Page 311 of The Spider Queen
“The three pearls I have to find. Right. Okay. I’m listening.”
“There were three ancient queens. Helen, Hecuba, and Dido.”
“Dido? Like the singer?”
“Hush.”
“Sorry.”
“Helen was the Queen of Sparta. Hecuba was the Queen of Troy. And Dido was the Queen of Carthage. Three beautiful women. Three powerful women. Three women who each found their demise because of men.
“When each queen died, her shade was given a pearl by Persephone, Hades’s wife, the Goddess of the Underworld. They were able to pass into their afterlife to find eternal tranquility, something they never found in their mortal lives.
“Before each queen passed to their afterlife, they hid their pearl, knowing that one day another powerful woman would be beholden to a man. The woman was to find the three pearls, and only then would she be law unto herself. Stella”—his hand tightened around mine—“you are the woman who must find the pearls.”
“Me?”
“It’s not just about freeing yourself from Lucifer’s hold. You are the greatest empath the world has ever seen. Your fate is tied to humanity’s. Without you free in the world to ease the burdens of humans, they will fall into darkness.”
“He’ll win,” I realized aloud. “Lucifer will win. Darkness will win.”
“The lights of human souls will be extinguished. They will become broken and jaded; they will become living monsters and destroy themselves and the entire world they inhabit. Without you to save them, no good will exist.”
Lightheaded, I wanted to collapse on the ground, but I forced my legs to keep up with Jax. “How do you know this?”
“Because the Sibyl told me a prophecy after the city of Troy fell. She spoke of the woman who’d become prisoner to Lucifer and explained that if I helped this woman, then I could atone for the crime I had committed when I was human.”
“What crime, Jax?” I whispered, wondering if he’d heard me over the wheezing of my breath, over the silence of the night.
“I was the one responsible for the destruction of Troy. The Trojan Horse was my idea, Stella.”
Chapter 17
“I thought Odysseus came up with the idea,” I murmured.
“Fucker took all the credit.” He sighed. “I was also one of the soldiers in the belly of the horse. I helped sack the city.”
Jax was responsible for the collapse of one of the greatest empires in history. Though Troy couldn’t be substantiated by historians, it was real. Cassandra had told me stories.
“You loathe me now, don’t you?”
“I don’t know how I feel about it,” I admitted. “Or you.”
I didn’t want to know what else he’d done. Surely, the destruction of an entire kingdom hadn’t been all he’d done. Men were slain, women raped, children taken as slaves.
The world was cruel. History was told from the perspective of the victors and often their evils were veiled in their lies.
“Why can’t I ease your burdens?” I asked him as we continued on.
“Because I’m mostly stone,” Jax commented. “You look confused.”
“I am confused. About your motives. You’re not here to really help me, are you? Not because you’re actually altruistic?”
“Altruism doesn’t exist and you know it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, for the love of—you can’t be that naive, can you? You ease burdens, why? Because youhave toor you’ll go mad. It’s not the same as volunteering out of the goodness of your soul.”
