by Morgan Rice
Thanos looked up at the king, his face a stone, and the king squinted his eyes as he leaned over and whispered something to the advisor on his right. With the nod of his uncle, Thanos lowered his sword and stepped out of the training area.
He walked toward her, a new look of admiration and wonder in his eyes. He studied her in silence for several seconds, breathing hard. Finally, he spoke.
“How did you know which weapon to give me?” he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.
“The way you moved,” she said. “It seemed a longsword would suit you.”
Still panting, he watched her closely as he nodded.
Then he strode across the training ground and headed into the palace. For a moment, Ceres wasn’t certain what to make of his strange behavior and his lack of further instructions. Should she stay? Should she leave? She decided to wait until she was released.
A few minutes later, and into the next round, a handler approached her.
“For you, my lady,” he said, holding out a pouch. “An advance from Prince Thanos. If you accept, you have been hired as the prince’s new weapon-keeper. He requests you return tomorrow an hour after dawn at this very spot.”
Ceres held out her hand and after she had received the pouch, she opened it, seeing five pieces of gold. At first, overwrought with joy, she couldn’t speak, but when the handler asked her again if she would accept, she said yes.
“You are at liberty to leave, my lady,” he said, and then he swiveled around and walked back into the palace.
“Thank you,” she said, realizing she was speaking to no one. She glanced up toward the east tower and saw Thanos standing on the balcony watching her. He nodded to her and smiled before heading inside.
With a light heart, she ran from the palace and headed home to pick up her sword. She also planned to secretly give the money to her brothers without their mother finding out, and to bid them a final farewell.
Finally, she was wanted.
Finally, she had a home.
CHAPTER SIX
Ceres carefully peered in through the half-opened shutters, her mouth dry, eyes peeled for her mother. She had run home as nightfall descended on Delos, the clear skies above turning pink and lavender. Her eagerness to present the gold to her brothers had fueled each step. Aching with hunger, she had considered using one of the gold coins to purchase food, but was afraid to bump into her mother at the market.
With ears pinned for sounds or voices, she glanced further into the dim house. Not a soul was in sight. Where could Nesos and Sartes be? Usually, they were home at this time while Mother was away. Perhaps if she retrieved her sword first, her brothers would return by then.
Careful not to make a sound, she slunk around to the rear of the house, past her grandmother’s tree and toward the shed. The door creaked when she opened it, and once inside the stuffy shack, she headed straight toward the corner. Kneeling down beside the floorboard, she lifted it up and fished out her sword. She breathed with relief to see it was still there.
For a moment Ceres sat and admired its beauty, the mixed metals, the shiny, thin, unblemished blade, the golden hilt adorned with serpents. The craftsmanship was after the manner of the northerners, her father had said. She would carry this sword with honor, always remembering the great love her father had for her.
She slid it into its sheath, secured it around her waist with a scabbard, and headed outside.
Seeing no one was there, she made her way to the front of the house again, and this time went in through the front door. The house was shadowy, the hearth unlit, and mounds of fruits, vegetables, meats, and baked goods decked the table, all no doubt bought with the gold gained by selling her life. Their savory aroma filled the room. She strode over to the food, picked up a loaf of bread, and devoured a few bites. Her stomach had churned for days.
Knowing she hadn’t much time, Ceres hurried over to Nesos’s bench-bed and placed the sack of gold beneath his pillow. He’d find it when he turned in for the night, and she didn’t doubt he’d keep it a secret from Mother. She blinked, trying to fight back the tears while wondering if she’d ever see her dear brothers again. Her heart squeezed as she thought about Rexus. Would he forget about her?
Suddenly she jumped as the front door flung open, startling her. To her horror, in stepped Lord Blaku.
He grinned an awful, victorious grin.
“If it isn’t the runaway,” he said, his upper lip curled back, revealing yellowing teeth, the stench of sweat saturating the room.
