Chương 176: 2.4 [Selene]

Selene, Saint of Scarlet Hearts Selene had met more than her fair share of prodigies in her time as the Raging Heaven Cult's would-be Scarlet Oracle. By the standards of most, she had known nothing but prodigious souls. Cultivators were exceptional existences, one and all, when compared to the common man. The greater mystery cults of the Free Mediterranean were institutions that only invited the brightest of stars into their ranks, and the Raging Heaven Cult was twice and twice again more selective than that.

Sheltered - stifled - as her childhood had been, Selene had looked down upon more outstanding legends from the high vantage of her holy tripod than most aristocrats would meet in their entire lives. Prodigies, one and all. At a certain point, the title lost its meaning. Everyone was a prodigy to someone, somewhere, in some way. Even the Raging Heaven Cult's abject failures had stood at the pinnacle of their communities once upon a time. For every peak, there was a greater height to climb.

Or, as Bakkhos would put it, for every valley, there was a darker hole to find. The late kyrios of the Raging Heaven Cult was perhaps the only man on the mountain who believed every man's potential was equal - equally worthless. Once, when Selene had repeated one too many of the Tyrant Riot's sentiments in her father's presence, Old 'Zalus had warned her that the kyrios was the only one to carry that torch because he was the only one it couldn't burn.

In the real world, her father had told her with dark regret, only the greatest prodigy of them all could afford such a cavalier ideation. She hadn't wanted to believe her father then. She still didn't, even all these years later. Yet, while the smoky scent of burning Olympia still stained her silks, she couldn't quite shake his sentiment. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw another broken corpse.

And she wondered, though it helped her none and harmed her much, how many of those lives could have been spared if she had been a prodigy of the kyrios' caliber. By the standards of the Raging Heaven Cult, and even of her father, Selene was exceptional. It had taken her less than a decade of active refinement to reach the Heroic Realm, and she had done it at an outrageous age. Both her father and the kyrios had promised her that if she kept on as she was, she would reach the next peak before she turned thirty.

Polyzalus had sworn that oath with pride, of course. From Bakkhos' lips, though, it had sounded more like a curse. Yet what did future power matter when the world was ending today? What did twice the reward for half the effort matter when she had been born five hundred years too late to make a difference? What good was a fleet foot when the competition straddled the finish line before the race began? What good was courage when cowards lived the longest lives?

What good was a prodigy, any prodigy, in a world like this?

"Griffon. Selene. To me," spoke the son of Rome.

"Now?" With reluctance, Griffon tore his eyes away from the distant sliver of Alexandria.

"You're certain?"

"I am." Her senior in scarlet faith sighed dramatically, but stood from his work on the mermaid's tail and snapped a finger at the men working the oars. At once, the hands of manifested pneuma that had been helping each of them row instead rose up and clamped themselves tight over each of the conscripts' ears. The former pirate child, Lync, hissed and tried to bite the first hand that reached for him, so the second hand smacked him over the head.

The two hands together wrapped him up in a ratty blanket and tossed him back up into the crow's nest. Griffon joined Solus at the bow of the ship. Selene cast an uneasy glance around, but the sailors didn't seem discomforted, or even all that alarmed by the hands clamped over their ears. They each took it in stride. She supposed that after the things they had seen over the last few days, it would take more than this to shake them.

One of the men noticed her staring and gave her a firm nod, glancing meaningfully at the ship's bow. He didn't speak, but his sentiment was clear enough. Don't keep the captain waiting. Since their time in the Orphic House, Solus' steps had burdened the earth far more than his stature would imply. On the return trip from Thracia, he'd been forced to act as a counterweight against the virtuous beasts that had insisted on following their riders back across the sea.

Over the last two days, weighing even more than before, the solemn son of Rome had been forced to plant himself like an eagle standard in the middle of the ship's deck, lest he sink them all. Something had changed the moment he swore the Eos' crew into his service, however. As abruptly as that oppressive weight had burdened him, it was gone again. Or at least, its impact on the world around him. Now, Solus sat at the foremost point of the ship on a bench of hand-carved bone.

