Chapter 6

Xenos had been watching her over the past three years. He always watched the new ones, to see if he wished to add them to the long list of women he 
had enjoyed in the most perverse of ways, but this one was different and what had began as idle interest had turned into something close to obsession. 
She did not carry herself like the other acolytes, he had noticed. She often forgot her veil when she stepped outside into one of the temple's many 
courtyards and gardens. She let her shoulder-length hair remain wild and untamed instead of pulling it back as was custom. He admitted that he found it 
intriguing. There was something strange about the girl and it drew his attention. She seemed so oddly familiar to him, but he was unable to place where 
he had seen her before. Surely he would have remembered something so beautiful, so composed of light and shadow as she was.

The few times he had paused to speak with her, the answers she'd given were devoid of emotion and as short as possible. Her eyes went blank when 
they looked into his and he found himself wondering what it was that hid behind them. One would joke that it was infatuation, but he scoffed at the notion. 
She was lovely and he did not know why he had not already forced her to let him taste of her sweetest fruits. But, what always struck him was that odd 
familiarity he felt when he saw her tending the altar or relaxing in the gardens. It was as though she were part of another life, she echoed of something left 
untended, unfinished. It perplexed him. It drove him to deeper trains of thought. 

This continued to puzzle him, and was weighing heavily on his mind the day he went to the central courtyard where packages were being brought from 
one of the many shipments from oversea. 

She was there.

It was not uncommon for the acolytes and other altar tenders to be found in the gardens when it was not their time to be secluded within the inner 
sanctuaries with the scents of incense and scented oils. She was standing up on the steps and overlooking the city beyond the temple's entrance. He 
could not help himself and he paused.

She was framed by ivy and the sun reflected in her crystal eyes. The robe she wore was that all of the acolytes wore and it revealed more than it hid, 
but if the woman felt discomfort with her state of dress it did not show in her bright eyes. Her hair swept around her face in a pale wave, complementing 
from chin to brow. She was so pretty, almost worthy of being betrothed.

He remembered her name and how it also seemed familiar to him, as though a sweet candy upon his tongue once savored and nearly forgotten. He 
forced her from his mind and instead began lifting crates and carrying them up the wide steps to the platform. Something made him pause in the midst 
of his labor and wipe the sweat from his brow. As he did his dark eyes settled on her and before they focused recognition struck him like a blow to his 
chest.

What he saw there was not the lovely woman who had come to possess his thoughts. For the gaze she had placed upon him for the briefest of moments 
had not been the blank, cool stare. It had been filled with heat and a strange sorrow. With that gaze the years melted from her face in his mind's eye and 
he remembered the crystal eyes that had shone from a blood-coated face, the blond hair that had been so soft beneath his fingers. 

He recognized her as the child he had tried so desperately to destroy, and for all intensive purposes he thought he had succeeded. But, there was no 
mistaking her as he gazed at her profile framed by the dark green of the ivy leaves that surrounded the temple doors. Something twisted in his heart like 
a beast long left untended and his lips quirked in a smile that was not kind as he looked up at her.

~*~

“Sweet gods, help me.” I whispered before I could stop myself. His eyes were riveted upon mine, and I could see recognition even from this distance. 
How? My mind frantically sought to discover the trigger that had brought that remembrance to the tyrant's eyes.

My heart threatened to stop in my chest when I saw him gesture to two soldiers and point at me. He knew, and it terrified me. What would I do? He 
would surely have me killed and I would then never gain retribution for my family. I was weeping before the soldiers ever neared me.

“Take her to my chambers.” I heard his voice like a knife through my mind. “I wish to interrogate her.”

As they took me away I looked over my shoulder to see him still standing there. He was a thing of ebony framed by the fire of the setting sun, hair long 
and careless around his shoulders and eyes shining like black coal from out a pale face. He lifted his hand in a mock salute, and the smile upon his face 
held promise. Promise of what I did not know, but it made my heart grow cold and my soul sink. He knew, and suddenly all plans and all promises 
turned to dust in my mouth. 


