b e x l e y
zeus acts as zeus ordains. do you think the gods ignore a man who steps on holy things?
S
omething was going to happen tonight. Or that’s what she’d heard. In the markets there had been a ripple of uneasy interest—the slow shifting of eyes back and forth, whispers swelling on top of the whining violins—she’d noticed it as soon as she stepped into the streets and felt them closing in around her like a vice. It was packed even more than usual; Bexley could hardly wiggle through the crush of bodies as they floated heat into the atmosphere. They had all been tilted toward a figure standing on top of a box in the middle of the square. His hair floated wild around his face, a scarab tattoo shone from his ribs, and he had been shouting into the still air with a ferocity that turned his eyes white and sent foam running out of his mouth. She had only been able to catch the tail end of his invitation before someone grabbed at his leg with their gnashing teeth and pulled him down, down, down until he disappeared into the mass of bodies. She had stared at him, or the space that he had occupied only a moment ago, with a horror that chilled her to the roots of her teeth. Her whole body made an attempt to seize. The rest of the crowd didn’t notice, or pretended not to, and that was almost worse: she could see on their faces that they were used to this kind of violence, and by now she should have been used to it, too, but something in her was still too soft. Still hurt in ways it shouldn’t have been able to. Coming to Denocte was supposed to be something that healed her, that removed her from Solterra’s teeth and claws and vibrant violence, and yet the trouble had followed her all the way here, nipping at her heels like a hungry dog. Maybe it wasn’t Solterra. Maybe it wasn’t even Raum. Maybe Bexley was just a magnet for disaster. (It would explain quite a bit, actually.)
The incident had happened hours ago, and she’s still thinking about it, curled up in her tower, soaked in lamplight, as rain pours against the windows. The room is woefully quiet, and cold leaches in from the spaces between the bricks. Her heartbeat is too slow and too sticky for her to feel completely awake. Get up. Wind howls outside. Get up and go look. She keeps seeing it—the way he fell backward into the stone, how he had yelled for help and been met with only silence. She’s not even sure what he had been talking about, only that it had been something important, something that brought a big crowd together just to divide it again. Something worth checking out.
And he’d had the same tattoo as August, the same tattoo as Minya. That had to point to something.
Bexley grits her teeth and hauls herself to her feet. Her joints protest stiffly against the cold and the time she’s spent pressed up against the floor, but she moves through the inflexible pain to the top of the stairs and slowly, as if afraid of the dark, starts to descend. The whole tower seems to groan as she moves through it; the darkness that streams in from the windows is thick and suffocating. The staircase is utterly silent except for the frost of her breath and the click of her hooves on the stone. Even the foyer is empty, as mute as a still life painting, and she is almost glad to emerge into the muggy blackness of the rain-glazed streets, if only for the shadow that she sees moving toward her from an alleyway to the left.
[b“Hi,” [/b] Bexley calls to it, and tries not to be self-conscious of the way her voice rasps from disuse deep in her throat.
@Antiope | "speaks" | notes: <3