There were only enough wooden benches on the Eos to accommodate her men-at-oars, and the captain had flatly refused to commandeer any one of them despite the men's insistence. In the end, they hadn't stopped protesting until he reached into his own shadow and pulled from it the stark white bench. It was the awe that shut their mouths. Griffon leaned against the ship's maidenhead, his arms crossed and his eyes back on the distant horizon.

Idly, his thumb picked at his middle fingernail, as though digging for something caught underneath. There was space on Solus' bone bench, so Selene sat beside him.

"Is it truly necessary to cut them out of this?" she asked.

"It's very rude." Griffon snorted. Solus, for his part, set aside his own small project - a handful of bone dice that he had meticulously carved out of mermaid bone using his celestial bronze spear. He turned storm-gray eyes on her. The full weight of his attention settled on her like a thick blanket. It was another of the many changes Olympia's fall had wrought. Solus' focus had always been intense, especially for a junior sophist, but it was something else entirely now.

Even when he wasn't looking, he could see her. Not like a civic cultivator could perceive her, with their eyes clenched shut against the full force of her spirit. Not like a Sophic cultivator - like the Sophic cultivator he was - could, squinting stubbornly up at the sun and trying to resolve its shape, even as it blinded them. At some point during their flight from the Raging Heaven Cult, Solus had opened his eyes fully and now looked upon the world and its people as a Hero did.

It was likely a byproduct of his premature ignition. A Hero's perception, achieved before its time. At least, that's what Selene had first thought. Over time, as the Eos drew closer to the southern reaches of the world, she had begun to wonder. The weight of his notice felt different than even the heroes she had met before. It was heavier, to be sure, but she also felt it deeper in her self. During their impromptu strength training, it felt as though he could see her muscles failing before she felt the strain.

There were even moments like these, fleeting and half-formed, when his eyes reminded her of Bakkhos.

"Yes," the son of Rome said, snapping her from her musings. She looked away first. Her ears burned.

"It is necessary. For your sake."

"How so?" He didn't answer immediately. Selene chanced a glance back at him out of the corner of her eye and saw him considering the horizon just like Griffon. Unlike Griffon, however, there was no curiosity there. Where Griffon gazed upon the distant shore of the conquerors' Pearl City with ravenous wanderlust, Solus regarded it with only grim determination.

"What will you do?" Solus asked. It took her a moment to realize the question was for her. Even then, she didn't know what to say.

"We'll be in Alexandria before midday," he went on, eyes not leaving that distant pearl.

"Of all the cities I've seen, none have ever surpassed Rome in her glory - but of them all, Alexandria is the only one that came close." Selene leaned in, unable to stifle her curiosity. Even Griffin glanced away from the distant shore to regard him with scarlet skepticism.

"It may not have the deepest roots, but the city is a flower in full bloom," the Roman said, oddly sentimental. He'd been like this before, in Thracia, when they had stumbled upon one of the Conquerors' abandoned outpost cities.

"The Greeks call Olympia the beating heart of the Free Mediterranean, the nexus of enlightened thinking. Maybe that much is true.

"But Olympia was built for the children of Helen," Solus said quietly.

"For the rest of the world, there are two beacons that guide the hearts and minds of man. For the western world, there is Rome. And to the east, there is Alexandria. Neither one beholden to the sensibilities of Greeks. Both of them ascendant, while Olympia stagnates for generation after generation."

"There are more opportunities in Alexandria than there are grains of sand and crashing waves. By this time tomorrow, I could charter you a ship or a mule to any place on this earth. If you want to return home, I will find you safe passage. If you want to walk the Silk Road, I will enlist a worthy guide. Whatever it is that you desire, know that I will see it done. Anything can be purchased in the Pearl." Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Overwhelmed, Selene pointed out the first thing that came to mind.

"You have no money." Griffin reached into his shadow, splayed across the ship's maidenhead, and upended a jar filled with coins onto the deck. The coins clattered and chimed, a cascade of gold, silver, and more mundane materials as well. Solus caught one such coin out of the air as it fell, turning the wood-carved drachma around in his hand. He gave Griffin an unimpressed look, but the scarlet son was observing a stone coin of his own with narrow eyes.

"Scythas gave me these." Solus grunted, storing the wooden coin in his own shadow and waving to the pile of mostly gold and silver.

