August 30, 9535 BC
"We've had progress. But the evil daemons are attracted by his great beauty and wealth. They are fighting us hard."
Styxx opened his eyes as he heard the priest entering his torture chamber. For a full minute, he couldn't breathe as he saw his uncle and father with the old man.
His lips quivered as hope went through him. Was it finally over? Surely his father couldn't leave him like this.... Not if he loved him.
Estes rushed to his side and placed a tender hand on his bald head. "Styxx? Can you hear me?"
He gave a weak nod.
A tic started in his jaw as Estes looked back at his father. "See what I was telling you? They've ruined him."
Styxx met his father's gaze, but the lack of feeling there hit him harder than the priests' blows. How could his father not be indignant or horrified?
Something ...
But the king stood there, stoically. Unsympathetic to his pain. "It's for his own good, brother."
For his own good ...
Styxx would laugh if those words didn't bite so deeply.
"How can you say that? Look at him. They've scarred him abysmally. He'll never be the same."
"The scars are necessary, Highness and Majesty. They keep the daemons from coveting his young body."
But they didn't keep the gods from coveting it. The irony of that sickened him even more.
Estes cursed. "This is insane, Xerxes. The boy needs to go home."
I don't want him home again until he's normal. Burn it all out of him.
Styxx winced as he heard his father's cold, brutal thoughts.
"Do you still suffer from headaches?" his father asked him.
He knew better than to say anything other than what his father wanted to hear. "No, Majesty."
"You're lying."
Styxx panted in desperate panic. "Please, Father. I'll do anything you ask. Please don't leave me here."
"That's the daemon in him talking. Hear how his voice has changed, Majesty? How hoarse and deep?"
Daemon? Was the old man as crazy as he accused him of being? He was hoarse from months of screaming.
His father was pitiless. Now you understand what it means to be king. You can't allow your emotions to cloud your actions or judgments. You do what you have to. His father's thoughts made him ill. "You need to stay until the priests clear you of your daemons."
Styxx sobbed aloud at the horror his father was relegating him to. He couldn't help himself. The agony was too brutal for him to bear anymore.
The king turned toward the priests with a curled lip. "And for the sake of all the gods, can you stop him from bawling like a woman? I'm sick of it and he's too old to weep like that." How could I sire something so weak and pathetic?
Styxx glared at him, hating everything about his father. Let me chain you to a stone and burn you to the marrow of your bones, you skatophage. See then if you cry or not....
Furious at Styxx for crying, his father stormed out with the priests trailing behind him.
Estes touched his bruised cheek. "I'm so sorry, Styxx. I'll keep trying to convince him to release you. I will do my best for you, I promise."
And then Estes, too, was gone.
Styxx's gaze fell to the old scar on his forearm where his father had cut him years ago. The king still didn't really believe he was his son. How could he leave him here to suffer if he thought it?
I am alone in this world.
Except for Acheron. That lucky bastard was with Estes, who had some love for them. Surely his uncle was taking better care of his brother than this.
But the phantom pains he felt at times in horrifying places on his body made him wonder. Something caused injury to Acheron....
And it, too, was highly unpleasant.
The door opened again. "Time to be bled again, Highness."
Styxx slammed his eyes shut so that he wouldn't see the leeches they were about to cover him with. His stomach heaved in revulsion as all reason abandoned him.
I'm never going home. Unless he agreed to be a god's whore, this was his lot. He might as well learn to accept it. Hope was nothing more than a fickle bitch who mocked him daily.
Grinding his teeth, he tried to block out the pain and the priests. To dream of a place where someone might learn to love him.
But he knew such a place didn't exist. He had been damned from birth and there was no comfort for those the gods had damned. No peace.
No haven.
Bitter, and filled with hatred, he laughed out loud. "Go on and bleed me, you suagroi. Take all my blood." If he was bloodless then maybe the god who kept coming to him would leave him alone.
"Don't look at him. It's the demon taunting us. We're finally making progress."
No, they weren't. They were turning him into something he didn't want to be.
His father.
Cold. Callous. Unfeeling.
Years ago, he'd begged his sister to teach him how to love. She'd rebuffed his pleas with her coldness. Aphrodite had spit on him that day and turned her back to a child who'd only wanted to belong to someone.
It was Odia and Lyssa who now took him to their breasts and suckled him. He drank the warmth of their venom in and let it strip the pain away. His family had failed to teach him love, but from the world and their callous arms, he'd finally learned how to fully hate.