Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Which I can relate to as well.
We stay quiet after that. Just gazing out at nothing.
I don’t know what he’s thinking about, and I have no interest in asking, but the images from my nightmare are still running through my mind on repeat.
That bull. Apis.
Of course, I knew he was part of this. Whatever ‘this’ is. A curse, maybe? A punishment? Perhaps just a fog? It’s hard to tell. But I knew he was involved. Pell, the Monster of Saint Mark’s, told a tale about him to Eros weeks back after we, meaning myself and the other prisoners from the Bottoms, were freed from that dungeon.
So it should not come as a surprise that Apis has invaded my dreams.
I just don’t like it. “Vinca,” I say into the dark silence.
Eros turns his head to look at me. “What?”
“My nightmare was about Vinca. But… it wasn’t so much that it was destroyed.” I look at Eros now too, meeting his gaze. “We knew that, right? The skull and crown? Tarq?”
Eros nods. “Yeah. It’s too bad about that. I could’ve used Tarq.”
I almost snort here. “To do what? Make a godling? With Pie?”
“Well, that was the initial plan, as you know. But not anymore. I’ve let Pie go. I’m not gonna think about that girl ever again.”
“Another Pressia, is she?”
“As if you know anything about me and Pressia.”
“I know you’re infatuated with her.”
“Infatuated?” He says this with incredulity, then lets out a chuckle. “I would not call it infatuation.”
“What would you call it, then?”
“How about we stick to the topic at hand, which is you and your nightmare?”
It bothers me that he still thinks about Tarq and what Tarq could’ve done for him. Which was, specifically, give him the genetic material to make a godling. Of course, he’d have to find another Pie to complete that process. A lioness. A Second Daughter gryphon chimera from the House of Fire, to be specific.
Good luck with that. There is only one Pie. She and I are very close relations. Half-sisters from the same father. But as First Daughter, I was made from the genetics of the great alchemist, Ostanes. I was to be her apprentice. And as Second Daughter, Pie was made from the genetics of all the gods and goddesses combined. She was to bear a godling that would rise up and reunite all the discarded pantheons with the human world once again. A god of gods.
I don’t often wonder what my life would’ve been like if the man sitting next to me, the man I share a bed with, hadn’t ruined it by kidnapping my little sister, Pie. Would I have gone on to do great things? Would I have been nicer? Gentler?
It’s not likely. I was, for all intents and purposes, ruined long before Eros showed up. I just didn’t realize it for many years afterward.
The moment Pie told me about the magic that happened in the throne room where she was gifted a bag of rings that could open doors to other realms by the god, Ptah, everything that happened next was set in stone.
I didn’t understand a single word of the madness spilling out of her mouth that day. But she said a lot in just a few minutes. She told me the spell Ostanes used to bind her magic into a bird.
I would obsess over Pie’s words for nearly two decades, trying to understand what happened to us that day.
Well, that’s how it started. Innocent enough.
But it turned into something else entirely. Something very, very sick that I—
“Ya know,” Eros interrupts my thoughts, “this is the first time you’ve ever spoken to me. As far as making sense goes.”
“Hmm. Well, it wasn’t planned. I wouldn’t take it personal.”
“Why do you pretend?”
I turn my head to look at him. “Pretend? Pretend what?”
“To be crazy. Why do you wear those stupid antlers and that mangy coat? You do realize the wooden blocks make no sense, right? You didn’t have hooves and they look nothing like paws.”
“Well, thank you very much for your astute observations.” I sigh and roll my eyes.
“I’m not trying to be a dick, or anything. It’s just… I’ve been fucking you every night for almost two months and the only thing you’ve said to me in that time is, ‘You shall call me queen.’”
“I’m not sure what you’re looking for here, Eros.”
He gets to his feet and stands next to me, looming over me so I am compelled to look up at him. “Thank you for the conversation, Callistina. That’s all I was trying to say.”
And then he turns and climbs down the rickety and rusty stairs.
Leaving me behind.
CHAPTER THREE - EROS
Callistina never came to bed last night. This bothers me because I can’t tell if she did that on purpose because we had that uncomfortable conversation, or if she regularly finds another place to rest her head and I just haven’t noticed.