"We have enough. If this doesn't suffice, there are merchants of every kind in Alexandria. What we can't purchase with gold and silver, we'll buy with mermaid scales." Selene folded her hands in her lap, staring down at them in quiet contemplation. Truth be told, she had her own store of wealth tucked away in the same folded logic that she kept her spear. The how of it wasn't a concern. Neither was the why.

"What do you want me to say, Solus?" she finally asked, her voice just on the wrong side of soft. For the first time in days, she missed her veil of gossamer gold. It wasn't the son of Rome that answered. Instead, Selene heard Griffin heave a disgusted sigh and step away from the stern. He sat heavily down beside her on the bone bench, forcing her to shift closer to Solus until they were all three pressed together, thigh-to-thigh and shoulder-to-shoulder.

"He wants you to say goodbye," Griffin explained, leaning forward when the Roman went to swat him over the head.

"He worries you'll be marred by the same brush as us if you choose to match our stride. He wonders why you haven't said a word about Olympia since we burned it to the ground. He suspects it's because you secretly resent us. He hopes to leave you at the Conqueror's Pearl City, to see you live a better life - or not see it, I suppose." Though Solus cast an ugly look over her head, the weight of his ire a burden on her own pneuma, he didn't deny any of it. Selene considered the creases in her silks.

"And what about you, Griffin?"

"What about me?" She dreaded every answer that came to mind, but she forced herself to ask the question anyway. She had waited too long as it was.

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"The truth." She couldn't help it. Selene choked on a giggle, then scoffed, looking up from her lap to spear him with an arch look.

"No matter how profound your principle may be, ancient brother, it loses its luster when you swing it like a club at every conversation."

"Ho! Such flagrant disrespect. You expect me to tolerate it?" Quick as a whip, Griffin seized her with hands of flesh and blood and manifested pneuma, pinning her to his side while he dug his knuckles into her hair and scrubbed. She hissed and laughed, jabbing her fingers up and down his bare torso, searching in vain for a fleshy weak spot.

"Grovel! Beg for my forgiveness!"

"I won't! I refuse!" Solus' deep voice carried through their squabble.

"I want you to prosper." Selene jerked back, and this time Griffin let her go. Solus was smiling, a small and quiet thing, as he watched the waves. She stared at him, wondering why it was that she couldn't look away.

"This world is full of so-called prodigies, countless children favored by the fates, and every one of them is worthless."

"Even you?"

"Especially me. I'm the most worthless of them all."

"Why do anything, then? Why waste your time teaching me?"

"For the same reason that I still tend my vines, knowing they'll only bear me sour fruit."

"You want to be proven wrong?"

"Fool girl. I want you to prosper."

"My city fell three years ago, and it took my heart and soul with it," Solus continued. Somehow, his smile didn't fade. It just grew sadder.

"I lost a mother, a father, three thousand brothers, and millions of my fellow Romans. I lost a wife." The son of Rome clenched an empty fist.

"In the end, I even lost my way.

"But I was found," he said, letting his fingers unfurl.

"And now I know I didn't lose them all. My city's legions are still out there somewhere, waiting on some distant shore for a light to guide them home. So long as that remains true, I'll keep searching until I find them. No matter what enemies it earns me, no matter what sacrifices it takes, I will find my city's wayward sons and bring them home." He regarded her frankly.

"I won't darken your skies with mine. Your kindness deserves a better reward than the storms on my horizon." Selene matched him eye for eye, refusing to be cowed.

"You're so… so…" she struggled to find the proper word." Arrogant," Griffin suggested, chuckling when she snapped her fingers and pointed to him.

"Spoke the raven to the crow."

"We're both ravens, fool." Griffon and Solus went back and forth over her head, trading barbs as easily as they breathed. It sparked a familiar greed inside her stomach, a hunger that she had long ago learned to suppress. After so many years, and so many hurts, it hardly registered in her mind before she'd smothered it. Then, abruptly, she stopped. She let it go, little more than an ember now, and let it flicker fitfully.

Solus and Griffin kept on bickering like brothers, and though she was wedged between them, Selene felt the wall that separated her from them still. The sight of it fanned that dampened ember. This time she let it grow. For the first time since she was just a little girl, Selene let it run wild. She let it burn her up inside, flooding, flowing up and out of her.

