2.4 [Selene]

Selene, Saint of Scarlet Hearts

Selene had met more than her fair share of prodigies in her time as the Raging Heaven Cult’s would-be Scarlet Oracle.

By the standards of most, she had known nothing but prodigious souls. Cultivators were exceptional existences, one and all, when compared to the common man. The greater mystery cults of the Free Mediterranean were institutions that only invited the brightest of stars into their ranks, and the Raging Heaven Cult was twice and twice again more selective than that. Sheltered – stifled – as her childhood had been, Selene had looked down upon more outstanding legends from the high vantage of her holy tripod than most aristocrats would meet in their entire lives.

Prodigies, one and all. At a certain point, the title lost its meaning. Everyone was a prodigy to someone, somewhere, in some way. Even the Raging Heaven Cult’s abject failures had stood at the pinnacle of their communities once upon a time. For every peak, there was a greater height to climb.

Or, as Bakkhos would put it, for every valley, there was a darker hole to find.

The late kyrios of the Raging Heaven Cult was perhaps the only man on the mountain who believed every man’s potential was equal – equally worthless. Once, when Selene had repeated one too many of the Tyrant Riot’s sentiments in her father’s presence, Old ‘Zalus had warned her that the kyrios was the only one to carry that torch because he was the only one it couldn’t burn. In the real world, her father had told her with dark regret, only the greatest prodigy of them all could afford such a cavalier ideation.

She hadn’t wanted to believe her father then. She still didn’t, even all these years later. Yet, while the smoky scent of burning Olympia still stained her silks, she couldn’t quite shake his sentiment. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw another broken corpse. And she wondered, though it helped her none and harmed her much, how many of those lives could have been spared if she had been a prodigy of the kyrios’ caliber.

By the standards of the Raging Heaven Cult, and even of her father, Selene was exceptional. It had taken her less than a decade of active refinement to reach the Heroic Realm, and she had done it at an outrageous age. Both her father and the kyrios had promised her that if she kept on as she was, she would reach the next peak before she turned thirty. Polyzalus had sworn that oath with pride, of course. From Bakkhos’ lips, though, it had sounded more like a curse.

Yet what did future power matter when the world was ending today? What did twice the reward for half the effort matter when she had been born five hundred years too late to make a difference? What good was a fleet foot when the competition straddled the finish line before the race began? What good was courage when cowards lived the longest lives?

What good was a prodigy, any prodigy, in a world like this?

“Griffon. Selene. To me,” spoke the son of Rome.

“Now?” With reluctance, Griffon tore his eyes away from the distant sliver of Alexandria. “You’re certain?”

“I am.”

Her senior in scarlet faith sighed dramatically, but stood from his work on the mermaid’s tail and snapped a finger at the men working the oars. At once, the hands of manifested pneuma that had been helping each of them row instead rose up and clamped themselves tight over each of the conscripts’ ears. The former pirate child, Lync, hissed and tried to bite the first hand that reached for him, so the second hand smacked him over the head. The two hands together wrapped him up in a ratty blanket and tossed him back up into the crow’s nest.

Griffon joined Solus at the bow of the ship. Selene cast an uneasy glance around, but the sailors didn’t seem discomforted, or even all that alarmed by the hands clamped over their ears. They each took it in stride. She supposed that after the things they had seen over the last few days, it would take more than this to shake them. One of the men noticed her staring and gave her a firm nod, glancing meaningfully at the ship’s bow. He didn’t speak, but his sentiment was clear enough. Don’t keep the captain waiting.

Since their time in the Orphic House, Solus’ steps had burdened the earth far more than his stature would imply. On the return trip from Thracia, he’d been forced to act as a counterweight against the virtuous beasts that had insisted on following their riders back across the sea. Over the last two days, weighing even more than before, the solemn son of Rome had been forced to plant himself like an eagle standard in the middle of the ship’s deck, lest he sink them all.

Something had changed the moment he swore the Eos’ crew into his service, however. As abruptly as that oppressive weight had burdened him, it was gone again. Or at least, its impact on the world around him.

Now, Solus sat at the foremost point of the ship on a bench of hand-carved bone. There were only enough wooden benches on the Eos to accommodate her men-at-oars, and the captain had flatly refused to commandeer any one of them despite the men’s insistence. In the end, they hadn’t stopped protesting until he reached into his own shadow and pulled from it the stark white bench. It was the awe that shut their mouths.

Griffon leaned against the ship’s maidenhead, his arms crossed and his eyes back on the distant horizon. Idly, his thumb picked at his middle fingernail, as though digging for something caught underneath.

There was space on Solus’ bone bench, so Selene sat beside him.

“Is it truly necessary to cut them out of this?” she asked. “It’s very rude.”

Griffon snorted. Solus, for his part, set aside his own small project – a handful of bone dice that he had meticulously carved out of mermaid bone using his celestial bronze spear. He turned storm-gray eyes on her. The full weight of his attention settled on her like a thick blanket.

