Triumph Reign (The Callistra Chronicles #3)

THREE

Chapter Three

Pasiphae stirred into consciousness with the most awful pounding in her head. For a moment, she wondered if she was fourteen again and had just chugged an entire bottle of mead the night before, sleeping off her spinning head in a random nook inside the house. A bolt of panic ran through her and she absurdly had the thought that she needed to hide before Ophiua, her mother, found her. Then her senses started returning: first her fingers, then her arms. A buzzing ran from her shoulders down to her spine, and then her hips sent a message back to her brain that told her she was a little too comfortable at the moment to be sleeping in a random makeshift corner in her house.

Her eyes bolted open.

She was not fourteen. She was almost eighteen. She was Pasiphae of Eo, and she was the queen of Airesi.

Pasiphae lunged upright.

"Woah! Saf, you're safe. You're safe."

Slowly, the haze that obscured Pasiphae's vision began to clear, and Circe appeared before her, palms held outward in a placating manner. It seemed that they were in a tent of some sort, with low-hanging blue fabric sinking so greatly from the ceiling that Pasiphae was able to stretch out an arm and poke the fabric. It was heavier than expected. There was water collecting atop the material on the outside.

"Where am I?" Pasiphae asked. Her voice was hoarse, scratched raw. As she blinked and blinked and blinked, three more silhouettes appeared in her line of sight. Her parents were also within her tent, accompanied by Meira, who stood the farthest away.

"A makeshift base in the middle of Eo," Circe replied. Their parents rushed forward then, fussing and worrying over Pasiphae.

"What did you do?" Ophiua demanded. 


"What happened?" Nikolaus added.

Pasiphae scrubbed her hands over her face, wincing as her skin pulled against the dozens of self-inflicted scars forming on her arms. She had carved runes onto every available surface of her limbs, and in reward for the pain she had suffered, she had been filled with enough magic to hold the entire Unseelie army back.

"It's a rather long story," Pasiphae said tiredly. Where her memories had been cloudy before, they were now returning at rapid speed, stitching together the last thoughts that had been on her mind before she collapsed. Almost absently, she touched the earpiece secured to her lobe, running her fingers along its smooth edges simply to reassure herself that it was there. She wouldn't activate it—not quite yet. Not until she had a plan of action to report to Seth. "Where's Stavros?"

"Who?" Circe asked. Her sister looked around as if there would be another person idling around that she hadn't noticed already.

"Never mind." Pasiphae was sure the little sylph was keeping himself entertained. "The wall I summoned—is it holding?"

"For now," Meira answered. Her grandmother slowly made her way over, moving at a pace that was more calculating that her parents' quick rush. "The wall is being battered incessantly, but... Pasiphae, I must ask: did you intend for it to cover the whole length of land where Khotadi meets Medeis?"

"We thought you had simply protected the front line where Eo meets the Unseelie gate," Circe added. "But the wall stretches from the very edge of Eo, past the whole of Yre, and even into the tiny nook where Fusun meets the outskirts of Khotadi."

Pasiphae opened her mouth, but Meira wasn't finished. The old Divine shook her head—both in disbelief and in admonishment—and continued, "Frankly, Pasiphae, it is surprising that you are even alive after such a feat of magic. You must refrain from doing anything to that scale again. If you continue, I fear for your health."