I know. I'm not fit to breathe your precious air and I should be killed where I stand.
He was surprised she didn't come after him with a knife like his mother had. Gods save me from hysterical bitches.
Styxx started to turn away, but just as he moved, a fierce, unbelievable pain went through his tongue. It was so bad that he couldn't breathe for it, and it sent him straight to his knees as his head reeled.
What in the name of Hades?
He felt like he was choking on blood, and instead of easing, it worsened. Unable to stand it, he cried out in utter agony.
Oh gods, Acheron ... what are they doing to you now?
It was the only rational explanation. Over the years, he'd learned to hide the phantom pains that came when he wasn't expecting them. Most he understood. They were canings or beatings. Hair-pulling. Burns. Hunger pangs even though he'd just eaten ... But others, like this, he didn't comprehend what caused them. All he knew was how bad it hurt.
"Styxx?"
He heard his father's voice, yet he couldn't respond. His tongue was too swollen. While he didn't often show the physical traces of Acheron's injuries, he would at times have peculiar handprints or swollen places on his body. But never had anything like this happened before.
Arching his back, he tried to focus on something else. Yet it was impossible. Tears streamed down his face as his vision swam.
"He's faking." Ryssa snarled, kicking at his legs. "He's jealous that I'm getting all the attention and he can't stand it."
His father's senior advisor knelt on the floor beside him so that he could inspect Styxx's damaged mouth and swollen tongue. "Majesty, it's the bakkheia." A type of insanity caused by Dionysus that was said to infect those who had offended the god of wine. "I think he's possessed."
No! Styxx tried his best to say the word.
Nothing came out.
His father knelt down on his other side. "What do we do?"
"We must get him to the Dionysion and let the priests tend him."
Styxx shook his head, trying to stop them. While working at the temples, he'd heard too many stories about what befell those deemed mad. Or anyone who was believed to have offended a god.
But no one listened. They couldn't understand him. Nor did they try.
Before he could stop them, his father called for his guards and had him carried to the Dionysian temple in the middle of the city.
Helpless against his inexplicable pain, Styxx listened as his father explained to the high priest how he'd been stricken for no reason. How he had a history of headaches, vomiting, and "imagined" ailments. That he seldom slept. And that his mother had gone mad shortly after his birth, and succumbed to her cups, that in a fit of rage last year, she'd stabbed Styxx and then tried to kill herself in front of him.
"It's a good thing you brought him here, Majesty. You are right. He is possessed and we can definitely make him better for you."
Styxx shook his head as terror held him tight to her bosom. "F-f-f-fa-fer?"
"Shh, boy. The priests will help you."
Styxx clutched at his father's palla, desperate to go home, but his father pried his hands off his clothes while the priests came forward and put chains on him.
The last words he heard from his father before they dragged him away sickened him the most.
"I grant you and your priests full immunity. Do whatever you must to heal him."
June 21, 9535 BC
Styxx choked as the priests forced a gag into his mouth. They'd already stripped him naked and hung him in the center of the temple so that they could begin "treating" him.
One of the priests drew symbols in lamb's blood over his body while another brought out a pair of shears and a ceremonial dagger. They lit incense and candles while they chanted for the god's forgiveness for whatever sin Styxx had committed against him. Then to his complete horror, they started cutting off pieces of his hair and then burning the locks in a gold bowl.
Screaming around the gag, he tried to stop them, but with his arms spread out and chained, there was nothing he could do.