“I told you,” I said, wishing she would leave me alone. “They fight all the time—”
“Yes, but the older, the stronger—they should win, shouldn’t they? But we know that isn’t always true. It wasn’t when your consul came to power, when she killed a being thousands of years older than herself, one of legendary strength.”
“She had help,” I said, remembering what Jules had said. “Anthony fought with her—”
“But he was the same age as she. And you know how it is. A sixth-level master is many times stronger than a seventh, each step you take being an exponential increase in power. So how much stronger was her master? He was said to have been five thousand years old. How could both of them, how could an army, have taken him down?”
I’d had enough. “Does it matter?” I asked, starting to get up.
Rian caught my arm. “It matters,” she said urgently. “If you care for Mircea as I think you still do.”
I stared at her, feeling my face turn ugly. “And did he pay you to say that?”
The dark eyes flashed. “I owe him no fealty; if anything, the debt I have is to you. You helped Carlos when you didn’t have to, when almost no one else would have. Even after I betrayed you, and gave my master information about your plans. I thought it was the right thing to do, the best way to help both my lords, but I was wrong. I am trying to make amends.”
“By doing what?”
“By explaining. By telling you what they won’t, what most of them refuse to even acknowledge to themselves. But I’ve lived long enough to see the truth of it. The ones who survive are those who find some peace with their fixation, either by obtaining it or by letting it go. Those who don’t . . . they lose their duels because they lose their minds, or maybe their focus is a better way of putting it. Nothing seems real anymore—nothing matters, except for their obsession. It becomes their fatal flaw, and sooner or later, it will destroy them.”
“So Mircea has to get his wife back in order to survive?” How convenient.
“He doesn’t have to get her back,” Rian said, shaking her head. “But he does have to resolve this tension, his guilt over what happened, his longing to repair the family he lost. At the very least, he has to come to terms with her death, and he hasn’t done that.”
“And I can’t help him, Rian.”
“You resent him that much, then?” The beautiful eyes were sorrowful.
“No, I mean I can’t help him,” I said, throwing off her hold and struggling to rise. “I can’t help anyone!”
“That’s not true—”
“Really?” I staggered against the wall and then got my back to it, wanting to curse myself for weakness that I couldn’t afford. “What have you seen me do? I’ve been running around everywhere, but what have I done?”
It was her turn to look confused. “You saved your court—”
“I was the reason they were in danger in the first place! My acolytes blew up the court trying to kill me. If I never existed—”
“Apollo would be back and we would all be dead.”
I shook my head. “That was more Pritkin than me. And now he’s gone and I can’t get him back, no matter how hard I try. I’m supposed to be . . .” I fluttered a hand, because I didn’t have the words. “More than this. Artemis’ daughter, demigoddess, Pythia, they sound so impressive, but they’re lies. They’re titles for someone else, someone powerful. I’m just Cassie.” I slowly slid down the wall and finally said the words I’d been thinking for weeks. “And I can’t save anyone.”
Rian was silent for a moment. “You saved Marco.”
“Marco was never in danger.”
“On the contrary. Marco was traded from master to master, because he was showing signs of madness, and he was powerful enough to be dangerous. It was looking grim for him, until he found a master who was strong enough mentally to keep him in line. And until he found you. Being assigned as your bodyguard was the best thing that ever happened to him. I do not know what his obsession was; you will have to ask him. But he seems to have finally made peace with it.”
I thought back to what Marco had told me about his daughter, the one he’d lost when she was young. And then I thought about my giant of a bodyguard, so huge he almost looked like another species, yet so gentle as he held a tiny initiate in his arms, as if she were spun glass. Jules was right; Marco looked like a bruiser, so that was how he’d been treated. But it wasn’t what he was, and it wasn’t what he’d needed.
He’d needed what my crazy court had given him: a chance to protect the youngest and most vulnerable.
The ones who reminded him of the girl he lost.
“My court did that,” I said, after a minute. “Not me.”
“And did your court fight that battle this morning?” she asked, smiling slightly. “Did your court defeat four out of five rogues, in something like a day?”
“But that’s just it,” I said, low and vicious, not understanding why she didn’t get this. “One’s still out there, I don’t know where, and one is all it takes. And I’m no closer to finding her or defeating Ares or rescuing Pritkin than I was when I started! I go back to freaking Arthurian Britain, again and again, and what good does it do? I’m still treading water. Or running on some kind of treadmill, exhausting myself but not getting anywhere!”