~*~

I was bound to a chair that looked as though it had seen its share of sweat and blood with ropes, rough-hewn and purposefully so that my instantly 
straining wrists were cut and soon slick with blood. I damned myself in my own mind as I sat, counting each breath, each blink of my eyes. One slip 
in three years, one slip of emotion as I had gazed on him and everything I had worked for was destroyed. Three years of servitude to new gods with 
strange names and strange tastes had taken their toll on me and as I looked back I wondered if this was my punishment.

“Cynara.” The voice was filled with contempt from the doorway. As I looked up I was unable to keep my gaze from fastening on the onyx eyes that 
pierced me with their stare. 

“Xenos.” I said and by some miracle of the unknown I was able to keep the fear from trickling through my voice. I was beyond fear. Fear had been 
when I walked into the temple three years prior with intent strong in my heart. Now I knew that I would die, and that he would take joy in it. Fear 
would not save me. The gods would not save me. I sat bound before the tyrant, and I sat there alone.

“I guess he didn't have the heart to do it.” The voice was strangely calm as Xenos pulled a chair up across from me, leaning his elbows on his knees 
amidst the scrape of metal armor and the flurry of crimson cape. “You were pretty even then. If it hadn't been so important I wouldn't have even done 
it.” His voice was thoughtful. “But who, I wonder, did he kill?” 

My chin rose defiantly as he brought a pale finger across the golden flesh of my cheek. “I wonder.” He continued easily. “What child he felt was 
unimportant enough to die in your place.”

“I do not know.” I answered and my voice shook unbidden. He smiled.

He was quiet for a few moments. “Did you ever read the scrolls, Cynara?” He somehow made my name sound decadent and perverse as it rolled 
off his tongue. 

“I never read them.” I responded with the same lift to my chin. “My father would have none of it.”

“Then you truly have no idea.” Xenos grinned. He leaned forward and suddenly his hand caught in my hair, dragging my head down between my 
knees. I exhaled in a breath of pain, too aware of the fingers that moved the hair away from my neck. “Truly his daughter.” I heard him say above 
my bent head. “And what, I wonder, should I do with you now?”

He pulled my head back up so that I was forced to look at him once again. My jaw clenched against the grip that wound its way around my neck 
and I forced myself to meet his gaze steadily. “I suppose you will have me killed.” My voice was raspy and choked from lack of air, and the grip did 
not relent until darkness threatened to eat at the edges of my vision and take me under like a warm, deadly sea.

“Have you killed?” He returned it as a question. “Yes, that does have merit. But then again…” His voice took on a darker, intimate note. “Why ruin 
something of such beauty?” His eyes raked over my face and then lower, purposefully disrespecting, horribly close and consuming. “Oh, you will 
have pain, darling.” He purred as he saw the expression within my eyes. “I would be a fool not to promise you that. But kill you?” He leaned back 
and there was an overwhelming arrogance about him, a certainty that would not be easily shaken. “Why kill you? Those scrolls are full of nonsense. 
What prophecies have you fulfilled, little darling?” His voice became a taunt. “What gods have you truly seen? They haven't saved you yet.” He laughed 
and it was low, filled with a mirthless humor.

“Have you ever seen a man that has been flayed?” He asked as he pulled a dagger from a sheath at his side.

“No.”

“It's a beautiful grotesqueness.” He continued calmly as though enjoying idle conversation. “All flesh removed so that the muscle shows through the 
membrane, blood shining and tendons quivering. Quite moving, actually. Eyes without lids are especially intriguing, for whether dead or alive they are 
wide as though filled with fear.” He tested the sharpness of the blade against his fingertip. “Do you know why people are flayed?” He asked me.

I swallowed and breathed deeply, hopelessly concerned with where this conversation was heading. “I have heard that warriors of other seas keep the 
flesh as trophies.”

“And why is that, darling?” The voice was too calm, too kind.

“Because the flesh bore markings unique to the body that bore it.” My voice grew quieter with each word. 

His dark eyes lit up at the statement. “So you have been educated. I am impressed.” He leaned close enough that I could feel his breath against my face. 
“Tell me, will you scream for me?”

“Not if I ever had a choice.” I told him, anger bleeding through my voice for the first time since I had been bound within this room.

“What of worship?” He smiled at me. “You already tend the altars of my gods. I will one day be listed among them.”

