The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter 42 ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter 42 ✰✦✰

" Family Cuts Deeper Than Foe "

WHEN I RECOGNISED her, I felt my knees buckle. Somehow I remained upright. My lips parted. My heart ceased beating. I would recognise those azure blue eyes in other lifetimes entirely. I knew that constant frown that crossed her forehead and made everyone think she hated them when she was just endlessly, pointlessly anxious.

Her hair. Her hair had gotten longer, three shades darker, evolving into a calamitous, catastrophic, crepuscular shade of sunless black hair. For the first time since I'd known her, the girl looked valiant. Victorious. She looked like a woman. At sixteen—she more so resembled a woman than I did.

This had been what my friends were warning me about.

"Mi—Mia?" I breathed..

This was real. It was real.

It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.

This wasn't my sister, my sister was dead. I'd dedicated years to my searching of her and come up with nothing. She was dead. They must've enchanted me with something again—

"Stand up straight," she snarled.

Instantly, Mia became alien to me. And it became certain that this wasn't her. It was but it wasn't. It was her voice—sharp and sagacious with hints of maturity in age.

"Mia, what are you—"

She tore me towards her by my arms, her black nails digging into my skin, and her stormy eyes shot daggers at mine. The world around us dimmed to nothing. My sister was dead. She was dead. Both of them were. This wasn't possible. In any way.

"You need to control yourself," she snapped at me. I studied her. Stranger, was all I could think. "I may despise you, but have some respect for yourself. You find yourself in the presence of an Olympian, for goodness' sake."

She smelled of Death.

I shook my head frantically, refusing to believe this—this madness.

"No, no, no, no—" I whispered, sobs flowing freely from me. Mia rolled her eyes, shoving me back and it caused me to stumble slightly. I didn't care how stupid I looked, I had just discovered that my sister was alive and well. But I'd also uncovered the truth: she was The Shielder of Darkness.

I wanted to fall into the kind of sleep that lets you dream on eternally.

"Does it really take you so long to calm down?" Mia snarled. "I remember you being dramatic, to be truthful. I suppose little has changed, has it?"

I pressed a hand to my heart, feeling the ache clawing at it. "Mia, what are you doing?"

"It's not Mia!" she shouted, fire burning in those once peaceful eyes. "I am The Shielder of Darkness!"

"Y-You can't b-be—"

"I can," she said. "And I am. You do not understand—you never have. You were always too caught up in your own messes to even glance my way."

"No!" I protested weakly. "I never—"

"You did not even bother to look for me."

"I did!" I screamed and it pained me so much that I wished I was dead. Just believe me. "I looked for you and Clara for years! I-I did!"