38 | ACT II, SCENE X

P R E V I O U S L Y

"No is a complete sentence in itself, Valmont. I don't think I need to give you an explanation," I cut in quietly, my voice gone mellow with the hurt in my heart.

"Fine," Tristan said quietly, his voice dripping with acid, stinging me. It held a mocking quality to it, as if trying to hide the hurt. I flinched at the tone as his face turned back into the white, reserved mask it always was. "Have a good night, Queen Regnant."

HARTINGTON CASTLE, ALNWICK, STORMHOLT.

ERIC

TONIGHT WAS THE NIGHT.

WE were going to do it tonight.

I was fingering a fine feather staff, examining a blade as Tristan talked to me in a low voice, locking a flail into his belt. I stuffed my boots with daggers and blades, adding to the discussion. He strapped two swords to his back, picking up a sharp whip as well, while I sharpened my Trident. We had no idea what we would face on the island, and had to be prepared for all consequences, armed with all kinds of weapons.

Suddenly, the door opened and Edwina walked in.

She was dressed head to toe in fine black armor, just like us men. Seraphine hung at her hips. A ruby filled halberd was clutched in one hand, while she held her Flaming Spear in her right, its edge sharpened to a wicked point.

Her hair was braided into a fine, elegant plait. Even the red strands were threaded with sharp spikes that could do serious injury if she swung it around. Leather gauntlets stacked with knives and heeled boots armed with arrowheads completed her outfit.

She looked like the very definition of danger.

I saw Tristan's head whip around and his face suddenly smooth out with awe, eyes glazed over with admiration. I chuckled to myself. She indeed looked ethereal. Somehow, her armor looked better on her than the high collared, intricate gowns she often liked to wear. He heard me, huffed, and then placed a frown back on his face, pointedly refusing to acknowledge her existence.

"There is no need to speak," he spat suddenly. Storm raged in his eyes as he pulled on his boots, angry at letting his feelings show - even if it were for a fraction of a second.

"As if," Edwina rolled her eyes.

Gods. This was getting worse. They both needed to talk.

"Cousin," I said, trying to keep my voice even, "what are you doing here?"

"It's full moon, LeVane," she glared at me, and her nose turned up. "Tonight is the night we go to Vezort Island to fetch the first piece of the Logogram."

"So?" I asked curtly. "The four of us can handle it. You don't need to-"

"Ah, yes, I will, Eric!" Edwina snapped. "I am coming with you both and that is final!"

"Look. It's because -"

"-because I am a woman, isn't it, LeVane!" she jeered. "Because I am a woman, and someone needs to protect me because I'm too weak to defend myself, is it?" she thumped her deadly spear on the floor of the training room, where it left a dent. "I don't fucking care what you think, alright? I don't need your protection, or yours-" she shot at Tristan, "-or anybody else's. I. Am. Just. Fine. On. My. Own."

"Edwina-"

"No! Go ahead, Eric! It's completely fine. Go, try to stop me. I will go, and if you don't want me to accompany you, fine, I will go on my own! I have a duty to my realm, and I will do everything in my power to defend it!"

"Look!" I snapped, "this is a-"

"Suicide mission," Tristan finished, glaring murderously from a corner.

"Precisely," I added. "We have no idea what we might face there. If we don't manage to make it out in time, we'll be stuck there for two weeks. We don't know what is on that island. We might get killed."

"We will not," she said stubbornly. "I am coming with you."

"Fine," Tristan hissed. "If you were always this suicidal, you could have just asked me to kill you beforehand."

"Bet that would have saved you a lot of trouble, Valmont," she said with fire in her eyes, fingering the tip of her spear which burst into flames, then receded away.

The doors opened and Helios and Nyx walked in, armored just like the rest of us. He raised an eyebrow in askance, clearly questioning the altercation about to burst between his grandchildren.

"Are we interrupting something here?" Nyx asked. She had an ivory bow and a quiver of sharp arrows slung over her shoulder, her raven black hair neatly piled up on her head in a knot of curls and braids.

"Of course not," Tristan said smoothly, giving her a nod and clapping his grandfather on the back.

Everyone began to gather up their weapons as I beckoned them all over in a circle. Edwina stood beside me, Tristan to the other side, Helios and Nyx were politely trying not to interrupt, but both the elders seemed to have guessed what was going on.

Someone needed to make the couple talk to each other.

Edwina had no idea what had happened at Hartington Castle after she left. Tristan, in his anger, completely brought down the west wing in a huge storm. It would take days to repair. And after what he did to Apollo... well, to cut it short, Tristan Valmont was royally pissed.

