Chapter 47: Calliope

Palace of the Equinox Throne; Kingdom of Delos

"What does it mean?"

"The Chaos is claiming that the princess acted of her own accord in killing my brother," Maverick answered Calliope's question as his eyes scanned the letter in his hands, the one that his father had just handed him after summoning them both to his study. "He says she has been... executed for the crime of regicide."

Maverick's eyes snapped up to his father.

"Is this true?" he asked, waving the letter towards the king.

Helios gave a grim nod.

"We verified it this morning," Helios replied with a frown. "Some of Bijan's soldiers fled rather than bend the knee. They said he pushed her off Idoria's central wall in front of Bijan and everyone."

"And the rest?" Calliope asked, a tad impatiently. She knew it wasn't her place to question the king or his heir, nor was it within her rights to demand to know the contents of such an important letter. But she had been summoned here for a reason and she was growing anxious at what that might be.

"He's testing us," Maverick answered her with a sigh, handing her the piece of paper so she could read it for herself. "He claims to seek an alliance."

"Claims," she repeated. "You don't think he means it?"

"His terms are vague, scattered. He isn't particularly concise on any points that matter. He isn't arranging to meet with us or entertain any sort of mutual action. It's just pretty words meant to appease us so he can carry out whatever his true plot might be."

Helios nodded with approval at his son's interpretation of the Chaos' words but Calliope wasn't so sure. It seemed friendly enough. Delivering news and justice, calling Delos a noble country and reminding them that their interests concerning magic aligned.

"It's a threat, Calliope," Maverick warned as if he could see her doubt written plainly on her face. "When he mentions joining the might of our armies, it's because he wants us to know he's amassed an army. When he says 'unification of our great countries', it's because he wants to remind us that Idoria belongs to him now. It's all thinly veiled politics."

Calliope frowned, setting the letter down and feeling foolish.

"He wants to come here," the king said then, referencing the last bit of the letter that Calliope hadn't read.

"No," Maverick snapped quickly.

"Not so fast, my boy. We should hear him out. He's our greatest enemy, the biggest threat to our borders. Perhaps we can get more than we give. And if not, well, he is presumed to be our prophesied hero, is he not?"

"He's no hero."

"No, probably not. But he thinks he is and that is what matters. That is what we can use."

"He's been looking for her," Maverick said, nodding his head toward Calliope. "You saw the letter from the Duke. He tore down his estate and shattered the man to pieces to find out where she was."

"And Kael did not tell him."

"No, but someone will, if they haven't already. Or if he hasn't figured it out. I told you not to send an entire royal procession to collect her."

"So he knows she's here! So what? Let him come. Let him see her for himself. Let him have whatever conversation with her that he's so desperate to have. What's the harm in it?"

"What's the harm- this man has convinced thousands of people to stand behind him, turning against their homeland, attacking kingdoms, monarchies. He's taken over a religion, a throne, an army. He has talked himself into everything he has. And you want to let him talk to her?"

"Let him come," Calliope interrupted.

Maverick and the king both turned to her, Maverick's lips parting in surprise at her decision. She could understand that. She knew he was trying to protect her but she didn't need his protection. She was powerful, more so now than ever before, and she was tired of the men in her life seeing her as anything but.

"Let him talk," she continued, turning to Maverick. "And trust that I won't listen."

It was silent for a moment as her words settled. Maverick looked pained, worried, but he did not argue with her and that meant more to her than he knew.

"It's settled," the king said then, clapping his hands together. "I'll invite the brute in. Maverick, alert the men. Calliope, on your guard."

She nodded and, sensing that she was dismissed, left the king and his heir to whatever argument they would undoubtedly have in her absence.

It wasn't long after that conversation that it became clear the Chaos had arrived. He must have been close. Perhaps just outside of the palace, waiting to be allowed in. When he wrote that letter, he might have hand delivered it. She wasn't sure. All she knew was that one morning she woke up and everything was different, everything felt different.

No one was laughing at breakfast or even really talking. The king and his heir were not in attendance for either the morning meal or the afternoon one. Their seats sat eerily empty. Aditya and Zephyr kept their heads down, staring into their bowls, not even bickering with one another. Neva remained steady at Calliope's side. Even when she had become exasperated with the constant company and barked that she, as a guard, didn't need a guard of her own. Neva had stated simply that Maverick disagreed and hadn't left her side since.

