Prophecy of the Most Beautiful (16 page)

In a tiny state of shock, she looked down at the old book, and with an eyebrow raised, said, "English."

The letters scrambled around on the page into what looked like a really complicated word search puzzle. They hung in place for a moment, then snapped back together. When they did, the words were English.

"Weird," She said, then read the title out loud, "
The Oracles' Dictum
." She read the rest silently to herself, but that was fine with him. He had already taken it upon himself to memorize every word of the oath she was about to bind her life to.

WARNING: READ EVERY WORD

If your eyes read these words, with purpose for the exalted position you have incurred,

By its' modest length, do not be deterred, or let any of its phrases go unheard.

The laws, they are real, and to the Oracle, must reveal

principles of the future and ancient prophetic ideals.

Reserve rights for the hero, for they often meet their doom

But that every soul born of the divine is a hero, is fatal to assume.

If no deity lays claim, the soul has no stake

They have no purpose, and neither prophecy nor fate can be acquired even for their live's sake.

The patron holds the final answer for those outside the realm of the divine

Failure to adhere could mean your life may become entwined,

With one whose love for you is greater than one's own self

A life for a life, to end at the same time, but in hades will separate to dwell...

And that was just the first page.

Her eyes found his almost five minutes later, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

"Did you read it all?" He asked, swallowing his chuckle. "All seven pages?"

"Yeah, but––"

"Every word?"

"I didn't skip a single one, but––"

"Do you understand its' meaning and realize its' full purpose?"

"Uh, I guess…"

"Good." He grabbed her hand, pricked her finger with his dagger, and pressed it against the page of the book. Her blood stained a small portion of the old papyrus paper. The dagger was back hidden away before she even realized what had happened.

Then something, probably the eerie prickling on the back of his neck, made him look down at the old tome again. And he did, just a split second before the name that had appeared in her blood faded away. His breath got caught in his lungs. No, he hadn't been mistaken. His eyes had seen right the first time. There it had been, plain as day:
Pythia.

He stared at where her blood had spelled out her fate, then at Chloe, and back and forth for quite a while. He just couldn't believe it.
She
, this hot, frazzled redser, was
the one
. The one the gods had been waiting on for over two thousand years. She was
the
Pythia.

Forget being a big deal. This was
monumental
.

"What did you just stab me with and who is Pythia?" She asked, frowning and sucking on her finger.

She saw it, too.
He looked up. "Pythia is you. It's your new name. All of the gods will refer to you as Pythia now."

Her eyebrows shot upward. "Really? A new name?" She thought for a minute. "Cool. My
dad
named me Chloe." Her expression turned a bit sour. "So…what's that name mean?"

He hesitated. He needed time to figure out the best way to explain the truth, which was, no doubt, going to scare the crap out of her. "Your name simply means "priestess"," He said, "It belonged to someone else before, over two thousand years ago. Another great Oracle." It was true, though it had nothing to do with the fact that
Chloe
was the Pythia that was going to turn
Myth
on its head. Och, it was probably already happening.

"Is that normal, recycling names?" She kind of smiled.

"No. It's the first time it's ever happened."

"Oh." She seemed stumped by that answer.

"Anyway," For the moment, he no longer wanted to ponder how her being Pythia changed
everything
, and not in the way he had wanted them to, "You jus' swore an oath to uphold the Oracles' Dictum," He said, "You signed it with your blood."

"No,
you
signed it with my blood."

He frowned. "Nevertheless, you're the one tha's bound to it. Your blood upholds it. Break the oath, break the blood's seal." He stopped there. He wasn't ready to tell her what would happen if the blood's seal was broken. That was an entirely different matter in itself.

"Understood," She said, "Now, do you have a bandage or something? I'm bleeding to death here." She was sucking on her finger again.

He rolled his eyes and walked towards the table where their breakfast sat untouched. He blew out the bloody candles. "I barely pricked you…"

"How do you know? You weren't on the receiving end. And
what
did you stab me with?"

Chloe was barely bleeding at all and she knew it. He was a master with his dagger and never made anyone bleed more than he meant for them to. Nevertheless, he whipped it out, spun, took her into an innocent chokehold and held it up in front of her face. He felt her swallow against his arm.

"You could've taken my entire hand off with that thing," She said of the sharp, curved empyrean bronze blade. "What's engraved on it?"

"It's Greek for '
Radiate'
," He let her go, "My motto. Now sit down and eat." He twirled the dagger and made it disappear again.

She rubbed the part of her neck where his fingers had grazed her. "Are you always so bossy?" She sat down across from him and displayed her southern manners by taking her napkin into her lap.

"You think I'm bossy, Red?"

She nodded. "Very."

He paused, then shrugged. "I'm a Prince. Jus' call it my nature."

They finished breakfast in under half an hour––he had only eaten a few pieces of plain toast and an orange; Chloe, a plate of blueberry pancakes. He tried not to stare at her, but failed miserably. He just couldn’t understand how any mortal fella had been able to resist her. The wans had been jealous, that was the only explanation for the way they treated her. But the guys? They had avoided her like the plague, and he just didn't understand it. Sure, she'd had a fit or two, hurt a few people, left a couple unconscious, but
blah
, that was
hot
! She was a wan after his own heart.

Ava Anarchy came to clear the dishes away, and Chloe decided she wanted to see if there were any good books for her to read. She had a lot to learn, she said.

Every book in Apollo's library had a story to tell that was like no other story one would find in any other piece of bounded literature. These stories were
true
––uncorrupted by human tall tales. There were stories of wars, stories of romance, stories of monsters and beasts, stories of every god and every goddess, stories of their feuds, of their triumphs and their epic failures. There was nothing that couldn't be discovered here.

