“And yet, he does love you.”
“The love of a man, with all its failings. He confuses it with affection, with desire, and love or not, I am still owned. Not an equal, or a partner, but a thing to be locked away with all the rest of his gold.”
“Your people and mine have much in common, Mia. The kind of love you desire does not come so easily for men as it does for us, but it is not all so hopeless as that. Pirithous, for all his faults, does wish for a partner. He needs a strong queen, an equal, even if he did not know it at first. Give him time to grow accustomed to the thought, and before long you will have all that you want from him in love, I promise you.”
“As you have with Theseus?” She looked up at the Amazon. “Do you truly believe him capable of that?”
Antiope’s lips twitched. “Even Theseus needed a guiding hand at first. And Pirithous had little love for me in the beginning, but we have grown used to one another. Is that not proof that he is capable of change, at the least?”
“Perhaps.” And perhaps as long as there was some small hope for peace, she served her people better as Pirithous’s wife. The longer she stayed among the Lapiths, the more she would know of their intent, certainly, and even if she could do nothing else, with that knowledge, if war came, she might find some means of helping the centaurs avoid destruction.
“For whatever it is worth, I do not think he sees you as a prize at all,” Antiope said, after a moment. “I think, rather, that he fears what he will become if you are lost, and all the more if he does not do all in his power to protect you.”
“Why should you think so?”
Antiope smiled. “I have never seen him look at a woman the way he looks at you. The others he only regarded with lust, but when he looks at you, it is with warmth and affection, even respect.”
“Pirithous thinks I am weak. That is why he stifles his desire.” Hippodamia fed what was left of the blood into the flame in offering to Poseidon. There was nothing left she might do for her father beyond that. Nothing she could ever do for him again.
“What?”
She did not look up, though Antiope sounded honestly startled. “That is why, in the beginning, he would not promise to give up the others. He believes I have not the strength to satisfy his desires without exhausting myself in the trying. That he will do me some harm if he gives himself up to his lust. That is all that you see, Antiope. Restraint. Because I am not a daughter of Ares, or Zeus, or Poseidon, or any other god. Just a foundling child, left to die. Because I am weak.”
Antiope snorted. “If he did not care for you deeply, he would not worry himself over such nonsense. He would take you to his bed and keep you there until he grew bored. And I promise you, Mia, if he did not love you, he would lose interest in your company long before he exhausted you in his bed.”
She stared into the smoke and flame, willing her heart to calm, her thoughts to steady.
But what if… what if Antiope were right?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Pirithous
Pirithous lit the first pyres that night as the sun sank behind the mountain and disappeared. Hippodamia joined him without argument, and though she did not reach out to him for support, he was pleased that she did not hide herself away. In the firelight, it was harder to see the blood painted upon her face, but he could feel her grief, all the same. How much he wished she might accept some comfort at his hand, even distraction. But perhaps that was what all of this was—her anger, her resentment, her stubbornness. As long as she fought against him, she need not think of the greater pain and loss.
“We must speak,” Theseus said, coming to stand at his side. They had returned just before dusk, and Pirithous had not had the time to meet with them as yet, busy as he had been seeing to his people and giving his sympathies to the families who grieved. “Before the feasting begins.”
Yes. He supposed they must. “Cyllarus?”
Theseus’s expression was grim. “Best bring your wife as well. She will want to hear it.”
“Mia.” Pirithous touched her wrist, and she flinched, crossing her arms, no doubt to keep him from taking her hand. He pressed his lips together, unwilling to let her see the hurt it gave him. “Let us give them some privacy for their grief.”
Her eyes narrowed, but whatever she saw in Theseus’s face seemed to stop her objections. She swallowed, her arms tightening about her own middle. “Of course.”
Antiope waited for them beyond the pyre’s light, and Pirithous led the way forward. His rooms looked out over the palace gates and Hippodamia’s balcony offered a view of the stables, but he dared not miss the return of his people from the pyre. Hippodamia’s absence from the banquet might not trouble his people overmuch, but his would certainly be noticed, and his control over the Lapiths was tenuous enough already without adding more insult to their injuries.
“Here.” He opened a door to a bare room, furnished only with straw pallets upon the floor. The room he had given to Hylonome and Cyllarus. He crossed to the windows, cracking one of the shutters that he might keep watch. The pyre licked at the sky outside the walls, burning brightly still. By all rights, the feasting ought to have been done in its light, but with the centaurs lurking, the risk was too great.
“You spoke to my people,” Hippodamia said, after Antiope had shut the door behind them. Pirithous spared her a glance, but the room was dark without the light from the hall. Not that he needed to see her to know the tight knot of worry in her heart.
“For all your riches, you seem poor in lamps,” Antiope grumbled. “Go to your wife, Pirithous. I will keep watch.”
He grunted, moving nearer to Hippodamia. And this time, when he touched her, setting his hand upon the small of her back, she did not flinch from him.
“What news?” Hippodamia pressed. “Please, I would know that my father’s body was safely delivered, at the least.”
“Cyllarus accepted the bodies,” Theseus said. “Centaurus will be laid to rest with his kin, and the centaurs are grateful to you, Hippodamia, for seeing him safely returned.”