It wasn't until after dinner when Calliope saw Maverick for the first time. It was clear, upon first glance, that he hadn't slept since they had last spoken. His eyes were red ringed and dark and he blinked them too frequently as if trying to keep himself awake. He wore regalia befitting a royal visitor and ascended the dais to sit in his place beside his father's throne.

The throne room was packed today. Every nobleman at court was in attendance, crowded against the walls, leaning forward for a better view of the continent's most hated man. There were more guards than Calliope had ever seen. Even the servants had found a reason to attend, absentmindedly scrubbing walls that were already clean or taking down tapestries they had just put up. Calliope stared at the teenage serving boy pulling down the singed banner from when the bald headed Sahir had tossed fireballs at her to keep from staring at the doors like everyone else.

She heard it when he entered though. The hall fell deathly silent as those big wooden doors croaked open. There was the thunder of a dozen pairs of boots on the ancient wooden floors and the distinct swishing of a cloak as they passed through the crowd.

Calliope forced herself to look then, to face him. She wasn't surprised to find that he was watching her back. His deep crimson cloak spread out behind him, the arms rolled up, material stretching to cover his broad shoulders. His jaw was firm, chiseled, and covered in dark stubble. His eyes were red ringed and darkened as well but they sparkled with something Calliope recognized with a clench in her gut. Power.

"King Helios," the Chaos greeted, keeping his eyes on her for a beat too long before finally, lazily, turning his attention to the king. "A pleasure."

"Is it?" the king asked.

The room fell silent once more but the Chaos' lips only spread into a slow smile.

"We'll see," he mused with a grin, as if this meant nothing to him, as if he weren't standing in front of the gathered court of Delos, taunting their king. "I found your son's murderer. I executed her for her crimes."

Whispers rose up within the court. Helios' jaw tightened. Clearly, that was information that he would have rather kept to himself.

"Have you come for a reward?" the king asked.

The Chaos smiled, that broad, lazy grin.

"I've heard rumors," he began, "that you've found yourself an Andhakaar."

The whispers grew louder. Helios' mask slipped entirely. He frowned angrily down at his foe, eyebrows knitted together. Maverick glanced at Calliope. The Chaos caught the movement and followed, strolling a few steps toward her. She tensed, keeping herself from reaching for her blade. It wouldn't do her any good anyway.

"So it's true," he continued. He knew it was. He had faced her himself and lost. This was all a show, a way to reveal every one of the king's hidden advantages. Calliope's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Helios had been wrong. He was good, too good. "I was under the impression that in Delos, it is a requirement, by law, that every Makana, excuse me, Enchanter, register with your government the moment they realize they can wield magic."

"It is," the king replied, slowly. "But Calliope has only recently discovered her abilities. We are in the process of getting her registered now."

"Isn't a part of the registration process a test of the Enchanter's abilities?"

Maverick's eyes widened. Helios frown deepened.

"It is," the king said again.

"Well, why don't we take care of that right now?" he cried out, rolling up his sleeves even more and turning toward Calliope. "Let your people see the might of the Andhakaar."

Calliope frowned. What was he doing? What was his game? If she won, he would appear weak in front of the entire Delosian court. If he won, his reputation would grow but not much more than it had, if at all. Defeating an untested girl in a one on one situation was not exactly an achievement for a skilled Enchanter like the Chaos.

"Father, don't," Maverick spoke because he could see the king considering it.

Helios, however, looked to her. Calliope gave him one firm nod and he nodded back.

"Very well," the king said.

Calliope pulled off her fancy, embroidered coat and handed it to another guard nearby. Then she stepped forward, walking until she was between the Chaos and the throne. He was grinning at her, watching her like a cat watches a mouse. She flexed her fingers and waited for him to strike.

She reached for her power and felt it respond. Buried down deep, it roused from sleep like a fussy child, pushing back against her, fighting her. She wrestled it into submission and kept it simmering under the surface, waiting.

