“The misthios,” one whispered.
“The heroine of Boeotia,” said another.
“Is it her? She who fought alongside Brasidas at Amphipolis and won the north?”
Spartiates too, braying and mock sparring in the gymnasium, looked over at her, falling silent. They beheld her with evil scowls, as always. Then, as one, they began to lift their spears. For a moment she thought they meant to come at her, but the spears continued to rise, one-handed, pointing skyward in salute. As one, they issued a cry that stirred her to her soul.
“Aroo!”
Beyond them, she saw the gates of her family home creak open. Myrrine slid out between the gap, one hand on her chest as if to control her heart. Kassandra slid from her horse, staggered over and fell into her mother’s arms.
* * *
• • •
They sat up most nights around the hearth, drinking well-watered wine, eating olives and barley cake. It took many nights to explain it all: the disaster at Sphakteria, the long, maddening moons in the Athenian jail and the day when it had all changed. Freedom, the play, and then the journey north to Amphipolis.
“News of what happened there reached these parts last moon,” Myrrine said, supping her wine. “They talked of a great number of deaths, but a glorious victory. About the fall of Brasidas.”
“He was an example to us all,” said Kassandra. “The ephors granted him scraps to work with, and he saved the north from Kleon. I hear they plan to erect a cenotaph for him, near the Tomb of Leonidas. Fitting company.”
“I wept when I heard of his passing. But then I heard people talking of another who was present at the battle—a she-mercenary. At once I felt great hope in my heart that somehow, somehow, it was you. Since that moment I sent you to Sphakteria, I had not heard a thing—just tales of blackened corpses on that burned island. But I never allowed myself to truly believe it was you at Amphipolis. At times, I prayed it was not . . . for they said Deimos was there too.”
A stone rose in Kassandra’s throat. “He was.”
Myrrine slowly looked up from the fire, her face half-lit, eyes glassy. “Aye, and so the whispers that it was he who killed Brasidas must be true also.”
“You . . . you asked me to bring him home,” Kassandra whispered. “I could not.”
Myrrine seemed to shut down then, her gaze returning to the fire, staring, lost.
“I tried, Mother. But Kleon of Athens struck him down out of envy.”
After a time, Myrrine nodded. “Then another of our bloodline is gone,” she said quietly. She rose, coming to slide down into Kassandra’s seat, wrapping an arm across her shoulders. “So few of us left,” she said, brushing Kassandra’s loose hair with her fingers, staring into her eyes. “I feel I should answer the question that you asked me once, long ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your father, Kassandra. Your real father.”
Myrrine leaned in, putting her lips to Kassandra’s ear.
The name she whispered echoed through Kassandra’s body. It was like a bell pealing inside. Now she understood . . .
* * *
• • •
Months passed, and autumn brought with it gales and rainstorms. One morning, Kassandra awoke in the warm comfort of her bed, fresh of mind and her body for once devoid of the aches and pains that had followed her for years. She saw the sullen sky outside, framing the heights of Mount Taygetos. Perhaps it was the closeness of sleep, or the exact hue of the clouds, but something stroked her heart then, conjuring the memories of that night from her childhood. For the first time, she let the memory play out without fear. Since her return to Sparta, she had visited each of the five ancient villages, attended feasts and poetry evenings, trained in the gymnasium and swum in the bracing waters of the River Eurotas at dawn most days. Today, she had planned to take Ikaros hunting in the woods, but she realized now that there was one place she had yet to tread.
She went alone, not telling Mother or Barnabas. Carrying just a drinking skin and a round of cheese, she set off, taking deep breaths to clear her head, the air fresh and scented with pine and damp earth. Walking uphill, she unroped her famous half lance and tried to use it like a walking cane. She smiled sadly, realizing just how inadequate it was for such a purpose, and just how small she had been all those years ago. As she climbed the mountain path, she imagined the ghosts of that lost age walking before her: the wretched ephors and priests. Nikolaos, Mother. And in her arms . . . little Alexios.
