Shadows on the Aegean Read Online Free PDF

footsteps in the corridor. “Don’t let go for anything,” she hissed.
    Ileana watched from the shadows as the narrow double doors opened and two guards ran in. They saw the girl, her position condemnation
     enough, then realized Rhea had not even been killed in her bath. She would never dance on the Isles of the Blessed.
    Without the purification of the lustral bath, she was eternally dead. Soldiers bathed before they went to war, the ill were
     bathed if the condition was feared fatal. Newborns were birthed in a shallow pool, in the event they died. Rhea was lost forever.
    Following the guards, Zelos ran in and threw himself weeping on Rhea’s body. With the same blade Ileana had used to take Rhea’s
     life, Zelos took the girl’s. Ileana’s path to the Queen of Heaven’s throne was now cleared.
    Blinking herself back into the safety of her bath, the distance of those many summers, Ileana forced her mind to calm. No
     one had guessed, no one had even known she’d been there. Feigned sorrow over the death of her mother seduced Zelos’ heart,
     and sexual skills beyond her years had won her a place in his bed. She’d stepped easily into the role as Queen of Heaven.
    No one knew. She was safe.
    But safe until when? And whom? Safety was an illusion; danger always lurked. Friends were enemies waiting for opportunity,
     children were the seedlings of one’s destruction, and even the goddess was fickle in her affections. Kela-Ileana destroyed
     any realities of danger. Danger lived and breathed in Vena, Sibylla, Selena …
    Not for much longer, however.

    CAPHTOR
    S HE WOKE UP IN THE DARKNESS OF THE CAVE , but instead of feeling familiar it felt foreign. Once again Sibylla was uneasy. She rubbed her eyes and reached for the
     alabaster lamp to her side.
    A gust of icy wind blew through. “That body is mine!” she seemed to hear around her. “Give it back to me!” It sounded like
     her own voice, fear filled and furious. Why would her voice be outside her? It’s the part of my
psyche
that didn’t return, she thought. It hates me for that. The voice carried on the wind, and Sibylla, hands now shaking, lit
     the oil lamp.
    She lived in a simple room with whitewashed walls; a mattress of dried leaves and herbs lay on a shelf. Her few belongings
     from Kallistae were grouped atop a small trunk. Two other skirts and jackets hung on pegs.
    That’s a really beautiful contrast
, she heard the voice inside her say,
but what does it mean, and where am I?
Sibylla looked at the saffron-and-crimson skirt against the white-and-black-bordered wall and had to admit it was striking,
     though so commonplace she didn’t know why she had suddenly noticed it. She ignored her own mind’s question of where she was.
     She was in Caphtor, in the cave, where the spirit of Kela dwelt. Across the sea were the other islands of the Aztlan empire—her
     home. She knew where she was. Sibylla rose and began to straighten the already neat room.
    Something unspeakable had happened, was happening, to her.
    She felt … lonely. It was an odd feeling, one Sibylla couldn’t recall having felt before. Images flashed in her mind, a man,
     not unlike the men she saw all around her, yet different. He glowed through her perception, and she saw things in him that
     were shielded from most eyes. Integrity, skill, honesty, wit, sensuality … they poured from him in tinted beams of light.
     She’d never seen him before, yet she knew him. Some part of her mind wept for him. This memory, this vision, was not her own.
    Was this a message from Kela?
    The voice within screamed in frustration, and Sibylla fought the urge to run, run all the way to Knossos if need be. This
     chamber with the wailing
skia
, her mind with the weeping unknown
psyche
, were too strange for her.
    She pulled a cloak around her shoulders and walked outside. The lamp flickered feebly behind her. White chalky dust clung
     to her skirts and feet. She breathed deeply of the night air,