asked, but
sometimes, like today, tiny pieces of information slipped through
their censoring and made it to us. I was dying to know what the
world outside our boring forest was like.

“
When I get to court, I’ll
find you a job chopping wood or something,” Leandra said with a
wide grin.

I stormed off to my room, followed by the
sound of her laughter. I loved Herakles like the father I couldn’t
remember, but there were days I was really embarrassed to be me. I
hated that feeling. I had trouble making friends, more so because
Herakles often had some bizarre requirement for me to hang out with
someone. Boys had to be able to outrun me, and girls had to solve a
riddle. No one ever succeeded at his challenges, except for the
perfect little nymphs who hung out with me only to laugh at me.

Basically, I was always alone, and he seemed
determined to keep it that way. I felt even more isolated knowing
the nymphs all had plans of where they were going after graduation
and I didn’t.

I went to my room and closed the door,
sitting on my bed. I had barely pushed off my shoes before there
was a tap at the door. “Come in,” I said and tossed myself onto my
back.

“
Lyssa, I have to leave for
the weekend.”

Startled, I immediately sat back up. “Where?
Why?” I demanded of Herakles, who had never left me for half a day
let alone a weekend. “Is something wrong?”

“
No.” His features were
scarred beyond recognition, his smile lopsided and frightening.
Everyone else winced when he looked their direction, but I loved
every knotted scar and burnt piece of flesh on his face. He was my
protector, my friend, the only father figure I knew. He had always
been beautiful to me. “You are to travel to the eastern boundary
and back this weekend. Here’s your surprise pack. Open it when you
get there.” He tossed the satchel onto the bed beside
me.

“
Ugh.” I eyed it warily. He
no doubt had planned another weekend of torture. I’d probably have
a hat and spoon and nothing more to survive two days in the forest
alone. While technically I should have had only three more weeks of
this madness remaining, I had a feeing his plans were always going
to trump mine. “You’re sure there’s nothing wrong? You’ve never
left me before.”

“
I’m going to scout
somewhere where we might settle after you graduate,” he told
me.

I looked up, thrilled. “I won’t be trapped
here for the rest of my life!”

“
No, you but you might one
day wish you had been.” He frowned. Every once in a while, my
guardian had a mood I didn’t understand. Naturally open, upbeat and
focused, his features were now grave and unreadable.

I studied him, wishing I could read his
thoughts or make him smile again. “Something is wrong,” I
assessed.

“
Not wrong. It’s always
complicated to move from one place to another.” He shook his head.
“Anyway, you have a treasure hunt to complete this weekend. Your
tasks are in the bag. You will not wish to wait until morning. I
put up several traps and obstacles.”

I muttered curses I’d learned from him under
my breath. As long as we had been together, I never really knew
what to expect on these adventures. “I’ll see you Sunday night,” I
said reluctantly.

“
Heed the boundaries and
rules.”

“
I know.” I pulled on my
shoes obediently and a camouflage windbreaker. When I stood, he
smiled at me again.

“
Good girl. Don’t get lost
out there.”

It wasn’t possible and we both knew it. I’d
been over every inch of that forest multiple times. “Have fun in
town.”

He turned and left.

I grabbed the bag and left my room for the
forest once more.

No boys. No future. No town.

There were days when I wanted out of my life
so bad, I wanted to scream.

Small opportunities are
often the beginning of great enterprises.

–
Demosthenes

Nothing bad had ever happened in five
minutes, right?

Just as the sun sank below the horizon, I
reached the red cord marking the boundaries of the priests’ forest
refuge. This end of the woods stopped before a natural lake
surrounded by hills. I perched on a tree stump inside the
boundaries, gazing at the serene lake with a combination of longing
and frustration.

A hundred meters. I ran twenty times that
distance five times a week. It would take me under five minutes to
run to the lake, strip off my shoes and socks to dip my toes in the
water and run back.

I chafed every once in a while at the
restrictions Herakles put me under. I cared for him too much to
want to disappoint him. But tonight, knowing he was gone, and I’d
be leaving here soon, too, I just wanted to throw aside everything
and be in control of my life for five minutes to see what it was
like. With Leandra’s laughter still in my thoughts, and my
frustration with this place at a pitch, I was tired of being
excluded and ridiculed for being different.

No one would see me if I just stepped past
the boundaries for a split second. Herakles had left, and the
nymphs were in town by now, so they couldn’t report me.

I approached the red rope and nudged my toes
up against it then looked around. I half expected there to be a
siren or electrical shock or something after the constant reminders
from Herakles and the priests never to leave the woods.

Nothing happened.

I stepped on the red cord.

Still nothing.

I stepped over the physical boundary of my
world, and a thrill went through me. Not only was there no alarm
but I didn’t feel guilty or bad for doing it, emotions that might
derail me from continuing. I stayed where I was, my heels butting
up against the cord, and lifted my gaze to the lake.

The possibilities were endless. My whole
life started right here and now.

I laughed at my overdramatic thoughts,
realizing nothing was about to change except I might upset
Herakles. That alone made me hesitate. I loved my crazy mountainman
guardian, and it bothered me to think I was going to make him mad
by doing this.

Assuming he finds
out.
The stubbornly independent side of me
he spent hours trying to exhaust with physical activity knew there
was only one way he could find out, and I wasn’t about to tell him.
At least, not for three weeks. Maybe after graduation, when we were
on our way to the Burger God I was going to spend my life working
at, I’d tell him of the one time in twelve years when I defied him
to dip my toes in the lake.

Crouching like it was a race, I breathed in
deeply then bolted. There was no real reason to run. I was
completely alone, and I laughed as I sprinted, tickled beyond
anything to be completely free, if only for mere minutes.

Sprinting to the lake, I kept to my internal
promise of not spending more than a few minutes off the property
and threw myself to the ground. Wrenching off my shoes and socks, I
scooted to the edge of the lake and dangled my legs over the rock
on which I sat.

The moment my feet dipped beneath the cool
surface, my world seemed to slow to a stop. I leaned over,
marveling at the sensations. It shouldn’t have been, but this was
somehow different than a pool. This felt … alive.

“
Holy Poseidon,” I
murmured.

The sensation of being united with something
living moved through my system, a wave that ran from my toes to the
tip of my head, in rhythm with the water, then outward, rippling
the grass around the lake. I shivered. Fascinated, I peered into
the dark depths of the lake. My feet caused small waves that were
pushed back by the natural tides of the lake. Deep within the
depths, I caught a glimmer of something odd.

I squinted in the fading light. They weren’t
fish or rocks or anything. The lake was too deep to see its bottom,
but I swore I saw ribbons of soft colors twisting like smoke
through the waters. Their movements were too precise to be dictated
by the tides. I blinked – and they were gone.