The chamber beyond, while smaller than the massive rotunda of the temple above, was laid out in a similar fashion. Thick Doric columns lined both sides of the room, supporting a high, flat ceiling. Each column bore a thick torch set in a blackened sconce, though the flames struggled just as weakly as the one beside me. They cast the large chamber in a sickly, pale blue glow. The wavering, faint light gave the chamber a watery quality—as if I’d suddenly delved into the depths of Poseidon’s realm. But the light was enough to reveal row upon row of people, hooded and cloaked in robes as black as midnight.

It was impossible to discern who these followers of the mad Crone were, though I knew well enough that the black-clad priestesses devoted to Selene were among them. Yet not all the voices raised in intoning prayer were feminine. Deep baritones rang out among the crowd.

All faced forward, towards the altar that dominated the far end of the semicircular chamber. There, three silvered discs hung high on the wall; two crescents, one waxing, and one waning, flanked a full orb in the center. Three moons for the three aspects of Selene.

The three discs shimmered above the faithful, reflecting the subaqueous light as clearly as the moon’s pale face reflects the sun. A feminine figure stepped away from the gathered crowd, the watery light gleaming against the black silk of her hooded robe.

I didn’t need to see her face. I knew the shape of her, the cadence her body took in movement. Elysa presided over whatever this macabre ceremony was. Tonight, she played the part of High Priestess.

My chest tightened, stomach churning. What was this? Had jealousy of me cut her so deep that she was willing to let herself be used for the Emperor’s purpose? Did she hope that by feeding him strength from innocent God-Blooded that she could take my place?

Elysa reached the altar and the prayer changed, rising in tone and climbing in pitch until it transformed into a hymn. The voices built in volume, their song echoing off the stone walls, filling the chamber completely.

So very carefully, I pushed the door open, just wide enough for my body to shimmy between the panels, then closed it gently behind me, any small sound I made hidden beneath the singing voices. I moved as quickly as I dared towards the shadows behind a nearby column and took refuge in their shelter. All eyes stayed on Elysa. Not a single voice faltered as they continued to intone their ancient psalm. The words were archaic and I could not translate all of them, but enough rang clear to me as I moved further into the room, from column to shadowed column.

Queen of Madness, they sang, goddess of dark dreams… bringer of shadows . . . lady of blessed frenzy . . . shine forth your darkness.

I kept moving forward until I stood beneath a column near the front of the room, until those who stood in the front row, in the place of honor, were before me. As I’d suspected, Eleutherian priestesses from the mountain tribes were there, their identities betrayed by the battle braids that fell from beneath their black hoods, jet beads reflecting the wane light. But there were others among them, other priestesses and nobles.

Impossible to miss was the fat Governor of Aurumvale, his rail-thin wife beside him. With a bitter twist to my gut, I recognized her as the female from the infirmary who had not though of helping the Ostara priestess. On her other side stood one of the Emperor’s most trusted advisors. He neglected his song, choosing instead to murmur whispered words to the noble seated to his right.

The noble turned to reply and my heart leapt, hands balling into fists. The Emperor.

Anger spread through my veins, heat a riot in my gut. But then the hymn ended. The Emperor and his advisor quieted and turned to face the altar.

The air in the room thickened in that silence, growing heavy, expectant.

Then I heard what the chanting had hidden: heavy breaths, a moan, a low, guttural cry of a female in pain.

My eyes shot to the front of the chamber, where Elysa stood. A serpentine smile on her red lips, she stepped aside so that her faithful followers could behold what lat upon the stone altar at her back.

The female was naked, her goldenrod hair splayed across the altar and falling from the stone like hanging ivy. Each of her limbs was tied to one corner of the alter and her belly rose in the air, the mirror image of the round, silver disc which hung above her. A treat, the Emperor had said, sweeter than any wine. But it was not wine Elysa meant to spill in libation to the mad goddess, it was blood. A mother’s blood.

The female’s head rocked back and forth in pain. Her stomach tightened, becoming rock hard as a contraction gripped her. Her time was near, the babe no more than a few hours from its birth.

When the contraction released its vise hold, her head sagged to the side, facing the crowd.

All the shocks I’d faced this night, all the hurt and anger and betrayal faded into nothing as my eyes swept over her pained, lovely face.

Aphaea’s face.

My friend.

My patient.

Gods. Oh, gods, no.

Horror filled every pore, every cell of my being. Her brown eyes were full of panic. Again, the full moon of her belly hardened as another contraction hit. No. No. They could not be so cruel. They could not be so evil.

Elysa was my sister. Cold and unfeeling she might be, but she could not be this. Could not do something as terrible as this.

But I was a Korai and truth was my curse.

Rot filled my mouth as Elysa stepped forward and lowered the hood of her cloak, the weak torchlight glimmering off her hair as if it was spider silk. Her pale eyes swept the crowd, blood-red lips curling into a curl semblance of a smile.

“Welcome, friends,” her toneless voice echoed through the undercroft. “Nemoralia has come and passed and with it, Selene’s power wanes. As the cold approaches, the night lengthens, and the time of the Crone—goddess of dark illusion and bringer of fear—is upon us. Once, ages ago, when Doria was little more than waring tribes of barbarians scratching out a crude existence in the mountains, my mother came to the strongest tribe and blessed them with knowledge of her three faces. Of the Maiden goddess of mischief, the Mother of the Night, and the mad Crone. The Crone, who we have gathered this night to honor.

“Then, these goddesses were not thought of as separate beings, of the Mother to be worshiped and the Maiden and Crone to be feared. They were three faces of the same being, coexisting within Selene’s divine body, giving strength to her chosen people—the people of my father, the mortal whom she loves still.

