He saw immediately that she understood. “You think it will collect you again. You think you will be taken back with your company again. It’s not just the Pythia’s judgment that concerns you.”
Alexander took a breath and said his fear aloud. “I fear the price of my transgression will be losing you all over again.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “I don’t know how to endure it.”
To Alexander’s surprise, Katina framed his face in her hands and smiled at him. Her eyes shone brightly, as if she might cry, but still she smiled. “Then let’s make every moment count, Alexander. I’ve waited eight years to feel your body against mine again, and once was never enough for either of us.” She brushed her lips across his and her voice turned husky. “Love me, Alexander,” she urged. “Love me as if we could be parted at any time. Love me with a vigor that will give both of us something to remember.”
Alexander couldn’t argue with that.
* * *
They came to Delphi three days later, Katina’s love for her husband bolstered by three nights of thorough loving. Katina walked beside Alexander, her hand clasped in his. She felt closer to him than ever and more in love than she could have imagined. They whispered to each other at night, exchanging secrets and confessions, learning more about each other and their powers. He’d told her stories of all he’d seen and she’d told him of all the gossip from the village. They explored ideas of what they might achieve, as well as exploring the pleasure they could give each other. Katina didn’t want this interval to end.
But all the same, she wanted to know Alexander’s fate.
She could feel his strength returning and his body healing, but worried about the spot on his chest that was missing a scale. Even in human form, it was red and angry-looking. Worse, it didn’t seem to heal. She didn’t like the possibility that he was uncertain about the yellow dragon, either.
And she wasn’t looking forward to the Pythia’s pronouncement. That one woman could hold their entire future in her hands seemed unfair, but Katina knew Alexander would do whatever the Pythia demanded of him.
She dreaded the reappearance of the darkfire, too.
Theo had awakened on the second day and walked a bit more each day. He was still weak, but made steady improvement.
They reached Delphi late in the evening and should have waited until the next morning to visit the shrine. Katina couldn’t imagine how she would sleep, knowing that judgment was so close.
“Let’s go now,” Alexander said. “In case we aren’t too late.”
As soon as he made the suggestion, Katina was in full agreement. They immediately began the ascent to the shrine, Lysander walking ahead of them and Alexander carrying Theo.
Katina glanced up the hill at the white columns on the sanctuary of Apollo’s shrine and felt Alexander’s grip tighten on her hand.
They climbed to the shrine of Athena Pronaia at Marmaria first, giving honor to the goddess even as they marveled at the beauty and ancient power of the place. High above them towered the twin peaks of Mount Parnassus. The land spilled below them, dropping steeply to the Gulf of Corinth. It felt, on this journey just as on the last one, to be a place outside of time, a place where gods might walk alongside one.
Or maybe where two beings with unusual powers might find a way to make a future. Katina stood with Alexander in the round Tholos temple, with its three circles of columns and looked over the site with awe. She felt serenity well within her, a confidence that all would come right and that the gods would hold her and Alexander in the palms of their hands. There must be a reason for them to have their abilities and to be together. There must be a way they could aid the future.
She remembered the Pythia’s prophecy and wondered how Lysander might save the earth.
“My pottery,” she said, stopping for a second in her surprise that they’d missed the obvious.
Of course, she hadn’t known his secret then.
“Your fire and earth, like the prophecy,” Alexander said.
“But what if that’s not it?” Katina said, her excitement rising. “What if there’s a reason I was never any good at it?” She tightened her grip on his hand. “What if you’re the fire I need?”
Alexander looked at her for a long moment. “In the future, the Pyr are each said to have an affinity with two elements. Each mate has an affinity to the two elements her Pyr lacks.”
“So, together, they create a united whole!” Katina said with delight. “I’m water. You’re fire.”
“One of us must have earth and the other, air.” He squeezed her fingers as they walked more quickly. “The future Pyr associate air with ideas and dreams and prophecies. That’s you.”