The smile that contorted my face was an ugly thing, filled with cynicism and hate. “Worship a man who turned a city of light into one of putrescence? 
You have turned streets that once shone of gold and finer things into dull, broken stone coated with filth. When I was a child the people of this city did 
not worry of shoes or other things significant of places of illness and harsh nature. Now they cough and die in dark corners while their wares rot in the
market with none with the money to purchase them. Children forget the stars above them and mothers weep for babes born without life. Fathers beat 
their neighbors into submission and all that lives howls at the moon. Why would I worship something as vile as to create all of this pain?”

“You would rather worship dead things.” Xenos responded and the first sign of heat and irritation began to bleed into his voice. “Creatures of myth 
who have allowed me to wreak such horror as you see it.”

He was mocking me. All I was able to do in response was smile that ugly smile that twisted to my very core. I believe it was the smile that infuriated 
him. I think it irked him that I was able to look into his face and know of the terrible promises he had given me without weeping, without clinging to 
whatever respite or release he would offer me. “I will give you no choice.” His voice was a heated whisper, hissing and filled with an anger that went 
deeper than me, deeper than even him. 

My head was thrust forward again and I knew before he cut what he would do. I gritted my teeth against the pain, but short staccato cries burst from 
my lips as the knife began to slide back and forth mercilessly over the mark that had showed my family name. The short cries turned into a scream as 
he began to pull, began to separate my flesh from my body as though I were nothing more than a fresh kill being cleaned.

When he returned to his seat beside me a piece of my flesh dangled between his fingers. He had done his work well. He had taken only what was 
required and even as the blood began to trail a lazy path down my back I knew that the damage could have been much worse.

“You belong to me now.” He stated in that same matter-of-fact voice as he turned the piece of flesh in his hands. “You'll bear my mark and no other.” 
Another promise, one I noted readily. 

“I belong to the gods. I shall never belong to you.” My words also held a promise.

“We shall see.” The answer came too easily. Xenos went and pounded upon the heavy wooden door, and when it opened there were two guards. 
“Take her to her mistress. I want her in my bedchambers when the moon is high in the sky.”

“Even that shall not make me yours.” I promised as I was unbound and dragged away. “Nothing ever shall. Not all is yours to own.” My voice faded 
as I was pulled down the hall.

~*~

“What did you do that would anger him so?” Desedira's voice was soft and small as she carefully cleaned the fleshless portion of my neck. “This 
will scar badly.”

I did not answer her. I stared straight ahead at the stone wall, preparing myself mentally for what would assuredly be another night at Xenos's hand 
that I would wish to forget.

“You won't be the first to spend a night or two in his chambers.” She attempted to comfort me. “Most of the new girls are swept up quickly. He 
enjoys his women young and beautiful. It will not be so terrible.” But by the tone in her voice I knew that at one point she had been a younger 
apprentice and that she knew what it was that went on behind the tyrant's closed doors in the dark of night.

“How are you able to continue like this?” I asked her as she placed a poultice on the back of my neck and secured it with a bandage that wrapped 
around the entirety of my neck. “When you know what it is like, how can you continue taking others in and subjecting them to it?” There was nothing 
accusing in my voice. I had a feeling that Desedira was as bound by her reasons as I was by mine.

“There are worse things out in the world, Cynara.” She told me. “Xenos…he may be terrible and frightening, and all his dealings filled with pain, but 
at least it is safer than the streets, than the slave houses. I have seen the inside of them, they are terrible places. I would wish any girl into his bed to 
keep her from the thousands of beds that await her should she be forced into those places.”

Slaves. They had never been a thing unknown of, but masters had cared for them, treated them as a part of their families. They were well-fed and 
well-clothed, never abused. I suddenly knew that I did not ever want to see what had become of it or what happened to those who were now forced 
into its station.

“He will want you looking your best when you are taken to him.” She told me and I grimaced at the thought. “He enjoys seeing women dressed in 
red with eyes and mouth painted darkly.”

“He enjoys seeing women beautiful, in pain, and covered in blood.” I retorted darkly. Were her words supposed to comfort me? Was I supposed 
to be satisfied knowing that I would be dressed as a whore and led to his chambers for whatever pleasure he so desired of me?

“I will get clothes for you.” She said and she shook her head at me. She paused at the door. “Do not try to run away.” She advised. “It will only be 
worse for you if you do.”

