I was so excited for a Roman prequel series and it didn't happen and we're getting Trials of Apollo instead and this is me just trying to work through my frustration.
The Roman prequel series (Reyna-centric) that I desperately wanted but Rick Riordan is not giving me. This starts in the middle of The Sea of Monsters, kind of, and will basically follow the Roman's side of the Titan War. I might expand it to Heroes of Olympus, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself here.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
Chapter One
Reyna threaded her hands through the other girl's thick black hair. In the little over two years since she and her sister Hylla had arrived at C.C.'s Spa and Resort, she had grown very skillful in the beautification of other girls who came. The front was a spa, but C.C. instructed them to try to persuade the girls to stay and learn from her. Reyna had learned much more than how to apply makeup and do brilliant hairdos. She had learned to unlock her potential to do magic.
Kathy, the girl, hummed in pleasure as Reyna massaged her head, lathering it with shampoos. Reyna liked it at C.C.'s Spa and Resort. After a year of running, Hylla and Reyna had found a home with a strong, intelligent woman. C.C. had promised to teach them everything she knew.
"Is the water too cold?" Reyna asked the girl, who had introduced herself as Kathy.
"No," said Kathy. Her eyes were closed. Reyna went back to work.
Kathy would be the last girl she would give a makeover today. Reyna would have her lunchbreak with Hylla after this, and then her biweekly magic lesson with C.C.
Reyna never knew whether she should talk to the customers. Some customers responded kindly, but some seemed annoyed. Reyna didn't know what kind of customer Kathy was, so she stayed quiet. She wouldn't talk more than she needed to: "Tilt your head down, look this way, close your eyes." Kathy followed her instructions without a word. Reyna did her hair and makeup, stepped back, and smiled.
She handed Kathy a mirror. Kathy smiled at her reflection, moving her head so that she could see it from every angle.
"It's great," Kathy said. "I look gorgeous."
"You were gorgeous when you came in," said Reyna.
Kathy grinned at her, gave her an enormous tip, and was led away by another spa attendant. Reyna packed up her things and brought out her book. Hylla's shift wouldn't be over for half an hour, but Hylla always picked her up so that they could walk to the cafeteria together.
Hylla was five minutes late but Reyna, who'd been reading, barely noticed her tardiness. Hylla, like Reyna herself, was still in her beautician's outfit, looking crisp in her white shirt and pants. She was also very beautiful. Hylla had a scar on her cheek from one of Papi's beatings, and Reyna hated to remember it. She pushed it out of her mind.
"Ready for lunch?" asked Hylla. She was always energetic and bright. Reyna tried to match her.
"I wonder what's for lunch today," said Reyna, jumping up from her seat and closing her book.
"Something with avocados, for sure," Hylla said, and Reyna laughed.
She loved avocados, and they were healthy, but the resort never served them in the way that Reyna preferred. She wanted to eat arroz con habichuelas y aguacate, but the spa's cafeteria usually served avocados as a topping in salads or in sandwiches. Reyna hadn't had a proper Puerto Rican meal in years. It was one of the only things she missed about life before.
"Can we get smoothies?" Reyna asked. It wasn't something they drank often, despite the smoothies being held as a super healthy, super delicious super-drink. "I got a huge tip today."
Hylla considered. "I don't see why not, if you're paying."
Reyna shoved her sister playfully. They went inside the cafeteria, which was bustling both with spa-goers and staff members. She and her sister each grabbed a tray and ordered their food and smoothies. They got discounts due to being employees, but it wasn't free. Reyna paid with her tips from that day.
Hylla took a bite of her incredibly healthy sandwich and washed it down with her smoothie. "What kind of spells have you been working on lately?"
"I think it's like charm-speak. Suggestion," Reyna said. It was C.C.'s specialty. Reyna wasn't very good at it. She was better with more aggressive spells, ones like thrusting enemies backwards. Fighting magic. Even shape-shifting spells she could do, but charms that influenced another person's will –it was very difficult.
Hylla nodded. "Sounds like what we've been doing."
"Are you any good at it? I'm terrible," Reyna said with a laugh.
Hylla shrugged. "I'm not the best. But it's useful to know, I suppose."
Reyna nodded and took a sip of her smoothie. Mango. Delicious. "I'm not really looking forward to today's lesson."
"Why not? C.C. is very patient," said Hylla. "Isn't she with you?"
"She is, but I feel like I disappoint her so much. I don't like that feeling," Reyna confessed. "It's like she has such high expectations of me."
"You've only just turned thirteen a month ago, Reyna," Hylla said with a click of her tongue. "You shouldn't feel that way. You're fine. You'll learn."