“And what about earth?”
“They associate it with practicality and reliability.”
Katina laughed. “That would be you.”
They continued in thoughtful silence to the Kastalian spring and Katina wondered if she were the only one feeling a tentative hope for the future. “We wash ourselves here,” she told the boys. “To purify our bodies before we enter the temple.”
“Isn’t Kastalia a naiad?” Alexander asked quietly and Katina nodded. “Maybe she’s the forebear of your kind.”
Katina didn’t know. It was difficult to learn much about her powers, since revealing her nature usually meant being ostracized by others and she’d been rejected at the shrine.
But when she reached for the water of the spring, it surged toward her like a tide. The water splashed high, sprinkling her, as if greeting her home.
“Did you do that?” Lysander asked, but Katina could only shake her head.
“The water recognized you,” Alexander murmured and Katina thought he was probably right, even though nothing like that had ever happened to her before.
She reached into the water as if to embrace it and was startled to see a dozen women’s faces in the water. They smiled at her, their hair streaming back over their shoulders and their voices as light as a rippling stream. “Welcome, sister,” they said, and Katina realized that her companions hadn’t heard them.
Welcome, sister.
When she raised handfuls of water to her face, the water caressed her skin like a thousand kisses.
Could her home be at Delphi?
They passed through the gate to the Sacred Way and climbed the steep road past the treasuries. Alexander pointed out the monuments from Sparta to the boys. The sun was setting, painting the entire scene in orange and gold when they climbed the last increment to the temple itself.
A sacrifice had been made on behalf of all supplicants earlier that day, so they only had to pay the pelanos. “The Pythia should have stopped already,” complained the attendant. “But today, she insisted upon remaining. She said she’s waiting. I’m not sure for whom.”
Alexander and Katina exchanged a look that was filled with hope.
They all held hands as they proceeded into the temple’s interior, which was filled with shadows. The boys walked between Katina and Alexander. Katina could see the silhouette of the laurel tree that grew in the central sanctuary, its branches stretching as high as the tallest columns. She smelled the fumes that rose from the cleft in the earth and heard the Pythia murmuring to herself. She saw the glow of the sacred fire on the hearth of the temple, the fire that was used to light the hearth fires throughout Greece. She smelled the laurel leaves that had been burned on the altar, along with barley.
It was hazy and dark within the temple, a place beyond time and as distant from her own world as Katina could imagine. She remembered so clearly the first time she had entered this place, how she had walked through this same entry with her parents, how she had seen the young men pledged to Apollo’s service standing at the perimeter, how the sparks had danced between her and Alexander. It had seemed then to have leapt from the altar of the temple.
Alexander held tightly to her hand as they proceeded, and she saw a line of other young men standing silently in the shadows around the perimeter of th
e space.
Were they all Pyr, as well?
One attendant gestured that they should continue to the small space where supplicants waited, out of sight of the Pythia, for her pronouncement, but the old woman cried out.
“Fire and water, come to me!
This is a union I must see.”
Alexander and Katina stepped toward the oracle, leaving the boys to wait. The air in the core of the temple was even more hazy and the smell of the fumes was strong. It seemed dangerous and unpredictable, on the verge of chaos beyond their understanding. Katina saw that blue light begin to glow around Alexander, the glow that indicated he was on the cusp of change. He was watchful and intent, prepared to defend her against any threat.
They fell to their knees together before the enthroned Pythia and bowed their heads, Katina’s gaze drawn to the long cleft in the earth that divided the temple, the one that emitted the strange vapors. That crevasse worried her, although she couldn’t say why. It hadn’t troubled her when she’d been here before.
Then the Pythia spoke and she listened with care.
“Evil must face its just defeat,
By Pyr trained to soldiers elite.
Apollo makes this task your price,
A life of service will suffice.
You, naiad-spawn, lost and found,
Have gifts beyond any count.
