Starcrossed (50 page)

briefly over to Lucas.

“And he was mine. Eventually, we fought, but at the last moment,

instead of killing each other, there was a terrible accident. We

ended up saving each other’s lives. When we did that, I paid my

debt to the House of Thebes. And he paid his debt to the House of

Atreus. After that, Ajax could be with my family without inciting

the Furies, and I could be with his. How could I stand in front of

you if this weren’t the truth?” Daphne motioned to Helen and Lucas.

“You’ve seen it happen again, right in front of your eyes, and

348/395

you all already know what the outcome is. Once the Furies were

gone, Ajax and I fell in love.”

“Liar!” Pandora hissed.

“No,” Lucas said, shaking his head with a stricken, almost fearful

look in his eyes. “She’s telling the truth.”

“I touched his body with my own hand,” Pandora screamed, tears

tangling her pretty pixie face into a snarl. “He was dead!”

“I think we were both dead for a few seconds,” Daphne said compassionately.

She was trying to get Pandora to listen to her, but in

vain. Pandora shook her head at everything Daphne tried to tell

her. “Ajax and I never really understood exactly what happened,

but I swear to you, I didn’t kill him.”

Pandora whirled away from Daphne, turning her back and still

shaking her head in denial. Ariadne went and stood next to her and

took her hand, but Pandora would accept no comfort. She dropped

Ariadne’s hand and crossed her arms tightly across her chest, like

her insides hurt, her left hand cupping the cuff-locket on her right

wrist.

“Oh, how typical! The House of Thebes thinks it knows

everything because it’s the House of the Oracle,” Daphne said to

Pandora’s back, almost pleading with her. “And the irony is that

it’s because you think you know it all that the other Houses have

been able to hide so much from you—our relics, like the cestus—

even our very existence. You thought the House of Atreus was

extinct, but here I am. Open your eyes! Whether you want to believe

it or not, Pandora, Ajax and I saved each other’s lives that

night, and then we fell deeply in love.”

“Then the two of you ran away together?” Castor asked, shocking

everyone with his sympathetic tone.

“We had no choice. Even though I had paid my debt to the House

of Thebes, and I could be near any of you without inciting the Furies,

you all still wanted me dead,” Daphne replied with a shrug.

“Ajax said that if we could explain what had happened to Tantalus,

349/395

he would take our side. He really believed your brother would help

us. We were so young, only seventeen.” A powerful emotion overwhelmed

her and she suddenly clenched her fists and her jaw, as if

she was refusing to cry.

“Finish your story,” Lucas said evenly.

“’Jax and I were living on a sailboat, hiding at sea. Tantalus

rowed out to meet us because we were too frightened of an ambush

to come ashore. As soon as Tantalus saw my face he went mad.

They fought over me in the rowboat. I can’t swim—I swear, I

couldn’t get to them. Ajax lost,” Daphne said. She stared directly

into Lucas’s eyes. “Tantalus claimed that he killed me that day, but

obviously that’s a lie. He has been chasing me ever since, maybe

because he wants me for himself, or maybe because he intends to

kill me and he doesn’t want anyone else coming after me for the

sake of a Triumph. I’m not entirely sure what he wants anymore.”

“I don’t believe it, no matter what you say, Lucas,” Pallas said,

shaking his head in denial. “Tantalus loved Ajax.”

“Yes, he did. He loved his brother, and then he killed him,”

Daphne said, frustrated to the point of cruelty. “Now, as a kinkiller,

he’s an Outcast, and he can’t have contact with anyone from

the House of Thebes without the Furies revealing his sin to you.”

“Pallas,” Castor said gently. “Didn’t it ever bother you that our

brother stayed hidden even when there were no other Houses left

to fight?”

“But there were other Houses, and there still are!” Pallas

shouted, pointing to Helen and her mother. “He must have known

she was still alive, and that she can seduce anyone, even us, to help

her get to him.”

“I haven’t used the cestus on you, Pallas. Not even to get you to

believe me,” Daphne said tiredly. “I want you to know in your own

heart who killed Ajax. I need you to believe that I wasn’t the one

who killed my husband.”

350/395

“Everything she’s saying is true,” Lucas said, locking eyes with

Helen. “She hasn’t used the cestus. And she and Ajax were

married.”

Helen looked away, although she could feel him studying her

face.

“The Fates have done this many times,” Cassandra intoned, a

hint of the Oracle’s glow in her eyes and voice as she momentarily

peeked through the Veil. “The Star-Crossed Lovers are in the warp

and weft of the pattern, and my mothers are compelled to repeat it

again and again. Symmetry must be maintained or the fabric of the

universe will be ruined. All Four Houses have been preserved this

way.”

“All four?” Lucas repeated as his eyes sought out Helen’s. A glimmer

of hope flared up in him, but instead of seeing his own elation

echoed in Helen, her face was pale and empty. She looked away.

“Four Houses in Three Heirs,” the many voices continued to

chant. “The Star-Crossed Lovers have preserved the bloodlines.

And the Three shall raise Atlantis.”

A strange hush overtook the room, like the pause between a

blinding flash of lightning and the deafening roar of thunder that

inevitably follows.

“Sibyl!” Daphne said suddenly, addressing Cassandra by the

most ancient title of her office. “I beg you to answer me! How can

the Scions rid themselves of the Furies?”

“She can’t control them yet!” Castor gasped at Daphne, whose

face had grown greedy and desperate. Helen’s mind flashed back to

Daphne’s sudden decision to come back to the House of Thebes

with Lucas, and she knew that this was what her mother had

wanted all along.

