The Unclaimed (University of the Gods Trilogy Book 1) (32 page)

“The Minotaur is wearing the Golden Fleece”, Cassandra said and Heracles frowned.

Then he nodded slowly.

“Of course”, he said, standing up and going over to the big beast that still lay lifeless at the spot where just a few moments ago Arissa and Mia had been standing. “He must have stolen it. He has an unnatural attachment to the Fleece.”

He bent down and after a bit of struggling, he managed to detach it from the Minotaur’s body.

“And if you are wondering”, he said, returning with the stinking piece of sheep skin that had been dyed black. “He is still alive. Or will be in a few hours.”

He held out the Fleece towards Ben who was staring at it in disbelief.

“Are you sure it is the Fleece?” the son of Hades said and then Alexander coughed and puked blood.

Ben was beside him in an instant, withdrawing the knife while Cassandra and Heracles put the Fleece on the floor, waiting for Ben to put Alexander on it before they wrapped the son of Zeus into it.

They covered him as much as possible but nothing happened. Alexander lay there like the dead and when Cassandra bent down to hear whether he was still breathing, there was nothing. Cassandra wanted to turn away but Ben held on tightly.

“No”, he said and she thought she had never felt so cold in her life. “Stay. Look at what you have done.”

He released her and bent down to remove the Fleece from his dead friend. Just then, Alexander’s eyelids fluttered and Ben gave a small cry. Before they could stop him, Alexander propped himself up and ripped off his shirt with both hands. He seemed slightly confused at first but then he looked down on his chest to see the last of his wound close again without a trace. Color returned to his cheeks and there was a magic current running through his body starting from his heart and then spreading to his torso, arms and even to his legs. He was definitely alive and the Fleece was doing its job and more. For a moment it looked as if it would heal his legs, too, but when Alexander tried to stand up, he couldn’t.

Cassandra remembered that she had read somewhere that the Fleece was a dangerous thing to use. It was the only thing that could return the almost dead back to life but it always took something from you in exchange.

“Son”, Zeus said and there was relief in his voice.

Alexander nodded at him but before Zeus could say anything, Hera took her husband’s hand and told him it was time to leave. Zeus threw one last look at his son and then they disappeared.

For a moment no one said a thing. Then Hippolyta coughed and Medusa grabbed the Golden Fleece.

“Why don’t you let it heal you, too?” Medusa suggested quietly to Hippolyta who was breathing in slow, ragged breaths.

The Amazon shook her head but when her breathing stopped, Medusa simply pressed it on the Amazon warrior’s body. After a few moments, Hippolyta opened her eyes and nodded. She shoved the Fleece away and there was quiet desperation in her eyes, telling them that the price the Fleece had asked in exchange for her life had indeed been high. Maybe too high.

“Arissa is hurt as well”, Cassandra said.

To everyone’s surprise, the daughter of Zeus looked almost back to normal though. Except for her hair that was still as white as snow, she was looking the same as before. If possible, the white hair made her even more beautiful.

“How did you do that?” Ben asked sharply and Arissa’s looks were daggers.

“What?” the daughter of Zeus snapped. “I am a demigod, too. I regenerate quickly.”

She reached for Ben’s hand but he drew back from her as if she was poisonous and Cassandra knew that he had made a mistake. But that wasn’t her problem anymore.

Hippolyta went checking whether there was something she could do for Bear but came back shaking her head. He was gone and no Golden Fleece would ever bring him back.

They heard shuffling behind them and whipped around in unison. For the first time that day, Ben’s face lit up when he saw his brother making his way towards them. There was a thin red line where the silver knife drenched in holy water had cut him but he seemed fine otherwise.

“Yup, made it”, he said and slumped down beside them. “I would have expected a little more enthusiasm now that Alexander is alive and safe but I guess that would be asking too much, given the circumstances. I’ll take a hello then. No, not even that? Fine, suit yourselves.”

With that he let himself fall to the side and curled into a ball. He started snoring heavily almost immediately. At the same time, there was a loud roar down at the shore, then there was the sound of an explosion and several big chunks hit the water. Charlie had done his job, Scylla was dead. At least for the time being.

