Goose bumps washed across Aridela’s arms. “I cannot do nothing,” she said. “If there is to be another war, I will fight.”
“Yes. But not for a long, long time, and until then, you will suffer, for you are the betrayer as well as the promise.”
“Who have I betrayed? Tell me.” Furious, Aridela tried again to grasp her sister, but it was no use.
Iphiboë’s gaze held such sorrow it frightened Aridela, made her want to cry out in protest. “You cannot know everything, Aridela. This is our Mother’s design. You must relinquish your power if you ever wish to understand the plight of those for whom you battle. It makes me weep to see the misery you will endure, the mistakes you will make. You’ve already made many. But, my sister, your suffering hones you, as it does your champion.”
Iphiboë leaned her head to one side. “Do you hear the growl of the lion?”
“Yes, what is that?”
“The lion is the changing world. Velchanos must defeat it if you are to be freed and the approaching upheaval thwarted. Yet he must also submit to it, allow himself to be consumed. Oh, how I hope he finds the courage to face the beast and fulfill his obligation.”
The growl outside expanded into a snarl, which grew into a terrifying roar, making the walls of Aridela’s prison tremble. She pictured the lion turning its massive head up to the sky as it gave voice. Instinctively she shrank and covered her ears. “What’s happening?” she cried, making the sign against evil, but when she turned back to Iphiboë her sister was gone and she was alone. Something flew out of the dark and latched onto her wrist, squeezing, harder and harder, until she thought her bones would snap.
She opened her eyes, gasping, taking in the waking scene. The garden was quiet and peaceful but for the drone of cicadas and the desolate, intermittent call of mourning doves. There was no raging lion or dank, chilly prison. Sunlight rather than starlight bathed the ground. Next to her, though, Menoetius’s face was contorted. Sweat poured off him. It was he who squeezed her wrist in an unyielding, painful grip.
His eyes opened but they were blank, unseeing; with a miserable groan he released her, bringing his forearms up and covering his face as though to ward off a blow.
“Menoetius.” Aridela grabbed his arms, straining to pull them away from his face. “Menoetius!”
His fixed stare gradually cleared, gained awareness. He blinked. “Aridela?”
“I’m here— you’re with me. In the garden.” She pressed his fists to the warm flesh below her collarbones. His expression was wary and she thought he might need to know she was real.
He glanced around the enclosure and up into the softly swaying branches before sighing and freeing his hands. He rubbed his eyes and shoved his hair off his face.
She knelt beside him, waiting.
“It was the dream.” He looked pale and tired, as though he hadn’t been sleeping any better than she. Looking at him, it was hard to remember he was only twenty-three.
“You had a dream? So did I. There was a lion.”
He stared at her, frowning, as though trying to decipher a language he’d never heard before.
“It roared,” she said, dismayed to realize the details were already fading.
He drew in a shuddering breath. “It’s real? Is it here?”
“No, no,” she said, understanding. “I was dreaming. We were both asleep. There are no lions here anymore.”
He stared at her then dropped his gaze. His jaw clenched, unclenched. “I told you, in the cave, that when I first saw you, I knew I loved you.”
She hesitated no more than an instant. “Yes.”
“I knew it because you’re the lady from my dream. Realizing it was like climbing out of an abyss. It was like seeing sunlight after a thousand years of winter.”
“The lady… from your dream?”
“For years, every time I’ve fallen asleep, I see the same thing— you, trapped inside an oak tree. To get to you, I must pass a lion. It never leaves. Never sleeps. It will kill anyone who confronts it.” His voice dropped. “I have to fight this lion if I am to free you.”
His words sparked a memory. Something about the lion in her dream. The lion Velchanos must defeat. Who had said that? Her sister. Iphiboë. Aridela’s flesh prickled. She could feel the presence of Goddess Athene, and knew these intertwined dreams were sent for a reason.
He had kept his gaze averted, but now he looked into her eyes. “When I was here before, when you were a child, I saved your life.”
“Yes.” She encased his hand between her palms, fighting the sudden burn of tears.
“I’d gone into the shrine at Labyrinthos to offer Athene my devotion— to ask what she wanted of me. This was her answer.” He gestured with his free hand toward his face. “She sent the beast that did this. In sleep and waking, there are lions.” He made four shallow trenches in the dirt with his fingertips as he said, “I’ve never had the courage to fight the lion in my nightmare, though she promises it will bring an end to all misery, even my own. I’m a coward, and she knows it. That’s why she punishes me.”
At last, Aridela understood. It was this curse causing his bitterness, not the scars. In his waking life a lioness nearly killed him. When he slept, another lion mauled him endlessly. Pity washed over her.
He looked away, out of the garden, as though he couldn’t bear to see her expression.
“My dream, too, was strange.” She rubbed his knuckles as she tried to recall the details. “It was dark. Iphiboë was with me. A lion was roaring in the distance.” She pondered, silent until his gaze returned to her. “Menoetius, I remember something. When we were on the mountain, you said Athene caused the lioness to attack you. That it was her punishment for leaving me.”
“Yes.”
“What would have happened if you hadn’t been in the shrine that day? I would have died. You think the mauling was her answer, but I think you’re wrong. She sent you there to save me. I was the answer, yes? She only punished you later, when you left me. She put us together that day; she wanted you to stay. But you didn’t. You ignored her command and returned to Mycenae. That’s why she punished you. If you stay here with me now, isn’t that as good as fighting the lion? Do what she wants. Don’t leave me. I promised I would make you judge or advisor. I want that still. Stay. Stay with me.”
He frowned.