"I used to pray to heaven for a brother." The bickering stopped. Selene smiled ruefully, wondering if she had made a mistake. Even if she had, it was too late now.

"It isn't all that I wanted. These days, it isn't even what I want the most. I want to do more than what I've always done, more than what an Oracle can do. I want to be a hero. I want to help people, truly help them - save their hearts before they break, not just help them scavenge for the broken pieces. I want to see the world and all its thousand wonders. I want to live my life unbeholden. I want to dance, dare, and die knowing that I've opened every door I possibly could."

The fire, that raging inferno of desire, didn't burn her as it had when she was a girl trapped by marble walls and expectations. It warmed her spirit. Every word stoked it higher. It made her want to fly.

"All these things and more I've desired, but I wanted a brother long before I wanted them," Selene waved aside a touch of steam rising from the corner of her eye.

"I knew the gods wouldn't answer, but I prayed to them regardless. For a long time, I'd beseech them every day. I loved my father and my mother, and I still do now - but my father was my father, and my mother was a ghost. I wanted a family. I wanted someone that would tease me, challenge me, but hold me when I cried. I wanted someone I could dream with." Selene chuckled, dashing more steam from the air above her head.

"I wanted someone who had no choice but to be my friend." The waves lapped against the Eos, carrying with them a thick layer of sea foam. The closer they drew to shore, the more of it there was. Viscous and bubbling, from horizon-to-horizon it was wholly ever present. The saltwater froth gave the seas around the city a pearlescent sheen.

It clung to the sides of the ship, coated the distant beaches, and painted the sandstone stilts that Alexandria had been built upon so that from afar they looked almost like rainbow pillars of light. It was faintly unsettling, but it was beautiful. This world was beautiful.

"A part of me does resent you," she admitted, patting each of them on the knee to lessen the sting of it.

"But it's only a small part. The same part of me that still thinks I could have found a way to save my mother on my own. The rest of me knows better. As much as I loved her, and as desperately as I hoped, I've known she was gone since I was a girl. No matter how it ended up, what the two of you did - it was a miracle. Those moments that you brought her back… they were more than I ever thought I'd get."

"And yet," she whispered, "I can't help but hate you, just the slightest bit, for taking her final moments for yourself. I've only had a brother for three days, and already I resent him for stealing my time in the sun from me - when he's the one that hung it in the sky for me. How unreasonable can I be?"

"Witless little sister." Her brother's arm, tan and strong, wrapped her up and pulled her close. When she dared to look, she found none of what she'd feared in him. His scarlet eyes were only fond.

"It's your sacred right to be unreasonable. That's what the Flame sculpted siblings for." Selene tried to laugh, but it came out choked.

"I don't want to leave," she decided, as if there had been any doubt. Turning back to the captain, who seemed caught between warm approval and dread, she snatched his hand in hers and pulled it close before he could step away.

"I told you back then, didn't I? I'm with you, Solus. We'll walk this road together."

"To the peak," Griffin vowed, laying his own hand over theirs.

"To the peak," Selene insisted. Sol's jaw flexed, gray eyes going distant, withdrawn - then they turned away from the past, focused on the two of them instead. The son of Rome sighed and squeezed her hand in his. Ruefully, he agreed.

"To the peak-" The last thing she saw was the lightning in his eyes as he turned to face the shore, a sudden alarm so swift and fiercely bright that it stung her senses. The bench scraped against the deck with an ugly sound as Griffon surged to his feet, pneuma rising like a fire along with the hands of his violent intent. Solus covered her eyes with a single heavy hand. His virtue slammed down upon the men at oars, forcing their heads to bow.

"Don't look!" Solus snarled at her brother. Whatever his response was, Selene never heard it. Two hands of scarlet sin spun out from the sea of her brother's soul and covered her ears tight, blocking out all sound. Denied sight and sound, she reached out frantically with her enlightened senses, feeling nothing but the flickering lights of the panicked men at oars and the roaring flames of her companions. They sparked higher and higher, burning what little time they had left- And then even that was gone.

Selene held her breath, reaching out with all her senses for something, anything, and finding nothing there at all. Silence.