“I know.” I whispered to the empty doorway and knew that it was true. But, I was tired of running. I had spent my entire life in hiding, my entire 
childhood in secrecy without the company of playmates, of normal society. I would not run because the energy of the chase would thrill him, make him 
want me more completely. How I knew these things I do not know, but the certainty of it filled me. 

Desedira draped me in scarves of red and gold, as though I was one of the many statues in the sanctuary whose clothing we tended so tenderly. She 
painted my eyes black and my lips crimson. She took hot iron to my hair so that it curled, gracefully covering the blood-stained bandage at the nape 
of my neck.

“You are ready.” She told me. “I will call the guards.”

It wasn't until two guards who were both younger than I were leading me down the foreboding hallway with its framing torches that I realized I had not 
been touched by a man before…not truly. The stag had been an ethereal thing, a blessed and holy thing. The man who awaited me in his chambers 
would not be reverent, would not be holy. He would be commanding and forceful. He would possess me as a demon might, and I would have no 
control.

What would this mean for me? Would it destroy the link that had been created when the stag had come to me and asked me if I would have him? Would 
it make it stronger? Would it matter at all?

There were too many questions and no answers revealed themselves within the reflective floors or within the heavy dark wood of the large door we 
came to. 

The guards pounded upon the heavy wood and it resounded through the hall like the ominous beat of a drum. “Come.” I heard the voice and they pulled 
the door open, shoving me through without grace, without compassion.

As I picked myself from the floor I vowed I would not give him the satisfaction of a fight, of a struggle that would make his blood burn hot and desirous. 
I straightened and held my head high as I looked at the man who was framed by pillows the same colors as the scarves I was swathed within. “Hello, 
Cynara.” The sentence held a world of intimate promises.

“Hello, Xenos.” I responded, and my own voice held promise, but not one that would give him satisfaction or humor. I approached the bed and I saw 
him blink in surprise, but the gaze soon turned coy as he rose to meet me.

His hand found its way to my neck and gripped there tightly, bringing a gasp from my throat. I felt him knead the flesh there and knew that blood drew 
a lazy path over my collarbone. “Will you scream for me?” He whispered.

“I will never make a sound or speak for you again.” I promised in return.

“Such a bold promise made by someone who does not yet know the full extent of my…hospitality.” His face was dangerously close to mine and I 
could smell that he had been anointed in the finest foreign oils. Sandalwood, cinnamon, exotic fragrances to Atlantis, wafted over my skin and through 
my senses like a warm, coiling beast that promised pleasure and pain. 

I made no response to him, but if one was really needed he gave no answer. Little did I know that the promise I made I would carry out for many 
years, despite pain and misery dealt me because of it. Instead his arm was about my waist and he was lifting me from the floor, but it was not to the 
bed I was carried like baggage, but instead to the fireplace.

His profile was lovely and for a moment I forgot my hate of him, taking in the sculpted high cheekbones and the tousled dark hair that fell over pale 
shoulders the color of alabaster. A loincloth of black dyed linen fell around his hips down to his thigh, and as he bent before the thigh the flash of 
secret flesh was given me, a sight I turned my eyes from as hate boiled afresh. I knew what that thick perverse desire had required of my mother, 
and I knew that soon the same flesh that had stolen from her would steal from me. I choked back the cry of disgust I felt, and focused instead on 
what Xenos's hands were doing: rolling a rod of iron back and forth within the flame until its tip was possessed of a raging heat-filled orange.

“I told you earlier that you would bear no mark but mine.” He told me in the same calm, sardonic tones. “And you say you will not scream?” His thick 
dark brows rose high on his forehead. “You will make no sound or word?” He reached forward and captured my wrist in a vice-like grip, turning my 
arm so that the tender skin of my underarm was bared. “Then you will say nothing to stop me.”

I knew it was a trap and that whether or not I gave voice to protest I would be marked, I would be branded. My mind recoiled at the thought but my 
body instinctively prepared itself to resist. My teeth clenched, I inhaled deeply, every muscle in my body tensed and came to attention. “Strong.” Xenos 
said thoughtfully as he withdrew the rod from the fire. “An element I detest in my women.”

