The Dark-Hunters (523 page)

My heart stilled at his words and instantly I knew the source of Styxx’s illness. “Acheron,” I said to my father. “He’s dying.”

My father didn’t hear me. He was too busy yelling at the physician to heal his heir.

“Father!” I shouted, shaking his arm to get his attention on me. “Styxx is dying because
Acheron
is dying. Do you not recall what the wisewoman said when they were born? If Acheron dies, so does Styxx. Acheron is the one who is starving to death in his prison cell. If we heal him, Styxx will live.”

His face furious, he called for his guards and ordered them to bring Acheron to the throne room.

I ran after them as they walked the breadth of the palace and went to the below-ground cells to retrieve him. As always, it was dank and smelly. I hated this place and it bothered me much that Acheron had been confined here these many months.

My heart pounding, I stood back as they opened the cell door. Finally I would see him again.

They stepped back, showing me Acheron.

Never in my life had I cursed aloud, but I cursed foully when I saw how they’d kept my brother.

The room was so small that he’d been forced to sit doubled over inside it. It was even smaller than the one Estes had used in Atlantis to punish him. Acheron was literally curled into a ball. There was no light whatsoever inside it.

My brother had lived in total darkness and filth for almost a year now. Unable to move or stretch, or to even relieve himself. Not even animals were treated this poorly. Why had Acheron never told me what lay on his side of the door?

The guard tried to pull him out. Too weak to protest, Acheron spilled across the hallway floor. The stench of him and the room was so rancid that it made my stomach lurch. I was forced to pinch my nose closed so as not to vomit.

Acheron lay on his back, his breathing shallow and faint. He was so thin that he didn’t look real lying there. I could see every single bone in his body. A thick beard covered his face and his hair hung around him like a frail spiderweb. He looked like an old man, not a boy of nineteen.

I knelt beside him and pulled his head into my lap. “Acheron?”

He didn’t respond. Like Styxx, he was too weak to do anything more than stare blankly at me.

“Take him upstairs to my room,” I ordered the guard.

He curled his lip in repugnance. “My lady, he is foul.”

“You take him to my bed or I will see you beaten for your insolence.”

Indecision played across his face for several minutes before he complied. I ordered another guard to fetch food and drink while I followed them.

Every step seemed to take too long. I couldn’t believe the shell of a human in the guard’s arms was the same handsome boy who’d chased Maia in our garden. How could my father have done this to him?

How could Acheron have done this to himself?

Entering my room, the guard placed him on my bed, then left immediately. I sent my maids for water and linen so that we could bathe some of the filth from him.

It was so horrible to be near him like this. He smelled so bad, looked so weak … How could anyone suffer such a tragedy? And I felt completely helpless.

Using my sheet, I tried to wipe some of the dirt from his face.

My maids returned at the same time food was brought.

I cradled Acheron’s head as I carefully fed him small pieces of bread. But he didn’t seem to want to chew. I didn’t know if he was too weak or too far gone to even know it was bread in his mouth.

“My lady,” Kassandra said, “You’ll ruin your clothes touching him like that.”

“I don’t care.” And I didn’t. All that mattered to me was saving his life. I dripped wine slowly into his mouth. “Eat, Acheron,” I breathed.

Weakly, he turned his head away from me. “Please,” he begged, his voice a ragged, hoarse whisper. “Let me die.”

Tears choked me as I realized he must have done this on purpose. No doubt he’d been going without food, praying for death to come and free him from that hole where he’d been trapped.

The kindest thing I could do would be to let him go.

But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t just lose him, I’d lose Styxx as well, and I loved both my brothers.

“Stay with me, Acheron,” I whispered.

But he didn’t do it for me. Instead, he fought for death and the days passed as I watched my father’s physicians violently force-feed him while he tried to spit the food out. They were merciless in their attention.

They kept him tied to my bed and pried his lips apart so that they could pour milk, wine and honey down his throat. He would try to spit the food and drink out only to have them beat him and hold his mouth and nose shut until he swallowed it.

