LYSSANDRA

  I was in a temple with the statue of Apollo shadowing me, hiding me away from the bright sun. In front of me, there was a weeping, stupid girl, crying with her long, dark curls falling to the floor. Her scars were still fresh behind her back as thorns were growing on her scalded skin.

  ‘’I want him dead’’ She spat. ‘’Dead and gone, I want him…’’

  I decided to walk right in front of her and I sank to my knees before I touched her face.

  ‘’I know.’’I whispered. ‘’I still want him gone.’’My feet began to bleed.’’But we can’t.’’

  ‘’I will succeed, it is his fault, he’’She looked right above me with her ruined eye, having a bulb of a crimson thorned rose.

  ‘’He abandoned us.’’

  I nodded. ‘’But we need to stop.’’

  ‘’No, I have to win, we have to win or he-’’

  ‘’Forget him.’’I cupped her harsh face, making my hands bleed.’’Do not forgive him. Never forgive them. But if you remember them over and over again, your wrath and guilt, it will kill you.’’

  ‘’Let it kill me.’’

  ‘’Why do you want to become a goddess girl?’’I asked them with blood falling to the cold floor.

  The girl remained silent. Revenge could have been the answer. Glory, greed. Anything that I could make the name of that god vanish from the place of the earth. Power.

  ‘’To have power.’’

  I nodded.

  ‘’To protect…’’

  Outside the temple, there were children that were orphaned by raiders and soldiers. Mothers who had nowhere to hide themselves and their children from any evil. Girls who were forced to be born as girls were praying for a different future. They all wished for protection.

  Because none protected me. None managed to save me. I wanted nobody else to suffer like this ever again.

  The flowers and thrones began to retreat.

  ‘’Do you think we have time?’’The girl asked gently.

  ‘’Oracle,’’Paris’ pleading forced me to wake up. My eye snapped, and I moved my head up only to hit it on a hard rock. I let out a painful sound, and the man inside the darkness leaned closer to me.

  ‘’Oh, you are alright’’

  My head kept spinning and I could see that we were trapped together with fallen bright rocks surrounding us. I could barely move with or without the poison while Paris was hitting the rocks with his bare hands. Why was he doing that? Someone like him, I thought he could destroy the rocks easily.

  ‘’We…’’ A voice echoed with the sound of a tongue following. ‘’All die here. Maybe,’’

  Python whispered.’’Apollo will come to save you.’’

  ‘’If you can move, let us out’’Paris shouted.’’She is dying.’’His voice shook.

  But it was pointless. Even if I could get out, there was nothing that could prevent me from dying.

  Python stopped responding. I wondered if he finally died or simply stopped talking. But Paris kept hitting the rocks.

  ‘’I thought that you were God’’My brow arched, and I was in shock when I heard my voice coming out of my mouth. Heavy, while it was almost closed as if someone was choking me.

  Paris stood silent.

  ‘’If you care about me dying, you can heal me.’’

  ‘’I am not the god of healing.’’ He muttered.

  ‘’Well, then call Apollo’’

  ‘’It’s not that easy, Oracle, '’ laughed Paris.

  My anger grew toward him. Why was he here then if you could do nothing?

  ‘’Why not? Tell me why you are useless?’’ I bared my teeth on my lips.

  ‘’I cannot help you’’He screamed, eyes facing me.

  What?

  ‘’Oracle’’two eyes filled with water.’’I was sent to hurt you to punish you. I can only do that. The mere thought of you being alive it should have disgusted me.’’

  He despises you. Do you want to know what he thinks of you?

  ‘’My dreams were about you in despair, bleeding on your knees and begging for my forgiveness’’

  Gods are cruel.

  ‘’And then’’His lips trembled with the light of the stones brightening his wounded face.

  ‘’Every time I came to your temple and looked at your face, I…’’

  He bit his tongue.’’I was not meant to save you. Even the thought of saving you makes my skin burn’’

  What was he talking about? I could not understand what he was about to tell me.

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  But the man crawled close to me, and I knew once again. I will die.

  If I had to, I would have asked him at least a few questions.

  ‘’So you are a god’’I sighed. He nodded.

  ‘’How are the others like? How is…’’

  His eyes arched wide. But he knew what I wanted to find didn’t he? And finally, Paris spoke ‘’He is what the legends describe him.’’Eye looking up at the stones, which are inside all this darkness, they could shape an entire sky.

  ‘’But he was lonely at times and love could not…he found love in a twisting way.’’

  Oh.

  ‘’Leto said that…’’I took one deep breath.’’That he didn’t have his strength and title?’’

  Paris narrowed. ‘’A lot of things happened.’’

  My gaze widened, and a smile formed on his face.’’Next question?’’

  ‘’Is that your real face?’’I asked him with a wide smile.

  And his lips were now pressed on a thin line, and turning his face away from me.

  ‘’I uh…’’

  So no. Not even god could have been as pretty as him. I wondered what his true face could have been painted in gold or stars across his body.

  ‘’Can I see? As my death wish?’’I let out a giggle, and Paris’ face turned red.’’Oracle no.’’ He chuckled, and I think that the air around us was suffocating my thoughts.

