The Centaur Queen (The Dark Queens #7)(39)

But one bite of that apple, and never again would one know the sting of physical pain. Anyone who consumed an apple could dance in dragon’s flame and live or walk the ocean floor and never worry about breaths. But there was a terrible price to pay if one succumbed to the temptation. It was said one of the trees in Gnósi had once been a beautiful human woman who’d feared death so much she’d eaten of the tree, gaining her eternal immortality, just not in the form she’d hoped for.

“Eat not of the apples,” Tymanon tossed over her shoulders as if she’d read my thoughts.

I wanted to assure her that I would not be so careless as that, but it was all I could do to keep to her grueling pace.

Her hooves beat the familiar and winding path that led straight to the large water fountain in the back. The fountain was a depiction of a Zeus’s seduction of Leda, a marble sculpture of a woman fleeing away as she transformed from a woman into a swan.

The Fates had a twisted sense of humor to tease the king of their pantheon in that manner, but not even Zeus himself would dare to punish them for it. All the pantheon feared the power of the three.

The moment I spied Leda’s marble wingtip, I knew we were close and put on a small burst of speed, catching up to Tymanon to arrive at the fountain’s edge together.

We were both breathing hard as we looked around. The last time I’d come here, the Fates had already been waiting for me. But this time, there was nothing but giant busts on pillars, busts of their faces, or at least, some of their preferred forms. No one really knew the Fates’ true forms since they seldom wore the same look. But I’d seen the faces staring back at me now the last time I’d come.

They’d all been in crone form—one dark as night, another golden like the dawn, and the last white as snow. Their skin had been weathered and heavily wrinkled, full of liver spots, and the hairs on their heads were nothing but patches of fuzz and frizz. Their eyes had all been a radiant, lambent glow. Clotho read the past, Lachesis the present, and Atropos read the future.

Tymanon walked toward the busts and was staring at them with focused intensity, moving her head side to side as though she saw something I did not. I frowned.

I looked at the busts again, trying to see them as she did. But no matter how hard I studied them, all I saw were the faces of hideous hags.

“Ty?” I asked, hoping for some clue, hoping to understand the world in the way she did. But I knew she’d tell me nothing.

She’d been noticeably silent when it came to the Fates. In the games, Tymanon had told me in great detail all that she would do each time she was forced to face an opponent. She’d studied each challenger in the seeing disk, learning their weaknesses, pointing them out to me. Tymanon was a wonderful teacher and thrived on learning, even when it wasn’t her own.

That she withheld so much now told me one of two things. Either she knew something she could not share with me, or she was as lost and confused as I was.

I instantly discarded the latter.

She glanced over her shoulder at me. Gold powder had settled into the braid of her hair, making her look like a bronze statue of an ancient warrior goddess. Ty had put leather braces on her wrists and even her legs. She had bound most of her body in rawhide armor, making her look strong and powerful and beautifully masculine.

My heart raced because I now knew her taste, knew her sighs. She’d been mine last night, completely and in every way, sharing of herself and holding nothing back. She had been so different from the powerful woman that stood before me now. But I did not dislike it. I found myself enjoying every facet of this strange and wonderful female.

“I... I think I know—”

Instantly, she stopped talking, twirling on her hooves as she moved, blocking my body with hers as though to shield me. It was only then that I noticed the three women standing on the opposite side of the fountain.

They looked nothing like the females I’d seen before. One was dark as night, one golden like the dawn, and one white as the snow. Their eyes were all the same shade of milk. There was where the similarities ended.

Last time they’d been repulsive. Now they were beautiful, wearing diaphanous skirts that fully exposed their pert breasts. The black one had hair of raven feathers that tumbled down her spine. The golden one wore a crown of stars. And the white one’s body pulsed with millions of jeweled, nearly-transparent butterfly wings.

“Are you sure you can pay the price?” the three women asked at once with voices as deep as the deepest trenches of the Seren seas.

Tymanon squared her shoulders as she reached into her pouch and pulled something out. She held out her fist to them. “Galeta has given me three seeds of wisdom.”

“Yes,” the dark one said, stepping forward as she lifted her hand. “I saw that.”

Which meant she must be Clotho.

Ty gasped as she turned her hand over. It was empty. Clotho now held the three brilliant seeds, cooing down at them with adoration.

“I know what it is you want to know,” the golden one stepped forward, and her stars blazed. That, then, was Lachesis.

Atropos cocked her head, causing the butterflies to temporarily scatter, surrounding her in a cloud of pearlescent brilliance, as she looked first at me, then at Tymanon.

“I see what comes for you,” she said in that same deep voice as her sisters. “You have made your choice then?”

I frowned. What choice?