Acheron

Relieved, I smiled. "Thank you. I'll see you at dawn."

May 18, 9529 BC

The morning was cold as if it were as afraid as I was. Alone, I snuck from the palace and crept silently through the city, following Catera's directions until I found her stew.

As she predicted, there was no one around.

She let me inside through her back door, then led me quietly through the house to a room in the far back. I kept my head and face well covered and did my best not to look at the poor souls we passed.

She opened a door.

I stepped inside hesitantly, expecting to see Acheron. He wasn't there. Instead, I heard water splashing in the room set off to the side and knew he must be bathing.

The musty scent of sex hung heavy in the room and I tried not to look at the freshly made bed. I closed my eyes as I thought of Styxx and the way he lived his life in comfort and peace while Acheron was forced to this.

I couldn't imagine the degradation that Acheron must suffer every day. The pain.

He entered the room completely naked, toweling his hair dry. He pulled up short as he caught sight of me standing just inside the threshold.

"Forgive me, my lady," he said in that sultry, smooth voice of his that held just a hint of an Atlantean accent. I was grateful that at least the balls were no longer lining his tongue. "I thought I was through for the night."

I lowered my cowl.

Recognizing me instantly, he narrowed his gaze. "Well, if it isn't Sister Ryssa. Tell me, are you here to save me or to fuck me? Oh wait, I forgot. When you save me, you do fuck me, don't you?"

Tears pricked my eyes at his hostile disdain. But then who could blame him for it? "You don't have to be so crude."

"You'll excuse me if my ma

Ignoring me, he sat down and opened a box on the table. I watched in silence as he placed several strange weeds and flowers in a flagon. He lit them, then closed the lid. Picking up a small clay bowl, he held it to his face, covering his mouth and nose, and inhaled it.

"What are you doing?"

He took several breaths before he pulled the clay bowl away from his mouth. "I'm using Xechnobia." At my frown, he explained it to me. "It's a drug, Ryssa."

"Are you sick?"

He laughed at that, then inhaled more of it. "That's a matter of opinion," he said after a small pause. A tic started in his jaw as he watched me closely. "I use it so that I can forget how many pairs of hands I've had on me in one day. It allows me to sleep in peace."

I'd heard of such things, but in my world they didn't exist. No doubt it was Estes who'd shown him the drug. I wanted to weep at what had become of the Acheron who used to bake bread and play games with Maia.

"So why are you here, Princess?" he asked.

"I wanted to see you."

"Why?"

"I was worried about you. I saw you today in the market and wanted to see how you were doing."

Acheron added more herbs to the pot, then blew on them to stir the embers around them. "I'm well. Now you can go home and sleep in wealth and good conscience." The mocking sarcasm of his tone stung me soul-deep.

I shook my head as tears gathered in my eyes. "How can you do this to yourself?"

He arched a mocking brow. "I'm a trained dog, Ryssa. I'm only doing what I was well taught to do."

"This is so demeaning. How could you have gone back to this?"

His eyes stormy, I saw the rage he bore me. "Gone back to this? Why, big sister, you speak as if this is a bad thing. For me it's paradise. I only have to fuck ten to twelve people a night, generally only one at a time. I'm finally allowed to eat at a table, not off the floor or someone's lap. No one makes me beg for food or punishes me the few days a year when I'm sick and can't screw. If anyone hurts or beats me, Catera bans them from her stew. She even pays me for my work and I get a day off once a week. Best of all, when I go to sleep, I go to bed alone. I've never had it so good."

I wanted to scream at the horror he described. The fact that I knew it was the truth only hurt me more. "And so you're content to live like this?"

He set the clay pot down on the table and pierced me with his mercurial gaze. "What do you honestly think, Princess?"

"I think you're worth more than this."

"Well, aren't you special to be able to see me as something more than a whore? Let me educate you on what the rest of the world sees. I left Atlantis and was sick for weeks from the drugs Estes had forced down my throat."

I remembered well how ill he'd been when I had rescued him.

"I had nothing but the himation you gave me. No money, no clothes. Nothing."

"So you went back to whoring?"

"What choice did I have? I traveled far and wide, while trying to find work doing anything else, but no one would hire me to work. When people see me, they only want one thing from me and I happen to be very good at it. Tell me, Princess, if Father threw you out tomorrow, naked on the streets, what would you do? What do you know how to do?"

I lifted my chin. "I could find something."

"I defy you to try it, Princess." He gestured toward the door behind me. "Go ahead. I don't even know how to sweep a floor. All I know how to do is use my body to please others. I was sick and alone with no references, friends, family or money. I was so weak from hunger that even a beggar stole your himation from me while I lay on the ground, wanting to die and unable to stop him from taking it. So don't come here now with your disdainful eyes and look at me like I'm beneath you. I don't need your charity and I don't need your pity. I know exactly what you see when you look at me."

"Do you really?"

He stood up and spread his arms wide, showing me his perfect naked body. "I see it clearly on your face. What you see is the pathetic little boy who kissed his father's feet and begged him not to send him back to whoring. You see the whore who pleasured a prince and was then thrown from his home."

I shook my head in denial. "No, Acheron. What I see is the little boy who used to run up to me and ask why his parents didn't love him. The same little golden-haired cherub who chased sunbeams in my room and laughed when they filled his palm. You are my brother and I will never see anything bad about you."

The anger on his face intensified to the point I actually thought he might strike me. "Get out."

Covering my head, I turned and left.

I waited for him to stop me. He didn't.

And with every step I took, I cried harder for what I'd found this morning. My precious Acheron was gone and in his place was a man who wanted nothing to do with me.

The worst part was, I couldn't even blame him for it. This was all so unfair. He should be in his royal apartments with servants at his beck and call.

Instead he was locked into a nightmare that neither of us could release him from. Surely this wouldn't be his life. Surely Acheron was meant for more than this.

Yet how could I deny what I saw? He was right. People only wanted one thing from him. And unless Father was willing to protect him, Catera was better than nothing.

My little brother was a whore. It was time that I realized the truth.