Tears stung behind her eyes, and she did not hear Ikaros’s cries up ahead. When she reached the plateau, she gazed upon the sad, weather-worn altar where it had all taken place. For a moment, it seemed as if all her sadness was set to swell up and explode. She almost let it happen. Only one thing stopped her.
The other figure standing up there.
He stood with his back to her, gazing out over the abyss.
“A . . . Alexios?” she stammered.
Ikaros’s warning cries were all too clear now, the eagle circling and screeching above.
Alexios did not reply.
“But you fell, at Amphipolis.” She stared at her brother’s bare shoulders, seeing the angry welt of a recent scar from an arrow wound, part masked by his long coils of dark hair.
“The wound is merely a decoration.” He turned to her, his face impassive. “I have been waiting for the last moon on these heights. I knew you would come here eventually.” There was a terrible steel in his gaze. And she realized he was looking not at her, but at someone behind her.
“My lamb, my boy,” Myrrine said, stepping up to Kassandra’s side.
“Mother?” Kassandra hissed. “You followed me?”
“The mountain drew us all here,” Myrrine replied, placing a gentle hand on Kassandra’s shoulder as she stepped past her. “You promised to bring him home Kassandra, and you have.”
Kassandra grabbed her wrist, halting her. “It is not safe, Mother.”
But Myrrine’s eyes brimmed with tears and she extended a hand toward him.
Alexios’s brow pinched and he looked away. “On the edge of the world, a mother reaches out to her child. Touching.”
“Alexios, please,” Myrrine whimpered.
“You use that name as if it means something to me,” he growled.
“It is the name your father and I gave you.”
His head twitched, cocking to one side to behold her in mistrust. “Was that before you brought me up here to die?”
Myrrine clutched her chest. “It was the Cult who brought us all up here that night. I did everything I could to save you.”
Alexios clenched his fists and shuddered where he stood.
Kassandra saw the fire rise within him. “Alexios, it is over: the war, the Cult. Let their clouds clear from your mind. Remember who you are.”
He shook his head ever so slowly. “The Cult sought to bring order to the world. I was their chosen one, and now I will be the bringer of order.”
“We are of the same blood, Alexios,” said Kassandra. “All I have ever wanted is my family. I feel it in you too.”
Alexios’s head lolled. He fell silent for a time. “Once, when I was a boy, under Chrysis’s care, I found a lion cub trapped in a snare. My friend tried to free it . . . and that’s when I heard the deadly growl of its mother.” His head began to rise again. “I watched as the lioness tore my friend to shreds. In the world of beasts, a family protects its young.” His head rose fully now, his eyes dark and wet with emotion.
“I loved you, Alexios,” Myrrine sobbed. She grimaced for a moment, as if quarreling with herself. “To the pits with Spartan ways, I loved you . . . and I still love you.”
Slowly, Alexios reached up to his shoulder scabbard and began to draw his sword. “My name is Deimos. The one you love is dead. My destiny is clear and you will not stand in my way.
” He stepped toward Myrrine and tore his blade free in a flash.
Clang! Kassandra’s spear met his strike, saving her mother. Myrrine did not flinch—his blade edge a finger’s-width away from her head—but her face flooded with fresh tears.
“Alexios, no!” Kassandra cried.
Spittle flew from his cage of teeth as he tried to force his blade upon his mother.
Kassandra yelled and summoned all her strength, throwing him back then pointing the spear at him. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“I told you at Amphipolis, Sister. One of us must die,” he drawled, then leapt for her.
Their blades clashed in a fury of sparks and the terrible song of steel rose from the mountain.
“No, no!” Myrrine cried, backing away, sinking to her knees.
