“You accept your lot without question or protest.” He sat up and seized her shoulders. “Does it never weigh upon you?”
“It has,” she said in a small voice. He felt her tremble.
“And now?” He shook her, more roughly than he intended.
“If I were a peasant, you wouldn’t want me.”
He bit back the urge to shout, to strike, to cut something with his sword. “Can’t you see this is beyond any duty? Curse my father, my brothers, and the child who believes herself my wife. I would have you no matter what your station, or mine. You alone separate us. I would abandon my vows, betray my father and my country to have you.”
“No you wouldn’t. You would not do that.”
Wind zipped over the wall and set upon them, pulling Aridela’s hair free of its knot and sending it whirling about her head.
Chrysaleon’s gaze followed the flight of her hair as he recalled his purpose. To find a way to overthrow these people. To end the king-sacrifice. He realized how hard he gripped her and saw pain reflected in her eyes. Biting his lip, he relaxed and massaged her shoulders. “Perhaps not,” he said, “but I would perform my duty like a man whose soul had been stripped from him and cast into the shadowlands.” Uneasy truth laced his words. Could he overthrow Kaphtor and subjugate Aridela, make her and her kin his slaves? No longer certain, he jerked her against him, closing his eyes and mind as he kissed her.
When he did at last release her, she sighed and rested her cheek against his collarbone. He felt her resistance dissolve, yet he experienced no sense of triumph.
She fit against him like song to a lyre, like a dolphin’s greeting to scarlet dawn.
“I wish I were common,” she whispered. Her voice broke. “And no one cared what I did.”
“Were I truly a man of honor,” he said, “I would leave. But I won’t. I’ve desired one thing since I arrived and now I have it. You long for me as I do for you, and what does it accomplish? I will be consort to your sister and you’ll live far from me in the mountain caves. We’ll be as lost to each other as if we’d never met. And in a year….”
He felt her stiffen in his arms.
Another gust of wind smacked them. The fire jumped in response. Sparks flew. “A storm is coming,” Chrysaleon said. “We should return to the palace.” But he didn’t move.
She ran a finger down his temple and through his beard. “The firelight makes jewels of your eyes.”
Lust charred his blood, yet he forced himself to remain still. “I saw you, before the cave. Before I came to Labyrinthos.”
She waited, relaxed, her face mirroring the love he felt running hot through his veins.
“When we landed, Menoetius and I set out to explore. I wanted to see your country. I wanted to learn everything I could, to determine if my father’s army could invade and overthrow you.”
For one endless instant she seemed frozen, then she broke free and scrambled away. She crouched on the other side of the fire, staring at him, so many emotions streaming across her face he couldn’t separate them.
“No, Aridela,” he said, stretching out a hand, but she backed farther away.
“How could you think to plan our destruction then woo me as you have?” Her voice dropped. “They were right about you.”
“I tell you this truth so no secrets remain between us. I would not invade Kaphtor now, not if it contained all the riches of the world. Kaphtor is precious to me because it holds you. I would die to defend it.”
She covered her face with her hands.
He breathed in and out slowly. “I thought if I couldn’t win the Games, and if Kaphtor seemed ripe, I could convince my father to attack. It would be bad, Aridela, if your island fell into the hands of Gla, Pylos, or Tiryns, or any of the mainland kingdoms. Especially Tiryns. It would be the end of us.”
She uncovered her face and glared at him. “You and your Kindred think you can fight over us like dogs with a bone. You think us easy prey.”
“It was foolish arrogance.”
She watched him, silent, narrow-eyed, all hint of trust vanished.
“We heard gossip that you and Iphiboë were hunting on Mount Ida. We went there, hoping to catch a glimpse of Kaphtor’s princesses. We searched and spent the night. We’d almost given up when we came upon a path in the forest and heard laughter. There you were— you, Iphiboë, Selene, and your cousin, swimming in a pond. That was the first time I saw you.”
