Infinite Sacrifice by L.E. Waters Read Free Book Online Page B

the pain. Expecting to feel where the
reptile had punctured me, instead I feel something stuck in the
flesh of my hand. I yank it out and hold it to the moonlight. A
sharpened quill glistens in the blue light, still dripping clear
fluid. I lick the liquid, which instantly burns, numbing my
tongue.
    Poison .
    I pray I removed it in time. The
shadow moves across the walls and disappears out the door. I look
down and see the wound is ominously turning black. A searing,
burning fire creeps up my arm. I feel the poison flow into my
heart, and after several painful spasms, my heart slows.
    In my last few moments, struggling
to breathe, I try to piece together how this all could have
happened without any warning from Serapis.
    How could I have been so blind?
Aapep ’s namesake—the moon snake god!
    Something bounds through the window
beside my bed and I call out, “Aapep? Come back… to watch… me
die?”
    I brace for his final blow but
instead feel the familiar pull on the linens as she leaps on top of
me, and I hear her comforting purr. Sehket quickly settles in, her
paws tucked on my chest, and warms my cooling heart as I close my
eyes.

 
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Second Life
    Spartan Education

 
     
     
     

Chapter 1
     
    The sea air dampens my long hair as
I ride Proauga through my father’s countryside. A sunny crisp day
in glorious Sparta and it was torture waiting until my lessons were
done and my mother finally let me go outside. The sweat from my
black filly’s back soaks into my tunic as I ride bareback. I’m one
with her as she gallops over the hills, knowing the way to my
favorite spot. She slows as soon as she reaches the cliffs. I
dismount and lay in the silken grass, looking over the turquoise
Gytheio harbor, watching all the little white sails flashing and
cracking in the wind as fisherman gather up their heavy nets. I can
smell the sea from all the way up here.
    A thunderstorm rattles the earth,
causing me to roll onto my knees in search of lightning, but the
sky is blue and free from clouds. Then everything shakes. Proauga’s
golden eyes widen as she shrills a frantic whinny and speeds into
the thick brush. I fight the momentum of the earth’s shaking and
retreat from the cliff toward the trees. An estate crumbles in the
distance, its majestic columns falling over like felled trees. The
roof and walls collapse forward onto fountains and statues in the
garden. The helot slaves go running in every direction, screaming
for their lives. The cliffs give way, and the ground I’d just been
standing on crashes to the shores below.
    We had earthquakes before, but
nothing compared to this. Five minutes pass until the quaking
stops. As soon as I can get Proauga to come to me, I mount,
desperate for home.
    I pray to Hestia as Proauga flies
through the never-ending olive groves, my fists white in her dark
mane. Approaching, I see our helots deep in rubble, lifting away
stones. I know in that instant my life has changed. I rush to where
I’d left my mother sitting with her weaving and start digging there
first. I remove the stone covering her feet and yell for the helots
to come lift off the rest of the debris on top of her. I turn away
once I see her crushed into something unfamiliar, recognizable only
by the mole beside her eye. One of the helots removes his tunic and
places it over her, attempting to erase the memory from our
minds.
    “Father!” I cry as I strain to move
more stones, then shout at the slaves, “Why aren’t you all digging
faster!”
    Two other bodies are found before
we find my father’s. One is our helot, Delia, the household slave
who cared for me for all of my sixteen years. The other is her
daughter, Kharis, who had been raised with me. Father is found
last, under the collapsed timbers in the barn. All who meant home
to me were wiped away in a single moment. My house is in ruin, with
only one wall still standing.
    I watch from a safer distance on
the hillside as our helots