Kephalaio Èna
Tzoumerka Mountains – Lykoudis House
Aethos
Someone called out to me from the dark.
The voice came from every direction, yet I couldn't find its source, nor could I remember how I had ended up in this strange place. All I knew was this heavy premonitive feeling that something unsettling was about to happen.
Like I have done this countless times before.
And I was right.
A small light flickered into being over my head, swelling slowly until its fullness came into view.
I held my breath. A massive planet-size sphere, hovered in the black sky, a pale yellow globe resembling a sickly moon. For a moment, I felt hope. Perhaps I could use it to guide myself home. But then the sphere quivered, and with a slow, dreadful turn, revealed it's other side.
I froze.
There, carved into its surface, yawned a monstrous maw—wide, barbed, and grinning with malicious delight.
I didn't need to be told to run. My legs carried me away instinctively, pounding against the invisible ground. But before I could gain distance, the earth beneath me vanished. I was falling—not down, but up, toward the gaping mouth. It cackled, reverberating through the void, eager to swallow me whole.
"It's a dream. Wake up."
A voice pierced through the terror. My sister's voice. Aeir.
Again it came, sharper, desperate.
"Please. Wake up."
It's a dream.
Right.
I clenched my eyes shut as the monstrous maw loomed closer, repeating to myself, steadying my mind:
"It's a dream. It's a dream… it's a dream."
The jaws slammed shut around me. Darkness consumed everything.
And then I woke.
The orange glow of the wall lamp burned into my vision, its mild discomfort anchoring me to reality. My Mother, Eurydice and Aeir stood at my bedside, their faces shadowed with worry.
Mother pressed her palm to my forehead, searching for signs of fever.
"Do you feel unwell?"
I swallowed, feeling for any strange sensations in my body. "A little."
"Your stomach, or your head?"
How could I explain it?
"Neither," I murmured. "I just… feel something bad is coming."
Eurydice's and Aeir's eyes met, their shared look carrying more weight than words could describe. They knew what I knew. If I said it, chances were high it would happen.
Most families would laugh off such words as nightmare jitters. But mine couldn't. For some reason, my dreams had a way of bleeding into reality.
The first time, I was ten. I told my parents the city would be destroyed by a falling star at night. That evening, at the stroke of midnight, fire streaked across the sky. A meteor struck, and flames devoured the city. We survived only because Father had believed me. He'd led us onto a boat hours earlier, carrying us to safety while screams and ash choked the heavens behind us.
Since then, we had lived in the mountains, away from the ruin of men. We hunted game, traded with temples and merchants for supplies, and survived. Father was away on one of those jobs now.
Aeir set down a plate of roasted fish and wheat bread by my side. My stomach growled—I had forgotten I'd missed dinner after checking traps all day.
"When you're done," she said bluntly, "tell us your vision."
Mother frowned at her choice of words. She always called them dreams, never visions. Perhaps it was taboo to speak of them as prophecy, though I never understood why.
The food was sweet, spicy, filling—luxurious by mountain standards. Hard to imagine a hunter's family feasting while countless starved in the cities. Perhaps Father was right about those places being lazy, soulless.
Mother's voice, soft but firm, broke the silence.
"Sleep brings rest and solace and sometimes, the strange beauty of dreams. Some are good, some bad, some from worlds far from ours. We're fortunate when the bad ones never come to pass. But if they do… we must face them with courage."
I nodded, hoping she was right.
Aeir suddenly turned toward the door, her gaze sharp. "Father will arrive in an hour."
And if course, I knew she would be right about the timing.
I didn't need to say anything. Aeir's gifts had always been different from mine undefined, stronger, more mysterious.
I described the dream to them, the yellow moon of wrinkled skin, its barbed mouth, my fall into the sky. Silence followed, heavy with unspoken dread.
Mother kissed my forehead and left to prepare for Father's return, leaving me alone with Aeir.
We sat together in quiet, our closeness wordless but undeniable. She slid behind me, fingers undoing my braid, and began weaving my hair again.
"Will you go tonight?" she whispered.
"What do you mean?"
"The pond. Will we go?"
"Yes… when they've slept."
Her fingers moved with practiced grace—braiding, massaging, soothing.
My eyelids grew heavy. Just before sleep claimed me, I glimpsed her eyes—grey, flecked with golden light.
---
Night fell deep and quiet. Too quiet.
The house was empty. The lamps were out.
Then I heard them.
"Child of Oranus. It is time for you to leave your home and begin your journey to godhood. Your father awaits your presence above the heavens."
In the yard. I crept forward, peering through the wooden doorframe.
Mother and Father knelt before a figure.
It was not human.
It stood tall enough to brush the roof, its body translucent crystal, its insides laid bare, a pulsing heart, a glowing brain, and a labyrinth of vein-like currents.
It wore only a girdle of white feathers and a small crown that danced in unseen wind.
Its legs shaped like a bull's supported a body otherwise elegant, feminine, terrible in beauty.
"Theron."
Aeir's voice cut through me. She wasn't afraid, but how did she know I was hiding?
A sudden charge buzzed across my skin. Something vast and powerful was staring through the door at me.
The being's golden eyes found me. I stepped out, heart pounding. My parents looked stricken, confused.
But Aeir, she was no longer the sister I knew.
The Left side of her body lost most of its human features. Part of her hair now glowed with a strong white light and flowed in the air, carried by invisible currents.
The skin on that part of her body shimmered with tiny crystals and a new eye had opened up underneath the left one.
The Transformation she went through was both terrifying and oddly beautiful.
I craved with an intense hunger to claim her as my own. And I think she felt that way too.
The being smiled.
"This is a messenger from the gods. It says that I must follow it to meet my true father."
Mother's pale, horrified face said everything.
Aeir was a god-child.
But if we were twins… what did that make me?
The messenger's voice rang out, serene and absolute:
"When your mother first conceived, the king came to her. The memory was taken from her, but what remained was two children growing side by side. Twins, yes. But of different natures. One mortal… the other eternal."
I clenched my fists, trembling.
"This is messed up."