She felt the change in the air before she saw the flame. It licked out from his palm and then died in the air between them. The onlookers gasped in awe. Calliope narrowed her gaze. The Chaos smiled. He clapped his hands together and the throne room shook. A wave began at the back of the room and washed forward, lifting wooden planks from the floor and tossing people off their feet. It stopped a few feet in front of her and the rest of the floor slammed back into place. People screamed and righted themselves. Calliope flexed her fingers again, cracked her neck, and waited.

His next strike wasn't visible. It was a current, a ripple in the air. Presumably, he had been trying to call the wind, to blow open the doors and windows with a gust of hurricane-like force. But all he managed was a gentle breeze. Calliope felt the air siphon through her lungs, brisk and delicious. But she hardly had time to bask in her victory before he supercharged the breeze, flooding it with heat. The edges of her vision became hazy. The Chaos was crystal clear and so was everything within the bubble they had created for themselves, but everything beyond was a haze, like staring out at an object across an open field on a hot day. They moved but they didn't, like waves on the air itself.

The air sizzled and Calliope felt the tingles in her fingertips, her toes, the end of her nose. It ran up her arms, her legs, flooded her body with a feeling of such immense power that she had to fight to remain standing.

"Now you see what you are capable of," he said.

Her eyes flew open. She didn't remember closing them. When had she closed them?

"This is what true power looks like, Calliope. This is what it feels like."

He was talking to her. How was he talking to her? She felt a trickle of warmth run from her nose over her lip and raised a hand to it. Her fingers came away bloody. She looked up at him, wide eyed. She could see the people beyond moving frantically around them. Some were running from the room, some staring on in abject horror, the king was pale. Maverick was only feet away from her, waving his arms desperately, shouting. But she couldn't hear them. She couldn't hear any of them.

"What- what's happening?" she asked, pulling her eyes from Maverick.

"It's called an Impasse," he told her. "I've only read about it before. I've never found anyone powerful enough to actually create one. When two supremely powerful Makana face one another, sometimes their power creates a vacuum. It seals them away from the world, tears into the very fabric of time and space to set them apart."

He was smiling. The whole time he explained this terrifying phenomenon, he was smiling.

"You are indeed remarkable," he told her then. "But no one here understands your power. I've already gotten you to access more of it in two minutes than they have in weeks, haven't I?"

She didn't reply. She felt her power answering his automatically now, as if their magic had established some symbiotic relationship to keep this bubble going, to keep them suspended in their own little vacuum. She felt it flowing from every inch of her being and she felt powerless to stop it.

But as terrifying as that feeling was, the immense power flowing through her felt incredible. And finally, she understood. There was something about using powerful magic against powerful magic. Like called to like. And when it found each other, it was electric. This was her potential. This was what she could do. And they had been wrong about it all along, about all of it.

She wasn't a silencer. She was more than that. He was chaos and she was peace. She was the eye of the storm, the void in the presence. It wasn't nothing, it wasn't an absence, it was something, it was a presence. She wasn't dampening his power. She was just thrusting nothingness at him. He made things go. She made them stop. Because what was a beginning without an end? What was creation without destruction?

"Come with me," he prodded. "I can teach you."

Calliope turned to Maverick, the desperation in his eyes, the way his lips were forming her name, over and over again. She wavered, her power waned. She was weakening. She wasn't used to this, to maintaining her magic for so long. Her eyelids fluttered but she forced herself to turn back to the Chaos.

"They don't understand us," he repeated. "I'm fighting for the rights of all Makana, so that we never have to hide this power we hold within us again."

"No," she answered, sagging slowly to the ground.

The Chaos' jaw tightened. His gaze darted to Maverick.

"Because of him?" he asked, incredulous. "You would give up the opportunity to wield your power for him?"

"I know what it's like to be hated," Calliope muttered softly, her voice rasping as she drifted closer to unconsciousness. "But the answer isn't to give hate in return."

The Chaos snarled. Just before Calliope blacked out, she saw him redirect his energy, felt the heat pulsing in his fingers, saw the fireball ignite and shatter the bubble, shooting towards Maverick. She used every last bit of energy she had to toss dissolution at it. She saw it turn to smoke and drift away just before she lost consciousness and slumped to the floor in front of the dais.