Chapter 27: Calliope

Village of Khor Qurid, Ysuelt Valley

"Who are you?"

Calliope asked the question at the same time the woman in red asked another.

"Maverick, what are you doing here?"

But he chose to answer Calliope.

"Calliope, please. I can explain–" he started, taking a step forward. But Sebastian stepped between them, raising his chin in challenge, fingers poised over the dagger on his hip. Neva stepped forward. The man they called Maverick did not take his eyes from Calliope's, however. He just watched her, silently pleading with her to allow him the opportunity to explain himself. But she was too furious to give him that kindness.

"Let's go, Sebastian," she said, reaching out for her oldest friend's arm and pulling him away, back toward the dwelling. When she approached the bound chimera, she quickly muttered the phrase that had it levitating behind her, following her back to the Ysuelt. "Is bhaar ko sahane ke lie halka karen."

Then she stomped away with Sebastian right behind her. He stayed close to her side, making sure to stay between her and the offending liar, as they stormed from the village. Unfortunately, the woman in red and her companions had thought to bring two more horses for Neva and Maverick to ride upon. Even more unfortunately, Maverick wasn't the sort to give up easily. Despite Calliope's obvious unwillingness to speak to him. Despite, even, his friends' pleas to return home with them.

He mounted his horse in one smooth motion that only proved to Calliope what she had just begun to assume. That he was a man of means, perhaps even of title. He had been born and raised in the finery his friends prominently displayed, riding horses rather than walking anywhere he went. That was why he couldn't hunt, why he hadn't known which berries were safe to eat and which weren't, and why he had seemed so amazed by the wide world outside of whatever estate he had hailed from. The more she thought about it, the more her blood began to boil and she hardly heard him calling out to her all the way back to the keep.

His friends, who had begun the journey begging him to turn back, to go home with them and leave her behind, grew quiet the longer they journeyed and the clearer it became that he was not intending to follow their advice.

"Stubborn", she cursed him under her breath. He was so damn stubborn.

He had stopped calling out to her for a moment but returned to it in earnest once she and Sebastian reached the doors to the dwelling. Sebastian muttered the words to keep the chimera waiting outside as Calliope reached for the hidden entrance.

"Calliope, just let me explain!" he was shouting as the doors opened and she and Sebastian strolled through. But he was just as fast getting off his horse as he was getting on and he walked right in behind them, his long legs easily catching up to their pace. His companions followed with minimal hesitation, a true show of their loyalty to whoever he was. "If you would stop for just a second–"

They had reached the main hall of the dwelling. What had been a boisterous, pleasant mealtime died to near silence at the commotion they were creating. Gabriel, sitting near Bruin and closest to the entrance, rose to his feet, already assessing the threat, as his daughter stormed toward him, followed by the companions she had left with and three new, potentially unwelcome guests. Before she made it to her father's table, however, she whirled on the boy who had been following so hot on her heels that he had to stop just as suddenly or else he would have ran right into her.

Her lips curled into a sneer, she leaned forward so that their chests almost touched and hissed, "I don't like liars. So either tell me who you are right now or get out."

Maverick blinked at her, his lips parting slightly.

Her eyes slid to the rest of his party behind him and she added, "All of you."

"I– I–" he stuttered, seemingly caught off guard that she had actually given him the chance to explain at all. She was just about to call him pathetic, unable to explain himself even when she gave him the opportunity, but then he made yet another mistake. His eyes slid to Gabriel. It was brief, only a mere second, but Calliope saw it. Horrified, she spun to face her father.

"You knew?" she asked, eyes wide and jaw dropped. Gabriel said nothing, only frowned, but she knew her father well enough to know what that meant. Furious now, she turned on Maverick once more. "Who the hell are you?"

"Calliope," he said her name so sweetly, so kindly, that she didn't doubt she would have fallen for it were she not so enraged. "Might we go somewhere more private?"

She blinked, finally realizing just how many of the Ysuelt were seated in this main hall, watching the commotion with curiosity. Maverick reached for her but she yanked her arm away and stormed off toward the nearest armory. Without a word, the rest of them followed.

Calliope marched into the armory first, followed closely by Sebastian and Gabriel, both of whom stood closer to her but far enough away to give her the space she always needed when she was this angry. Though she couldn't quite remember another time in which she was this angry.

