TIMOTHEUS FLIPS ONE of her daggers into the air, catching the hilt as it falls. The craftsmanship is remarkable. He's not seen blades such as these in all his years serving in the Athenian forces. They're perfectly balanced —the metal lighter and edge sharper— with soft pale leather wrapped around the hilts and shining dark red stones set in each of the pommels.
He does not doubt these dual blades give his sister an advantage over her opponents, but he's seen her fight with an ordinary spear and kopis before too. These twin blades are not the reason men fear the mention of her epithet. Beyond the craftsmanship, they seem to be only ordinary blades, no more special than the sword he carries at his side. "What is so special about these?" Timotheus asks.
Lesya's head rolls back as she slumps against one of the benches at the stern of the Ippalkimon, the bandages wrapped around her middle dotted with fresh blood. "They belonged to Penthesilea," she rasps, eyes squeezed shut. Chrysis told her of the Amazonian queen after the Cult presented her with the blades —the same night Deimos was given the Sword of Damokles. Ancient and powerful weapons to make their champions even more deadly. She hadn't believed it until her first battle —wielding those blades, she always seemed to know her opponents' next move. They called to something deep inside her, just as the artifact does.
"The Amazonian slain by Achilles?" Timotheus cannot believe it. He believed them to be legends, the stories their mother told them as children. But given everything he knows about Enyo and the Cult of Kosmos, he does not doubt his sister's words. He looks at her and frowns. Her face is knitted in pain, the likes of which he cannot imagine. She should be dead, he thinks, but the gods have not taken her yet. It's easy to believe she truly is a demigoddess after witnessing what happened in the arena. "After your feats, history will say these were the blades of Lesya" —her lips quirk upward even if her eyes remain shut— "defender of Hellas."
Her smile fades. "Or Enyo," she whispers, feeling a hot tear streak down her cheek, "the sacker of cities."
THUNDER ERUPTS AND lightning fills the dark sky above snow-capped mountains. The bolt of lightning strikes the stone of a broken altar, illuminating a lone figure garbed in gold-and-white armor painted with rivulets of red. Lesya thrashes, screaming, and rolls off the stern bench with a crash and scream. "Lesya?!" Someone cries her name from far away, but she cannot wake, cannot go back.
Lesya searches, but the storm is deafening, and she can only move forward. Deimos? She reaches out, fingers brushing his bicep. At her touch, he turns with a distant, empty expression, then falls back into the dark chasm below —the spear of Leonidas embedded deep in his chest. ALEXIOS! "Lesya!" Tundareos shouts, shaking her shoulders as hard as he dares.
Her laurel eyes open, wide and unfocused —face a pale white canvas of horror. The daze releases her, and then panic sets in. "I have to get back to Sparta," she cries. Tundareos stares at the red splotches seeping through the white linen of her bandages —a wound that seems will never heal. Lesya presses her hand against her middle and sees the blood on her fingertips, but it doesn't matter. She grips Tundareos' arm. "Please, brother." It is a broken plea mingled with her sobs. She must return. "Sparta."
Tundareos nods once, then rises and stumbles back, nigh disbelieving his sister could ever look so weak, so desperate. He does not want to entertain whatever horror could make Enyo like this. "Timotheus!" He calls his brother. Timotheus strides to the helm of the trireme from the deck below. "Keep watch over her" —he motions back to their sister— "Tryphena." His second lieutenant rouses from sleep. "Help me prepare for departure." Then the rest of the crew wake, stumbling into their positions.
"But–" Timotheus protests, gripping his brother's shoulder to pull him back around. Their sister is in no state to travel. Rough seas will be enough to tear the wound on her stomach open wholly and send her to Hades. It's a miracle she's evaded Charon's grasp this long.
"I know," Tundareos says, barely a whisper, "but we have to go."
Timotheus swallows his protest and goes to Lesya. He kneels at his sister's sides and offers a vial of poppy milk —it will ease the pain and perhaps allow her to rest whilst they begin the voyage back to Sparta. Lesya drinks the bittersweet milk and tosses the vial aside. She squeezes her eyes shut, wishing the remedy would take away the pain —all of it. "What is it?" Timotheus asks. "What have you seen?"
"Deimos." His name is barely a whisper. It's been nigh a year since she last saw him following Amphipolis, and vengeance cannot chase away the longing or fill the abyss in her heart that his absence has created. Lesya doesn't want to remember the dream, but his tawny-gold eyes —void of life— now haunt her waking thoughts. "I saw him falling from Taygetos," she admits.
Timotheus holds fast to her hands, hoping to provide reassurance —solace. "That doesn't mean–" but she cuts him off, shaking her head. "You don't understand, Timotheus." It is always memories that plague her dreams. Every horrified bystander. Every man and woman who's begged for their lives before receiving the kiss of cold iron. Every time Deimos's lips had ever brushed against hers —every tender and fleeting touch. It's all too much. "My dreams have only ever been memories" —she swallows the knot in her throat and looks away to hide her tears— "but that," Lesya can't bring herself to say it aloud. She knows it is not a memory but a foretelling of what is to come.
