She heard a sound from outside the cell. Was it her imagination or did it sound as though someone were approaching the door? She locked her eyes on the solid steel door and strained her ears, hoping to hear even the faintest ruffle of fabric. A soft succession of footsteps grew in volume before stopping. Someone was just outside the door! She drew her knees up to her chest and lifted her torso until she was sitting on the balls of her feet. A clinking metal sound reverberated throughout the small room before the door opened, light pouring in like a bright sun that burned her eyes. By the time she adjusted a pair of hands was on her arms.
“What’s happening?” she asked as she tried to recoup her senses.
“You’re being released,” a gruff-voiced Crown Soldier replied.
“What do you mean?” She could barely keep up with the tugging and pulling, her limbs aching from the sudden increase of blood flow as she was forced into a standing position. Pins and needles pricked at her feet with every step as she was guided from the room and into the bright light.
“The Queen has ordered your release,” the second Soldier replied.
The Queen? But that could only mean… No, she thought. Evander what have you done?
“Zoe! Time to wake up, Little Princess.”
Zoe’s eyes opened still full of sleep, her mind not yet ready for comprehension. She was still in the land of far away dreams and did not want to come back to the land of reality.
“I’ve made you your favorite doughy cakes!”
“Mommy, no. I don’t wanna.” She could have just closed her eyes and drifted back into dreamland. Her body was still snuggled deep into the feathery soft bed beneath her.
“Just leave her there if she doesn’t want to go!” a little girl whined. She sounded as petulant as any one child could be, her voice ringing high in irritation.
Zoe’s eyes snapped open at once and blinked into the artificial morning light. She found Zara tapping her foot impatiently on the floor as she stood in the doorway, her eyes trained furiously on their mother who was sitting at the edge of the bed.
“Zara why don’t you go eat with Daddy? Zoe will be out to join you shortly.”
“She better not make us late!” Zara huffed impatiently. She cast her eyes downward at Zoe before running out of the room.
Zoe sat up in the bed and pulled loose strands of dark hair from around her race, twisting them into a knot behind her neck. Thea smiled down at her, her cheeks full of pink and her eyes sparkling with a hint of excitement.
“Do you remember what today is, Zoe?” she asked.
The sleepiness still lingered but she found herself waking into comprehension as she sat. “Today is a very important day,” she repeated verbatim from memory, having heard her mother reminding her of it incessantly for some time.
“Exactly!” Thea gently touched her index finger and thumb on Zoe’s nose and gave it a light squeeze. “Now, you haven’t got much time to get ready, so I want you to wash up, get dressed, and join your sister at the Throne Room. She’s going to make a big announcement.”
Zoe could only blink at her mother. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice suddenly aging into the voice of a full grown woman. She looked down and saw her limbs spilling over the child-size bed she was sitting in. She looked up to her mother and found an Elder woman’s face staring back at her. Time had not been kind to her mother. While still beautiful, her face was lined with wrinkles, and dark circles drooped down beneath her eyes like grey clouds. There looked to be barely any life left in her.
“The Throne Room, Little Princess. Only you can put right what Korina Straton made wrong. It must be you and Evander on the Throne and no one else. Our future depends on it.”
“What am I supposed to do? The Queen has her Crown Soldiers to do as she commands. How can any one person go up against a whole army?”
“Your sister was born a Thanatos but has lived her life as a Straton. She only needs an army because she has lost the power that lies within her, that is encoded within her very being. You, on the other hand, have not. You may have forgotten who you are, but you’ve always remained a Thanatos. There is a reason we are the originally family, Zoe. Don’t forget what I taught you as a child and all that you’ve learned from Zopyros.”
“Zopyros didn’t teach me anything, Mother. He left me to die and then Korina Straton finished the job. Or maybe Evan never caught me at all and I’ve been dead since jumping off the cliff on Santa Cruz Island.”
“You mean this place?” A slight breeze blew through Thea’s hair. They were on the cliff of Potato Harbor, the Pacific Ocean stretched out for as far as the eye could see.