The last time Zerlinda had stepped foot in the capital had been three years ago. Back when the streets bustled with life and people could roam the streets freely.

That wasn't to say it had changed all that much. Yet, something she couldn't quite put the finger on felt different.

Statues of Zeus and the other Gods appeared to almost look down at the chains binding her wrists. She kept her gaze down to the pavement. Her feet were bruised and blistered from all the walking.

Everything felt faint. Her muscles. Her head. It wouldn't take long now before the exhaustion knocked her out.

Maybe, with a hint of luck, it would keep her asleep.

It was strange, seeing her birth city again after so long. Everything was where it was supposed to be, like a carefully crafted map.

Yet, everything also looked and felt older. Stone walls showed cracks where she'd never noticed them before. Buildings - like the Academy - appeared to have been entirely abandoned.

School wasn't an option formost people. Not since Magellan's law pulling young girls from class to assist in the home until they were old enough to be married off and contribute to restoring Nerissan society to its pre-war greatness of centuries before.

She'd never particularly cared that much about school. She was illiterate to everything save what she needed to know, and learning had never been a particular priority. But Adalia, the smarter of the two of them, definitively had, even if she never let it show. For that reason alone, Zerlinda resented it.

Memories of all the dusty books they'd left behind in the caravan, three years ago, came back to mind. But Adalia hadn't minded, so she claimed. No matter where they went, she'd always found a way to get her hands on a new book. If she wasn't covered in paint of all colours from whatever masterpiece she could think up, locked up inside, she'd have her nose buried in a book.

Thoughts of Adalia made her heavy, cold heart feel lighter, just a bit. But old, distant memories was all she had. If Adalia wasn't yet dead, she would be soon. Zerlinda would never again see her sister. And one day, if she didn't die at the hands of the man who'd all but ripped her father away and torn her life to shreds, those memories would crinkle up and fade away.

Her heart felt heavier than the chains at her hands again.

They walked on for what felt like an eternity. The blisters at her feet bled red against the stone paths of Meridea. It was as though she walked on literal swords, every step an excruciating betrayal of the strength she didn't have.

Then, The Palace of Ourania came into view. It stood proud at the top of a rocky cliff, emerging right out of the water. Tall spires seemed to slice into the blue sky, much like a crown of daggers.

It was said to be impenetrable from the miles of water surrounding it. She embarked aboard a gondola alongside five other guards, but to call her transportation a mere boat would have been a mistake. With its curved ends, plush red seats and swirling golden embossments, it was clear the boat had been cut out for the richest of guests. To say she felt out of place in it would have been an understatement, and the cold glare the gondolier cut her agreed. Not a word was spoken as they rowed to The Palace.

She'd never felt as small as she did upon seeing The Palace up close. Despite having been born in and been a resident of the city only a few short years ago, she'd never gone past imagining the sight of the palace. But those daydreams hadn't done it justice. Not a single of thousands of white stones was out of place. It looked sumptuous enough to have been crafted from the hands of The Gods themselves.

Marble stairs unfurled from the main platform, where hundreds of arched doorways, each reaching at least fifteen feet high, awaited entry. Pristine statues of The Gods lifted up by marble pedestals looked down at her. Surely they had to be polished every day, for she'd never seen statues more beautiful anywhere in the country.

She could have sworn the Brand at her neck burned when she raised her gaze to Hades's statue.

They passed a path lined by elegantly crafted marble fountains decorated in golden Castellian carvings. The crystalline water spurting from those fountains sent her back to Port Andana. To those starving children, relying onbroken and nearly dried-up fountains for the smallest drop of water.

The memory broke The Palace's spell immediately. No matter how beautiful it was, The Palace held treacherous secrets and housed even worse royals. She couldn't make the mistake of forgetting that.

Especially as she'd be forced to surrender her entire self to those royals.

A slave. In their eyes, she'd be nothing but a dirty, mindless slave who could only dream of having worth greater than the transaction which had sold her very soul.

A few flights of stairs later, a party of guards awaited.

"Shall we bring this one to the dungeons as well?" There was something cold in the way the guards discussed. A few of their gazes lingered on her. Zerlinda looked them straight in the eye. Slave as she might be, they wouldn't get any fear from her. She was an assassin, and one of Hades's handmaidens, for fuck's sake. She'd cower before no man in armor, outrank and outnumber her as they might.

And if they punished her for it, then so be it. At the very least, she'd be free at last.

"No. Bring her to thebathhouse. Special orders from The Captain." Another one spoke up, acting as though she wasn't even present. And somehow, the glances those other men had given her paled in comparison to that treatment.

She let the new party of guards lead her away, but not without clenching her chained fists.

♛

Steps lead Zerlinda into apool greater than life itself.

The stone was cold beneath her feet despite the steam clouding and curling in the air all around her from the hot water.

With a breath, she took in the sheer beauty of the bathhouse. The imposing columns of stone rising from the ground, each linked to the next by polished archways of stone. Up and up they climbed, to a ceiling so high, it looked never-ending.

It may as well have been.

"You have two hours to make her look presentable." A voice she hadn't yet heard called. One of the guards who'd lead her here, surely.