He paused, but she said nothing. Her chest rose and fell, giving away her shallow breathing.
Chrysaleon peered into the sky, his eyes tracking the fire’s wild, darting sparks. “That was my end.” He paused again as his mind worked out what words would convince her. “Our bards sing of tribes who live on hidden isles in these seas. Amazons, we call them. Moon-women. It’s said they shoot as well as any man and are joined to their horses. Proud as the proudest king, they fight to the death rather than suffer dishonor.”
“Selene comes from those tribes.”
“She taught you their ways?”
“Yes. My mother brought her to Kaphtor to teach us the skills of her people. She stays now because she is our friend, and Kaphtor is her home.”
“They’re legendary in my country. When I looked down on that pool, I thought I’d discovered a cache of those women. Your weapons lay on the ground. You swam without fear, never suspecting you were being watched. I know you and your council wonder why I competed in your Games when there’s so much for me to lose. This is the reason. Since that day in the forest, I’ve been yours, Aridela, though I’ve tried to deny it.”
He thought he discerned an almost imperceptible relaxation in the bow-strung tenseness of her body. “I had ideas of climbing down for an afternoon of pleasure. Menoetius held me back. Then I heard Selene call you ‘Princess,’ thank Black-Horned Poseidon, and realized who you were.” He gave a wry shake of his head. “Queen Helice would have diced us into fish food if I’d done what I intended.”
His brief amusement died away. “I watched you step from the pool and wring water from your hair. I couldn’t breathe. I knew what it would feel like, to die.”
He added, low, “You’re the woman my father promised I would find someday. The one who would bind me, make me a willing slave. All my doubts vanished when you leapt the bull.”
She still made him wait an interminable length of time, suspended, not knowing what to expect. Then she crawled back, her eyes wet with tears. He enclosed her, not only with his arms but his legs, trapping her against his body. He felt her heart quicken, swift and fluttery as a bird’s. She was strong, but she could never escape her ancestry. Her bones were fragile. She was a small woman, and ever would be.
“Princess of Kaphtor.” He rolled on top of her, holding himself up to keep from crushing this bird. “For longer than can be dreamed, I am yours. Even death won’t break our bond.”
He saw her startle, her eyes widen.
Propping his elbows on the ground, he took her face in his hands. “Even in death, Aridela,” he said. “I am yours.”
He kissed her a long time to keep her from speaking. When he felt all resistance evaporate, he raised his head. “We return to Labyrinthos in two days. Is this the last for us?”
“I don’t know.”
He pressed his mouth and tongue to her neck, wanting to taste her, to blot out every memory of her insipid sister.
The unguents she used intoxicated him. “If this be the last time—”
“Yes… yes,” she whispered.
He pushed up her tunic, struggling to hold back, for in truth, his body needed satiation and had no concern for gentler emotions. But this was Princess Aridela of Kaphtor, not a defeated female in a conquered province. Her thighs crept around his hips; he sank into her, and fought to control his basest instincts.
“Aridela,” he whispered. “Aridela.” Mother of kings.
Unbearable pressure blazed, turning his body to a rampage of fire.
“What is happening!�
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He heard her cry out, but faintly; his need deafened any other concern. Fulfillment shot from mere pleasure into divine ecstasy. He pierced like an arrow, seeking her very core. “Aridela,” he choked, clutching, thrusting, driving into a void of unconsciousness.
“Chrysaleon!” She shoved him, hard enough to push his upper body off hers.
He opened his eyes and rolled onto his side, gasping. Awareness was slow to return.
She grabbed his injured forearm as she stared into the sky, her face rigid with concentration.
The pain her grip caused brought him back to the windy night. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, fighting to catch his breath and calm his blood.
Then he heard what she’d heard, felt it through his bones. A guttural vibration emanating from the ground.