It was another of the many changes Olympia’s fall had wrought. Solus’ focus had always been intense, especially for a junior sophist, but it was something else entirely now. Even when he wasn’t looking, he could see her. Not like a civic cultivator could perceive her, with their eyes clenched shut against the full force of her spirit. Not like a Sophic cultivator – like the Sophic cultivator he was – could, squinting stubbornly up at the sun and trying to resolve its shape, even as it blinded them.

At some point during their flight from the Raging Heaven Cult, Solus had opened his eyes fully and now looked upon the world and its people as a Hero did. It was likely a byproduct of his premature ignition. A Hero’s perception, achieved before its time. At least, that’s what Selene had first thought.

Over time, as the Eos drew closer to the southern reaches of the world, she had begun to wonder. The weight of his notice felt different than even the heroes she had met before. It was heavier, to be sure, but she also felt it deeper in her self. During their impromptu strength training, it felt as though he could see her muscles failing before she felt the strain.

There were even moments like these, fleeting and half-formed, when his eyes reminded her of Bakkhos.

“Yes,” the son of Rome said, snapping her from her musings. She looked away first. Her ears burned. “It is necessary. For your sake.”

“How so?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Selene chanced a glance back at him out of the corner of her eye and saw him considering the horizon just like Griffon. Unlike Griffon, however, there was no curiosity there. Where Griffon gazed upon the distant shore of the conquerors’ Pearl City with ravenous wanderlust, Solus regarded it with only grim determination.

“What will you do?” Solus asked. It took her a moment to realize the question was for her. Even then, she didn’t know what to say.

“We’ll be in Alexandria before midday,” he went on, eyes not leaving that distant pearl. “Of all the cities I’ve seen, none have ever surpassed Rome in her glory – but of them all, Alexandria is the only one that came close.”

Selene leaned in, unable to stifle her curiosity. Even Griffin glanced away from the distant shore to regard him with scarlet skepticism.

“It may not have the deepest roots, but the city is a flower in full bloom,” the Roman said, oddly sentimental. He’d been like this before, in Thracia, when they had stumbled upon one of the Conquerors’ abandoned outpost cities. “The Greeks call Olympia the beating heart of the Free Mediterranean, the nexus of enlightened thinking. Maybe that much is true.

“But Olympia was built for the children of Helen,” Solus said quietly. “For the rest of the world, there are two beacons that guide the hearts and minds of man. For the western world, there is Rome. And to the east, there is Alexandria. Neither one beholden to the sensibilities of Greeks. Both of them ascendant, while Olympia stagnates for generation after generation.”

“There are more opportunities in Alexandria than there are grains of sand and crashing waves. By this time tomorrow, I could charter you a ship or a mule to any place on this earth. If you want to return home, I will find you safe passage. If you want to walk the Silk Road, I will enlist a worthy guide. Whatever it is that you desire, know that I will see it done. Anything can be purchased in the Pearl.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Overwhelmed, Selene pointed out the first thing that came to mind.

“You have no money.”

Griffin reached into his shadow, splayed across the ship’s maidenhead, and upended a jar filled with coins onto the deck. The coins clattered and chimed, a cascade of gold, silver, and more mundane materials as well. Solus caught one such coin out of the air as it fell, turning the wood-carved drachma around in his hand. He gave Griffin an unimpressed look, but the scarlet son was observing a stone coin of his own with narrow eyes.

“Scythas gave me these.”

Solus grunted, storing the wooden coin in his own shadow and waving to the pile of mostly gold and silver.

“We have enough. If this doesn’t suffice, there are merchants of every kind in Alexandria. What we can’t purchase with gold and silver, we’ll buy with mermaid scales.”

Selene folded her hands in her lap, staring down at them in quiet contemplation. Truth be told, she had her own store of wealth tucked away in the same folded logic that she kept her spear. The how of it wasn’t a concern. Neither was the why.

“What do you want me to say, Solus?” she finally asked, her voice just on the wrong side of soft. For the first time in days, she missed her veil of gossamer gold.

It wasn’t the son of Rome that answered. Instead, Selene heard Griffin heave a disgusted sigh and step away from the stern. He sat heavily down beside her on the bone bench, forcing her to shift closer to Solus until they were all three pressed together, thigh-to-thigh and shoulder-to-shoulder.

“He wants you to say goodbye,” Griffin explained, leaning forward when the Roman went to swat him over the head. “He worries you’ll be marred by the same brush as us if you choose to match our stride. He wonders why you haven’t said a word about Olympia since we burned it to the ground. He suspects it’s because you secretly resent us. He hopes to leave you at the Conqueror’s Pearl City, to see you live a better life – or not see it, I suppose.”

Though Solus cast an ugly look over her head, the weight of his ire a burden on her own pneuma, he didn’t deny any of it. Selene considered the creases in her silks.

“And what about you, Griffin?”

“What about me?”

She dreaded every answer that came to mind, but she forced herself to ask the question anyway. She had waited too long as it was.

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“The truth.”