Maverick and his party joined them only seconds later, the other man with them closing the door behind him as he was the last to enter. The two women in dresses, Aditya, as he had called the woman in red, and the other in blue sat themselves demurely on the couches that the Ysuelt never used. Neva and the other man stood behind them. Maverick stood in the center of the room but, again, his eyes were only on Calliope. Calliope who stood with her arms crossed and her jaw firm by the window on the opposite side of the room.

"No, I haven't been honest with you," Maverick began and Calliope's jaw twitched with irritation at having what she already knew to be true confirmed from his own lips. "But there's a reason for that. Whether it's a good enough one or not will have to be up to you. But let me tell you it first."

She frowned but waited for him to continue.

"My real name is Maverick Aphelion. I am the second son of the King of Delos, his legitimized bastard," he said. She was still angry, still wanted to ensure he knew just how mad she was, but in that moment all trace of rage in her expression vanished and was replaced with pure shock.

"You– you're a prince of Delos," Calliope repeated dumbly.

"Yes," he replied gently with a nod. "On the night of the attack, someone had snuck into my rooms in the palace and tried to kill me. Neva saved my life and then helped me flee. We were on our way out of the city when we met you. I didn't want to lie to you. I never did. But Neva thought it would be safer until we knew if we could trust you. We still don't know exactly who commissioned my would-be assassin and why."

"And you knew this?" Calliope asked, still stunned, as she looked to her father.

"I knew his mother, Valencia," Gabriel explained. "He looks just like her."

Calliope fell back into her rage at that. Yet another secret her father had been keeping from her.

"How did you find us?" Neva asked then, interrupting Maverick's confession with a question of her own that appeared to have been burning her up inside. She was looking sideways at the three that had come upon them at the village. "We left no trace. I sent word about what happened but not where we'd gone. How–"

"This one," Aditya said, nodding to the woman in blue. "She led us right to you. Said she could feel him or something."

"Not him," the woman in blue said. Her voice was serene, melodic, but her smile was unhinged as she turned to Calliope. "Her."

All eyes turned back to Calliope then and she bristled.

"And who are you?" she snapped.

"This is Delphi," Maverick explained. "She is a Sahira with the ability to see the future as it presents itself to her. This is Aditya. She can shift form. And behind them is Zephyr. He's got the strength of an ox."

"Sahir," Calliope whispered, stunned. "All of them?"

"The three of them, yes. Not me and not Neva. Though some might say Neva's ability to disappear when she has a mind to is a magic of its own."

He was smiling now, making a joke. Was he truly so relaxed? Did he really think he had bypassed her anger? She frowned.

"Maverick, you have to come back with us," Aditya said then and, in the tone of her voice, Calliope could hear a sense of urgency. "Now. The war has begun. The king is worried, closing up the doors and pulling everyone close. Someone needs to be there to talk some sense into his fear. You were always good at that."

Maverick frowned at the unwelcome news, listening to Aditya before turning his attention to Delphi and then back to Calliope.

"Come with me," he said.

It took Calliope a moment to realize he was speaking to her. In that moment, Gabriel stepped threateningly forward and Sebastian gaped at the newcomer's audacity.

"Excuse me?" Sebastian asked, stunned.

At the look on Gabriel's face, Maverick rushed on in explanation.

"She's had visions," he said, pointing to Delphi. "She says you're important. She said I needed to find you. Now that I have, I can't leave you. I can't explain it. I just know that we need you. Please."

Just as before, all eyes were on him but he was looking only at Calliope, pleading with her to understand. She watched him for a moment, considering, and then looked to her father.

"Calliope, don't–" Gabriel began because he knew his daughter well.

"I'm going," she said.

"What?" Sebastian shouted at the same time that Gabriel said, "I forbid it."

"You forbid it?" Calliope asked, narrowing her gaze as she advanced upon him. "Why? Because he lied to me? Who are you to tell me not to trust a liar? You've kept more secrets from me than anyone else here! My whole life! I heard you talking to Lilibet the night of the festival. I heard what you said."

Gabriel's lips parted slightly. Calliope didn't notice the glance Maverick tossed Gabriel's way at the mention of Lilibet's name.

"So unless you would like to tell me what you haven't yet..." Calliope said then, giving her father an opening to tell her everything he had been keeping from her from the moment she was born. As always, he did not take it. He opened his lips once, closed them, and frowned. "I thought so."

With that, Calliope turned away from her father and gave one final nod to Maverick before sweeping from the room in a haze of rage.