Styxx (Dark-Hunter 22)

Chapter Forty-Eight

He's too good to even talk to anyone. Look at him, walking around like he's so important. Ryssa's harsh observations and condemnation were very different from Ash's new vantage point. With hindsight, he no longer saw his brother's vanity and arrogance as much as he saw Styxx's exhaustion, and wary sadness.

And he did remember Bethany. Vaguely. But those memories stung hard as they reminded Ash of how much resentment he'd felt whenever he saw Styxx with her. Because Artemis had refused to publicly claim him, the fact that Bethany had smiled and embraced Styxx whenever she saw him had made Acheron hate them both all the more.

"And the other two times?" Ash asked, trying to find some sense of peace with himself.

"The next one wasn't quite so bad. Styxx had his army with him then. But they'd been short on supplies and hammered every step of the way by the Atlanteans who wanted them dead and burned. Even so, he was victorious."

And he'd been viciously attacked on his way home by jealous Greeks.

Savitar scratched at his cheek and pinned him with a cold stare. "It's the last time he was there that was the bad one."

"Worse than Estes?" Ash asked in stunned disbelief.

He nodded slowly. "You know about Apollo's mark on his back?"

"Yeah. I saw it before I came here."

"Your brother didn't take to slavery well. He fought Apollo bitterly, to the point Apollo decided to violently break him. When he couldn't do it by himself, he solicited others. Styxx spent a year in Atlantis as a prisoner of war. First the gods had their go at him, and then they turned him over to the Atlantean queen and her people in Aeryn."

Ash winced at that. "They tortured him."

"Oh, they did a lot more to him than that."

Ash cringed. Having been his brother's scapegoat in a brothel, he could only imagine how much worse others had been when they actually had Styxx in their hands. One thing about the ancient world, their cruelty had been creative.

And harsh.

But for the life of him, Ash couldn't remember a time when Styxx hadn't been accounted for. "Other than war, when was he gone for a year?"

"You already know the answer, Acheron. It was that last year when he kept acting so strange. When he actually mingled with people in public and partied. That wasn't Styxx."

Of course not. Even Ryssa had commented on how war must have changed him because he was acting so out of character. "The year he was engaged to Nefertari." The same year Acheron was gelded, tortured, and the conspiracy against his father had happened.

Savitar nodded. "Apollo was behind it all. Like I said, he wanted Styxx broken. So he yanked Styxx out of the palace and left one of his minions there to keep anyone from knowing what he'd done.... His goal was to ruin Styxx's life and reputation. To turn everyone against him."

And he had definitely succeeded.

"When did Styxx return to Didymos?"

"You know that, too."

Ash glanced away. When Styxx had been forced to kneel naked in front of Apollo in a temple filled with laughing citizens ...

You should have seen him, Acheron, Ryssa's voice echoed in his head as she'd recounted it to him later. It serves him right after insulting Apollo with his hubris.

Hubris ... fighting Apollo's ownership.

And like the others, Acheron had been amused by Styxx's public humiliation that had been similar to the one Acheron had been given, courtesy of Apollo and Artemis in her temple.

No wonder Styxx hated them all.

Savitar sighed again. "In case you haven't had enough guilt ladled on you, let me mind-fuck you one more time."

Ash's stomach shrank with dread. "What?"

"You know how all Chthonians are mortal born? None are supposed to ever come from the gods?"

"Yeah?" Ash was the only exception to that rule.

"Styxx didn't steal your birthright, Grom ... you stole his. He was the one who was supposed to be born a Chthonian. But when you were put into the womb with him, you sucked up all of his main powers from him and left him with some pretty crappy byproducts."

The nosebleeds and headaches and ability to hear other people's thoughts.

And no means to protect himself from it.

Shit.

Ash was so nauseated over it all, he wasn't sure how he kept from vomiting. "How do I make this right, Savitar?"

"That, my brother, is the question. And if I knew the answer, I'd play the lottery."

August 8, 2012