“The Mani fed the Maiden and the Crone. The people grew strong as the goddess grew strong. But the Three-Faced One and her children were a threat to the other Dorian tribes. And so, the war was fought and lost. Selene’s powers were bound by Helios and Eos. The Maiden and the Crone were caged.

“This made us weak. We are vulnerable without the powers of the Maiden and Crone. Now more than ever before. As we stand here, this very moment, an enemy dwells within our holiest city. He has already done what should be impossible. He has survived Arachne’s venom—a poison strong enough to end Zeus. He has healed, and the law forbids us from intervening, from preventing him from competing in the Trials.” She paused, glancing from face to face. Her emotions were so strong that, weak as I was, I still felt the vibrations of pleasure run through her down the bond. She was a cat watching as a careless mouse wanders from its den. She sensed the unease, the fear, and impotent anger that filled her followers. “But the law,” she continued, “is ignorant of the Maiden and the Crone, written long after Doria had lost their strength. The law, therefore, mentions nothing of their unleashing.”

Murmuring hissed like a writhing nest of spiders. Those gathered sounded their agreement. Elysa turned to glance at Aphaea, lying helpless on the altar behind her. Aphaea let out a cry. “Please,” she said, the word a bit slurred from whatever magic or drug had been used to subdue her. “Pleassse.”

I stepped closer, drawn to the horror I knew was about to unfold. My mind moved desperately, flitting from impossibility to impossibility, trying to find some way, any way I could stop this.

“The price of the Maiden’s release has already been paid, with the power and life of the maiden, Leda. But the Crone does not desire an old woman as tribute. No, she claims a sweeter prize—a debt owed her for Selene’s dominance these countless centuries.” Elysa’s eyes shone in the wavering light, rare emotion filling them as she moved to Aphaea’s side.

Mind numb, body trembling with mute horror, my feet carried me closer to the altar. Elysa’s long-fingered hand pulled something from beneath her dark robes. Metal glinted in the wane light.

A dagger.

She let the cloak fall from her shoulders to pool on the stone beneath her feet, revealing a clinging black gown beneath, and drew the blade form an ornate, silver sheath. The glimmering sharp point lowered towards Aphaea’s prone form until it just grazed her swollen belly. Aphaea whimpered. “Please . . . my baby . . .”

Elysa smiled.

Quicker than a striking adder, she drew back the blade and with a swift, brutally efficient swipe, drew it across the flesh of Aphaea’s bound wrist.

She cried out, though the crowd was held in rapt, bated silence. Blood welled and flowed across the stone, disappearing as it ran in conduits carved into the altar’s stone surface.

A few more steps and I stood at the edge of the shadow’s safety. I reached for my power, for the heat in my blood. But the darkness pressed in. Pain exploded at my temples, the same pounding agony I’d felt on Nemoralia. I struggled to keep my eyes open, to watch as Elysa brought the blade down again, hissing in pleasure as she slashed into Aphaea’s other wrist—her reaction this time only a weak moan. Her lifeblood cascaded over the altar and into another of the strange, carved channels.

I forced my feet to take another step, the pain growing, my knees turning to liquid. I was dangerously close now. Close enough to see the shinning crimson as it flowed from an opening in the base of the altar, pooling into an etched depression in the stone floor. Carved there was a twin to the silver trio above: three moons, waxing, full, and waning filled with Aphaea’s blood.

Elysa lifted her arms over her head—a priestess in the fervor of prayer. Words spilled from her mouth, too fast for me to make them out, but as she spoke, her supplicants joined, their voices entwining in a rhythmic beat. But one by one each of the faithful broke off, their words different from the chanted prayer, some not words at all but screaming, screeching, howling cries. The sound rose in great waves—the prayers a cacophony of madness.

Then, when I thought my mind would implode with the pain, with the deranged, clamorous sound, the darkness answered.

The doors flew open, banging into the stone walls of the chamber, and the voices fell silent, waiting.

My blood was ice in my veins as the pain grew and grew and grew. The skulking darkness that I’d felt in the hall beyond slithered between the doors like a writhing mass of oily black snakes. The torches faltered, their sickly light thinning, as the shadows moved up the aisle, crawling toward the thickening pool of blood that filled the etchings before the altar.

Elysa’s arms lowered. The silver dagger fell from her hands and landed on the stone altar with a metallic clatter. As if they’d waited for this moment, the voices of her supplicants rose in earnest until I was pressing the heels of my palms against my ears to drown out the manic dissonance.

The darkness rose. Shimmering, oily limbs climb towards Elysa, wrapping around her body in a lover’s embrace until she was hidden in the mass of undulating gloom.

The cries of the faithful peaked and the Ether around me trembled. The torches died. The room was plunged into a total, unnatural darkness. Silence, as sudden as death, filled the chamber.

For a moment, the pain in my skull abated. A breath, then two. A harsh voice cackled, ringing out in the quiet. Then the torches flickered with faint life. Elysa stood before the altar, the torchlight shining in her hair, her colorless eyes wide, pupils drowning out the opalescence as if she were in the grip of Bloodlust. She hovered above my bleeding friend and laughed. Again and again, she laughed. The sound was mad, terrible, and it grew in volume, then in pitch, much like that prayer that had summoned the dark power into the room. Then her eyes lowered to Aphaea and the laughter stopped.

Slowly, so slowly the movement seemed unnatural and disjointed, Elysa bent over her. Ruby red lips brushed the softest of kisses across Aphaea’s bloodless mouth.

Then the darkness struck.