Taking a few steps back, Ceres realized she needed to get away—quick. Thinking she’d be able to escape through the window in her parents’ bedroom, she dropped the loaf of bread and darted toward the back door.
But just as she reached the doorway, her mother stepped into it, Ceres colliding with her.
Briefly, Ceres noted that her mother wore a new dress made of the finest silk, and that she smelled like floral perfume.
“Did you really think you could beat me bloody and blue, steal my money, and get away with it?” her mother asked in a hateful tone as she grabbed Ceres’s hair, pulling it so hard Ceres let out a cry.
Steal her money? But then it all made sense. Of course her mother wouldn’t be collaborating with the slaver if she knew he had taken back the gold he’d paid for Ceres. However, he probably told her mother Ceres took the gold and ran off with it. Her mother was, after all, unconscious when he snatched the pouch of fifty-five pieces.
Before Ceres could explain, her mother slapped her across the face and shoved her so she fell to the floor. She then kicked Ceres in the stomach with her new pointy shoes.
Ceres couldn’t breathe. Yet she forced herself to her feet, preparing to lunge for her mother—when the slaver grabbed her from behind in a deadlock. He squeezed her so hard she was certain the wounds on her back reopened.
She kicked and screamed, wriggled and scratched, trying to wrestle her way out of the fat old man’s iron grip. But it was to no avail. He carried her through the room, and toward the front door.
“Wait!” her mother yelled.
She walked over to them and wrapped covetous fingers around Ceres’s sword.
“What is this?” she asked, her eyes angered.
Still not giving up the fight, Ceres kicked her mother in the shin as hard as she could muster with the slaver squeezing the life out of her.
Her mother’s face turned red, and she socked Ceres in the abdomen with such force Ceres thought she might vomit up the little food she had managed to swallow.
“That is my sword,” her mother said.
Ceres knew her mother would recognize how valuable the sword was, and that there was no way she would let the slaver take it with him.
“I paid for the girl, and whatever is on her person, I own that now,” Lord Blaku sneered.
“The sword was not on her person when I sold her to you,” her mother retorted, her fingers fumbling to undo the scabbard around Ceres’s waist.
Lord Blaku growled and threw Ceres against the kitchen table so her head hit the corner, a sharp pain spreading across her temple. Lying on the floor, dizzy from the blow, Ceres heard her mother scream and furniture being thrown across the room. She opened her eyes and sat up and saw the slaver standing over her mother, slamming a chair against her mother’s head.
“Ceres, help!” her mother yelled, but Ceres no longer had it in her.
Barely able to move, Ceres crawled on hands and knees toward the door. Once she had crossed the threshold, Ceres climbed onto her feet. But she had no time. She could feel Lord Blaku’s arms reaching for her, his eyes burning at her back. She needed to hurry if she was to escape, but her body wouldn’t move as swiftly as she told it to.
Her heart leapt in her chest when she stumbled across the front yard, and just as she reached the dirt road, she thought she was free.
Just then, Lord Blaku roared behind her. She heard the crack of a whip and then felt a thick leather cord wrap around h
er neck. Being tugged backward by the whip, throat strangled, blood pooling in her head, she crashed to the ground. Her hands reached for the cord, trying to loosen it, but it was secured too tightly. She knew she needed air or she would pass out, but a breath could not be drawn.
Lord Blaku picked her up, tossed her over his shoulder, and threw her into the back of the carriage. Slowly, her surroundings started to turn dark. Then darker.
In a rush, he chained her ankles and wrists, and then he loosened the whip from around her neck.
Wheezing and couching, she gasped for air, her surroundings becoming clear again, the slaver’s stench oozing into her nose as she panted.
He tore the sword from around her waist and studied it for a moment.
“This is a very fine weapon indeed,” he said. “Now it is mine, and I shall melt it down.”
Ceres reached a hand out toward her father’s sword, the chains rattling as she moved, but he slapped her hand away and hopped out of the carriage.
He headed back into the house and when he came back out, he was holding the sack of gold Ceres had left for her brothers.
