Page 38 of Courting War
A sharp pain radiated through Theo’s wrist, and she looked down. The invisible chain glowed before solidifying as it tightened.
Wicked Love, Theo swore.
She had tasted freedom and revenge on her tongue just seconds before. Theo was in the Lost Library of Droma, a place filled with every book imaginable, including witch’s spell books. She’d been moments from finding the Room of Witchcraft and the book that would restore her pride, honor, and divinity.
The reckless champion ruined it all. The foolish mortalhadto look upon Medusa’s face.
And now, as Theo examined the stone boy, a battle raged inside between her desire for revenge on her mother and the urge to join him. Theo longed to destroy her endless echo—to find peace. To die.
It was her nature to waffle between depression and action. Sometimes she was overcome by the need to die, her thoughts becoming parasites in her mind, latching on and not letting go, even when she desperately wanted to make them stop.
How did one stop thoughts, save replacing them with new ones?
How did one ever have hope in a life of emptiness?
Theo was too exhausted.
She wanted peace andcouldget it by catching Medusa’s gaze. She could find freedom at last.
Spending forever as a stone might be a better fate than repeating a hollow life over and over and over again.
What did she have to live for, anyway?
She had no joy, love, or hope. She’d lived 10,000 years without connection or happiness. The only time she’d let herself love, let herself be vulnerable, she was betrayed.
She was already stone inside. Why not finish it?
With a sharp inhale, she lifted her eyes, and they clasped onto the gorgon. Theo braced for the impact of flesh molding into stone, but it never came. She counted to ten, but it still never came. Glancing down at her feet, she shifted and willed them to stone, but nothing happened.
Utterly disappointing.
Theo slowly let out an irritated sigh.
She longed for the sweet embrace of oblivion. To be cast in stone and never resurrected. It would’ve been a soft and sweet sorrow—a cruel yet gentle end. But that wouldn’t go her way, like all the other unfortunate occurrences lately.
She shouldn’t be surprised. Theodra never got what she wanted. Especially death.
Of course, Medusa’s curse didn’t work.
“Dirty gods,” Theo swore under her breath.
“Theodra,” Medusa hissed, her snake hair rattling.
The monster and the immortal-made human stared at each other as if across a vast cavernous pit.
Examining and measuring.
But Medusa didn’t have only two eyes, she had dozens—each snake fixed onto Theo with hunger vibrating through them. They wanted to devour her . . . and so did their mistress.
Except . . . she didn’t.
The Queen of Snakes merely glowered, yet what lurked beneath her gaze sent shivers down Theo’s spine.
A universe of despair.
Misery hummed on the scales of the snakes and in the eyes of their mistress. Medusa was a 9,000-year-old ghost ready to be freed—released to the afterlife—but instead was cursed to walk an eternity among humans, never to live with them. Always on the sidelines of life, desperately seeking a connection she’d never find.
It was like looking into a mirror—a mirror of sorrow. All of Theo’s brokenness was reflected through the hisses of despair.
