Chimera Child (Olympian Exiles Book 3) by Cassie Day

Author:Cassie Day [Day, Cassie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2022-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

The mattress is lumpy in places, the fine wool blankets worn from time and use. I pull one layer over my head, then another, until I’m swaddled, dim lantern light suffusing through the rich fabric, casting my skin and plain dress in muted shades of orange.

Even with the weight atop me, the night sky and its chill creep along my skin, a reminder of where I am and who has the key to my cage. Nyx, my once-mother, who’s proven her ruthlessness and cruelty once and for all.

Do I still love her? I shiver, burrowing deeper into the blankets.

I don’t. I don’t love her knife-edge smiles, or her crafted words, or how she puts power above what’s decent. Zeus might have deserved death for the acts he’s committed, but not in such a way. Not begging while his bones splintered, not in unimaginable pain, not alone.

Because he was alone despite Nyx’s dwindling court attending. Not one of us spoke up as she tortured him. No, instead we looked away, saving our own skin. Even Hypnos, forced into obedience as he is. Even me.

A whimper escapes me unbidden. How could I say nothing? Because you’re a coward, I remind myself. Because you always go along with Nyx’s plans. Everyone else’s plans.

There’s no excuse for saying nothing while a man was ripped to shreds. Or for ignoring the other executions for all these years, either.

I am a coward.

A knock echoes against the bedroom door. Not my bedroom, not anymore, and I miss that ownership even as I rebel against it.

I say nothing. What is there to say? Go away? Come in? It doesn’t matter. If it’s Eris, she won’t listen one way or the other, and if it’s Nyx…

She takes orders from only herself.

Another knock. Shivering beneath the layers, I curl in on myself, breaths coming in gasps. Nyx will kill me, but now or later I can’t be sure. After what I’ve done, maybe I deserve death.

Death, too, must be earned.

How will she make me earn my death?

The door swings open, catching against the edge of a plush carpet with a scrape of stone on fabric, then closes with a quiet snick.

“Mel,” Hypnos says in a hush, his quick steps approaching the bed.

I lurch upright, pushing off the layers, still gasping for breath. “Hypnos,” I say.

It’s all I can manage with my big brother standing in front of me, the bags beneath his eyes dark as ink stains and his hair wild like he’s been running his hands through his over and over.

His already lanky build has dwindled to outright thinness. He hasn’t been eating or sleeping enough.

And with him watching me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish at any moment, I’m helpless to do anything but burst into tears.

“Oh, Mel,” he says, sitting beside me, one long arm wrapping around my shoulders and pulling me into his embrace.

This close, he smells like sandalwood and a burning wick with a trace of Nyx’s lavender perfume. I breathe him in, allowing the familiar scent and shape of him to soothe me, my fingers clutching at the back of his tunic.

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