The Golden Chalice

✰✦✰ Chapter 43 ✰✦✰

✰✦✰ Chapter 43 ✰✦✰

" Open The Wall "

MIA GUIDED ME through the dark tunnels beneath the castle.

Tunnels that I'd never seen before or known were down here in the first place. Jacks trailed behind me and I kept having to fight the urge to spin around and strangle him. Apparently my dejection and misery had been washed away by a very crystal clear fury.

We rounded a few more corners and every time I looked at Mia, my throat dried up and my eyesight blurred. Even being in her presence felt unreal, felt strange and abnormal. It didn't feel right, especially now that I knew who she'd evolved into over the years. The years I'd spent thinking she and Clara were dead. Though I wasn't going to deliberate on my youngest sister's state even now that Mia had turned up alive. The fact that she'd managed to find an Olympian, but not our sister, only assured me that Clara was gone.

Strangely, it offered me peace, knowing that. Her innocent soul had never been tarnished by Euphemia's actions or my own recklessness when it came to signing up to a quest that doomed everyone.

My own friends had been tortured because of me.

If they died, it would be because of me.

Apheses waited here for us, his features coated in boredom. He cleared his throat, glaring at my sister when he said, "You took your sweet time getting down here. I've had to rush and leave the prisoners in a cell together."

"Together?" Euphemia repeated, incredulous when we came to a stop. "Why would you ever risk that?"

Apheses's eyes flashed. "I don't have to risk anything, I am an Olympian."

"Not fully."

"Even more reason to hurry and get the girl to open the door."

My sister kept her gaze on him for a while, then turned and seized me by the shoulders, moving me so that I was forced face to face with a dirt wall. A wall. Not a door.

I glanced over my shoulder at Euphemia. "What am I meant to do?"

Euphemia looked me up and down. "I fear I remain unaware of what Agora saw in you, Scarlett, but something must be in there"—She glimpsed up to my forehead—"if she chose you. So make yourself useful for once, and open the door."

My lips parted.

Forcing my tears down, I reminded myself not to cry for Euphemia. Because, she'd already said this herself—this wasn't my sister anymore. My sister had died the day our kingdom went up in flames. Nothing would change that. Not a promise. Not a plea. Euphemia Solaris was dead and yet she was right in front of me.

Maybe I would find it in me to forgive her one day.

I cleared my throat. Why in the world had Agora decided that I was the perfect choice for this crap? I didn't even know how to cook or bake or solve the simplest of maths equations without having to call over my best friend for both. It was ridiculous—I was ridiculous. And there was no way I was going to be able to open this "door" because there was a bloody wall in place of it! Were the others seeing things that I wasn't? Was there some sort of magical entrance with a pretty doorknob that I wasn't seeing? Because to me, they were asking me to open a wall.

But I knew I had to think of my friends. Even of Darius and Miles, for the love of Olympia. I swallowed all of my doubts and worries that I wouldn't be able to do this, and let my eyes shut softly.