Page 51 of Courting War
Theodra didn’t understand her sister’s pain. Romance had only caused unspeakable evils in her own life. Theodra felt justified in her actions because Nefeli would have tortured the boy for a hundred years, bringing him to the edge of death and then healing him so she could do it again. All the while forcing Andromache to watch.
It was sickening, and Theodra could end it. It was the kinder thing to do.
Real Theo’s eyes grew heavy with unshed tears. It was the worst moment of her life—even worse than her own pain, for when she had fallen in love, she loved with all of her being.
And she loved Andromache.
The vision morphed into a new one.
Andromache was chained atop a mountain, where every day for one hundred years, an eagle came and devoured her liver. Over and over again. But every day, Theodra appeared and poured healing magic into her sister’s limp form, stealing the pain.
The scene played out on repeat, neither sister speaking, spending days, years, even decades in silence until one day, Andromache broke it and said, “I need to ask you for a favor.”
“Anything.” Theodra’s voice was coated in a winter so cold it could cause an ice age.
“You haven’t heard what I would ask of you,” Andromache said, strangled by pain.
“What is it you need?” Theodra asked without hesitation. She’d do anything for her sister—especially after killing the one person she loved.
“Can you cast a privacy shield?” Andromache said, her eyes thick with worry, shifting them to the sky as if she were nervous it might overhear.
Theo snapped her fingers, and a clear bubble formed around them—protecting them from outside ears.
“I need you to shield my daughter and all her future descendants from the eyes of the Pantheon.” Andromache paused and spoke all the details in a long-dead language that even Theodra had a hard time remembering. “I need you to shield her from yourself, too, Thee.”
“It shall be done.” Theodra disappeared.
The vision shifted again, but the real Theo spoke over it, “Why show Cecile this?”
“Why indeed.” A self-satisfied smirk twitched on Death’s lips. “Perhaps I want her to hate you. Or perhaps something else entirely.”
“Havyn, if you—”
“Help,” Theo was cut off by Cecile’s Death Challenge playing out on the mirror. Havyn was forcing the twenty-four-year-old Cecile to face a vision of herself at sixteen during her Agoge schooling.
Cecile tried to scream, but it was muffled by the hand of an attacker.
“Oh, now it’s getting interesting,” Death said, staring at the mirror.
Cecile’s attacker pinned her to the ground with his knees, his hands curling around her neck, strangling her. Purple colored her face, and the vein in her forehead bulged. She frantically clawed at his hands, to no avail. She was dying. Murder in the Agoge was frowned upon, but it wasn’t against the rules. As long as a person wasn’t caught in the act, it was mostly overlooked.
Cecile curled her fingers into the dirt beside her, the vessels in her eyes red and straining for life. With her last ounce of energy, she threw the dirt into her attacker’s eyes.
He released his hands for a moment. Cecile kneed him and tried to get his weight off her. But the boy was nearly the size ofKellyn and far heavier. Even with her extra-human strength, she was no match for the lock-hold he had her in.
Angry, the attacker slammed her head into the ground.
Blood blossomed from a wound, and her eyes glazed over. Defeated, Cecile’s hands fell limp. Her gaze drifted to the side, her fate sealed in the rough calluses encircling her throat and cutting off her air supply.
Hovering in a bush—a mere foot away—perched Gallagher. Their eyes met. Gallagher’s swirled with a storm of thoughts. Yet she didn’t make any move to intervene.
“Help!” The strangling noise escaped Cecile’s throat.
Gallagher tilted her head like a cobra but still made no move to help. She was just sitting and watching. Bathing in the ruination of it.
Cecile’s lips formed the word please, and her eyes said she knew Gallagher wouldn’t help . . . they were nemeses, after all . . . it was possible she’d orchestrated the entire event.
An eternity ticked by.
