"Why?" Perion's voice is barely a whisper, and his hands are shaking. On a scale from one to 'kicked puppy', his expression is so far off the charts that it can only be described as total anguish. Ace has told him everything, including the prophecy.
"Why?" he says again, and his voice breaks. There is such pain in his blind gaze that it tears Ace's heart into a thousand pieces.
"I was trying to protect you," she says. It's a lame excuse.
"I don't need you to protect me!" he spits harshly. "How could you do this? I loved you!"
Ace chokes back a sob. "I wish I could love you, Perion. But the Fates won't let me!"
Perion's expression suddenly becomes determined. "To Hades with the Fates," he says. "You know what? It doesn't matter who you are, Ace. As much as I want to hate you for lying to me, I can't. What hurts the most is that I still love you. Stay! Forget Seraphim, forget the prophecy, and stay with me!"
"I can't—" begins Ace, but Perion puts a finger to her lips, using her voice to guide his hand. Then he grasps her face with both his hands and pulls her lips to his. Caught off-guard, she automatically responds, but as soon as she realises what is happening, she becomes as cold and unmoving as a rock. Perion feels her stiffen and pulls away.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asks worriedly.
"Not in the physical sense, no," replies Ace with a nervous laugh. "You're good. It's just…" she stops and blinks hard, trying to force back her tears.
"Just what?" Perion says, brushing his hand over her cheek.
"I don't love you," Ace cries. "I can't love you! I'm so sorry!"
"So you never really cared," snaps Perion, his face going hard. "All of this meant nothing to you. You lied about everything. You led me on. And now you're just going to leave me? How heartless are you?"
Ace feels the familiar numbness descending, cutting out all emotion as her tears stop in their tracks.
"I can't help it," she says in a monotone. "I don't feel anything for you."
"Then go!" he yells, agony in his tone. "Pack your things and leave!"
Ace knows that the amount of pain in his voice should move her, but she has shut down in the face of an overload, and still can't feel anything.
"I will," she breathes, rising numbly to her feet and disappearing inside the hut. Perion hears her close the door and drops his head into his hands.
The next morning, in hot pursuit of Alexia, Seraphim spurs his steed onwards. The chimera's call echoes off the treetops and rocks, an eerie, otherworldly sound.
Alexia slips and falls into the river, which soon sweeps her over the edge of a huge waterfall. Seraphim throws his bident and it disappears through the water into a hidden cave. Ah-hah! So that's where she's hiding. He breaches the fall, calling the spear back to his hand. Then he dismounts.
"Your reputation precedes you," he tells Alexia, "and I'm not easily impressed."
"Neither am I, which is why I've brought you here," she replies, and starts to glow. She sheds her disguise, and there before Seraphim is the goddess Hera, as she tells him when he asks her who she is.
"Kneel," she says.
A look of incredulity crosses his face.
"I said, kneel," Hera repeats, and when he doesn't, she forces him to his knees with her divine power. "That's better."
They argue slightly. Seraphim asks why Hera has brought him here. Then she shows him who he really is - the firstborn son of the king of Corinth. He discovers that his uncle Acrisius tried to kill him as a baby because he wanted the throne. And his mother? He finds out who she really is too. The news is jarring. After Hera is done talking to him, she leaves. Seraphim remains in the cave, shell-shocked at what he has done.
Unbeknownst to him, Ace has been watching all this time. She doesn't see what Hera shows him, but she sees his reaction, the traitorous tears that give away his true feeling before he can blink them back. Her frozen heart warms again, aching for him, for the pain in his eyes. She feels her legs carrying her forward without her permission, around the edge of the alcove in which she was hiding and towards Seraphim. She hears herself say his name softly, and he starts and looks up. Her eyes fill with tears again as she sees the raw emotion on his face.
"Oh, Seraphim," she says, her voice breaking as she drops to her knees beside him. "What did she tell you?"
He turns his head away and blinks his god eye furiously to force away his own tears. He doesn't want her to see him like this.
