The young woman stands before the demonic creature, one hand on her hip as a cocky smile plays over her countenance.
"Seraphim, I presume?" she says arrogantly.
He smiles coldly back at her. "What's it to you, girl?"
With a slight chuckle, she spreads her hands. "They call me Ace," she replies, stepping a little closer to him. His smile widens at this bold move.
"Why Ace?" he asks her, taking a step forward himself that would bring them nose-to-nose but for the foot and a half height difference between them.
Ace lifts her eyes to his and defiantly stares him down. "Because I'm the best."
Seraphim breaks into laughter, but it's a harsh sound. He roughly pushes her away, expecting her to fall. He is sorely disappointed when she manages to stay upright, only stumbling a few paces back. She draws herself up as tall as she can and glares at him with fire in her eyes.
"Push me around all you want," she says steadily, "but I swear by the Styx, I will someday prove to you that I am your equal."
Thunder rumbles in the distance, recognising her vow. It is unbreakable.
"That oath will be your downfall," says Seraphim. "However, you may join me if you choose to convert."
Ace once again takes a casually confident stance.
"Oh, I'm plenty strong without needing to convert," she replies snarkily. "The question is, can you accept having a mere mortal match you in strength? And a woman, at that."
"Just don't get in my way," he snarls, "or I swear, I will kill you!"
But it is not an oath on the Styx, and Ace only smirks as she saunters away.
That same day, Seraphim attacks a town in search of his map of the Labyrinth, and the woman who stole it, Amazonian warrior Alexia. Information is not forthcoming from the leader of the polis, but from a different source entirely.
"It seems I will not be needing your help after all," he tells the nobleman, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief. But then he slices the man in half. The terrified villagers scatter, screaming.
The sound of slow clapping alerts him to the presence just beyond the rocks, and they are moving closer. He turns to look and his suspicions are confirmed. Ace. A scowl crosses his features.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, somewhat petulantly.
"Following you," she replies, her tone aggravatingly nonchalant. "And not getting in your way, just like you so nicely asked." She smiles sweetly, expertly covering her sarcasm and somehow enhancing it at the same time. "I like your ruthlessness, by the way. Kinda hot if you ask me."
"I didn't ask you," Seraphim growls. "Go to Hades."
"Oh my," says Ace in mock horror. "Language!"
In a fit of annoyance, Seraphim throws his bident at her. She somersaults out of the way, but it manages to nick her right forearm.
"Hey!" she complains, dodging the weapon again as Seraphim recalls it to his grasp. "Not fair!"
"Life isn't fair," he states dryly. "Are you done bothering me now?"
"You're the one who threw the spear at me," Ace retorts, raising her arm to her mouth. To Seraphim's shock, she quite literally starts licking her wound.
"You provoked me," he says, staring. "Now, what in the world are you doing?"
"Healing myself," Ace replies, her words slightly muffled because she's got her tongue out. When she's done, she shows him her arm. The cut has vanished. "The power is in my saliva," she adds, grinning. "Crazy, right?"
Seraphim raises an eyebrow. "If you wanted to heal someone else," he says cautiously, "would you have to lick them?" His face is a mask of disgust.
"Oh, gods, no," Ace laughs. "It's my saliva, not my tongue. For some reason, it has healing properties. I could just spit on my hand and rub it on the wound, like I'd do for someone else, but…" she trails off, blushing in embarrassment at whatever she was about to say.
"But…" Seraphim prompts.
"I like the taste of my blood," Ace manages to say, her face bright crimson.
"Vampiric freak," Seraphim mutters.
"Look who's talking," she giggles. "Well, it was nice catching up with you, but I have an errand to run. See you later!"
And she strolls off, whistling. Seraphim is tempted to chuck the spear after her, but something stays his hand. He doesn't know why, but he finds this girl intriguing, albeit extremely annoying.
Ace trudges through the marketplace of a nearby village. She stops at a stall and pays two drachmas for a loaf of bread and a bag of flour.
"Stupid Pythia," she curses the oracle priestess of Delphi. "Couldn't she have at least given me a hint as to how hard it would be?"
She stops at another stall to buy an amphora of olive oil, then moves on. Carrying her goods, she makes her way up the slope of the mountain on which she lives for the time being. As her feet tread the upward path, she thinks of the prophecy that the oracle gave her.
You shall face the creature dark
And through your power, win his heart
Your strength and his shall earn you fame
But beware of those who would place blame
A demigod shall bar your way
But from the path you must not stray
Stay your course to outwit death
And bring back the one who has drawn his last breath
Sighing, she opens the door to the young hermit's hut. He hears her and turns to face the door, wearing a worried expression. He blinks milky, sightless eyes as if to clear them, but Ace knows full well that he cannot.
"Calliste?" he asks.
"Yes," says Ace, "it's me."
Recognising her voice, he breaks into a wide grin and rises from the chair.
