Cassandra

Prologue

Apollo, Apollo!

God of all ways, but only Death's to me,

Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named,

thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!

– Agamemnon, Aeschylus

A necklace of ruby hung around her neck.

Breathing hard, Cassandra scratched her golden skin until it dug deep enough to leave terrible marks. She slid her fingers into her hair, pulling, pulling until the pain in her skull distracted her from the pounding of her head. Images flashed behind her eyes, uncontrollable and endless, a constant parade of misery yet to come. Every picture made breathing more difficult. Panting, she could only watch with wide, dark eyes, the endless dance of her own mind going mad. It was like watching parts of her soul, reflected a hundred times, in a hundred shards of glass, each one depicting another painting of blood, flames and ashes.

Someone ran, doors slammed. Screams resonated but she didn't understand the words. Two strong hands grabbed her shoulders, forcing her upwards. For a moment, she was blinded by reality, unable to conceive what was happening around her. Little by little, the fog vanished, and she distinguished a young man screaming at her. Little by little, his words reached her:

"Cassandra! Cassandra!"

Her breathing calmed down. She kept staring at the young man until his face became familiar once more.

With trembling hands, she touched his face. Worry was etched all over his beautiful features, twin to hers. She caressed the chin, the jaw, the cheeks, spreading her fingers wide over the strong bones. Once upon a time, their two faces had held the same roundness, so similar they would not have been distinguished from one another, if not for her long curls.

"Helenus," she murmured, voice raspy, throat sore from all her screaming.

She had been screaming. That was where all the voices had come from– no, she could still hear them. Cries, whimpers, shouts, absolute distress in shattered sounds that resonated in her head.

Sensing her distraction taking hold of her consciousness, Helenus shook her violently. Cassandra looked back at him.

"Helenus..." she repeated, sounding far away, lost in an invisible fog.

"What happened? What happened to you, sister? You have been screaming and hurting yourself," Helenus continued, frowning.

She noticed the nervous sweat pearling at his forehead. She reached for it, picking up the drop. She didn't realise he watched her every movement with wide, panicked eyes.

"How lovely, a tear that doesn't come from your eyes... As if your body, rather than your mind, was crying in agony..."

Helenus grabbed her hands, forcing her to look at him.

"Cassandra, sister, the physician is here. So are father and mother... Tell us what happened to you so we can help you..." he continued, voice softer.

Cassandra looked straight into his black eyes, as dark as hers.

"He gave me a drachm, as golden and burning as the sun... One side is a gift, the other a curse," she explained.

"What drachm? What curse?" Priam, her father the king, asked, standing behind Helenus.

"Prophecy, of course," she answered simply, "I have seen your downfall and your own curse, father. He has returned."

Priam paled, glancing at his wife. Helenus cupped Cassandra's cheeks, forcing her to look back at him.

"Who did such a crime to you, sister? I will chase them down and kill them with my bare hands."

At that, as miserable as she felt, Cassandra started laughing. It was nothing like her old laughter that once rang against the walls of the Palace of Troy. It was haunting and hissing, instead of the honeyed tinkle of bells that had once delighted her family.

Quiet tears rolled down her cheeks, despite the wide, mad smile stretched on her face.

"You cannot kill an immortal, brother..." she whispered, shaking her head as if talking to a reckless child.

Helenus' tan skin took a sickly white.

"An immortal... a god... did this to you?" he asked in a low, frightened voice.

"The course of the sun cannot be stopped."

"Lord Apollo... Phoebus Apollo cursed you?"

"What have you done to anger the god?" their mother, Hecuba asked in a low, frightened voice.

Cassandra turned to her, watching her in bewilderment, as if seeing her for the first time.

"I said no, and he didn't listen," she simply said.

Before anyone could ask her anything else, she covered her face with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably, from memories as much as visions. Her shoulders shook and, not knowing what to do against such tears, such distress, such helplessness, her family simply watched. Watched as her whole world collapsed. Or rather, as she watched the series of events that would soon unfold and lead to the fall of her city and the end of her family.

Everything she had ever thought she had known was gone.