He cursed them and he cursed me.

I couldn’t blame him.

Every day was a nightmare for him while Styxx grew stronger in comfort with everyone lavishing praise on him and serving his every need. Meanwhile bruises marred Acheron’s skin, especially his jaw where they continually pried it apart. The physicians demanded that he be “fed” at least every two hours.

Every time the guards and servants appeared for those feedings, he’d stiffen and cast me the most condemning of glares.

As he grew stronger, the fights became worse until he finally stopped fighting at all. The hateful angry glares were replaced by a hopeless resignation that hurt me even more. Still they left him tied down and I realized that I hadn’t really changed his position. Only his location was different.

My brother’s reality was ever the same.

NOVEMBER
1, 9529
BC

Today Father had Acheron moved to a new room down the hall from mine. Once more, he was tied spread-eagle on the bed, but at least this time he was clothed. The feedings continued, but now they only occurred five times a day.

I made a point of seeing Acheron every chance I could and every time I saw him my heart broke more.

Acheron never moved or spoke to me during my visits. He lay there, staring at the ceiling as if he were immune to what was happening around him.

“I wish you’d speak to me, Acheron.”

He acted as if I weren’t even there.

“You have to know that I love you. I don’t want to see you like this. Please, little brother. Could you at least look at me?”

He didn’t even blink.

His lack of response angered me and a part of me wanted to lash out verbally against him. But I held my tongue. He’d been abused enough by the insults of my father and the guards and servants who fed him.

There was nothing more I could do. Ill from the knowledge, I left him and continued my preparations for Apollo.

NOVEMBER
20, 9529
BC

Acheron continued to lie unmoving on his bed. He stared at the ceiling as always, ignoring me while I tried to talk to him.

“I wish you’d speak to me, Acheron. I miss the way we used to talk together. You were my best friend. The only person I could ever talk to whom I knew wouldn’t tell every word I said to Father.”

Again, there was no response.

What would it take to make him acknowledge me? Surely he couldn’t continue to lie in bed like that. Then again, given the fact that he’d been sitting in a tiny hole these months past, he’d probably grown more than accustomed to not moving.

My heart aching for him, I started away from the bed when I noticed something odd. Frowning, I headed to the bedpost where his ankle was secured by a metal shackle. It took me a second to realize what I was looking at. Fresh and dried blood coated the metal.

I cringed as I saw his raw and bleeding skin that was mostly hidden from my view by the cuffs. So Acheron wasn’t always inert like this. From the wounds that marked each arm and leg, I could tell he’d been fighting fiercely for his freedom whenever he was alone.

As I saw the blood, my own vision turned red. I’d had enough of this abuse.

My fury smoldering, I left his room to find our father.

After a quick search, I learned he was out in the training area watching as Styxx practiced his sword fighting.

“Father?”

He gave me an agitated stare that I’d dare to interrupt his encouragements to Styxx. “Is there a problem?”

“There is indeed. I want Acheron freed. I demand it.”

He sneered at my request. “Why? What would he do with it?”

I wanted him to understand what he was doing to someone who’d never caused him harm. Someone who was his own flesh and blood. “You can’t leave him tied like a beast, Father. It’s cruel. He can’t even attend his basic needs.”

“Nor can he shame us.”

“Shame us how?”

“Women,” he snarled. “You’re ever blind. Can you not see him for what he is?”

I knew exactly who and what my brother was. “He’s a boy, Father.”

“He’s a whore.” There was more venom in those words than in the snake pit where my father threw his enemies.

It made my ire seethe. “He was a tortured slave you turned out into the street. What was he supposed to do?”

He answered me with a feral snarl.

But I refused to back down. “I won’t have this, Father. I won’t stand for it another minute. So help me, if you don’t let him out of those shackles, I will shear the hair from my head and scar my face to the point that neither Apollo nor anyone else will have use for me.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

For the first time in my life, I stared at him as an equal. There was no doubt inside me that I could carry out the threat. “For Acheron’s life, I would. He deserves better than to be kept as he is.”

