The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

34

Pandora

“ C alm down, catch your breath, and say all of that again. Slowly .”

I’m so painfully out of shape that I nearly heave my guts into the potted plant in Marzipan’s living room, but I do as she says to the best of my ability. First, I let my sprinting heart rate settle down with the rest of my body. I slump over in the chair that Marzipan yanked from her flimsy kitchen table and try not to collapse in on myself as I relay all my frantic updates one more time. All of which boil down to the fact that I left Kit.

And now, I can’t take it back.

“He’s going to come looking for me here—”

“Not yet, he won’t.”

Her words bring me no sense of comfort. “I need to get out of here. Out of Vesta. But the minute I do . . .” The tribunal. People hunting me. All of it swarms my vision like stars do after a head injury.

And then, an even more grim realization dawns on me.

“What is it?” Marzipan asks, tracking the terror in my gaze.

“I told Madman I was at the temple last night. I have to go back. But knowing Kit, if he’s not at the hostel, he’ll be waiting me out there—”

“No,” Marzipan mumbles, her eyes teeming with realization. “He won’t be. He’ll have the mark, which means he can’t loiter there past a certain time. Otherwise, the mark will start to burn him. And your mark dissolves in . . .” she glances at the clock, then at the brand on my skin. “A little less than two hours.”

The tears that leak from my eyes are a result of too many emotions to name at once. “I know that the law says that no one can harm me here, Marzi, but Kit might think that his retribution for what I’ve just done goes above the law.” She doesn’t argue or try to chime in, but still I find myself babbling, “You don’t get it. For one reason or another, the man loathes my bloodline, and by proxy, loathes me . Even though he wants me, there’s a great chance that when Kit visits the goddess, she shows him his greatest desire and he realizes my death will satisfy him far more than a future together will.”

My anxiety consumes me like a meal, and but Marzipan, undeterred by the complete and utter mess I’ve been reduced to, clutches me to her with an intensity that transcends understanding. I’ve known her for such a brief span of time, and yet Marzipan comforts me with a tenderness that reminds me of Aunt Calliope.

Marzipan kisses the crown of my head in an attempt to soothe me. “I know this has nothing to do with the fear you’re facing right now, but you write so beautifully.”

I don’t bother looking up or asking about how much of my journal she read. Rather, I burrow deeper into her warmth.

“You write the way you speak, and Pandora, the way you speak is . . .” She shakes her head, unable to find the words. “The way you wrote about your mom, about Madman . . . even about the people who have wronged you. If someone wrote about me like you wrote about them, I’d—”

I feel a sob crack out of her before I hear it, but once it’s out in the open, she comes unglued.

“The world is so vast, and I’m just . . . so small ,” she cries out. “I’m one person, Pandora, and sometimes, I get so exhausted trying to continue my family’s legacy. Trying not to get bogged down by the weight of my insignificance. Trying to find the same fulfillment my family gave me, even though I now live alone, amongst a pile of books. Trying not to forget my purpose. But after reading the way you bled your soul on paper, after becoming your friend . . .”

A wave of sadness and adoration crests in my chest, and we cling tighter to one another.

“After all of it,” Marzipan sighs, restoring the rhythm of her breathing, “I feel as though the spark of hope I carry with me has caught fire. Mosacia needs a voice like yours. They need to hear your heartbreak, witness your empathy, feel your grace. They need to know how you—an outsider —have come to see the beauty of a territory you were taught to scorn.”

Then, Marzipan forces me to look at her, our eyes equally red and watery. For the first time, I witness wrath in their depths.

“And I’ll be damned if Kit Andromeda interferes or poses any harm to you.”

There’s a promise in her words that chills my blood. “What are you going to do?”

Her voice is low and authoritative. It reminds me of one of Jericho’s threats. “All you need to worry about,” she says, finally breaking our embrace, “is getting back to that temple.”

“Marzi—”

“Take the long way there,” she instructs, rushing to her shelves to fish something out from the row of manuals and sacred texts. “The one we walked last night. Don’t get too close to the perimeter to avoid being cornered, but don’t drift too far inward, as it might cause you to run into Kit should he start making his way back here.”

“And if he’s waiting on the steps—”

“He won’t be,” Marzipan says with an unnatural sense of certainty. “Whether for the sake of recovering lost love or apprehending a stowaway, Kit will go on the offensive. The moment he finds out you’ve bolted, if he hasn’t already, he will check to see if you’re here first.”

I try not to shiver at the fact that Marzipan doesn’t specify here as the hostel I’ve shared with him these last few weeks. In her own way, she fears Kit’s wrath, too.

“I know that in your uneasiness, you might start to walk faster. But if you get to the temple before your time is up, your mark will burn you the closer you get to any of the sanctuaries. Do not force your way into a sanctuary, or the mark will poison you.”

I look at the clock, then at the mark on my wrist.

Under two hours to go.

“And when the mark vanishes,” she finishes, her voice raw and eyes stone cold, “seek out Apollo.”

“Apollo?”

“You said that you play the harp, right? That you’re a performer? He’s the god of music. The happenings in his sanctuary shouldn’t frighten you, which would result in a shorter visit. You’ll be safe there, and it should buy you a few hours.”