The vision hit Cassandra out of nowhere. It was the familiar one where she had seen Alexander standing with her at his side. But something had changed: it was still Alexander standing before a window looking out but he wasn’t standing independently anymore but was resting against some kind of chair that supported him. And the girl beside him wasn’t her any more, if it had ever been. When the girl turned around to look up at him, Cassandra realized that even though the girl was almost as tall as her and had the same color hair, it was someone else entirely. That girl was no one Cassandra had ever seen. She was pretty, of course she was, and obviously very much in love with Alexander. Cassandra felt a stab. When he bent down to kiss the girl, the vision vanished.

She shook her head to get rid of the dizzy feeling she always had after a vision and saw Alexander waving her to come over. Cassandra took a deep breath and approached him until they finally stood face to face. She wanted to say she was sorry, that she was glad that he was alive and that she wished they could stay friends. But when she saw the coldness in his eyes, all words died in her throat. He stretched out his hand as if wanting to touch her face but then withdrew it again.

“I always knew how you felt”, he said quietly and Ben turned away to hide his emotions. “I thought that maybe… Never mind.”

Then he turned away from her, asking Ben to take him away from there.

No forgiveness. Of course not. How would he understand that she had never, not for a second, wanted to sacrifice him for Ben but had felt that she had no other choice than to save him.

Tears were burning in her eyes when she watched Ben and Alexander leave together. Medusa, Hippolyta and, after hesitating for a moment, Arissa left too.

And suddenly Cassandra was alone with Heracles and Mia. Mia, who with her last breaths, was watching Alexander leave and tried to follow him, crawling on her stomach with blood pooling around her. Cassandra guessed that only her deep and desperate love for Alexander had kept her alive that long and that she, too, had been hoping for a sign of his forgiveness. But he had never even looked at her.

“Mia isn’t the strongest of girls”, Heracles said quietly as if to himself. “Nor did she ever seem to be the brightest.”

Instead of answering, Cassandra bent down to look Mia in the eye.

“Why did you do this?” she murmured but Mia didn’t see her.

When Alexander disappeared from their view, something within Mia broke for good and she laid her head to the side, beaten.

“You would have never hurt him”, Cassandra said, stroking the poor girl’s hair. “Yet you used the Pipe to call out to those monsters. You almost destroyed us all today. Why? Why would you do that?”

Mia’s eyes rolled back into her skull and her breathing became ragged.

“We should let her go”, Heracles said and Cassandra bit her lip. “It would be… merciful.”

Their eyes met and they knew they couldn’t do it.

“She is our only connection to what really happened”, Cassandra said quietly and reached for the Golden Fleece. They would never let Mia see the light of day again, not after what she had done today but Cassandra felt she had no choice. Arissa would simply deny that she had been involved in any way. She would point out her suffering that day, say that she had been terribly used by Mia and that would be that. If Mia died, there was no one to prove any different.

Cassandra placed the Fleece on Mia and together with Heracles she watched it do its work. It took a while for the magic to take effect, but finally Mia rose just like Alexander. Her moves were clumsy and robotic and when she realized that she was still alive she gave a guttural cry. She was desperately looking about for something and when she found it, Cassandra needed every ounce of strength left in her to prevent Mia from killing herself with the knife that had almost ended Alexander’s life. Heracles, taking pity on the girl, took her into an iron grip and then whispered something into her ear. Mia stopped struggling almost immediately.

“It seems like the Fleece took her voice”, Heracles said quietly and Cassandra thought that nothing the Fleece could take from Mia would be worse than the realization that Alexander hadn’t even cared enough for her to say good-bye.

When Heracles bound her hands together with a leather strap from his shirt, she didn’t fight him. Mia followed him like a puppy but when Cassandra bent down to pick up the Fleece, she almost fainted and fell to the floor panting from the sudden pain that had caught up to her after everything that had happened. Heracles was beside her in an instant.

“What is wrong with you, child?” he asked and suddenly Cassandra knew that he knew.

She started crying and after a moment, Heracles drew her to himself and started rocking her like a baby.

Her father stroked her hair and murmured soothing words that made no sense but Cassandra, for once allowed herself to be completely vulnerable. All she wanted was for him to hold her and tell her that everything would be ok again.

They sat there until the sobs eventually subsided. The sun was about to set and even though Cassandra had thought she would never get up again, she finally found the strength to do exactly that. Her father patted her shoulder and they saw that Mia still stood at the exact same spot where Heracles had left her, unmoving, unseeing and uncaring.