The carriage bounced as he climbed onto it, and after he whipped the horses, the wheels creaked to a start. As the carriage drove off, she kept her eyes on the near black sky, watching as silhouettes of birds flew above. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she made no sound. She had no strength to cry. Now everything had been taken from her. Her money. Her sword. Her family. Her freedom.
And when she didn’t show up tomorrow morning at the palace ready to work for Prince Thanos, she would have lost everything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Miles and miles ago, Lord Blaku had unchained Ceres and had thrown her into an enclosed slave cart, and now she sat in the light of the moon, numb, beside dozens of girls in a cage wagon, bumping forward on the main road out of Delos.
The night had been freezing—it was freezing still—and with little protection from the rain, Ceres hadn’t been able to sleep, shivering all the time. Cold hands gripping the bars, she huddled at the end of the moving prison on soggy straw that reeked of urine and rotting flesh. It had stopped raining about an hour ago, and now the moon and stars were out.
She had listened in on the guards’ conversations, seated up above, and a few of them had mentioned something about Holheim, the capital of Northland, which, she knew, was several months’ journey away. Ceres knew if she were taken there, she would have no chance of ever seeing her family or Rexus again. But she stuffed those thoughts deep down into the dead part of her heart. Glancing back, she noticed that the girl who had been coughing the entire trip had become silent and was now slouching in the rear corner, lifeless, lips blue, skin white.
A mother and two young daughters sat next to the corpse, oblivious to the girl’s passing. All the daughters were focused on was competing for their mother’s lap. Better they do that than be aware that death was their neighbor, Ceres thought.
A few girls seated against the wall opposite Ceres carried a look of fear in their defeated eyes, and a few others cried in silent sobs as they longingly gazed out through the cage. Ceres didn’t feel fear or sadness. She couldn’t allow herself to be afraid here. Someone might sense it and judge her weak, and then use her weakness against her. Instead, she numbed herself so completely, she almost didn’t care what happened to her.
“Get out of my seat,” a blonde girl shouted to another.
“I have been sitting here all along,” the second girl replied, her skin smooth and olive in the glow of the moonlight.
The blonde pulled the olive-skinned girl up by her ears and threw her onto the sodden, straw-covered floor. A few of the girls gasped, but most looked away, pretending not to notice the ruckus.
“This is my cart,” the blonde exclaimed. “All these seats are mine.”
“No they aren’t,” a dark-skinned girl said, shooting to her feet, her hands on her hips.
They stared at each other for a moment, and everyone in the cart grew quiet, eyes slipping toward the rivals as they waited to see what would happen.
Hissing, the blonde shoved the dark-skinned girl, and within seconds, they were on the floor in a wrestling match, screaming at the top of their lungs as arms and legs flailed, a few eager slaves egging them on.
It was a draw. The olive-skinned girl slowly stood up and walked toward the back as her hands dappled the cage walls, blood running from her nose. The wagon hit a bump, and she wobbled as she sat down on the floor across from Ceres. Wiping the blood with her brown, threadbare, filthy sleeve, she looked Ceres in the eyes.
“I’m Anka,” she said.
The moonlight shone in through the cage onto the girl’s face, and Ceres thought the girl had the most peculiar eyes she had ever seen: dark brown irises with streaks of turquoise. Her hair was long, thick, and black, and Ceres guessed the girl was around her age.
“I’m Ceres.”
Feeling sorry for the girl, but without any strength to become involved, Ceres looked out through the iron bars at the back of the cart, wondering if it would be possible to escape. Life as a slave was not worth living, and she’d do anything to get out, even risk her life, if it came to that.
Unexpectedly, the wagon slowed to a stop on the side of the road, as Lord Blaku yelled for his guards to break up the fight. The cart rocked as the men jumped down from the roof and into puddles of water and wet grass. His face appeared right outside the cage and Ceres heard keys rattling, his heavy breath turning into puffs of smoke.