  ‘’May I ask a question?’’His voice was so gentle. I nodded slowly.

  ‘’How did you find out that I was…’’

  Telling him that his voice and mouth were not in sync anymore could make him not understand. Maybe that is how he sees everyone.

  ‘’Last day, a man pretending to be you came and was completely different, so I thought that something had gone wrong’’

  Paris blinked.’’Wait, you knew that it was not me?’’

  I moved my head up and down. He leaned even closer now with curiosity draining on his…why is everything turning darker?

  ‘’Since when?’’He asked heavily.

  Why was everything losing its color?

  ‘’From the moment he appeared.’’I admitted.’’I knew it was not you.’’

  Paris held his breath before laughing loudly, causing his echoes to fill the tight cave.

  ‘’You are not deceived by…’’ He sounded so happy that I managed to tell the difference between him and his impostor.

  ‘’So, was it you who gave him ashes on his throat?’’His curiosity grew.

  Him? So the impostor was surely a man. And it seems that they knew each other.

  I nodded, and he kept laughing.

  Should I tell him? Should I say that I can listen to someone playing a beautiful lyre?

  ‘’I am assuming that you and he are not close?’’I asked him.

  ‘’Centuries ago, you could call us brothers, but now it’s all so complicated.’’

  ‘’Brothers?’’ My voice became thin, and the music grew strong

  ‘’One of the plenty’’He chuckled.’’ My father loved too many women, and most of them gifted him with children.’’

  Loved was a strong word. I could imagine Paris having plenty of kids growing up with him, playing around the fields and pulling pranks. Then again, I did not know if gods ever acted like kids. The deer boy was being hunted by Python for centuries, starving all alone in the world. Crying for help.

  ‘’What if we met at different times?’’I asked, and my cheeks flared red and I was deeply hoping that he would not see it. ‘’If you ever met me in a forest?’’

  With a humming sound, I could feel his head resting down to my shoulder.

  He announced. ‘’I was out there to relax and play music. But instead of that, I found someone’s dark green dress with the ends had fallen hemlock while next to the dress there was a sack filled with herbs and poison. As I kept walking to the forest, I was profoundly reminded of a crystal lake where a beautiful woman was bathing herself. Her raven curls were dipped down to the water as her warrior shaped body was being showered by the threads of the sun. I was captured by her grace, and I could only think of ways to make her mine. When the sun would fall, the woman would move back to the forest with the stars now visiting her luscious hair. There was a campfire where dryads and nymphs were dancing all around while music played from satyrs. And beside the fire, I covered my clay mask with my face and would find her. She would be captivated by the dancing and the melody where she would only follow me. The lyre and flutes will make her follow me as I walk back to a bush.’’

  ‘’Was this woman spelled?’’I asked him.

  ‘’No, because this woman was far too smart and powerful for even the gods to manage to catch a spell on her. The cunningness and curiosity of that woman drew her to the flames, but she knew the limits of her power. And yet, the stubbornness of that woman allowed her to dance the night blaze, making me even…’’

  His words were cut out.

  ‘’So, I still had my brains?’’I sighed with a wide smile.’’Good, but I want to add a few more things.’’

  I heard his gasping, telling me to go ahead.

  ‘’I want to be a true prophet, someone who gives hope to the people. I want people to never harm me again.’’ I took one more deep breath. ‘’But I would follow the fire, just for a moment, what that creature would show me…’’

  ‘’It is time’’

  ‘’Those stones,’’ I said as I remembered the shimmering blue stones that belonged to Ouranus.’’Do you think that can be sold.’’

  ‘’Yes but…’’

  ‘’After I die, please send a few stones to the others. Tell them that I tried. They will know what to do…’’

  ‘’What are you-’’

  ‘’Please protect them. If you can’t protect me, help them get safe place somewhere. I want Leon and Deimaria to live until adulthood in peace. Myrto and Alexious to get married, Thais to get to the first ship for a journey, and Adamantious.’’

  Find love for him. Find someone who could actually care for him. I was so selfish in my life, I would rather live and see everyone suffer with me. If I were dead, everyone would be at peace.

  ‘’No’’Paris mouthed.

  ‘’What?’’

  ‘’You won’t die, no, I will find a way-’’He let out a scream.

  ‘’Paris, I won’t get any better.

  ‘’You don’t know that.’’

  ‘’Paris, I cannot see’’I shouted in all pain. Everything was in a pitch of nothingness for an hour. I could not see right for years but now, it was all so terrible to not even see the vivid figures around the darkness.

  I could not see, I could not feel my limbs, and my heartbeat was almost gone.

  ‘’Oracle, no, do not.’’

  I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.

  ‘’I will….I will call help.’’

  ‘’Please, promise me this’’My head turned even lighter.

  ‘’Why are you doing this?’’He shouted. ‘’Why are you trusting me? I was meant to hurt you.’’

  His voice became distant. He despises you, he wants you to suffer. But would he want the others to suffer too? Was this one of his plans?

  ‘’Because you are my friend’’I panted.’’And I think that I am one of yours too.’’

  ‘’Oracle, do not.’’

  Do not leave. I wanted to say. I cannot die alone, I wanted to scream. But I was already driven to the darkness.