While Cassandra and Heracles had sat there, some of the Claimed had come up to see what they could do. From them she heard that Summer, Jim and Hector were still alive and at the infirmary now for treatment. Then they went to carry Bear, Sam and the Minotaur down to the university grounds again.

Finally, Cassandra winced in pain when she moved to follow her father.

“How bad is it?” Heracles asked and Cassandra closed her eyes to breathe away the pain.

“That bad, huh”, Heracles said and then she heard him move about.

He seemed to wrestle with something and when Cassandra wearily opened one eye, she saw her father pulling and tearing at the Fleece. The Fleece seemed to resist him but either Heracles was lucky or he was indeed still much stronger than he looked because in the end he succeeded. He came over to Cassandra and placed a hair on her shoulder. When the Fleece’s magic, much weakened because the hair wasn’t attached to the sheepskin anymore, started working on her, she fell into a deep, healing sleep.

Her father held up a second hair and after a moment’s deliberation put it on her heart. He knew it was a ridiculous thing to do because the Fleece could not heal something that was only broken in the metaphorical sense. Or could it? He didn’t care. She was his daughter and he should have protected her. It was his fault that she was in such a bad state, his fault that she had to go through this all by herself. But not anymore. From that day on he would be there for her. He waited until he was sure that she was fast asleep and then he took her into his arms. He told Mia to follow him and then he took his daughter home.

Three days later, Cassandra returned to the plateau. She still felt a little pain in her shoulder but it didn’t trouble her much. She had had a good talk with her father and in the end they had decided that they would get to know each other after the summer break.

He had claimed her as his own. When Cassandra told him that that wouldn’t matter if Pandora couldn’t stay at the university, he had promised that her sister could stay as long as she wanted and that they would give her time to heal.

In general, Cassandra found her father to be more emotional about their reunion than she would have thought. He suggested several times that she move in with him, which she refused, telling him that she liked their little house and she wanted to be close to her friends. In the end she was almost glad to be able to get away from him for some time.

She and Hector had accepted a summer job a while ago and even though they would be leaving three days late now, they were still planning on going. Hearing that, Heracles had wished her good luck for her travels and had then handed her a sword in a simple black leather scabbard, telling her that she shouldn’t dare refuse that, too. He hugged her and told her to take good care of herself. She even had to promise to write from time to time and with that they had parted.

When Cassandra took a closer look at the sword later, she found it had her name carved into the hilt and when she swung it, it felt like it had always belonged to her.

Standing on the edge of the cliff that had cost them so dearly a few days ago she held on tightly to the sword, reminding herself that she would have to atone for what had happened on that day in times to come. Down at the beach, chunks of Scylla’s body were still lying around in various degrees of decay. As no one had bothered to remove them, Cassandra could smell the rotten stench even from up here.

She wished she could tell Charlie thank you for saving them that day. She knew that a hundred swords could not have done the damage from without that Charlie had done from within. But their friend, who was now the god Dionysus again, had disappeared right after he had killed Scylla and Cassandra guessed that he was already on his way back on Mount Olympus for a family reunion.

By killing Scylla, Charlie had also released the little boat with Wolf, Sol and Beatrix in it. Both Wolf and Sol had survived practically unharmed but some of Scylla’s stomach acid had sprayed on Beatrix’s face and eaten into her hair and skull. Ms. Nightingale had done her best to save her but she would have died if the Golden Fleece hadn’t done its magic on Beatrix as well. Even though Beatrix hadn’t died that night, the Fleece had left half her face disfigured by terrible scars and the hair on that side of her head would never grow back again. Once again the Golden Fleece had worked its terrible magic.

Bear had been buried the day before. Cassandra had watched his funeral from afar. Only Ben, Alexander, Sol and Wolf had been present for his burial and even though Bear had betrayed them, his friends had still honored him. It had been Alexander who had said the prayers and laid the hammer Bear had used as his favorite weapon on his tombstone. When they had left, only Wolf had remained standing at the freshly dug grave. When he thought no one was watching, he had broken down in front of it, crying. Cassandra, who had felt like she had seen something she shouldn’t have, had spoken a silent prayer and then retreated.