With a grating clash, the earth beneath them split, sucking them into a fissure. Chrysaleon, flailing as he fell, caught a protruding root in his right hand and Aridela’s wrist in the left. He strained to hold her, groaning beneath shooting agony in his injured arm and thigh as she climbed his body, gripping his thighs then his waist, and finally his shoulders. There they hung, choking in a cloud of dust and avalanche of dirt and stones, suspended by one tough root and Chrysaleon’s ability to disregard his injuries. Outside the trench, he heard blasts and roaring. The crack of wood. The earth splitting open in a thousand wounds.
The world was being unmade.
* * * *
Blood ran down Chrysaleon’s injured forearm as he hoisted Aridela to the summit of the chasm. She pulled herself out and turned, grabbing him, helping him over the crumbling lip and back onto the earth’s welcoming surface.
But what he’d always considered solid, imperishable, was dissolving. Dirt and sand erupted in fountains on every side. A nearby grove of black oak and junipers thrashed as though a titan stamped through them, yanking them out as he came.
Blood dripped off the ends of his fingers. He tucked his arm behind his back so Aridela wouldn’t see, and tried to ignore the burn of the wound being torn open.
Distant susurration echoed like the faraway roar of lions, and built until the air hummed.
Aridela reached out to him. Chrysaleon took her hand and pulled her, first one direction then another, as gashes split the earth and barred their way.
Above them, the heavens fractured.
Neither could do anything but press their hands to their ears and wait for death to end the terror. The detonation of the sky ripped through Chrysaleon’s head with such force he feared his skull would shatter. The ground heaved.
“Goddess, forgive me!” Aridela shrieked as she stumbled on land turned to maelstrom. “Forgive us!”
She thought Lady Athene was punishing them for what they’d done. Shivers arced through Chrysaleon’s spine as he peered into the sky, convinced she was right. A dirty-red glow, sparked by eerie rapid-fire flashes of lightning, marred the northern horizon.
Aridela fell to her knees, whispering, “Velchanos.” She stared into the sky, at the lightning. “He comes for us….”
Another rift opened, so close that she teetered and started to fall, but Chrysaleon grabbed her and jerked her back.
Something else, a boiling blackness, ringed with molten haze like clouds of fire, obliterated the heavens in the same direction as the lightning. He stared, stiff with horror, seeing Great Poseidon rise from the sea. “Come,” he cried, knowing this blood-soaked shadow brought their deaths. “Run!” He half-dragged Aridela past freshly uprooted trees.
“There’s a place—” Aridela took the lead. She pulled Chrysaleon to the west, into a wood untouched by damage. Soon she found an indentation at the base of a tree-covered slope, where erosion, root-growth, and the digging of animals had created a shallow cave. They knelt and wormed past the roots into the hole, only to discover it was too small to cover them completely.
“Fill it in,” Chrysaleon shouted.
They scooped everything they could, earth, rocks and leaves into the opening of their refuge as the world around them transformed into a white rage of heat and fire.
Murderous wind snapped tree trunks like twigs in the angry clasp of a god. The air grew hot and stank of sulfur. Branches burst into flames. Chrysaleon made sure Aridela pressed her face to her knees and he did the same. He covered his head and hers with his arms, but there was no escape, no choice between breathing and not. His lungs and mouth seared like meat on a spit. Aridela whimpered.
The wind died, leaving a crackle of burning wood, branches collapsing, the tortured shriek of animals. They saw nothing through the gaps but a smoky-red haze.
“Are you hurt?” The words scraped against Chrysaleon’s scorched, swollen throat.
She whispered, “I am burned.”
The Child of the Erinyes series:
BOOK ONE: THE YEAR-GOD’S DAUGHTER
BOOK TWO: THE THINARA KING
BOOK THREE: IN THE MOON OF ASTERION
FORTHCOMING TITLES:
The Sixth Labyrinth (Book four)
When the Moon Whispers (Book five)
Swimming in the Rainbow (Book six)
The Year-god's Daughter: A Saga of Ancient Greece (The Child of the Erinyes Book 1) Page 39