Here you will learn skills still unknown;
Here you will bear sons more of your own;
Here you and Pyr will live as one;
Here you will lay future’s cornerstone.”
Katina gasped with delight. Alexander would be staying in Delphi, and she would remain with him. She knew he would love training the young Pyr as his service, and that he would excel at it. They exchanged a glance and his hand tightened over hers.
The Pythia descended from her tripod then, and came toward Alexander and Katina. She was old, her face lined and her cheeks sunken. She stood straight, though, and walked to them without assistance. Her chiton was made of yellow silk, as was her tunic, and both were embellished with rich purple embroidery. Her feet were bare, and when she paused before them, she put out her hand, palm up.
Alexander and Katina looked at her in confusion.
“I will heal you, Pyr,” she said quietly. “But you must assist me.”
“The scale!” Katina said and the Pythia smiled. Lysander had been listening because he hurried forward. He pulled all the broken pieces of Alexander’s lost scale from his pouch, then fell to his knees and offered them to the Pythia in both hands.
“Become what you are,” the Pythia commanded Alexander. The blue shimmer became brighter and he changed shape in a flash of light. Katina thrilled to find the deep purple dragon beside her, his head bowed before the Pythia and his claw beneath her hand.
The Pythia smiled and turned to survey the eight young men who stood as attendants in the shrine. The youngest was a few years older than Lysander, the oldest no more than seventeen. There was a brilliant shimmer of blue light, as they all changed to their dragon form. They reared up tall in the temple, moving with that same slow majesty as Alexander did. Lysander stared between them all in obvious amazement.
The Pythia beckoned to Theo, then kissed his cheeks in turn. “Be healed, young one,” she murmured as she reached to brush her fingertips across his chest.
“He’s mine!” came a shout loud enough to shake the temple.
Katina scanned the sanctuary for the source of the cry. She realized that all of the young Pyr seemed to have been struck to stone, and the Pythia was frozen, with one hand upraised. What was happening?
Alexander was scanning the sanctuary, a sign that he knew what to expect. “Slayers can move through space and time,” he murmured quietly, and she searched for some hint of the yellow dragon.
A flicker of movement drew her gaze to a yellow salamander on the lip of the crevasse. It leapt toward Theo with remarkable power for its size. Alexander roared and breathed dragonfire at the small lizard.
“The Slayer!” Lysander cried in the same moment, and Katina guessed he had identified the creature’s scent. “Stop him, Papa!”
Alexander’s dragonfire was vivid orange, hot and fierce, but the salamander jumped through it unscathed. Katina was frightened to see that this Slayer could also survive dragonfire. The yellow salamander landed on Theo’s shoulder and bared his teeth to bite the boy’s neck.
“No!” cried Katina and Lysander together.
Alexander slashed at the salamander and a spark of blue-green light leapt from his talon to the salamander. Alexander looked as astonished as the Slayer, and Katina recalled his statement that darkfire was an unpredictable force.
The Slayer cried out as he was struck by the spark, then illuminated as if he’d been hit by lightning. Katina saw the creature silhouetted in the blue-green light of the darkfire, his legs splayed, then the light flashed brighter and he vanished completely.
“How did you command the darkfire?” she demanded, but Alexander only shook his head.
“I did not. It came to our aid.” Alexander continued to survey sanctuary for some new threat and Lysander was sniffing diligently. Katina had a strange certainty that the Slayer was gone.
Forever.
“Is he here, Papa?”
“I don’t think so.”
No sooner had the light of the darkfire faded than a single spark leapt from the fire on the altar. It divided in the air as Katina watched, then struck both her and Alexander simultaneously in the chest. She saw the light of the firestorm leap between them once more, then felt its heat slip through her body. It had a blue-green shimmer for a moment, then faded to the familiar orange glow of their first meeting.
“Darkfire rekindles the firestorm,” Alexander whispered. “Against all odds.”