"ALEXIOS?" KASSANDRA STAMMERS. Ikaros's warning cries above the thunder are all too clear now, the eagle circling and screeching above. Alexios does not reply. She stares at her brother's back, his black-and-gold chiton hanging off one shoulder, revealing the angry welt of a recent scar from the arrow wound —it had not healed cleanly. There are other scars too. Some masked by his dark matted locks, but it's the one spanning the length of his exposed side that makes her stomach churn and throat feel tight —it's a jagged line of silver flesh from the night he fell.
Deimos turns to her, his face impassive. "I knew you would come here." There is a terrible steel in his gaze. And Kassandra realizes he is looking not at her but at someone behind her.
Myrrine steps up to Kassandra's side, her eyes wide and watering as she beholds her son for the first time since she left his mangled body at the Sanctuary of Asklepius —she sees the twisted scars on his body and the simmering rage in his tawny-gold eyes. For a fleeting moment, she thinks her daughter's intuition about him is right, but Lesya's words still give her hope. Hope that he is not lost. Hope he can be saved. She reaches out to him, breathing his name, a quiet plea. Alexios, she calls him.
Deimos's brow pinches, and he looks away. Unable to face his mother and sister. "On the edge of the world," he draws in a deep breath, "a mother cries out for her child." It is an echo of the night they brought him here to die. An echo of the moment that sealed his fate to become nothing more than a twisted weapon. "Touching," he sneers, unable to break the hold of the Cult's teachings.
"Alexios, please," Myrrine whimpers, reaching out for her son. Kassandra grips her mother's arm, stopping her from going any further. She does not trust her brother and does not know what he will do —especially with Lesya absent and unable to quell his anger.
"You use that name as if it means something to me," he growls, turning his back to his sister and mother, hands clenched into tight fists at his side. It is the same name Lesya had started calling him too. But Alexios died as a babe on the cliff where he stands now.
"It's the name your father and I gave you." Myrrine's voice trembles.
"Was that before or after you brought me up here to die?" Deimos asks, looking over Sparta and beyond to the Valley of Two Kings. This should feel like home, but he's only a stranger here —loathed every Spartiate and helot alike.
Myrrine clutches her chest as though she is watching her son die all over again. "It was the Cult!" She cries, trying to make him understand. "I did everything I could to save you. The priests told me you were dead!"
Deimos shudders where he stands. "And they told me you abandoned your son!" He shouts. Left to die in the Sanctuary of Asklepios. He turns to face his mother and sister, beholding them with mistrust.
Kassandra sees the fire rise within him —a venomous rage. "Alexios, it is over," she tells him, taking a cautious step closer, "the war, the Cult." It all ended at Amphipolis. The last pillars of the Cult would fall without Kleon, without Pausanias, without him. She takes another step and holds her hand out, meeting the burning hatred and misery in his tawny-gold eyes. "Lesya" —Kassandra can see his face soften at the mention of her name and the harshness of his gaze ebb, if only a fraction— "she's gone to search for you," she tells him. But as quickly as he shows a shred of vulnerability, it vanishes behind tall, thick walls.
He shakes his head slowly, head lolling to the side in thought, and falls silent for a time and pictures her copper hair and laurel eyes —skin sun-kissed and brushed with freckles. "When I was little, Lesya and I found a lion cub trapped in a snare," he starts. "My friend tried to free it . . . and that's when I heard the deadly growl of its mother." His head begins to rise again. "I watched as the lioness tore my friend to bloody shreds." His voice lowers to a harsh rasp. "Even in the world of beasts, a family protects its young!" He looks at his mother and sister, his eyes dark and wet with emotion.
"I loved you," Myrrine sobs. She grimaces for a moment as if quarreling with herself —struggling to believe this is her son. "I still love you!"
He reaches to the scabbard on his hip, quarter-drawing his sword. "The one you love is dead," he proclaims. "My name is Deimos." Then he steps toward them, tearing his blade free in a flash. Kassandra's broken spear meets his strike —not letting him come any closer to their mother. Myrrine does not flinch, but her face floods with fresh tears.
"Alexios!" Kassandra cries, throwing him back and then pointing the Leonidas spear at him. "I don't want to fight you, brother." But spittle flies from his cage of teeth as their blades clash in a fury of sparks —the terrible song of steel rising from the mountainside, and all Myrrine can do is weep. She backs away and sinks to her knees as Deimos launches a flurry of strikes. He is too strong, Kassandra thinks, barely able to evade the sharp edge of the Sword of Damokles. She inches closer to the precipice, and if not for kicking up a puff of dust, he would have run her through.
Dark clouds gather and thunder rumbles high above —the first drops of the coming downpour echo off their armor.