“To Hippodamia alone?” Pirithous asked, though he knew the answer. Theseus would not have phrased it so if his meaning had been different.
“Cyllarus believes you killed Centaurus, Pirithous. And it appears those centaurs who witnessed the truth of that moment did not live to tell the tale. I tried to reassure him, but even from a son of Poseidon, he would not hear it.”
“You fought for Pirithous,” Hippodamia said, her voice small. “Your loyalties are to him.”
“My loyalties have little to do with it.”
But Hippodamia shook her head, a quick movement of a lighter shadow in the dark. “My people have always been passionate. Cyllarus is ruled by his grief more than his reason, and I cannot blame him for it. Nor should the Lapiths, if they lust so for war against the centaurs.”
“Centaurus had more sense than that,” Pirithous said. “He must have had, to bargain with your hand.”
“My father was a different breed. With his death goes his wisdom. But if it is Cyllarus who speaks for my people now, it is worse. He is in rut still, from his own mating with Hylonome. Another month, and perhaps he would be more willing to listen, but his blood runs too hot for that now.”
“There is more,” Theseus said. “He took insult from your offer of escape. Cyllarus claims the mountain for his people, and will not be moved from it. Not when, to his mind, it was the Lapiths who broke this peace and all hope of reconciliation with Centaurus’s death.”
His stomach sank. Hippodamia had warned him, but he had hoped the centaurs might see reason enough to save their hides. And now he had no choice. In seven days his people would come to him, ready for battle, and he would do—what? He could hardly offer prizes for their heads now, or his people would see the whole herd slaughtered before the month was out.
“I should have been the one to go,” Hippodamia said, half-moaning. “Even if he had not believed me himself, the others would have. Hylon
ome would have listened!”
“Hylonome seemed as convinced as her mate,” Theseus said. “And truly, I think Cyllarus would have seized you, had you come. He is uneasy about leaving you among the Lapiths, and demanded your return, lest some harm befall you.”
Pirithous snorted. “The only harm to befall Hippodamia has come at the hands of her own people, not mine.”
Hippodamia made a strangled noise, shifting away from his touch. “He means to attack. As hostage, my life is forfeit if he leads the centaurs against the Lapiths. That is why he fears for me.”
Pirithous opened his mouth to object, then shut it again, meeting Theseus’s gaze in the dark. Surely they were not so foolish as that! And yet…
“Mia, are you certain?” He caught her by the arm, forcing her to face him, though he was not certain how much of his expression she could see. He had no trouble making out her features now, his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Her eyes shone much too bright. He stroked her cheek, his thumb meeting dried blood and the dampness of fresh tears. What he would have given to kiss them away. “Perhaps it is only his mistrust of me.”
She shook her head again, dropping her gaze. “I thought if I offered myself as hostage it would be enough to stop them from such foolishness, that they would not risk my life, and I might yet save theirs. But I was wrong. I was wrong, and better if I had left with them to speak with my father’s voice—I might have filled the place Cyllarus has taken and stopped this, but now it’s too late.”
At the window, Antiope stirred. “Your people come, Pirithous.”
He took her face in his hands, willing her not to look away. “None of this is your doing, Mia. And even if you had gone with them, it is likely they would only have attacked all the sooner.”
“Pirithous,” Antiope warned.
“Mia?” She had to believe him. And while he would not use his power to manipulate her, he did use it then, to show her his love, to offer her what comfort and sympathy he could. He dropped his forehead to hers and kept his voice low. “I would not ask it of you, but if what you fear is true, it is more important than ever that you stand at my side.”
“Of course.” She swallowed hard, her eyes closing, and what thoughts spun through her head, only the gods knew. “Forgive me. I—I am ready.”
He let out a breath and took her hand, holding it firmly. “You are not alone, little mouse. Remember it, I beg of you.”
He dosed her cup heavily with wine during the feast, until she all but dozed against his shoulder, far more relaxed than she had been in days. At the first opportunity without giving offense, he excused them, lifting her in his arms and carrying her from the megaron. Up the stairs and down the hall, he shouldered open his door and continued through to the bathing room.
The blood on her face had smudged with her tears, the once-distinct stripes blurred into smears upon her cheeks, but she stirred when he set her down upon the lip of the tub.
“No,” she mumbled, swaying. “Can’t wash it away.”
He raised his eyebrows. “By rite or by stubbornness, little mouse?”
She slumped slightly, rubbing her face. “They’ll forget.”
“Who?” He lifted the cauldron of water from the fire and poured it into the tub, watching her carefully, lest she tip.
“Lapiths. Think they’re the only ones… But my father. My father, and without the blood, they won’t remember.”
He set the cauldron aside and crouched beside her, cupping her cheek and looking up into her eyes. “I won’t let them forget, Hippodamia. Centaurus died for their sakes as much as yours. Died for me, too. He’ll have a feast day, I promise you, and all the Lapiths will honor his sacrifice.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she pressed her fingers to his lips. “Can’t make them love us.”
“But I will try, all the same,” he vowed. “You and your father, if no one else.”