"Nothing of consequence," he answers her question, slightly shakily, but he hopes she won't notice.
"It's clearly not nothing," says Ace. She tentatively reaches out her hand and rests it on his shoulder. Surprisingly, to both Ace and Seraphim, he doesn't brush her off. "You know what?" she continues, emboldened. "The greatest strength lies in being able to admit when you are weak." She lets her hand trail down his arm, over sharp spikes and taut muscles, until it lies on top of his hand. For some reason, he still doesn't brush her off. Maybe it's because he wasn't expecting Ace to have this sort of a side to her.
"What did Hera say?" she asks again. This time, Seraphim looks her right in the eyes.
"She told me who my mother is," he says, not bothering to conceal the tremor in his voice. Ace turns his hand palm-up and laces her fingers with his. Seraphim stares down at her tiny hand in his huge grasp, slightly confused as to why she's being so kind to him.
"Who is your mother?" Ace asks gently. He feels pain, sadness, and rage all welling up inside him, and he turns his head away from her again, not wanting to cry outright in front of her.
He still answers her question though. "My mother… was the woman I killed not so long ago." He turns back to Ace, realising he doesn't really care what she thinks of his emotions, especially considering that she's the one holding his hand and staring into his eyes, pain reflected in her own expression. "I had no idea, I swear!" he adds.
"Oh, of course you didn't!" Ace cries. "By the gods."
Seraphim swallows hard, trying to stop himself from tearing up yet again. But when Ace suddenly gives a slightly strangled cry and throws her arms around him, he is taken by surprise. He hasn't felt something like this in so long, he's forgotten what to call the emotion.
"You shall face the creature dark," Ace murmurs against his shoulder, sounding as if she's quoting something. "And through your power, win his heart."
She gives a little chuckle.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Seraphim asks, struggling to keep his voice steady as he nervously returns the embrace. For all her talk of strength, Ace feels so fragile that he might break her if he squeezes just a little too hard.
She laughs again. "It's what the Oracle told me. I thought she meant my power of healing, but now I realise she must've meant empathy."
"You're an empath?" Seraphim asks, shocked. "And wait a minute, you received a prophecy telling you that you would win my heart? Is that why you've been following me all this time?"
Ace pulls back and looks at him, grinning sheepishly. "Yes, yes, and yes."
Seraphim lets out a pained laugh.
"Well, that explains it," he says. "And I guess…" He clears his throat and stops talking, suddenly shy and unsure of himself.
"You guess…?" Ace prompts him. "Come on, by now you should know that I would never judge you."
His heart gives a flip, and he mentally curses it. But still, here is someone, not one of his followers but someone normal - well, sort of normal - telling him she won't judge him.
"I guess…" he says, and then coughs self consciously before mumbling, "You've made a pretty good start."
Ace is about to ask 'on what?', but then she realises just what he's talking about. Her heart starts beating faster in her chest as she holds him tighter. "Oh, Seraphim! Have I?" Tears threaten to spill down her cheeks again, but this time they're tears of joy.
"Well, it's a start," he replies gruffly, pulling back. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have only really just met."
"Oh, sorry." Ace lets go, but when she pulls away, she sees that he is smiling, if a little apprehensively.
"This is new to you, isn't it?" she says, feeling his confusion. "You haven't felt like this before, or if you have, it was so long ago that you've forgotten. Seraphim?"
"Yes, Ace?" he answers.
"This is how it feels," she says, gazing into his eyes, "when someone cares about you."
She is tempted to add 'when someone loves you', but she knows it's too soon for him to hear something like that. Even though, oh gods does she love him. She feels his pain, and she loves him. She wants to protect him and take care of him, but she knows full well that he would never let her. He's strong-willed, just like her.
"Do you accept me to be your equal?" she asks hopefully, remembering her oath on the Styx. Seraphim laughs, but this time, unlike the very first, it's a warmer laugh.
"Keep trying," he says. "I'm sure you'll get there. You're just not quite there yet."