PROLOGUE
Katherine Carter. The Sixth Sibyl
My life would end in three weeks’ time.
I knew this. I’d accepted my fate the moment I first held Apollo’s golden mirror. Just as I held it now and caressed the delicate carvings along the frame. The screaming face of a woman on the back. I had hoped it would give me strength. I had hoped that I would once again feel the warmth of Apollo’s light as I had for so long. Yet, there was nothing. Apollo had abandoned me some twenty-two years ago. The moment my replacement was born into the world. His absence was a cold reminder of the one thing I never should have forgotten.
I was nothing more than slave. A servant. One who no longer served a purpose to her god or to the world.
“Mistress Carter.”
I snapped my head around as if my keeper had become my executioner. Cyrus Alexius stepped out of the shadows with his head bowed. His hands clasped before his waist. The former soldier did not move until I spoke. His training too great. The centuries spent being an agent of Apollo too long for him to change now.
“Welcome home, Cyrus.” I placed the golden hand mirror onto the table beside my chair. “You have news for me, I assume.”
The man nodded. For the fifth time in the past hour, I felt fear strike at my heart. The only news he could bring me this evening would be that of my death. Details of an order passed down from the god himself some six months before.
“Apollo wished to know if your schemes have proven to be successful.” Cyrus lifted his chin to study my face. “If so, then we should discuss your final preparations.”
Final preparations. I clutched at the crystal pendant which hung at my throat to keep my hands off the mirror. It had become a crutch. One that I was being forced to relinquish to a child who knew nothing of our world.
“My life was supposed to be sacred.” I stared past my keeper to the window behind him. “My immortality was supposed to be infinite. A reward for the horrors I have seen. Yet, in a blink of an eye, it is over.”
“Mistress…”
“Where have the past two centuries gone, Keeper?” I looked to him with a sad smile. “You once told me that forever was a very long time. Now, I will never know.”
“Forgive me, but Apollo…”
“Will want my response presently.” I finished his sentence for him with a wave of my hand. “Tell the Golden One that I have consulted the oracle. All will go as planned.”
“His agents have confirmed that the girl will be speaking with Elliot Lancaster about the show.” Cyrus confirmed. “It has yet to be seen if she will accept the offer which will put her in contact with you.”
“If the girl is smart, she will run as far away from Theia Productions as she can.” I sighed. “Alas, she will not. The money will be too great for her to resist.”
“It always is.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Eva McRayne will do as her blood and the Fates decree. If it so pleases them, the girl will accept the offer. She will take my position.”
“Then we must prepare for our trip to New York.”
“Of course.” I nodded. “As far as my ‘final preparations’, as you called them, are concerned, well. I wish for my suicide to be quick. Painless. I will decide upon a method before the final hour.”
Cyrus gave me a look of pity before he stepped back into the shadows. He was gone within seconds and I was once again alone.
My words to the keeper had been true. I had indeed done the duties demanded of me by my patron god. I collapsed back into the armchair to rest my face in my hands as I considered how I wished to die.
It was not a consideration I thought I would ever have to make.
I had orchestrated my own undoing. I knew this. I set it into motion by refusing to expand my reach. I had failed Apollo long before he decided to give my titles to another. A girl who had no idea just how much her life was about to change. I wished to feel pity for her. I had considered reaching out to her to warn her of the god’s intentions.
Yet, I was too attached to my duty. The orders assigned to me. I would not go against them. No. Eva McRayne would learn as we all did before her. Through fear. Abandonment. And when she ceased to bring followers and power to our god, she would be replaced.
Just as she was replacing me.
Perhaps it was for the best. I dropped my hands to watch the sunset fade into darkness. I had suffered greatly over my lifetime. The sadness of the dead had become a burden much too heavy for me to carry. My heart had been shattered more often than not thanks to the blessings Apollo had bestowed upon me when I first took his oath.
I was tired. Heartsick. And though I appeared young, my soul knew different.
I picked up the phone beside the mirror and dialed the number sent to me by my agent some six months before. I spoke to a young man who seemed all too eager to secure my spot at Paracon. When we were finished, I disconnected the call with a new sense of determination.
My time as the Sibyl, Apollo’s messenger of the dead, was over. My replacement had been handpicked by the god himself. The Fates would weave a new string into their tapestry when I confronted the girl. Cut and tie off the string of my life.
And I would finally be free of the chains holding me to this existence.