Deimos launched a flurry of strikes, ripping at her arms, cutting her forehead, nearly driving her from the precipice, and were it not for her quick thinking and a kicked-up puff of dust, he would have run her through. The angry clouds gathered and rumbled above, and Kassandra felt a great anger rise within her. Rain fell as she battered and battered at his sword, saw his demon’s glower crumble away, saw his sword spin from his hand and off into the abyss, saw her brother crumple to the ground, hands thrown up like a shield, felt her spear arm tense, then her whole body convulse as she sank to strike.
The spear tip halted right before his breastbone.
They both panted, staring into each other’s eyes, she cradling him, holding him on the edge of death. The sky growled with nascent thunder.
Myrrine crawled over to them, clutching at her hair. “Please, no.”
“I have done terrible things,” he whispered. “Sister, it could have been so different.”
Kassandra felt that warm flicker of flame inside her heart. “It still can, Brother.”
He shook his head. “I told you that one of us must die here. None possessed the strength to better me . . . until I fought you on Sphakteria. You were my equal there. And then at Amphipolis. Had Kleon not struck me down, you would have beaten me.”
“It matters not,” she pleaded. “Think of what could lie ahead for us. A family as we were meant to be.”
They shared a look then—just like that moment of their shared childhood, when Kassandra had nearly caught him. A fresh tear spilled down Alexios’s cheek, mixing with the rain. “I cannot be what you want me to be.” His head shook slowly, his lips trembling. “The weeds burrow too deep.”
She saw his hand move toward the edge of his greave, saw him draw the hidden knife from there, saw him strike toward Myrrine’s neck. Time slowed. Kassandra felt her body spasm, as she drove the Leonidas spear deep into Alexios’s chest. The knife toppled from his grip, and then he stared into the sky with a long, slow, final breath.
Myrrine let out a plaintive wail, and Kassandra sobbed long and loud. The thunder rolled overhead, and only as it faded did Myrrine’s weeping fall silent.
“I tried to save him, Mother,” Kassandra croaked as the rain began to ease.
“I saw what happened,” Myrrine whimpered. “He is free now.”
They embraced each other and Alexios’s body for hours. Eventually, the clouds parted and shafts of deep orange light stretched across the heights of Mount Taygetos.
EPILOGUE
I walked through the darkness, and I was not afraid. I was a Spartan, a misthios, a war hero. My footsteps sounded so lonely in that dark old place. As I went deeper underground, the summer heat behind me faded. I struck a flint hook to light my torch, and passed the now-empty rock-cut chambers. The chains were still there, and the long-dried bloodstains of the Monger’s victims. I passed the forgotten hall with the grim snake statue. The trough below its fangs had long run dry of blood, and so the snake would starve. The altar where I had first met that twisted soul, Chrysis, now languished under a thick coating of dust. On I went.
Part of me dreamed, like a child, that I might find my brother deep in these old caves, just as I had found him that night when the Cult had gathered here. But the memory of splitting his heart with my spear was still too close and raw. It had been almost a year since his death. We buried him and we wept. None had expected any others to attend the ceremony, but when Nikolaos and Stentor appeared to watch from afar, I gave them both a solemn look, inviting them to come closer. That night, we dined in the old family estate. It was desperately awkward at times. When Nikolaos, at one end of the table, asked for a cup of wine, Mother, at the other end, poured one . . . then drained it in one gulp herself, before carrying on eating. Stentor chuckled in amusement, before disguising it with a cough. Aye, those wounds did not heal with that feast, and they most probably never will. But there was an understanding now—the hatred of the past was buried, the Cult with it.
It was with Mother’s blessing that I set out once more the following spring, on one last voyage that I knew I could not avoid. As the Adrestia cut across the seas, Barnabas and Herodotos were inseparable, recounting the tales of our adventures together, the captain acting out and wildly exaggerating events on the deck, while Herodotos tapped away with his stylus at woodpecker-like speed to record it all, tongue poking out in concentration.
We came to the broken island of Thera on a serene day—the sea like a teal silk, not a breath of wind in the air. Herodotos offered to accompany me into the black mountains. But I declined. This was a journey that I had to make alone—well, with Ikaros on my shoulder. I walked around that crescent, barren husk of rock—long ago blown apart by a volcano—wondering if Meliton’s claims of elaborate carvings high up on the rocks had all been a hoax, a wild jest. What was there on this forsaken isle but ash and stone?