Of course, Chloe ended up in the "
Great Heroes of Olympus
" section, as he had suspected she would. She made him tell her the stories of the old heroes that had come before him because she had gotten some impossible notion that she had to learn everything in one day. He had to admit though, he enjoyed it. It was rare that he found anyone as interested in the history of their heroes as he was, besides Swindle.

When he refused to tell another bloody story, she went to hunt down a book to read for herself. For rows, she drug her fingers over the binds trying to choose, and then, a gasp slipped from her lips. He grimaced, knowing what was coming. "There's one on
you
!" She pulled it from the shelf.

"Not tha' one, Red." He reached to snatch the book, but she leapt out of range and wrapped her arms around it. To his own surprise, he backed off. He couldn't help but feel like she was claiming possession of not only the book, but of him too. She wanted to know him and he liked that.
A lot.

Och
, this was
not
what he needed right now. Even if it
was what he wanted.

Faster than one could say
Strafford Law is a pansy
, he had the book out of her hands. "Not yet," He said, "Jus'…not yet." Before she could protest that, he placed his hand over the cover of the book, mumbled a few words in ancient Greek, and returned it to the shelf, out of her reach.

"What did you just do?" She asked, sounding accusatory.

"I erased it," He replied, "The pages are blank now."

She stared at him like he had just strangled a puppy right in front of her. "Will the words come back?"

He nodded once. "Eventually."

"Then I'll come back to read it when they do." She crossed her arms across her chest like a stubborn child. "
Without you.
"

"Okay."
There's no way you're coming back to this library without me, wan.
If she tried, he'd just tie her up and things would only get more complicated from there.

She was still glaring. "The binding had your name, but the cover said
Solar, Prince of the Sun
. What does that mean?"

His grays met her blues. "Nothin' anymore," He leaned against the shelving, cursing the moment, "Solar was
me
. Years ago, though." He really,
really
didn't want to talk about this, but ignoring Chloe would only encourage her to save her questions for later––or ask someone else, like Ace. Or worse, Hector. "It was my celestial name. Jus' like yours is Pythia now."

“Your celestial name," She repeated, rhetorically.

"Aye. Mos' demigods take on a new name after they're declared by their celestial parent. It's like a way to honor them. Some, like Ace, add a second name."

"Like
Remedy
because he's a healer?"

He nodded. "Others, like me, change their first name and jus' go by tha'. Unlike you though, we get to choose ours."

"Solar," She said again, then let her glare ease away into a smile, "I like it."

"But I don't go by Solar anymore. It's Strafford. Or Law. But never Solar."

He watched her smile fall and wanted to kick himself again. "Okay. Strafford then."

"I jus' prefer my real name, tha's all." He tried to salvage the situation, but it was a lost cause. Her smile was long gone.

You're seriously blowin' it with her, Law. Do somethin' abou' it.

So he did. He told her the truth about himself. The terrible, shameful truth.

"There's somethin' abou' me you should know. Somethin' important."

She crossed her arms. "Oh? And what's that?"

He took a step forward. Just one. "Honestly, Red? I'm disgraced, like, say-my-name-and-everyone-cringes disgraced. Don't ask why, you'll know soon enough. Jus' know tha' my reputation throughout
Myth
is way below par. In here, I may be all the hype, but out there, mos’ demigods pretty much hate me. Tha's why I came. To get some of my honor back. It's the only reason I accepted the guardianship."
Such a lie.
Didn't stop him from shoving his other foot into his mouth though. "So if you thought I was a
hero
, I'm not, wan. I'm no man of honor."

Her expression softened and she stepped forward too. Just one. "I saw the gold brand on your neck, so that means you
are
a
hero.
You're also the Quad leader. And a chosen son. And a Prince. Sounds pretty honorable to me. Sounds
awesome
to me."

His heart gave a dream-come-true thud. She liked him. For
real
. The question was, why? She didn't know him, and she didn't know yet that she shouldn't want to. She was only going on what she'd heard. His bro had hyped him, sure enough. Ace was loyal to a fault but he didn’t deserve it. Not after what he'd done.

He knew then he had to end whatever this could've been before it'd begun. For her own good. She deserved so much better than him.

"Being a Prince or a chosen son doesn't mean you can't be disgraced. Trust me, wan. I'm nobody's
hero
. So if you're smart, you'd forget abou' me fast, and get into someone else."

Och, Law. Smacking her might've packed less of a punch, ya wanker.

She looked absolutely wounded and it made him want to shrivel up and die. The last thing he ever wanted to see was her hurting. But he didn't know what else to do. He just couldn’t let it be like this. Chloe deserved better than to hang on the arm of some condemned Prince with the aura of a stray dog. That's what he was. A stray dog whose father god had thrown him the bone of absolution. This was his last chance at redemption, and he wouldn't let his feelings, or his desires, interfere with that. His honor was
everything
. He couldn't be "the disgraced Prince" any longer. For four years he had let his shame consume him until he had practically become the definition of the phrase.
But. Not. Anymore
.

He was the guardian of the Oracle of Delphi now. And even though he was just about sure he was going to fall head over heels in love with Chloe, he couldn't let her feel that way about him. He didn't deserve to be the possessor of her heart. She needed someone honorable and courageous, with a reputation of honor…and his rep was hanging on by a thread. Not that he wasn't still a cold-hearted killer and wouldn't be able to put down any and everything that tried to hurt her. He'd destroy
anyone
who had the moxie to even contemplate harming her.

He was so inside of his own head that when he finally came back to reality…the heavens…the Delphic Chateau…in the library…surrounded by three millennia’s worth of literature…

Chloe was gone.

*****