Kairos

Chapter 11

"Wake up! Wake up now!" I shot up at the voice, breathing hard as I left the hellscape. I panted hard, shudders running down my spine. The travel zone was as bad as before. But relief that I was out allowed me to unclench my fists. I was on some sort of woven carpet that itched my clammy hands with another smaller one barely covering me. What kind of bed was this? Never mind, my mind was so exhausted that I needed to relax before doing anything else, especially so that when the new memories came, I could properly sort them.

My break was ephemeral because hands grasped my sweaty arms and hauled me off the makeshift bed. I winced as my still drowsy limbs smacked against the unexpectedly muddy ground. Didn't this place even have a floor? I rubbed my neck and remembered that Apollo had snapped it like it was nothing.

"It's a long time after dawn, Cassia!" The voice snapped as if that was supposed to mean something to me. I looked up to see an ancient looking woman, skin a wrinkly leather brown. She reminded me of Queen Elizabeth, if she were on drugs and had a disturbingly murderous gleam in her eyes.

When I remained shocked on the floor, she scoffed and dragged me up with surprising strength.

"What is wrong with you girl? I know you hit your head, but you should have been up ages ago!" Her wiry white hair seemed to frizzle around her head like electric wires.

"Hit my head? I-what-where am I?"

"My gods, Jove has taken your sanity!" She cried and lifted her clenched fists to the ceiling. Jove? As in the Roman Zeus? I was in Rome now? I thought Nyx's box was supposed to stop me going through time. But then I remembered that Apollo had taken it before killing me. As I reached to grab the weird cloth slipper things that I assumed were my shoes, and my fingers brushed against a hard corner. It was Nyx's box! What the heck, I was just thinking about how Apollo took it, so how is it here? I traced the golden grooves in the elaborate design with a fingernail. Maybe Nyx had put a curse on it or something so it would follow me through the ages.

"What now?" She clapped her hands in front of my eyes and I snapped out of my gaze.

"I'm fine, I just forgot where we are." She looked at me sceptically.

"The camp at Cannae, where you are a cook that was supposed to be in the kitchens an hour ago!"

"Sorry?" I attempted as my mind struggled to comprehend what she said. Cannae? As in the Battle of Cannae that wiped out twenty percent of the adult male Roman population in a day?

Just my luck. I pulled one of my shoes on, aware of the hyper-angry elderly woman in front of me.

"Hurry up, Sextus will have set fire to the kitchen by the time it takes you to get ready!" I snorted a laugh, who named their child Sextus? Then I immediately regretted it as her sharp gaze cut into me again.

"QUICK QUICK QUICK QUICK QUICK-" She screamed at me as I ran my hands through my tangled hair, and she whacked me when I passed her hurriedly on the way out the room and away from her. I started down a corridor which hopefully led to the kitchen but stopped when something hard hit the back of my head. I turned around to see the crazy old woman barefoot with one shoe in her shrivelled hand, the other by my feet.

She had thrown a shoe at me.

Was this hell?

"THE KITCHEN IS THIS WAY YOU STUPID GIRL!"

"Woah let's pump the hate breaks." I murmured as I slid past her and down the other hall, rubbing my sore head. Even though she looked about sixty, that woman could throw better than an Olympic athlete.

"Bacchus has poisoned your mind." She shook her head forlornly and I made a face to myself. There was no way I was making a face directly at her, I value my health. I realised she had mentioned Bacchus, the Roman equivalent to Dionysus. Did she think I was drunk?