I trekked into the heights. I spent days searching the rugged land. One day, I came to a sheer wall of rock—blank to the eye. It was only when I slid my hand along the surface for balance that I felt the fine etchings. Now when I stood back I saw the strange inscriptions—betrayed by the merest hint of shadow. I stayed there for days, exploring, reading the symbols again and again, watching them at night in the hope they might light up as they had done for Meliton. One night they did, and a section of rock peeled back to reveal a hidden gateway into the mountain. I stepped inside, and that was where I found him. My real father.
The legend, Pythagoras.
Alive some sixty years after most thought him dead—many, many more years older than men should live. His eyes were bright, his mind golden. His words changed everything. He showed me things that I knew I could never explain to another soul . . . except maybe Barnabas. The island of Thera was a smashed husk, yes, but beyond that rocky gateway, golden wonders lay. The strange carvings were only the beginning of it. He gave me an ancient staff—a fine piece that felt strange to the touch just like my spear—and showed me many other such marvels. Yet as if tragedy had shadowed me here, I spent only a few days in his company. The brightness in Pythagoras’s eyes began to wane, his gait became shambling and his breaths shallow. He explained it was because this was meant to be, that the staff had granted him his extra years and now I was to be its bearer. It was on the third day that I awoke to hear him wheezing, saw his lips had turned blue. I tried to help him, to give him back the staff, yet he refused and insisted it was his time. He died in my arms, just like Alexios.
I burned his body on a pyre as he insisted I must, and watched the smoke carry his shade away. After that I chiseled at the stone around the hidden gateway, causing the cliff to slip and bury the entrance forever. Again, Father had insisted on this, and I knew why. For those few days inside that place had shown me that all in this world was truly not as it seemed—just as Sokrates had insisted. Yet there were still so many secrets, so many questions unanswered. With his dying breaths he had told me that we would speak again. And that was why I knew I had to come back to the Cave of Gaia.
My footsteps echoed like the flapping wings of disturbed doves as I entered the great cave, and
set eyes upon the circle of polished stone, and the red-veined plinth in the center. No Cultists, no Deimos . . . no Alexios. My throat thickened, achingly sad for all that I had lost. Then I set my eyes on the dust-coated pyramid atop the plinth and felt my heart begin to soar.
I stepped forward, sucked in a lungful of air and blew the dust from the pyramid. Its golden luster returned, and I felt that low hum strike through the cave, saw the strange glow from within the piece.
And then it spoke to me.
“Come closer,” it whispered.
My heart froze. The voice . . . it was Mother’s voice. That was one secret Father had explained to me: “The artifacts of the ones who came before are enchanting . . . but devious. They search within you, they know what you are, what you love, what you fear. They twist your heart, shape your soul, fog your mind. Be careful, Kassandra.”
I reached up, my hand hovering over the pyramid, feeling the heat emanating from it.
“Touch me,” it begged.
I wet my lips, spread my feet as if about to go into battle, then placed my palm upon the smooth surface. It was as if I had been struck on the head with a boulder. White lights, golden flashes, an aria of shrill song. Something seized me, shook me, wrung me. It was like great hands pinning me, then hammering at my spirit as a smith might try to shape a blade. This unseen force was trying to steal from me my very essence . . . or to slay me. I felt a scream rise in my chest.
Then a force like a stiff gale hit me, and the wicked energy was gone. I felt safe now, in this strange netherworld of soft light, where I had neither weight nor form. Now I heard another voice.
“You have witnessed in full what this artifact and the others like it can do to men,” Pythagoras said.
“Father?” I croaked.
“The voice you heard beckoning you was not your mother. But this is me, of that you can be sure. I told you we would speak again.”
“How, how can it be? I set your body on the pyre.”
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