He had shouted at Apollo the whole morning. Apollo had shouted at him. Both father and son shouted at each other. It had been Celinette who was in tears by the time they finished.

One thing, however, remained. No one knew what had Apollo told Edwina that elicited such an immediate reaction from her.

Tristan was a humble person, but a proud man. Even if he did miss her, his ego would never make him admit, not to anyone, not even to himself. In a way, he was just like her.

But Edwina... was something completely different.

She buried herself in miles of work.

She ruled Dracnesse beside her father before her Trials. Now the Castle was hers, and she ruled it with an iron grip. She woke up at the crack of dawn and went to sleep well past midnight. Aidon, Amphitrite, I - she simply turned everyone away.

I knew her. She could not hold grudges for a long time, unlike Tristan, so it surprised me that she still held her own for so long. I had expected her to go back to Stormholt once she realized that the fault was not, had not ever, been Tristan's.

She still hadn't given in.

Did she... really intend to leave Stormholt forever?

To someone it might have looked like she was overacting, but there remained the question of what words had been spoken between her and her uncle. He must have said something awful to her. Edwina was no stranger to insults and threats, given that they were indeed her favorite weapons. But for her to run off like that... without preamble - Apollo must have done something horrific to have that effect on her.

"Alright," I cleared my throat as the remaining four uncertainly shuffled their feet. "It's nearly half past seven in the evening. According to the code we found, on a full moon night, the gate to the island opens at eight and closes ten hours after. At six tomorrow morning."

"Yes, yes, we know," Helios said impatiently.

"And we have one job. We need to find the first piece of the contraption and destroy it. Ensuring that the Logogram is never completed and the Titans can never return."

And perhaps, we could find Atherton, Cymbeline and my mother as well. If they were alive.

The words hung in the air like an unspoken agreement.

"Now - we need to be very careful with the timing. We cannot carry the hourglass with us," I added.

"Which means that you need to keep an eye on the sky. That will be our only indication of the amount of time passed. Once it starts to turn pink and indicate the approaching dawn, leave. And if you can't get out in time before the gates close, you'll be trapped there till the next full moon until they open again," Tristan said lewdly.

"Also, we do not know what awaits us on Vezort Island. Remember, it is a place of anomalies and disappearances. Which means we need to divide in two groups and work efficiently. And get out alive."

"They say that when Pandora died in the Titanomachy, her blood splattered the Vezort Island. It is from her blood that the Dessari sprung up on the island, supposedly guarding a piece of her creation, the Logogram," Nyx added with a nod of her raven black hair.

"That is important, sister," Helios confirmed. "The Dessari are a dangerous race, simply because we know nothing about them. And if they are guarding this... piece of the Logogram, they will be extremely aggressive. Are we sure we are ready to face them?"

"As ready as we ever will be," Edwina muttered suddenly and everyone nodded.

"Now, for the groups," I said, pointing to Helios, Nyx and myself, "we will be one. You both," I deliberately put Edwina and Tristan together, "are one."

They both did not say a single word. Edwina looked down, inspecting the floor while Tristan busied himself in brushing off an imaginary speck of dust off his spotless leather gauntlet.

Thank the heavens.

"Everyone ready?" Helios asked uncertainly. We would need enough strength to sustain for ten hours.

"Everyone is in peak form," I said, looking around at the four powerful people in front of me. "Aren't you?" I added.

"Yes, yes, we've never been better," Tristan darkly muttered. "And it's getting late," he added, looking at the set of hourglasses on the shelf in the middle of the room.

The middle one, measuring the hour, had nearly emptied into the lower hemisphere. An attendant would come and flip it over as the hour ended.

"Also," Nyx added strategically, "I got these," she pulled out two flares, handing one to Tristan. "If we can't communicate, shoot this, so that the other party can come to help," the goddess of the night explained.

"Clever," I muttered.

It was nearly eight in the evening.

"Well then," Edwina said, honing the tip of her spear as Tristan double checked the number of knives he had, and I tested the tip of my Trident. Helios was sharpening his blades, stuffing them back in the sheath and Nyx pulled the string of her bow to check the strength.

"Let us go," I said, as we all closed our eyes, letting our mind take us to our location.

Three seconds later, the air around me changed as my feet hit solid ground.

We were there.

• • • • •

After weeks of talking about it - we're finally at Vezort! Some things are going to happen :D stay tuned until next week!