Castor grabbed Daphne’s arm, pulling her away from his daughter,

but it was too late. The Three Fates had been officially

summoned into the body of the Oracle to answer a direct question,

and they would not be stopped. Cassandra’s mouth glowed, her

351/395

hair writhed, and her head snapped back. Her eyes grew rheumy

with cataracts and her skin wrinkled. An old woman forcibly

pushed her way through a young girl’s shell like she was tearing

through a piece of paper. Convulsing, the old woman turned into

another woman, and then a third, as the many voices chimed out of

her.

“The Descender must go down to those who cannot forgive and

cannot forget. The Descender and her Shield will free the Three

from their suffering as she will free the Houses from the cycle of

blood for blood,” they said, and then went silent.

Cassandra’s head righted itself. The wrinkles smoothed and her

eyes cleared, but the eerie extra presences were still in her. Daphne

pulled herself away from Castor and approached the Oracle with

her arms crossed and her palms pressed flat against her chest in

reverence.

“The House of Atreus owes you a debt, Sibyl,” Daphne said with a

deep bow, completing her part of the ritual.

“And the House of Atreus will pay it when asked,” the Oracle said

before the glow died completely and Cassandra returned fully to

herself with a series of blinks and an exhalation. Everyone stared

at Daphne with shock and anger.

“I’m sorry, but I had to,” she said barely above a whisper.

“You could have killed her,” Lucas said, clenching his fists. “She’s

still too young.”

“If the vengeance cycle isn’t broken, she has no future, anyway.

None of us do,” Daphne mumbled, unable to look at him. Several

people raised their voices to argue.

“She’s right,” Cassandra said, cutting everyone off. “Things will

change, Prophecy has been made, and like it or not, I am the

Oracle. I can’t hide anymore.”

“Maybe not,” Castor said somberly. “But next time, we decide together

what questions to ask and when to ask them.” He turned

352/395

and pointed a finger at Daphne. “Another trick like that and I’ll

make sure you don’t live long enough to hear Sibyl’s answer.”

Daphne nodded once with a passive face that placated Castor, but

not Lucas. He’d seen Helen make that face before, and he knew it

was bogus. Lucas glanced at Helen, who had noticed the same

thing he did, and they shared an anxious look.

Cassandra said that she was tired, and Pandora took her upstairs

to lie down for a while. Ariadne went into the kitchen to check on

Matt, who was still icing a few bumps and bruises while Noel gave

him a crash course in demigods.

Lucas gestured with his head for Helen to meet him in the next

room. She tried to shake her head no, but he had already turned

away and started moving toward the door. She had to follow.

He led her to an unfamiliar part of the house, the wing directly

opposite his father’s office, one that Helen had never entered. As

they moved through the empty hallways and past the unused

rooms, she could see Lucas tilt his head ever so slightly over his

shoulder, aware of her presence.

As she followed him, never more than a few paces behind, she

could see his shoulders tense and his breathing quicken. She

watched the warm skin of his back moving under his shirt with

every breath, and she had to rub her tight fists against each other

to keep herself from reaching out to touch him. Finally, he entered

the empty solarium on the easternmost end of the compound and

turned around. She had one second to open her mouth in protest

before he was kissing it. The second after that she felt him gently

pushing her down to the floor. The second after that Helen very

nearly gave in to him.

A wave of nausea swept up from her stomach and she clamped

her mouth shut as she turned her head away from him. Lucas

pulled back carefully, thinking he had hurt her in some way. She

braced her elbows against the marble floor and shoved against his

chest.

353/395

“Stop,” she begged.

He shifted off of her immediately, holding his hands up in a placating

gesture. As they both sat up and faced each other, his eyes

looked so confused, so wounded, that Helen’s eyes started leaking

tears, even though she had promised herself the night before that

she would never cry again.

“What is it?” he asked, bewildered and in pain.

“We can’t do this,” she said, shaking her head in a rapid motion.

“What are you talking about?” He tried to get her to look at him

as he reached for her hands. “Helen, we’re free. There are two other

Houses left to preserve the Truce. We can be together.”

“We can’t do this,” she repeated, balling her hands into fists so he

couldn’t take them.

“Why?” he asked in a strangled voice, sensing that Helen was being

honest with him, but still not understanding why. “Have your

feelings for me changed so much in one night? Did you stop wanting

me?”

“That’s not it,” she said, agonized. “I wish I didn’t want you.”

“How can you say that?” Lucas asked, relieved to know that at

least Helen still felt the same about him. “I know you’ve been

through a lot today, and maybe you’re not ready right this second.

That’s fine, we’ll wait as long as you want. . . .” He tried to pull her

into his arms, just to hold her, but she pushed hard against his

chest and turned her face away from his.

“We’re first cousins!” she cried out hopelessly, her shoulders beginning

to jump up and down with uncontrollable sobs. “Jerry

wasn’t my father, Lucas. Ajax was.”

Luke’s whole body went still with fear and in the silence that followed,

all Helen could hear was the sound of the rain on the glass

roof.

“That’s not possible,” he whispered, even though he could hear

that she wasn’t lying. He shook his head. “No. We saw the Furies

when we met. We can’t be related.”

354/395

“Yes, we can,” Helen said, wiping one cheek, then the other, then

back again to the first in what seemed like an endless procession of

tears that needed to be wiped away. “The children of mixed lineage

can only be claimed by one House, and I was claimed by the House

of Atreus. It’s been happening like this from the start.”

“From the start?” Lucas asked, recalling Cassandra’s earlier

statement. “Star-Crossed Lovers are repeated in the pattern. How

many other Scions of mixed lineage are out there in hiding?”

Helen sniffed and stared at him with a tiny smile. He was so

sensitive, so quick to pick up on every detail she couldn’t stop herself

from adoring him. There were an infinite number of ways for

her to admire this one person, and because of that, there were an

infinite number of ways for her to fall in love with him over and

over again. She realized that she wasn’t going to have to give up