She could barely remember walking here from the all-consuming fatigue falling over her bones.

The footsteps of those guards echoed in the distance, sounding further away every passing second. A heavy set of doors shut.

She took a breath in. Somehow, it felt as though she hadn't been breathing since coming into sight of The Castle.

Seconds later, two female servants were stripping her of the rag that'd once been a dress. Zerlinda barely had any time to think before her bare feet walked downmarble stairs, into crystalline waters.

She went under. There were hands everywhere, scrubbing at her skin until she thought it'd bleed.

Far more than they should have done for a slave.

She rose up to the surfacewith a gasp for air. Thoughts of what purpose The King had truly entailed for her swirled around her mind like a storm.

She went back under and wanted to scream. Her veins, her blood trembled at what would, could be asked of her as a slave to The King.

She'd have traded anything to have back the nightmare of a life she'd had before the Kynătors walked into it and tore it all apart.

Even that was something she didn't have the right to.

Thoughts of her sister, lying unconscious on the beach, came back to her.

Zerlinda was the only one to blame for what would become of her. And that thought shattered her.

But it wasn't anything she could be thinking of now. Every thought, every intruding sound was cut off like the slice of a knife as she sunk back under the hot water. The water was scalding against her skin, washing away any and all impurities accumulated on her body. Her skin stung as it weaved itself into wounds and gashes that even time could not erase.

The water may have cleansed, changed her body. But it could never cleanse her soul. She'd never let it. They wouldn't break her. They wouldn't break her. She'd be triumphant, no matter what it took. Because she had to be. They couldn't be allowed to see any hint of the fear they'd inflicted on her with only a few words. They'd use her, manipulate her in inhuman ways if they did.

The words strung together like a dark song, lulling her mind away. It seemed to echo all around her, as though the water itself sung to her.

She welcomed the soothing calmness hidden within the pain lured in by the waves. The song gained fervor in her mind, sounding like a dream given life. Slowly, she sank further into the water, that song the only thing mattering in the moments ticking away perhaps slower than they should have. Memories of her mother telling her to keep awayfrom the water bubbled to the surface. But they didn't matter.

Not since Kayesha had left.

Her lungs, her heart seemed to burn. She wasn't sure it was only the depth of that water that hurt, a warning to keep away from the death awaiting beneath.

What if she did die? There was nothing keeping her tethered to the mortal world any longer. She had nothing. No home. No money. No sister.

No mother.

God, it shouldn't have hurt as it did. She laughed despite the burning darkness at her skin. At her neck. All she had to do was fall within that Brand, and not rise back up to the surface. There'd be no pain there. She'd be safe. She'd never been truly safe before. Life had always been an illusion of safety, a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off at any given moment.

But the darkness would be different. No one, good or bad, would be able to reach her there. There'd be no love there, but that was alright. She was used to it by now. The world had never loved her, but hurt her it had. She wanted so desperately to throw it all behind and fall into thaT endless, quiet darkness. Where no guards would wait to slice her throat. Where nobody would judge and belittle her for the lack of brands on her skin.

Where no Gods would wait and spin her despair into threads binding her to serve Them in ways sure to one day come back for vengeance.

The song whispered in her ears of a painless, darkened eternity, louder and louder by the minute.

Is there truly darkness where everything is already consumed by the dark, it sang in a never-ending question to her still-beating heart.

The thought was so beautiful, she breathed that song closer. It wrapped itself around her body. Her neck. Her heart.

And finally, she truly heard rather than felt the song's words. So distant, yet so, so familiar...

Dance with me, my love...

Deep below, where no other mortal may venture...

Hear my song, and fall deeper and deeper

The seirēnes hold you tight in their embrace and sing your song...

Her eyes shot open suddenly. Something swam in the distance. A woman. A mass of dark curls flowed after her, dancing and shifting in the water like a gust of wind before the storm.

She moved in an unnatural, beautiful away. Was the song hers? Would she be the one to lead her away into the dark?

Zerlinda extended out her hand, reaching out to that beautiful, beautiful creature.

Pain exploded across the Brand, a sudden call back to reality. The song ended sharply. She saw it half a heartbeat later.

Its slightly-too-big eyes.

Its slightly too wide mouth.

Its skin, blue as a drowned man's.

The creature bared her sharp-as-knives-teeth and lunged at her.

Hands pulled Zerlinda up to the surface before she could scream. She was back in the bathhouse, every thought and feeling from back under washed aside by the beauty of the room.

The beauty of the room she never would belong in.

And just like that, the servants returned to washing her, as though what she'd seen below hadn't existed to them.

She looked down to the water, crystalline and clear as it had always been. It was nearly still, a few waves rolling in at the slight movements of her body.

But there was nothing. Not even a shadow swimming below, waiting for her to return into its monstrous clutches.

It wasn't as though she'd never done it before.

She winced in pain as the servants took to the task of untangling her soaked curls. She shrunk away from each prob and jab they took at her hair. But as her gaze flitted back to the water and her heartbeat dropped, she quit her struggling and left them to their work.

It was better than finding out what had lied beneath.

Or rather, what hadn't.

-

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