The rod was drawn over my flesh and I sucked in my breath, breathing heavily and too quickly through my nose. The pain was severe, but the heat 
was cold and not hot as I had expected. Instead of focusing on the pain – on the act – itself, I focused instead on the sensation. A searing cold 
wracked my nerves and then blasting heat followed it, leaving a line of pain that made my stomach ill and my head disoriented. I bent my head to hide 
the tears that filled my eyes and dripped down my cheeks. No sound escaped me save my ragged breathing; no whisper of voice had overcome my 
own stubborn will.

When he released my arm there was a new brand, a new scar to be added to my plethora of bad memories. It was an X with flat lines at the end of 
each diagonal line in the burned flesh. At the upper left and the lower right corners there was a curved line and dot, as though to represent a crescent 
moon and star. It was his mark, the mark all soldiers wore on their breastplates, the insignia found on the banners that flew above the temples in 
crimson and gold.

“Impressive.” He said as he tossed the rod within the fire. “I've never seen a woman who could stand in the midst of being marked.” His hand was in 
my hair as he rose and he dragged me with him. Once again I was forced to clench my teeth and suck in my breath to stay my ever-so-willing cries.

I was taken to the bed and tossed unceremoniously upon it. He was above me instantly, as though he expected a battle. It gleamed in his eyes and as I 
stared mutely up at him the light flickered and changed. “You will not even fight me?” The voice was amused.

I shook my head, not giving voice to any word, but the smile on my lips was enough of an acknowledgement for him. “Smart girl.” He said, shaking a 
finger at me as he leaned back and laughed. “Very smart, indeed. How is it that you can read me so easily when I have men quaking at my feet in terror?”

I blinked in response and the laughter slowly bled from his face. He brought his hands to my throat again and I instinctively gritted my teeth in expectation 
of pain, but the touch was oddly gentle, exploratory. “They've always fought.” He murmured and his voice was thoughtful as his fingers traced over the 
golden flesh of my neck, down to my collarbone and lower to pass over my chest where the scarves began. “Always begged for mercy, for a gentle 
hand.”

My eyes stayed steadily upon his as he moved the first scarf away. I trembled, but it was not from his touch. It was from the familiarity of the way his 
hands passed as he moved first one scarf, then another. Had it been mere coincidence that Ariana had dressed me as she had when I went to meet my 
vision and the stag? Or had she perhaps had some insight to my future that I had not?

My distracting thoughts were lost when his hand gripped my breast with enough force to make me arch up to meet him, and his free hand grasped my 
neck, pulling him close. “You always were lovely, Cynara.” He breathed against my closed mouth. “Just like your mother.”

Those words made my face contort with anger but his mouth covered mine and forced it open. I sought to bite his tongue but strong fingers kept my 
mouth at bay as he gripped my jaw on either side. His tongue possessed mine and I found myself noting that he tasted like the rich wine my father 
used to serve with dinner. His other hand wandered lower and I had to fight the desire to writhe against him when his fingers dipped within the secret 
folds housed between my legs. 

His fingers were skilled and I was barely able to conceal a gasp when he unceremoniously shoved them inside of me. I was suddenly possessed by 
pain, a tearing sensation that drew a voiceless gasp from my lips. The hand immediately left me and he brought me up to his side, holding me with one 
arm as he looked upon the blood that stained his fingers. “A virgin.” His voice held a barely concealed awe. “I did not know the temple took virgins.”

He looked at me with that same confusion in his eyes but when he went to draw me to him again we were both jolted from the bed to the floor as the 
ground began to violently quake. 

“What in the name of the gods!” Xenos cried but his voice was drowned out by the rushing sound that filled the room. He ran from the room and in 
all honesty I would have followed but I was held transfixed to the floor as though I had been chained there. The quaking of the stone floor whispered 
to me, and it drew screams from my lips. My head thrashed from side to side and I felt the familiar rushing through my body, but it was a terrible thing 
and it had no mercy.

My vision became blurred and I was only distantly aware that Xenos had returned to the doorway of his bedchamber. All sound escaped me save for 
a solid humming I knew belonged to the stars; to the lion, the eagle, the bear. The shaking grew more violent and the floor began to crack around me, 
and I tore at my hair as though in mourning.