When the door swung open, a shadow of confusion flickered across Anka’s face, and when two of the five guards entered the wagon, the slaves cowered and winced. The men grabbed the wrestling girls and hauled them outside kicking and screaming.
“You’re a sweet one,” Lord Blaku said, grabbing Anka’s arm. “Come here, girl.”
Anka feverishly shook her head and scuttled backward, her eyes wide with terror, and Ceres felt a wave of nausea wash over her when she thought about what that fat, old, ugly slaver would do to the innocent girl.
Anka shrieked as Lord Blaku pulled her out.
At that moment, Ceres caught a glimpse of her sword attached around the slaver’s waist, and in a split second, she saw her opportunity for escape.
Lord Blaku reached for the deadbolt, but before he could lock it, Ceres kicked the door outward and leapt out of the wagon. A few other slaves escaped and started down the street, but two guards quickly rounded up the runaways as another slammed the door to the wagon shut.
The slaver flung Anka to the ground and reached for the hilt of Ceres’s sword. Ceres kneed him in the groin so he buckled forward, and before he stood up, she drew her sword and sliced his thigh, causing him to fall to the muddy road, wailing. The sword felt so light in her hand, she noticed, and the blade had cut through the slaver’s thigh like butter.
Three guards threw the other slaves back into the wagon and locked it, the girls crying in disapproval.
Just as Ceres was about to pull Anka to her feet, Anka gasped and yelled, “Behind you!”
Ceres spun around to find three guards upon her. The first had his sword raised, and had Anka not warned her, Ceres would have had his blade in her back.
To her astonishment, the same power she had felt in the arena when she had saved Sartes rushed through her veins. Suddenly, she could see clearly what she needed to do in order to defeat the three guards.
She met the first guard’s sword with her own several times before running her blade through him. He dropped to the side of the road in a puddle of water.
The short guard was holding a dagger, and he tossed it between his hands as he scuffled toward her. She kept her eye on the dagger for a few switches, and timing it just right, she flicked her sword between his hands so the dagger went flying into the air, landing on top of the slaver wagon.
“Let me go and I will let you live,” Ceres said, so much authority in her voice, not even she recognized it.
“Anyone who captures her
will receive fifty-five pieces of gold!” Lord Blaku yelled, throwing his whip toward the short guard who lost his dagger.
Ha! My mother’s gold, Ceres thought, adding to her anger.
The two remaining guards inched toward her, the tall one with a patch over his eye drawing his sword, the short one cracking the whip. At the palace, Ceres had only ever fought one on one with others, and she felt uneasy having to conquer two at the same time. But then again, there, she hadn’t been fighting for her life, and she hadn’t felt that overwhelming surge of force she was feeling now.
The short man snapped the whip so it latched around Ceres’s sword hand, and with a tug, Ceres fell to the ground, face first. She had gripped her sword so hard that it still remained in her hand, and with one hack, she severed the leather cords from around her wrist, freeing herself.
Quick as a cat, she sprung to her feet, and just as tall guard attacked, she lunged toward him, their swords colliding.
The short guard threw himself toward Ceres and wrapped arms around her legs so she couldn’t move, causing her to topple over, crashing onto her back. He crawled on top of her and wrapped one hand around her sword arm, confining it, the other around her neck, choking her.
“Kill her if you must!” Lord Blaku shouted, still holding his hands around his bleeding thigh.
Ceres kicked her feet up and knocked the short guard in the head, shoving him off her as she rolled backward and up to a standing position. Seeing he was about to stagger to his feet, Ceres kicked him in the face several times until he slumped to the ground unconscious.
Just as the tall guard came at her, she swerved around him, struck his feet from under him, and once he had fallen onto his back, she sliced off his hand. He screamed as blood oozed from his stub.
She hadn’t meant to be so brutal. She only wanted to harm him enough so he couldn’t fight anymore and wouldn’t follow her when she ran away, but the blade was exceptionally sharp and it took almost no effort to slash through his bones. Or perhaps it was this strange force that made it so effortless?