Born In The Dungeons

Chapter 18: The Search

When the sun finally set, it was dark on the cliff. And the sea was too dark to be seen. Agatha hadn't left my side. Her crying had stopped and now she quietly mourned the loss of her prince. I had a feeling that he had meant much more to her than her own father ever did. 

Medusa came out of the sanctuary many times to bring me inside. This time she was more adamant about my return. "I was planning to threaten to turn you into stone if you refused to come with me again, but you already look like a statue sitting here on the edge of the cliff for hours. Emilia. It is too dark to see now, even if he did resurface. Are you not tired? Not hungry? Your family is worried about you."

"And you, Agatha. I'm afraid you cannot enter the sanctuary as you have betrayed Hecate's trust. And mine as well. But for the sake of our years together, I will have Pegasus take you home. Now up, up, up!" She slapped our shoulders and pulled us up to stand. "Goodness, you girls are heavy," she huffed. "If you put on any more muscle, you could crush people with your weight."

"You could simply be getting old, Medusa," Agatha mumbled half-heartedly. 

Medusa's back cracked as she straightened it to stand up. "You are not wrong. Bloody Poseidon," she suddenly cursed. "I wasted all my best years with him. I wish he came back to life so I could kill him myself."

Thunder erupted in the sky.

"Now you hear me, Zeus?" Medusa looked up. "After all these years and all the insults I've thrown at your brother, that was the one that got you angry? I could care less! Your thunders don't scare me."

The sky slowly cleared up.

"Let's go inside, Emilia," she said, rolling her eyes at the sky.

As Medusa and I walked through the forest, I suddenly remembered the book that she stole from the Fates. Perhaps it could tell me if Alexios was alive. "Medusa, could I see that book in the library? The black one with silver threads?"

She pursed her lips. "I know what you want to ask it, but I cannot promise you that it would give you the answer you are hoping for. It might not even give you an answer at all."

"I would still like to try. If it could just tell me--"

"What if it tells you that he is dead? People of Poseidon do have an ability to connect with water, but it would be of little help to him. They cannot use it to heal. That power belongs to Poseidon himself. And from what you've told me, Alexios had a knife wound..."

"I would like to ask the book," I said. "I have to know. We need to find him even if he is..." I swallowed, whispering the next word, "dead."

"I suppose we cannot leave him in the sea. He would need a proper burial." Medusa sighed, then nodded. "All right. Let's go see the book."

Before we entered the library, Medusa took us to a storage room with cleaning supplies. She pointed to a duster on one of the shelves. "Take that one with you. I will take the broom. If you want to get a proper answer out of that book, we need to bribe it."

Armed with a broom and a duster, we stopped by the door that led to the room where the book of the Fates was kept. Medusa took out a key and opened the lock. 

"Hello old friend," she said cheerfully. "As promised, I came to clean up here." She raised the broom in her hand, then started to sweep the floors, motioning for me to start dusting the leather cover of the book.

I dusted it off, paying close attention to the small crystal that was embedded on the iris part of the eye that was carved into it. There was a spider web over it and the book was covered in dust, which made me wonder if Medusa had even stepped foot in this room after the last time I was here.