The Midnight Nanny by Virgil Knightley

Author:Virgil Knightley [Knightley, Virgil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, R18
Published: 2024-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

(Justin)

The spell hit him like a shotgun blast of ice cubes to the face. A strange coldness overtook him, and Justin found himself flinging through the air until his body collided with the wall, leaving a very Justin-shaped imprint in it as he fell to the floor.

“Male!” Evie shouted. He faintly heard her voice as his mind started to warp and her pretty face disappeared from view little by little. “Justin! Baby!”

Under the thrall of Evie’s surprisingly bombastic spell, Justin’s mind became a canvas for an ancient legend he’d only heard in his high school Mythology elective once before. But the story was more than just a tale to him, he now realized. It was etched deep within his blood.

He saw a man whose name he knew automatically. Cadmus—that was what he was called, and it was not just a name from an old story anymore, but a living, breathing person standing before Justin’s very eyes. He stood tall and rugged, his skin weathered by the sun and his dark hair curly and wind-tossed. His deep, searching eyes betrayed an even deeper worry, but also determination. He had that standard hero vibe—he reminded Justin of Trevon in that way. Dressed in simple but sturdy attire, Cadmus’s posture was that of a man accustomed to trials of all sorts, his entire physicality exuding a resilient, quest-driven spirit.

Justin’s intimate knowledge of the man was automatic even though he remembered next to nothing about him from school. Cadmus was a prince from the Phoenician city of Tyre, a man of royal blood and noble heart. His sister, Europa, had been taken by the god Zeus, and Cadmus, driven by familial love, embarked on a quest to find her…A fool’s errand.

Justin felt Cadmus’s desperation and drive as though it was his own as he wandered through unfamiliar lands, his hope dwindling with each passing day. It was at the Oracle of Delphi that the journey took a fateful turn. The oracle, speaking in riddles, commanded him to abandon his search for Europa and instead follow a wandering cow, marked with a half-moon on its flank, and found the city wherever it would lie down.

At first, Cadmus was ready to dismiss the words of the Oracle outright, but his men reminded him that an order from an Oracle was the same as guidance from fate itself—should he not follow this path, calamity would befall them all. Justin’s own gut stirred as he felt that inner torment the ancient warrior must have felt when he’d made that heartwrenching choice to leave his own flesh and blood in the hands of a perverted, entitled god.

In Justin’s vision, the cow appeared at dawn the very next day. It led Cadmus through valleys and over hills until it lay down in a lush area in Boeotia. This, Justin realized, was where Thebes would be born. But the story’s true turning point began when Cadmus, who wanted to sacrifice the cow to the gods, sent his companions to fetch water from a nearby spring.

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