When my voice came it was a shriek and the words that escaped were not my own.
“Beware, for the times of Atlantis are perilous!
Woe unto man, beast, and creature of the sea!
The earth spits forth from her bowels blood that is boiling,
Searing, consuming, possessing!
The child of the stars has come and has been chosen by the lion!
The prince of darkness's reign has begun!
All quake in the face of revolution and fear for the fate of man!”

“What does it mean?” Xenos cried and he came to my side. He lifted me from the floor and he shook me violently. I laughed. I laughed like a thing 
possessed, cackled and giggled with a perverse glee that was not my own. “Damn you!” He yelled. “What does it mean!” He slapped me violently then 
and it was enough to sober me, to make whatever spirit had possessed me return to me my mind. As soon as it was mine I grew silent again, and the 
eyes that gazed into his I knew were wide with fear and understanding.

He jerked me up by my arm and pushed me violently to the bed. There I was thrown upon it and as the quaking of the ground around us grew worse 
he forced my legs apart and put himself between them. There were no words, and there was no fight from me as he pushed himself inside me. My 
fingers clutched at his hair and his breath was hot against my throat as he thrust with a frenzied speed. Mortar from the ceiling was falling around us, 
stone was crumbling from the walls but he did not hesitate in his movements and my legs found their way around his waist, goading him forward to 
his goal.

He cried out as he spilled himself within me and my own body writhed as his seed burned within my womb. 

The quaking stopped and as though on cue I collapsed amongst the furs and the pillows of Xenos's bed unconscious.

~*~

“I see your faith has been renewed.” The voice came from the sanctuary's shadows, but he knew who it was without turning.

“She really is the woman from the prophecies.” Xenos said thoughtfully as he gazed up into the eyes of his own statue that stood to the right side of 
the massive altar.

“Yes, she is.” Came the hidden woman's simple reply. “Do you have faith?”

“I should destroy her then.” He said, his eyes not leaving the stone creation in front of him. “I should destroy her before she is able to cause more 
damage. Look at the havoc she wreaked this night.”

“It was not Cynara alone that caused the earth to tremble.” The calm voice said. “It was your choice to brand her, your choice to desire her.”

“I do not desire her.” He snapped before realizing that his tone belied his words. When he spoke again his voice was quieter. “I do not desire her in 
such a way.”

“Of course not.” The woman spoke. “You've never desired a woman in such a way. Or a man, from what knowledge of you I hold.”

Xenos did turn then and sent a dark look scanning the shadows. “I will destroy her. No more trouble will come of this. I had thought this finished when 
she was a child.”

“Ah, but she is no longer a child, Xenos.” The woman's voice held amusement. “She is a ripe young woman, and she was a virgin.”

“No longer.” He responded and his voice was bland.

“I suggest that you do not destroy her as you so desire…or is it that you need the satisfaction of smiting something that could possibly hold more sway 
over this land than yourself?” A hooded figure emerged from the shadows, hands clasped in front of her slender form. 

“She threatens my plans.” 

“She could be an asset to them, Xenos.” The woman's voice was filled with cunning and seductive tones and she slid work-calloused hands over the 
tyrant's shoulders with familiarity. 

“How so?” He asked, curiosity instantly peaking in his voice. He grabbed the woman's caressing hands forcefully within one of his own, bringing a 
small gasp of pain from her lips. 

The woman cleared her throat and regained her composure. “She is the child of the prophecies. You stand in your damaged temple with the knowledge 
of this. But, you surely have noticed that the first cataclysm of the ancient texts was not caused by a woman alone. 

“In the texts she was chosen by the lion, by the prince of a foreign land.” The grip Xenos held on her hands weakened and she resumed caressing fingers 
over his sweat-covered chest as though nothing had interrupted her. “It was their union that both brought and stopped the earth from shaking.” She 
smiled at him from the confines of her hooded robe. “You should have paid more attention.”

The slap came too suddenly for her to react to it. She was thrown to the floor by its force and the room swam before her eyes as darkness threatened 
to swallow her up. “Forgive me. I spoke out of turn.” Her voice was hoarse with pain.

“You do forget your place.” Xenos seethed above her as she struggled to pull herself back to her feet. “Just because you favored me once before I rose 
to this power does not mean I will have any pity for you.”

“Of course, Xenos.” She said and paused to steady her vision and her mind. “Do not destroy the girl. She may be of great political power. If you control 
her, she will become useful to you and it will be you who shapes the prophecies, not the old texts.”