She thought of Mia who hadn’t reacted to anything they had asked her. In the end they had given up and sent her to a “safe” place; probably the same Pandora would have been sent to if it hadn’t been for Heracles’ promise that she could stay as long as it would take. Cassandra had gone to say good-bye to Pandora and had met Medusa in her human form there. Cassandra still hadn’t been allowed to talk to her, not even to say good-bye, but Pandora’s grandmother promised to look after her while they were gone.

When she asked where Madame Margot was, she was told that the sorceress had fallen ill and was unable to see visitors. Cassandra, thinking about Madame Margot’s eyes, which definitely had a chocolaty note to them, resolved to look a little closer into said Madame’s doings once she came back from her tour through Eastern Europe.

She had hinted at Heracles that Madame Margot might have something to do with what had happened but Heracles had reacted quite harshly, telling her that she had no idea what she was talking about and that Madame Margot was entirely harmless. She had always suspected that there was something going on between the two of them but now she was almost sure that her father might be protecting the woman for exactly that reason but she had also seen doubt that he had been quick to hide. Cassandra could see that they still had a long way to go but it was a start.

When Cassandra had gone to see Sam during one of his nightly watch duties after that fateful day, she had heard Beatrix scream until finally someone had the mercy to sedate her. Sam said that Beatrix wouldn’t stop looking at her disfigured face and had attempted suicide three times since she had been rescued even though Sol kept telling her that the only thing that mattered was that she was alive.

Sam, who looked his old self again, seemed to be one of the few who didn’t have any lingering hard feelings towards her and was accommodating enough until Cassandra asked him to let her talk to Alexander before she left for the summer break but Alexander had given clear orders not to let her through under any circumstances. Even though Cassandra hadn’t expected anything else, she still felt hurt.

“Wait until after the summer break”, Sam murmured when he saw her pain.

When she asked about Ben, his face became a neutral mask.

“Take my advice and stop pursuing this path”, was all he said. “You have done enough damage, don’t you think?”

Cassandra, about to say something else, nodded and then she left. She thought of the way the band on Ben’s wrist had glowed, how Arissa had looked at him knowing that he didn’t have a choice and knew that Ben would suffer almost as much as she did. When she turned the corner she saw Sam was watching her go. He raised one of his fingers a fraction and she knew it was his way of saying thank you for saving his brother.

“I would do it again”, Cassandra whispered, knowing he would hear her.

Cassandra was jolted back into the present when she saw movement down at the beach. It was the dead servant girls’ brother, the one angry at everything and everyone. He had come to look at the creature that had killed his sisters but there was no satisfaction for him down there. She saw him ball his fists and then heard him scream something she didn’t understand. In the end he hung his head and turned around to leave. Cassandra felt for him but knew that he would have to let go now.

Cassandra had gone to see the family the next day but they had already heard what had happened. The boy hadn’t been there and the younger sister, who still had to take care of the mother, had cried. Cassandra told her how sorry she was and then left. There had been so much she would have wanted to say but in the end there had been no words.

With one last look at the spot that had brought so much desperation, Cassandra turned around to walk back home. Hector was waiting for her with their bags. Summer and Jim, like many others, had only survived because of the Nereid’s help that day and were still shaken from the whole experience. They clutched at each other, Summer looking pale and beautiful and Jim, who was almost two heads taller than Summer now, wished them well for their journey. Then Summer started crying and Cassandra drew her into a hug, telling her to take good care of their little home. She hugged Jim, who instantly turned a deeper shade of purple.

“Stop growing”, she said and Jim smiled awkwardly.

He was almost as tall as her now and thin as a stick but he looked happy. He promised to try and then vanished back into the house. Cassandra waited until Hector had said his good-byes to Summer and then they went down to the beach.

When they passed the palace, Cassandra thought she saw someone standing on the balcony but the sun was in her eye and when she looked again that person was gone. Another time she thought she felt Ben’s non-presence but it was gone when she tried to look harder.

They waited by the shore until they were finally picked up by a ship that would bring them closer to their destination. They went looking for their cabins but before they disappeared below deck, Cassandra turned around once again. The island on which the university stood was wrapped entirely in fog even though it was a clear day, and had disappeared from view.

Three months. That’s how long they would be away. Three months to try and sort out her feelings. To make sense of everything that had happened that year. Cassandra breathed in and closed her eyes. Three months was a long time. But maybe not nearly long enough.