"Welcome back," he says jovially. "I was starting to think you wouldn't return. But you're here! You have a heart of gold, not leaving this old, blind man all alone."
Ace chuckles at his jest. "You're not old, Perion."
Perion sighs. "Oh, Calliste. I might as well be. No one would want me, and no one does. I am blind, and an outcast. I lost my sight because I offended the gods. Now everyone else is afraid they will be struck down if they accept me. Guilty by association and all that."
His mood is bitter, and Ace is tempted to try and cheer him up, but she knows she cannot. What would she say? "At least you have me"?
But he doesn't. He has the woman he knows as Calliste. He doesn't know Ace as she really is. He doesn't know she's been lying to him about why she's here, where she's come from, basically everything. It's to protect him, of course, but she knows he wouldn't see it that way. She doesn't want to hurt him any more than is necessary.
Ignorance is bliss, she thinks as she takes the bread and oil and sets them on the table.
"Come on, let's eat," she says, taking his hand and leading him to his seat at the table. As he sits, he clasps her hand in both of his.
"What would I do without you, darling Calliste?" he says, giving her a smile that would melt any heart. Any but hers. Ace can tell that Perion is handsome, but she is unaffected. She has eyes for only one, and it is not him.
"You would do fine," Ace says, absentmindedly dipping a crust of the bread into a dish of olive oil. "You know this place like the back of your hand. You have everything memorised, and you can guide yourself using sound."
"But I would be lonely," argues Perion, and sighs again. "You are the only one who has cared about me in almost three years."
Ace winces, thinking again about her deception. Then she smiles wryly as Perion reaches for the bread and ends up with his hand in the oil instead.
"Allow me," she says around a mouthful. Perion withdraws his hand and licks it clean, then waits for Ace to tear off a piece of bread and hand it to him.
"At least I know where the olive oil is now," he jokes, dipping the bread in the dish before chewing thoughtfully on it. His expression becomes sombre once more.
"What is it now?" asks Ace, slightly mystified by his mood swings.
"You won't leave, will you?" he says suddenly, clutching at her hand as she passes him another piece of bread. She stiffens; he feels her muscles tense.
"Calliste?"
"I don't know," she murmurs, feeling her heart already starting to break. Her eyes sting and she blinks back tears, wondering why she feels this way. She doesn't love Perion. But, she realises, he is falling for her, and she doesn't want to hurt him.
"You don't know? What sort of answer is that?" His tone is incredulous.
"I'm sorry," Ace blurts, pulling her hand out of his grasp and rising from the table. Only when she is outside, staring up at the stars, does she let the tears fall. She cries silently, sliding down the wall to sit against it on the ground, her arms wrapped around herself. Two months she has been here, having followed the demon leader's trail and then bided her time, waiting for the right moment to make her entrance. That moment had been this morning. But she had gotten a much frostier reception than expected.
And now she feels she has made a mess of things.
"Why?" she breathes softly. "Why must it be Seraphim? Why can't I love Perion?"
It is a dilemma. She wants to love Perion. She wants to want to love him. But according to the Oracle, her heart is destined to be Seraphim's - granted she has interpreted the prophecy correctly.
"Calliste?" Perion is at the door, and his voice is slightly shaky. Ace looks up through a mist of tears.
"I'm here," she replies, and her own voice cracks. He makes his way towards the sound of her voice, moving cautiously, but as soon as he reaches her, he wraps his arms around her.
"I thought you had left me," he says quietly, his face in her hair. Ace doesn't say anything for a while, just leans into his embrace. Then she takes a deep breath.
"There's something I have to tell you."
Seraphim curses as he hurls his spear into a tree and cleaves it in half. He can't get that damn girl out of his head. Her confidence and arrogance frustrate him and captivate him, in equal measure. Her audacity to make an unbreakable oath on the Styx that she will prove herself to be his equal - it confounds him, and so does her power. How in the world can someone's saliva be able to miraculously heal wounds? He knows of some animals whose spit can help heal, but never a human.
Is she fully human? he thinks. Could she be some sort of hybrid… or a goddess or other powerful being in disguise?
And her claim to be equal in strength to him… could she be bluffing, Seraphim wonders? If she's bluffing, she wouldn't swear by the Styx. That leaves only two options.
"One," Seraphim says aloud, "it's not true, but Ace herself believes it. That means she's either crazy, or a supreme narcissist, or both. Two…" he trails off, turning his bident over and over in his hand, slightly afraid that if he says the second option aloud, it will do something bad. Then he scoffs at himself. 'Something bad'? He is behaving like a child.
"Two," he continues, although still with some trepidation, "she's telling the truth, and she is as strong as me."
There, he's said it. He shudders a little. This Ace girl - if her strength matches his, what does it mean for him? For some unexplainable reason, the thought of it makes his heart pick up its pace. But not much - or at least, that's what he tries to convince himself.