“And after that? What—”

“You need to get going, Pan,” is barely out of her mouth before she’s outright dragging me to the door, slinging a cross-body bag stocked with meager necessities, including a sandwich she somehow had prepped and ready before I barged in earlier and a mystery sum of Jericoin. She shoves my journal in there, too.

“Promise me that when you get to the temple, you’ll go to him. To Apollo.”

“But what if I don’t make it—”

“You will ,” she snarls, accepting nothing less for me. “Now, promise me.”

A tear trickles down my cheek, the skin there still warm from our tight embrace. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she says back to me, swallowing hard.

And then, before Marzipan can fill the silence with some half-assed attempt at pushing me out the door, I take both of her hands in mine and give them a squeeze, hard enough to bruise her bones. “The world is vast, but in many ways, it’s small too. The world cannot possibly be so large if it couldn’t keep me from knowing you.”

We’ve never told one another I love you , and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the short time we’ve truly known each other, or maybe it’s something else entirely. Either way, Marzipan knows every language, which means she must be able to deduct what those words really mean. Her pearly smile makes my heart constrict in my chest, and for a moment, it’s too hard to breathe.

I want more time with Marzipan . . . and I have more stories to tell.

I will come back for you .

+

The moment I reenter the atrium of the Temple of the Shrine, my wrist begins to burn my skin.

I could’ve sworn I kept a slow pace. A watchful one, but still slow . It felt like I was inching through the Sacred City like a worm, and yet, I still beat my time by four minutes.

I wish I could say that the sensation only affects me mildly, but the closer I step into the center of the atrium, the more that the burning begins to feel like being absolutely scorched. As if the sun itself takes its anger out on me. I keel over in agony—

“Your time has not come yet,” a mousy voice says from behind me. Another temple maiden.

You don’t say , I gripe internally.

“Please, can I just . . .” I grit my teeth against the pain. “Can you give me directions to Apollo’s temple? My waiting period concludes in three minutes, and I—” I fight the urge to swear, clamping my free hand over the writhing spot. “I need to see him.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until—”

Damn the pain and consequences. I can’t let these last three minutes be what costs me my neck.

I take off in a run, sprinting past the attendant, and it almost unsettles me how calm she is about the scene I’m causing. Then again, she’s likely seen hundreds of visitors bring themselves harm for the chance to convene with the deities again. She probably pities me, or maybe, she’s wagering with herself as to how far I’ll get before the pain makes me pass out and she has to scrape me off the floor.

Making a beeline for the stairs, not seeing Apollo’s name or his attributes scrawled along smooth stone, I try and read the temple directory through my eyes, which are now starting to tear up from the scalding in my wrist. All details indicate Apollo’s chamber being three levels down, but in order to get there, I’m required to pass through level two’s vestibule, with the continuing flight on the opposite end.

I dash there without hesitation, my hair catching the breeze as my speed cuts through the air. Thankfully, I don’t start tripping over myself until the last step before floor two, so my fall from grace is more like a stumble. I recover well though, only stopping twice through the vestibule. Once to try and soothe the unrelenting pain in my wrist by clutching at the spot just below it—cutting off further blood flow—which, to my astonishment, dulls the sensation just enough for me to slow my legs.

And another to read the name of the only deity that graces this ghost town of a floor.

Diana.

Hunting. Archery. Animals.

Suddenly, the hurt subsides. Whether because my duration has ended or because my unyielding terror supersedes anything my pain receptors could pick up on, I’m not sure. Nor does it matter.

Much like with the temple of Venus, staring at the statue of Diana, I see a different depiction—muscular physique, bow and arrow drawn and ready—but it never quite erases the image my mind conjures up at the name. Perhaps in the events of Root History, Diana was exactly as she appears to be: an indomitable warrior, a champion .

But to me, the only Diana I’ve ever known is none of those things.

She’s a traitor–the second child of the late Seagrave monarchs, with a soul as dark as the ink one would write letters with. Worse, she’s the one member of that dreaded family we collectively refuse to speak of, and for good reason. To mention Diana in Broadcove Castle is to openly insult the Deragon name.

The soul-consuming disgust should be enough to escort me across the rest of the vestibule and lead me down the stairs. And yet, I’m still here. Staring. Succumbing to the realization that the wrath that should be moving me along doesn’t outweigh the dreadful wonder that floods me, that keeps me planted in place.

What would even be in Diana’s sanctuary?

This is a mistake, this is a mistake, this is a mistake .

My subconscious shrieks it continually, its voice desperate. Pleading. The words begin to turn hoarse, and invisible hands seem to claw at its nonexistent throat. The statement rattles me like a death cry as I step towards the doorway without fully sensing myself do it.

THIS IS A MISTAKE!

It’s the Deragon in me that begs me to turn and run—and she can go to hell for all I care.

Without looking at the person that extends it to me, I pop in whatever substance the temple requires me to consume, chewing it hard enough that I cut open an old wound in my cheek. Then, I push past the fact that I broke my promise to Marzipan and bear myself fully to whatever Diana’s sanctuary wishes to show me.