Chapter 297: Persephone, Destroyer of Men
How? He’d never studied poisons. She pulled out a box out of her bag and opened it, revealing a steaming plate of food.
“Would you like to try?” She asked. The smell of beef filled his nose and made his stomach grumble. He nodded, She turned and dropped a few drops of potions on the steak and in the pile of rice beside it.
“Give it a go.”
He reached for his wand, but it drifted into his hand as if he had called it and mimicked the movement. His magic surged as he recalled the incantation.
The steak flashed green. The rice flashed white.
“And silent at that. Very impressive, Prince Leandros.” She offered him the tray.
“What… did you put on the rice?”
“A stomach-settling potion. People tend to get queasy after being in a magical trance for over half an hour.”
“How long was I in a magical trance?”
“Three hours. It’s perfectly normal when undergoing extensive scans.”
He doubted that vision had been normal, but he took the tray with a smile.
“I hope you like Ruscan Steak.”
His chest clenched and seized. Something metallic flooded his mouth, and her eyes widened as the pain struck him and pulled him under into deep darkness he feared, remembered, and felt greatly comforted by. He hear Leona’s voice spiraling away from him, but he couldn’t make out her words.
When he woke up, he wasn’t in the black box, but in a clean room painted with a soft blue. A haze of gold light was over him, and he heard someone nearby.
“Where am I?”
Healer Leona appeared in his vision looking near sleepless.
“Prince Leandros, do you remember who I am?”
“Healer Leona…”
She nodded. “You’ve been relocated to the Healing Halls on Asclepius for treatment.”
The name struck something in him dire and hopeful. There was something about Ascelpius he should remember, but he couldn’t.
“You’ll be under observation for the next week. Can you tell me what you remember?”
“You… you said something about food…. Everything hurt like… I’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“Yes.” He gasped. “A lot.”
“Prince Leandros, do you often have psycho-magio-somatic responses like this?”
He turned the words over in his mind. His face must have shown that he didn’t fully understand. “Do you often feel magical and physical pain in response to things? Have you ever experienced something like this before? A sight, a smell, a thought, or a word?”
He nodded.
“How often?”
“Fairly…Not sure.”
She nodded and seemed pensive. “Are you hungry?”
“A little.”
She offered him soup and bread. He frowned at it, something poking at the back of his mind that he should do, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He took the soup and bread and noted the look of surprise on her face, though he couldn’t muster the strength to ask. As soon as he was done, he went to sleep, almost immediately.
He was certain he heard her speaking to someone nearby.
He slept and slept, it seemed. When he woke up, it was like taking the first breath after a long dive, resurfacing from deep, thick waters. He was still treading them, but it wasn’t crushing him.
“Awake, are you?” He looked up to see a strangely transparent woman sitting beside his bed. She looked a lot like Penelope, her eyes were hawk-like gold and she wore heavily decorated robes. Her startling eyes left him breathless and hopeful. Her name was at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t say it.
“Am I dead?”
She laughed. “No, Leandros. You have too much to live for.”
She stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Thank you for returning my Eredes to me.”
“Your… Eredes?” He asked and frowned. “Are you… Are you Persephone?”
She nodded. He knew that epithet. Persephone, Destroyer of Men.
“You know… That wasn’t Naos?” He tried to sit up, but she pressed him back gently.
“You need to rest. I will answer your questions in time… All will be made clear to you in time.” She smiled. “It is all almost over. Your healer should return shortly to declare you fit for your International Trial. Hold nothing back. There is much for you to learn that will only be hidden from you in Zarantia.”
Hope fluttered in his chest. “You mean, they’ll let me go?”
“For a time,” she cautioned. “You have not yet met your fate.”
His heart lurched. His hands shook, and a true terror gripped him. “What the hell does that mean?”
She gave him a small smile. “Calm yourself.”
“I can’t! After everything—”
“Your part to play in the fight is exactly what you plan to do on the Islands. The rest is for others and it is coming.”
His jaw trembled. His eyes burned with tears. “I don’t want this. No part of me wants this.”
She stood and pressed a kiss to his head. “Then, don’t… but do you plan to stay on the mainland?”
She turned from him as he heard footsteps coming down the hall. A dark door opened.
“We will see each other again when you are better.”
She vanished as Leona entered as he gripped his fists tightly, eyes burning with tears and heart filled with fury. How much longer?
Leona eyed him. “How are you feeling?”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“... you’ve been in a coma for the better part of a month.”
He winced. “Not much time to get the evaluations finished, then…”
She scoffed. “You have time, and the Alliance Council is invested in giving you a chance at the Shield Trials. The others have all failed.”
“Why?”
“That bit is above my paygrade.”
She got him out of bed and into a different office where Pallas, Elios, and Achilles waited. Leona sat beside him, casting a monitor on him before they told him that the Alliance Council had forced Zarantia to cede partial jurisdiction on the basis of his health and were ruminating on a fitting sentence due to his potential.
“You’ll be brought before the International Court in a few days if Healer Leona signs off.”
“For what?”
“For your path off the mainland. Your friend Penelope has been very helpful in getting this moving along. She’ll be providing testimony on your behalf.”
“... will I get to see her then?”
“No. Her oath with Ascelpius doesn’t allow her to leave the training grounds. She’ll be giving testimony remotely, but you will hear everything she says if you’d like.”
“I do.”
He wanted to hear her voice more than anything.
Penelope spoke at length about her participation in the war, starting from meeting Leandros at the school and the attack that had nearly killed him. She talked about fighting on the front lines with him, running into the cells of mages who were performing dark experiments and working with the opposing nations. There were so many details that rang true but Leandros had no recollection of any of it. It sounded like a dream.
Then, they gave him the chance to testify in and out of magical trance.