THE DREAM AND the feeling in her gut are right. She leaps off the back of a golden mare, hitting the rain-slick ground running —pressing through the pain and fatigue, knowing she is the only person in Hellas who can help end this. "DEIMOS!" Lesya charges him from the side, but he pivots in his blind rage and seizes one of her arms, tossing her aside like a child's doll in his blind rage. She cries out, not losing momentum even after colliding with the ground. Her world does not stop spinning, even as it disappears beneath her.
Lesya's fingers catch a divot in the cracked stone of an old altar floor. The scream torn from her lungs blends with Myrrine's hoarse cry for her children to stop quarreling with one another. "Alexios! STOP!" Kassandra shouts —pointing her broken spear at the edge of the cliff. Lesya's grip on the smooth, wet rock shelf falters.
Eyes squeezed close, she waits to plunge into the unforgiving abyss below Taygetos —waits to feel weightless before the shattering impact. Waits for true freedom. It never comes. A hand wraps around her wrist, keeping her from falling into the chasm. Tawny-gold eyes stare down at her —wide, fearful, and filled with regret. Deimos.
With a single heave, he hauls her back up and into his chest. She clings to him, her face streaked with tears, heart pounding in her ears. Deimos squeezes her against his chest, face buried in her neck —panting. "I–" he starts, unable to meet her petrified gaze. "Lesya."
Myrrine steps to her son and reaches for him, her hand resting on his shoulder as she kneels. It's then Lesya pulls from the embrace and sits back. He looks at her, his sister, then his mother. There's nothing he can say to make amends for the atrocities —for all the pain and grief he's wrought upon his family. "I've" –his voice breaks– "I've done terrible things." The admission does not come easily.
"We all have," Myrrine tells him —love could make monsters of even the most devout. Alexios grips his mother's hand and rises from the shattered altar stone, eyes wet and shining with unshed tears. She grips his forearms, above where the metal of his golden vambraces ends, and feels the weight of Hellas lift from her chest. My family, she thinks —Nikolaos, Kassandra, Alexios. Everything the Cult had stolen from her is returned, alas. All except for time. "All that matters now is what we do with the time we have left."
Lesya stands with a grimace and turns to face the valleys and hills of Lakonia. Sparta. She thinks this should feel like a victory —the long years of hunting Cultists and working to pry Deimos from their grasp have finally come to an end. He is free. But she knows neither of them can ever truly be free of the horrors. He is home. She sways on her feet, feeling the cool patter of rain on her skin —masking her tears— but the rain cannot wash away the fear of uncertainty about what the future now holds.
Alexios breaks from the embrace of his mother and sister and turns to gaze upon Lesya's silhouette against the dark sky. "Give them a moment, mater," Kassandra whispers into Myrrine's ear, guiding her mother away from the temple ruins on Taygetos —where it all began.
He goes to Lesya but struggles to meet her laurel gaze when she turns to face him, always forgiving. Always overflowing with love —love that he does not deserve. Alexios reaches for her, meaning to caress her bruised cheek, though his hand falls away before his fingertips can brush her damp skin. She takes a step toward him, and then he does the same. "Lesya—" he falls to his knees, clutching the linen of her chiton, face pressed into her middle "—I." He doesn't know what to say or how to begin to set things right once more, but the tears gathering in his eyes speak more than words ever could.
She runs her fingers through his damp matted locks and around to the nape of his neck, breathing a slow sigh of relief through the aching pain. "I know," Lesya whispers. She's the only person in all of Hellas who can ever truly understand. The only one who really knows. "It's done," she tells him. It's over.
Alexios looks up at her, guilt filling his gut. "I should not have left after Amphipolis," he breathes. Darkness claimed him once more after leaving her embrace. He should have stayed with her —should have accepted freedom then instead of crawling back to war and destruction. He should have taken her back to that beach in Megaris and stayed. Lesya lifts her hands to cradle his face, and he knows the look in her laurel eyes well enough. We cannot change the past. But then something warm soaks into his palm resting on her side —blood. A red stain blossoms through the pale linen of her chiton. "Lesya," Alexios chokes, fumbling backward, afeared he'd been the one to do this to her.
"It wasn't you," she assures him, shaking her head —she will tell him of the events that transpired later, but for now Lesya only wants to truly rest.
He rises and is quick to lift her into his arms —there is no protest from her this time. She rests her head against his shoulder, and he can feel her warm, shallow breaths against his neck. He glances at her, and the sight of his Enyo like this makes his heart twist and ache. It is a long trek down the slopes of Taygetos, but given the chance, he'd carry her to the ends of the Earth and through the gates of the Underworld. Alexios turns his head, letting his cracked lips brush against her temple and forehead. Lesya curls her fingers into the linen of his tunic and closes her eyes, a fleeting smile twisting her lips as she breathes: "Se agapo."