Reyna wasn't completely convinced, but she was glad for her sister's support. It made that afternoon's lesson much easier.
"Try it again," C.C. told her when Reyna had tried to seem as convincing as possible.
Reyna suppressed a sigh. Magic was exhausting work, and she had given it her all that last time. She took a deep breath and focused. There was a burning in her throat, not unlike the alcohol that Papi had given Reyna and her sister sometimes for New Year's celebrations. There was a heat in her fingertips, too.
She raised the mirror and suggested to C.C. that she had a huge pimple on her forehead. It was the hardest thing to do because C.C. was quite possibly the most beautiful woman Reyna had ever seen.
"Why don't we try something else," said C.C. now. She was patient, but Reyna felt the stab that came with C.C.'s disappointment all the same. She couldn't get it right. Why couldn't she get it right?
Reyna lowered the mirror and nodded, a lump in her throat. She spoke around it anyway. "What do you want me to try?"
"Try to suggest to me that you are the beautiful one," C.C. said. "The most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Let me see that."
Reyna closed her eyes and tried to envision herself. She looked the same; her dark brown hair in a tight French braid, smooth tan skin, that freckle on the top of her cheek. Even the scar that cut through her left eyebrow. She imagined it, but everything about her, even the flaws, were beautiful.
It was much harder than telling C.C. that she had a pimple on her nose.
"Open your eyes, dear," C.C. said
She followed her instructions.
"Did I do it?" Reyna asked, shifting nervously.
C.C. didn't give anything away as she shook her head. She took the mirror from Reyna's hands gently. "But I wanted you to open your eyes. I feel as though it might help you more than keeping your eyes closed. Now look."
Normal mirrors did not lie, but C.C.'s mirror could show anything she wanted it to. She held it so that Reyna was staring at her reflection face to face.
"Tell the mirror that you are beautiful," C.C. said.
Reyna looked at the mirror and felt anger at the pit of her stomach. Her hands started tingling again. I am beautiful, she thought, again and again, with rising fury. Magic came pouring out of her. I am beautiful. I AM BEAUTIFUL!
The image in the mirror did not ripple. It remained the same. Yet when she looked at C.C.'s face, her mentor's eyes had glazed. The fact that Reyna had actually managed to succeed shocked her enough to drop the glamour, and C.C.'s gaze returned to normal.
"That was very good," said C.C., almost in a purr. "Can you do it again? And hold it this time."
"I'll try," Reyna said, unsure if she would be able to do it.
She felt the magic in her again, and she told the mirror, told C.C., that she was beautiful. C.C.'s gaze glazed over again, but she kept it up. C.C. was not completely under Reyna's influence, though, because she was a much more powerful sorceress than Reyna. She was able to fight off some, but to teach Reyna, she was choosing not to.
Dreamily, C.C. spoke. "Don't break the spell. Tell me something else, Reyna."
Reyna didn't know else to suggest to C.C. I am beautiful. Listen to me, was all she could think to say, was all she could think to suggest. Wasn't it enough that she could hold up the glamour for this long? She hadn't been nearly as good at this in their previous lesson.
"Tell… tell me… to do something," C.C. said, but her voice sounded strained. As though she were trying to keep afloat in deep waters.
Reyna was surprised. Was she genuinely trying to fight off Reyna's magic now? But she continued, gathering up her magic and using more of it at once than she ever had before.
Your guinea pigs, she told C.C. Take one out of the cage.
"Yes," C.C. breathed, walking over to the cage and taking one of them out. Her hands stroked the little rodent gently.
Reyna let the glamour fall away, exhausted.
C.C. broke out of her trance and grinned at her. "Do you realize, Reyna, that you have just charm-spoken?"
Reyna blinked. It had never occurred to her. She didn't know if she liked it.
"You have made me believe things! You have made me do things!" C.C. seemed incredibly excited. "How far your magic has come in these two years!"
"Thank you," was the only thing Reyna could think to say.
C.C. dropped the guinea pig back into the cage and came over. She took Reyna's hands in her own and squeezed them. "It is just as I told you the day you and your sister came. You two have the makings of powerful sorceresses. Stories about you will be passed down for generations."
"But how will they if no one knows me? If I stay working in your spa and resort?" Reyna asked. "If I don't allow any stories to be passed down?"
"In time," C.C. promised. "First you must master magic. Then you may leave as you please."
Reyna smiled. C.C. gave her hands a final squeeze and let go, dismissing her for the day. Which was good, because Reyna wanted nothing more than to fall into her bed in the hotel room she shared with her sister.
It was exactly what she did.
Reviews are always welcome! :D