“He deserves nothing.”

“Then you can find another woman to whore for Apollo.”

His eyes darkened in such a way that I was sure he’d strike me for my boldness.

But ultimately, I won this battle.

That very afternoon Acheron was freed from his bed. He lay there as the restraints were opened and I saw the suspicion in his eyes. He was waiting for something worse to happen.

Once the shackles were gone, I ordered the guards to leave the room. Acheron didn’t move until we were alone. Slowly, angrily, he pushed himself up to glare at me. He was unsteady, his muscles weak from lack of use.

His long blond hair was matted and greasy. His skin sickly pale from the darkness that had been his home. A thick beard covered his cheeks. There were deep circles underneath his eyes, but he was no longer so gaunt—the atrocious feedings had added enough weight to him that he at least appeared human.

“You can’t leave this room,” I warned him. “Father was explicit in his terms that you’re only allowed freedom in here so long as you stay hidden.”

Acheron froze at my words and gave me a piercingly cold stare.

“At least you’re no longer tied down.”

He didn’t speak to me. He never did anymore. But his swirling silver eyes spoke volumes. They told of the pain and agony that made up his life. They accused and they ached.

“My rooms are two doors down should you—”

“I can’t leave,” he snarled. “Isn’t that what you just said?”

I opened my mouth, then paused. He was right. I’d already forgotten it. “I shall come visit you, then.”

“Don’t bother.”

“Acheron—”

He interrupted my words with a cutting glare. “Do you remember what you said to me on your last visit to my cell?”

I struggled to recall it. I’d been angry at him for not speaking to me, but that was all I remembered. “No.”

“Go die for all I care. I can’t be bothered with you anymore.”

I winced at words I should never have spoken. They cut me soul-deep, which was nothing compared to how they must have felt to him. If only I’d known the misery he was in … “I was angry.”

He curled his lips. “And I was too weak to answer. It’s hard to speak when you go days with nothing but darkness and rats for company. But then you don’t know what it’s like to have rats and fleas bite you, do you? What it’s like to sit in your own shit.”

“Acheron—”

His nostrils flared. “Leave me, Ryssa. I don’t need your charity. I don’t need anything from you.”

“But…”

He shoved me from the room and slammed the door shut in my face.

I stared at it until a movement beside me caught my notice. Acheron’s guards. He had two of them to make sure he didn’t breach Father’s mandate.

So this was his fate. I’d only changed the location of his prison. He still had no freedom.

I ached deep inside my soul for him. He was alive, but to what purpose? Perhaps it would have been kinder to let him die after all. But how could I have done that? He was my brother and I did love him even when he hated me.

Ill, I turned and went back to my chambers, but there was no peace there. I’d been uncharitable to Acheron, unkind. Thoughtless. No wonder he didn’t want to speak to me.

But I couldn’t leave it at this. I would give him time. Perhaps he’d come around eventually.

At least, I hoped deep inside that he could find it within himself to forgive me for being like everyone else. For hurting him when I should have been fighting for him.

DECEMBER
1, 9529
BC

As the days passed by, I learned more things about Father’s mandates for Acheron’s treatment. No one was allowed into Acheron’s room, except for me whom he refused to see, and everything he touched was to be shattered and burned.

Everything.

His dishes, his sheets. Even his clothes. It was Father’s public humiliation for Acheron.

It sickened me.

Until the day I made the most frightening discovery of all.

I’d gone with several friends to see a play in the middle of the day. It wasn’t something I normally did, but Zateria had a desperate crush on one of the actors and had insisted I judge him for myself.

We’d been laughing among ourselves when I happened to notice someone who was sitting two rows down from us in the peasant section. He sat alone with a peplos shielding him. He had the hood pulled up over his head so that I could tell nothing about his features and yet something seemed oddly familiar about him.

It wasn’t until the play ended and the man got up that I realized why he was familiar.

It was Acheron.