Darkfire was giving them the gift of a second chance. That was when Katina knew that the Slayer was truly gone.
It was also when she realized the darkfire was on their side.
The young Pyr along the walls shook themselves, as if waking from dreams, and looked around in confusion. Katina had the sense that the Slayer’s attack had been a moment stolen out of time.
Theo shuddered beside her and might have collapsed to the ground, but Katina caught him in her arms. The Pythia stepped forward and touched the burn mark on Theo’s chest, as if her gesture had never been halted. “Be healed, young one,” she said again and his color improved with her touch. When Katina helped Theo to his feet, he stood straighter and his gaze was clearer.
That was when Katina saw the black dragon mark on his upper arm, exactly the same as the one Alexander had gotten in his travels. At her gasp, Lysander pushed back his tunic and grinned at the similar mark on his own arm. There was a little shimmer of blue-green that shot around the perimeter of the mark, but when Katina blinked it was gone as surely as if she’d imagined it.
“Know thyself,” the Pythia murmured with satisfaction.
The Pythia then took the pieces of the scale from Lysander. “Your kind are vulnerable only to love,” she told him. “And the loss of a scale indicates a heart is lost. Your father loves a woman more than life itself, and there should be no weakness in that.”
Katina felt her cheeks heat with pleasure.
The Pythia cast the pieces of scale into the fire on the altar and the boys gasped in unison. The flame on the sacred hearth burned high with sudden vigor, the orange light reflecting off the scales of the dragons who watched.
When the flames died down again, the Pythia reached into the fire and removed the scale with her bare fingers. “The Pyr protect mankind,” she told Lysander. “And so this scale will not burn my mortal fingers.” She reached out, placing her other hand on the gap in Alexander’s armor. “All four elements must be present to heal a scale.” She looked at Katina. “Water, sister.”
Katina summoned the power of the element within her. She was aware of Alexander’s admiring gaze as she let her body change into a rippling casc
ade of water. The Pythia passed Alexander’s scale through the stream and it hissed slightly as it cooled.
She offered it to Alexander even as Katina took her human form again. “Fire,” she said, and he breathed fire on the scale, controlling the plume of flame so that it didn’t touch the Pythia’s fingers. She smiled at this, then held the scale toward Katina again. “Air,” she commanded, and Katina blew on the scale.
“And earth,” the Pythia concluded, scattering a handful of dust from the floor of the temple over the scale. She then pressed the scale firmly to the gap on Alexander’s chest where it belonged. He bared his teeth and tipped back his head, and Katina knew it hurt.
“A gift from you,” the Pythia demanded, extending a hand to Katina. “A gem to make the scale adhere.”
Katina impulsively pulled off the gold ring Alexander had given her years before, the one she’d never removed, and pressed it against the scale. The carnelian set in the gold shimmered for a second, winking like a small dragon eye. Katina felt the scale soften and the ring melted into it with a shimmer. Then it was just a stone, just a ring, just a circle of gold embedded in the deep amethyst scale on Alexander’s chest.
The Pythia stepped back and flung out her hands. “All hail, your new commander!” she cried and Katina heard a rumble like thunder.
“Old-speak!” Lysander said with wonder, turning to look at the young Pyr around him. Katina realized they were hailing Alexander, as commanded.
Alexander stretched his wings wide, displaying the perfection of his repaired chest, then shifted shape quickly. The other Pyr in the temple changed shape in the same moment, becoming strong young men who stood at attention once more. The temple looked as it had when they’d entered, except for the golden light of the firestorm.
Alexander caught Katina’s hand in his and the light flared between them. She felt the heat of the firestorm slide through her body, making her keenly aware of Alexander standing strong and tall beside her. It was more subdued than it had been before, but the radiant glow between them couldn’t be disguised in the comparative darkness of the temple. Her future was with Alexander, here in Delphi, ensuring that the Pyr were prepared for the challenge of their future.