She began to walk toward the sanctuary's entrance where torchlight still managed to flicker after the night's shattering events. “She will start a revolution, 
Xenos.” She said with her back to him. “She will test you, and you will grow strong because of her.”

“And her of me?”

“She will learn the futility of old gods against new power.” She responded.

Xenos turned then and went to her, pulling her against him and wrenching the hood from her head. Her dark eyes glittered at him. He lowered his mouth 
to hers and kissed her savagely, an action which she allowed and returned with a strange wistfulness. “Thank you, Ariana.” He said as he smiled down 
into her eyes, not an unkind vision. 

“Of course, Xenos.” She said and she turned from him once again, and this time he allowed her to. She paused once, framed by the doorway and the 
torchlight beyond. “Oh, and Xenos? Do not try to bed her again. You may find it is more trouble than it is worth.” And then she was gone.

Ariana paused outside the temple, leaning against the smooth, metal-coated stone. She looked up at the clouded stars and breathed a shaky breath. Was 
she cruel to have led things so completely to their fruition? Pawn against pawn had been played, and now was the time of final judgment. Her part in this 
play had come to pass and now with both the lion from a foreign land and the forgotten daughter of a nation had been brought face to face it was left in 
the hands of the gods for whatever fate truly awaited the people of Atlantis.

~*~

“It was so horrible!” The dark-haired girl gasped in my ear as she drew a sponge over my shoulder to wash away the sweat and the blood. Her name 
was Emilia, or something similar. I had not truly listened, still stunned from the events of the night. I had been placed within Xenos's own gilded tub to 
have the night's toils washed from my flesh. “It seemed like it should have been the sky that was falling, but it wasn't!” She continued and her fingers 
trembled against the flesh of my back. “I've never felt the earth shake so. I mean, the small trembles are noted through history. The land always grumbles 
during the warm times of the year. But never like this.”

Her nervous speech mostly went through one of my ears and out of the other as I stared blankly at the crack-riddled wall. I knew that the cataclysm 
had come because of me…and also because of him. Why him? I asked myself. Why did our union stop the quakes?

“Xenos is a terrible man, but there is something about him, isn't there?” Emilia asked close to my ear. It caused me to turn and look at her, and the 
shock must have been written upon my face because she blushed and murmured, “Sorry, miss. I know it was not a good thing to mention after…well…
after this.” She gestured to the damaged room, to the bed that still smelled of both blood and sex. 

“It is quite alright.” I told her and my voice sounded strange even in my own ears. “Tell me, do you know when he will return?”

“Won't be for hours, I'm sure.” She hastened to reassure me. “There was much damage in the city. Some are dead. He will be forced to see to setting 
the repairs and burying in order.”

Death. It had not occurred to me that others had died. Others had died, and I had a feeling that most were innocent. I was beginning to believe that the 
only true evil in this place was Xenos himself and that if he were removed the rest of the land would somehow be put right again. My eyes felt hot with 
tears and it was only when Emilia laid a comforting hand on my shoulder that I realized I had been crying.

“It will be alright, miss.” She soothed, running fingers over my wet, tangled hair. “We all get used to it.”

“It is not that.” I murmured, knowing that she referred to what she thought had been a rape. “It is all that is happening.”

“It is a sign from the gods.” She said with an adamant nod of her head. “They know that things are not as they should be.”

“Aye.” My voice was barely a whisper. “They know indeed.”

I allowed her to finish bathing me and help me out of the tub. My body ached from abuse and I clenched my teeth against the gnawing pain that gripped 
my stomach. I was too weary to protest when she made a pallet of the unsoiled furs and pillows below the fire and brought a clean simple robe for me 
to wrap myself within. “This part of the temple was not badly damaged.” She explained to me as she led me to lie down before the raging flames. 
“Its structure will hold, according to the priests and the builders.”

“I thank you.” I told the girl, my eyes already threatening to fall closed in sleep.

“Xenos has given me to you, miss.” The girl continued with a plain yet pretty smile. “I'm to take care of your needs.”

My eyes widened momentarily in confusion but then both shock and fatigue overwhelmed me and I drifted into sleep, only vaguely aware that the girl 
began to dress the wound on my arm.




[Next Chapter]