Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of Kings, nor of any characters, locations, and elephants contained within. All rights of the Queen's Thief series belong exclusively to Megan Whalen Turner and her respective publishers.
Spoilers: This story contains spoilers for books 1-3.
Rating: PG/K+ - For some very minor swearing.
Genre: Angst/General
Word Count: 1,500 (approximate) - Excluding author's notes.
Summary: Incarcerated in an Attolian dungeon, will Eugenides choose death or life?
Setting: Roughly chapter 3 of The Queen of Attolia.
Author's Note: This fic is dedicated to my lovely beta tearoha. Your assistance is always appreciated and always very much needed.
Enjoy!
Thoughts of Hephestia
Written by: ninedaysaqueen
Edited by: tearoha & thelasteddis
Light.
Yes, it was light he saw. Not the dull, orange glow of the torches in the hall, but a bright, concentrated light. The kind that came from an oil lamp. His eyes burned with pain.
I must have an infection.
He was amazed that his mind was clear enough for thought, but he was in that peculiar state. Akin to shock, his grandfather had called it the mind-split. One side of himself was still screaming in agony, while the other was more rational. Able to think clearly, notice details, and sift one pain from the other.
That light was really starting to bother him. He tried to open his eyes, but that only made the stinging worse. He thought to lift his right hand to block the beam, but then he remembered he didn't have one. Moisture formed in his eyes as that crushing sense of grief returned, along with images of the queen of Attolia watching them cut off his hand.
I wonder if I'm always going to equate the color green with feelings of terror. And it's supposed to be such a soothing color too.
He wanted to chuckle at his own thoughts, but he moaned instead. That light was keeping him from the blackness he so desperately desired to enter. He didn't want to think about the queen, the pain, his hand, or his lack thereof. He wanted to sleep. He already felt as if his bones were made of dense stone, and that his heart was being slowly squeezed of his blood.
Oh gods, I can't breathe.
He wanted to start crying again. He wanted to scream, but he was too tired. He finally opened his eyes a slit to see who he needed to yell at to bank their gods damned light. He gasped.
Red velvet stitched to fall like a peplos. A ruby headband designed to keep a woman's hair from falling into her face. A blank yet intense stare. He blinked repeatedly as images began to assault him. An uncut sapphire. An underwater temple. A hall lined with what he thought were statues. And a mirrored tray held by a flawless hand.
Hephestia.
Was that her standing at his prison door? Was he going to die? Did she intend to damn him for his failure? Or would she welcome him to the netherworld?
Why is she here?
He might have expected Eugenides, but surely he was not so important to warrant the presence of the Great Goddess herself.
Maybe I'm hallucinating. Nothing like amputation to make you see things.
He wanted to ask her if she was here to help him cross over, because if she was, he wanted her to get it over with already. Dying would make the pain go away.
Die.
Did he really want to die? At the moment, it seemed like a good option, but then he thought of his cousin.
Will she survive without my help?
He scoffed at his own conceitedness.
Not much I could do for her now.
Would they mourn him? Some would, yes. Others would be glad to be rid of him. That's for certain.
He wondered what might become of his title. None of his brothers would pick up the mantle, obviously. One of his sisters's sons? No. The court had wanted the title to disappear for years. To be wiped away like the blemish they thought it was. And anyways, there would be no one to train a successor if he died here.
Do I really want to die?
No, actually. He really didn't. He would never see his family again. Never write another snarky letter to the Magus. Never see his cousin and friend get married. Never see another one of his father's basilisk glares. And never again would he feel the mountain wind in his hair as he walked across the palace roofs.
I would never see her again, either...
He sighed.
Dying would be so much easier.
He wanted to turn his head and tell the goddess he didn't want to go with her. Tell her that he wasn't quite sure he wanted to die yet. But then the light moved away from his face, and he was suddenly scared that she would leave him. Leave him in his pain. How could he make her come back?
Yes, how does one summon a goddess to their side?
The sad part was that that wasn't even sarcasm. Gods, he was tired. Then it hit him.
The invocation of Hephestia. The one said at the spring festival in Eddis. He'd learned it as a child. His mother had taught him.
It will have to do.
He licked his lips and forced the muscles in his throat to relax. He needed to use them. He hoped she would hear. For if he lost her presence, he might truly be swallowed by the enticing nothingness of death.
"Oxe... Oxe... Habr-" he whispered, then coughed shallowly. He needed to get more air into his lungs if they were going to cooperate. "Oxe Habrea..." he began again. The light stopped moving away. Relief swept over him. "Sacrus Vax..." His voice made him sound as if he hadn't had a drop of water for weeks. He coughed again. "Dragga Onus Savonus..." He knew he was close. He could see the light getting brighter, but his body decided it was a good time to rob his throat of fluids and drain them into his chest.
Moron... It's just a simple archaic phrase.
Full of syllables that he would normally have no trouble rolling past his tongue, but he felt as if he were submerged up to his waist in an inky black pool of terror, pain, and nothingness. He had to grab on to something, and the only thing that was there was this figure. Whether or not she was here to help or simply observe, he had to finish getting her attention. He took in another breath, and his throat reopened. "So... Sophos... At..."
He fought to push the words past his lips, like a drowning man fights the current.
And what do all good drowning men do? They grab hold of the nearest branch and pull.
He breathed in deeply and spoke as loudly as he could bear. "Oxe Habrea Sacrus Vax Dragga Onus Savonus Sophos At Ere," he said, then collapsed into shallow coughs.
It's done.
The looming blackness was chased away by the beam of light that shined in through the bars, casting shadows that stretched the length of the cell. He shut his eyes, and smirked inwardly when the light fell on his face again. Just as annoying and as painful as it had been before.
We invoke the Great Goddess in our hour of need for her wisdom and her mercy.
He was going to live.
Wonderful...
-X-
-XX-
-X-
Authors Notes: This fic came to me while I was reevaluating my dramatic back-flash fic, The Moonlight Advisor. Though these two stories take place in the same time period, Thoughts of Hephestia, should not, in anyways, be considered a companion fic to The Moonlight Advisor. I focused on this fic as its own piece and made no attempt to coordinate Attolia's and Eugenides's actions.
If Eugenides seems out of sorts, well... he's suppose to be. He's been chewed up, hacked at, and spit out. I think anyone would be. I might also remind you of the passage where Attolia stated that the fever had probably set in by the time he started chanted the invocation. It's plausible that he might mistake Attolia for Hephestia, considering she has crafted her appearance to match the images of the Great Goddess.
Lastly, although Eugenides only says the invocation once (sorta twice?) in my fic, he says it several times in canon. I am not ignorant of this fact, I merely left that part out. There would, after all, be plenty of time for him to say it again after the fic ended.
Thank you for reading to the end,
ninedaysaqueen