Carrie Vaughn - Discord's Apple

Apollo, a mocking curl to his lip, came to him, gripped the sword, and yanked it out. Sinon cried out and doubled over, holding his belly because he felt as if his guts were spilling out.

Then the pain lessened. The blood on his hands dried. His organs didn’t burst onto the grass. He straightened and looked, smoothing his hands over the front of his tunic. The cloth was still ripped, but the wound in his belly was gone. Healed.

“You cannot die.” Apollo used the bloody point of his sword to flick at the chain around his neck. “Another thing—in Troy they call you the Liar. I can’t have that here, for I am the god of Truth. As long as you wear that chain, you cannot lie.” He turned and went away.

Sinon collapsed, his breath coming in gasps, his mind flailing, refusing to understand.

I killed myself and did not die. I am neither alive nor dead now.

Time passed. Sinon lived in luxurious captivity, richly fed and clothed, lingering amid the entertainments of the Sun Palace. Apollo summoned the best musicians, dancers, and bards to perform for him. Sinon kept to the shadows, intensely jealous because the performers could leave at the end of the evening.

He ran. He jumped hedges and raced his shadow, as if still training to be a warrior. He made himself a wooden sword out of a tree branch and practiced hitting at shrubs, scattering leaves and broken branches around him on the lawn. Sweating deadened his mind and kept him from trying to be clever like Odysseus.

The sun never set on Apollo’s palace. Always, it was midday—always a little too warm, too bright. Tracking one day to the next was impossible.

One day, walking in the garden, he startled a woman who was bathing in one of the pools. She gasped, covering her breasts with her arms. He quickly turned away. With his luck, the Sun God’s sister had come for a visit, and he knew the stories that told what happened to men who spied Artemis at her bath.

He’d started to leave, when she called him back. “Wait a moment. You must be Sinon. The Greek.”

He stopped. Her voice was bright, good-natured.

“I’d heard you were a prisoner here. Don’t be shy—stay and talk with me. You were at Troy, weren’t you? Will you tell me stories of the war?”

Cautiously, he approached. She modestly hid herself in the water, only her head and neck breaking the surface. She was young, with a rosy, shining face to match her voice. He couldn’t guess the color of her hair, which was dark with water and slicked back.

Smiling, she nodded at the brick-lined edge of the pool. “Sit here, so I don’t get a crick in my neck staring up at you.”

This had to be a trick. He had seen women at the palace—nymphs and minor goddesses come to sport with Apollo and each other, indulging in the god’s hospitality. None had ever spoken to him. Sinon knelt a little way from the pool’s edge.

“You don’t trust me,” she said.

“I don’t trust anything about this place.”

“Wise man.”

“Who are you?”

“Celeste.”

“Are you a nymph? Or something else?”

“I’m . . . something,” she said. Her smile filled her expression, so at ease and lovely.

“Why are you here?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?”

He looked away, blushing. But he didn’t know how to act. This was all so strange.

She answered him. “Apollo brought me here.”

“You’re a prisoner as well,” he said, perhaps too eagerly.

She shook her head. He could see her shape in the water, rippling, without detail. He could see himself reaching to touch her. It had been so long since he’d spoken to a woman. Cassandra at Troy had been the last.

Her expression turned sly, as if like a god she knew his thoughts. “Did you rape many women at Troy?”

Angrily, he said, “I raped none.” He’d been so tired, twice beaten and too weak to hold a woman, much less have her. At least, that had been his excuse to himself.

She stared at him until he felt as naked as she was. Then she said, “I believe you, hero of Greece.”

Water rippling around her, she came to the edge of the pool and reached a dripping hand to touch him. The coolness of her skin sent a shock up his arm. To hold her to him would still the heat flushing along his body. Graceful, slipping like a breeze, she pulled herself out of the water so she was sitting next to him, in all her soft and pale glory. Then she kissed him.

He threw himself into lovemaking, her eagerness feeding his, both of them clawing off his tunic. He told himself he should slow down, enjoy every moment of her beauty and vigor, but he was desperate for her touch, her mouth, her body. On top of her, at the edge of the pool, rushes and lilies as a backdrop, he moaned as he entered her, and the stresses of his captivity left him.

The sound of applause carried across the pool. Sinon looked. Across the way, on a stone bench, sat Apollo, clapping, watching them as if this were a play. Celeste, her head tipped back, her expression contorted with ecstasy, didn’t seem to notice.

Sinon’s cheeks burned red, anger filling him all over again. He pounded into her harder than he should have, and at the moment of his release—she melted. She turned to water, a flood that slipped out of his arms and back to the pool.

He was left kneeling, breathing hard, soaking wet. Apollo grinned. He’d planned the whole thing. Damn him.

Scowling, Sinon stood, grabbed his tunic, and marched away.

Another time, invisible hands tied him to his pallet, face up. Then Apollo arrived and toyed with him, bringing him to the edge, evoking pleasure even as Sinon resisted. Sinon even laughed once at a ticklish jab. It was an unexpected noise. Apollo untied him and left him exhausted, humiliated, confused.

He had no way to track the time.

Under the open collar of Alex’s shirt, the bronze chain glinted. He’d told Evie it was a curse, keeping him alive and ageless, when all he’d ever wanted was to die. He’d offered to slit his wrists then and there to prove it to her. She insisted she believed him. One way or another, he’d bleed all over her car and she didn’t need that.

It just looked like a necklace.

Evie had to turn around and go back. She’d raced from the hotel and made the quicker right-hand turn. While she could travel side streets to avoid driving past the hotel again, she still had to go through town to get back home. Through town and the police checkpoint. Evie stopped.

Three patrol cars—Hopes Fort’s entire law enforcement fleet—were parked across Main Street, blocking it. At least half a dozen people were crouched behind open car doors, aiming their handguns at her as she slowed to a stop. Hopes Fort had only a handful of officers, but a number of part-time deputies served as well, in addition to the Citizens’ Watch volunteers.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. Her voice felt stiff. Silent, Alex stared hard out the windshield.

Johnny Brewster stood behind the barrier of his open car door, gripping his gun in both hands. “Get out of the car! Hands up, out of the car!”

She shouldn’t have hesitated. She didn’t expect herself to hesitate, but she did. Maybe because Alex didn’t move either. This felt odd, an out-of-place sensation—like that stranger’s hand around hers. Like a door was closing to trap her in a dark room. I’m getting paranoid.

“What do you want to do?” Alex said.

She wanted to go home. “I think we should get out. Slowly. This is just a misunderstanding, I’ll explain it to Johnny. It’ll be okay.” She hoped that saying it would make it true.

“Get out of the car!” Johnny was snarling, his face turning red, furious.