He dropped his hand, giving her chin a gentle pinch before letting it fall. And then he stood, unknotting his belt, and pulled his tunic over his head. Her eyes went wide, and she tightened her grip upon the edge of the tub until her knuckles whitened.
“Your shoulder.”
He shrugged, though it pleased him that she noticed, for the night before she had said nothing at all. “It is nothing.”
“A hoof mark.” She rose unsteadily from her perch and touched it, her fingers feather-light against his skin. She seemed more alert now, if still just as sopped. “Your back?”
“Sore to the touch, but nothing worse.” He caught her hand, bringing it to his lips and pressing a kiss to her palm. “Zeus may not have given me Herakles’s strength, but I am not without power of my own. I am well, little mouse, have no fear.”
“If the centaurs come…”
“Then I will fight to defend my lands, my people, and my wife. And even if they came tomorrow, it would not slow me enough to matter.”
“Pirithous. My Pirithous.” His name was barely more than a breath from her lips, and she traced the bruise again, then the small scabbed scrapes and marks on his arms, the scars upon his chest. His blood heated with each caress, but he dared not press her. Would not take her when she was so far from herself, willing or not. “Promise me you’ll live. I can’t—without you, I can’t.”
“Can’t what, mouse?” he asked gently, for the way the words broke twisted his heart and cooled his ardor. So much grief and despair, so much pain. If only he could take it all away, lift the burden of so much sorrow from her shoulders and scatter it among the stars.
“Live.” Such a small word to carry such bleak fear. “My father, Eurytion, then you. I don’t know. Where to begin. What to do. This. All this. So much is ruined, nothing as it was meant, and everything spills more blood.”
“Shh.” He stroked her hair, letting his fingers tangle in its softness. She leaned into his touch, and he wanted to pull her into his arms, hold her so tightly that none of this pain could reach her again. “The gods test us, that is all. But we will conquer this, Mia. And I will come back to you, blood unspilled, body unbroken. There is nothing to fear. And even if not, even if by some cruel trick, I am struck down, you are not alone, even then. Antiope and Theseus will protect you, shelter you. You’ll have a place in Athens, if it comes to that.”
She pressed her hand flat against his chest, over his heart. “Promise me.”
He kissed her forehead. “I promise you, I will live.”
She let him bathe her, then, and he scrubbed the blood from her skin, though he could do nothing for the bruises those same marks had left upon her heart. Half-drowned in wine, she tried to wash him in return, pulling him into the tub with her, despite his objections. Gods above, how he wanted her. The soft touches of her fingers upon his scars lit a fire in his blood, the way her forehead furrowed in concern over the small cuts and scrapes. He’d been fortunate to escape with nothing worse, but he dared not speak of it. Eurytion had not been weak, and when it came time to face Cyllarus, by far the larger beast, he could not be certain of the outcome, no matter what promises he’d made.
And he would face Cyllarus, he had no doubt of that. If the centaurs believed him Centaurus’s murderer, they would all come in search of him, above all. And had it been his king dead at another’s hand, he would have done the same. Provided that king had not been Ixion.
When Hippodamia’s hands fell lower, seeking his desire, he caught them up, caught her up, and carried her from the bathing room before he forgot himself. Before he forgot how much wine he had given her, and how furiously she had refused even his love, just that morning. He did not forget the things she had said. Did not forget she had no wish to remain his queen.
“To bed,” he said gently, wrapping her in a towel once they reached his room. “We both need our rest.”
“A son of Zeus has little need for rest when there is pleasure to be had,” she said, reaching for him again. “Is that not true?”
He smiled, but shook his head as he captured her hands in his.
“You’ve had too much wine, Mia, and I am not so great a fool as to think it is not the drink that speaks now. Even a son of Zeus has more sense than that.”
She lifted her chin, drawing breath to fight him, but he stopped her with a kiss. A soft brush of his lips upon hers, and a hand in her wet hair. She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch, but he did not give her more; could not, not without risking everything he desired.
“If it means tomorrow you might love me clear-headed, I will wait,” he said against her ear. “But I promise you, Mia, when the time comes that you want me, truly, of your own accord, you will not rise from my bed for days.”
He drew back, and her eyes met his, wide and wild and far too bright, and if he had not filled her cup with his own hand, knowing full well how poorly she handled her wine, he might have believed her sober. Sober enough, in any case, he feared. Certainly awake enough to slip away in the night, if he did not keep her near. He stroked her cheek, searching her face.
“Sleep beside me this night, so I know you are safe, I beg of you.”
She swallowed hard, then nodded, and for that moment he could breathe freely.
For that night.
But when Cyllarus came, what then?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hippodamia
Her head felt ripened to bursting, and her mouth seemed as though it had filled with wool. Hippodamia groaned, squinting at the too-bright sun and rolling away from the window—into Pirithous.
He chuckled softly. “You are no child of Zeus, that’s certain.”
She narrowed her eyes, glaring up at him. How he could be so widely awake and so good-humored she did not know. Nor was she quite sure what she’d done the night before to make herself so miserable upon waking. The last was perhaps the more disconcerting puzzle of the two.
“What happened?”
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