The need to convince him intensified. “You swore to me that day on the cliff, that if I fell over the edge, you would jump after me and break my fall. Did you lie?”
“I don’t know.” He freed his hand but only so he could grasp hers and press his fingertips over the pulse at her wrist.
He stared at her, anguished and accusing. Did you? his eyes asked.
There was the Goddess again, her gaze demanding. Aridela’s flesh crawled. She felt the pulse beneath his fingers begin to pound. Yes, she, too, had been given a command, and she, too, had ignored it.
Frustrated and filled with doubt, she pulled her hand from his.
That last day in the mountain cave returned vividly. It had taken more strength than she knew she had to resist him. Did she follow the Goddess’s wishes by refusing him, or had she misreckoned everything?
He watched her, saying nothing. Finally, she wiped away the tears on her cheeks and broached what lay between them. “I promised to savor every day I have with Chrysaleon. It’s a small thing, isn’t it, to be with him alone until Iakchos rises and he meets the winner of the Games, his cabal? To do otherwise would hurt him. He would feel betrayed.” She added, both to Menoetius and the Goddess, “It’s only three and a half months.” Tucking her hands in her lap, she looked over the desolation that had once been a lush garden. “These are your customs which direct me, which I try to recognize. They’re strange to me. It isn’t our way. Our queens have never been ruled by such constraints. If I wished, I could take any man I wanted into my bed and suffer no condemnation. No consort reared on Kaphtor would be offended.” Returning her gaze to his, she added, “My mother cho
se to give her loyalty, her love, and her body to no one but my father when he was bull-king. I follow her lead. I want to dignify her memory, and my father’s, as well as Chrysaleon. Don’t be angry with me.”
After a long silence, his gaze faltered. “In my land, a woman’s needs, her desires, mean nothing. She must obey if she wants to live. If I hadn’t been mauled, I might feel as my countrymen do.”
Aridela waited, watching resistance play across his face and finally evaporate.
He drew in a deep breath. “What you offer is different. You give it freely, without coercion, without fear.” He inclined his head, a little reluctantly. “This isn’t our time,” he said. “It belongs to Chrysaleon, though I doubt he knows its value. I ask but one thing. Let us sit here a little longer, until the sun reaches the western roof of the palace—” He pointed to the sky. “You can see it’s almost there. I won’t touch you. I only want to look at your face. I want to hear of your days, your tasks and pleasures, the judgments you make, your thoughts. This I ask, the man who has twice saved your life, and it is a much smaller thing.”
She thought of the lilies, thrusting so bravely from the soil, wanting to live, to thrive, to offer beauty. As he spoke, that last day on the mountain returned again to her mind. Rainbows danced and frothed like seawater through her blood, enticing her to dive in. Listening to the flow of his voice, seeing what lay in his eyes, gazing upon his face, all these heightened a desire for more.
She knew his true intent. He wanted to coax her into acknowledging what lay unfinished between them, and perhaps give in to it. What he asked was not small, and she didn’t trust herself to keep it so.
Harpalycus had ripped all semblance of choice from her. That could never be changed or forgotten. But Menoetius had returned her strength, had given her back the ability to determine her own course. She could act like a queen. She could put her vow to Chrysaleon above her secret weaknesses, even if they weren’t as secret as she’d believed. “No,” she whispered, clenching her hands on her lap to keep them from stealing out to his.
A breeze played with his hair. It had grown. She longed to watch it run, pure as a waterfall, between her fingers, but she kept her hands on her lap and met his gaze, forcing her eyes to give no hint of the rainbows flowing through her veins.
His face hardened. His jaw worked. He rose abruptly. “I won’t stay here. Your goddess can kill me. I wish she would.”
“What of your oath?”
“All your oaths are to Chrysaleon. You give nothing, and ask much in return.” He stared down at her, and seemed a stranger.
She opened her mouth, wanting to say I need you, but hesitating. Before she could gather the courage, he turned with a growl of disgust and walked away, leaving nothing of their time together but a drone of cicadas and cold, yawning regret.
Selene looked up as Menoetius stalked into her chamber, his expression black with rage. She set down the knife she was sharpening. “Leave us,” she told the handmaid. The woman bowed and slipped out of the room.
“Something troubles you.” Selene crossed to him and took his hands.
He swiveled and threw up his arm, knocking her away. “Don’t,” he said, grimacing.
She stepped back. “Menoetius, your face is filled with hatred.”
He seized her arms. He kissed her, bending her backward until she feared for her spine. He stared into her eyes, but she felt he didn’t even see her.
She drew him onto the bed. The way he ripped her tunic reminded her of warriors fresh from battle, men surprised to be alive.
This rough lust was at odds with his usual tenderness. She pulled him closer, sliding her legs around his hips. “Yes, my love,” she said. “I’m here.”
It was over quickly. He fell upon her, heavy and still.
She stroked his hair. Unsheared since before he came to Kaphtor from Mycenae, it spilled over her face.
He rolled off her, turning away.
“What is it?” She rose on one elbow, frowning at his inflexible shoulders.
In a halting, hoarse voice, he said, “Chrysaleon.”
“What of him?”
He faced her, seized her hands and kissed her palms. “He is my brother. I came here with him, knowing his mind, believing as he did, but now that I know you and Ar— the queen, I cannot stand by and say nothing. I cannot.”
This last he spoke with such fierce despair that Selene gathered him into her arms and held him like a child. “Tell me.”
“He deceives you.”
Selene drew away just enough to look him in the eyes. “How?”
“Chrysaleon vowed he would win Crete for the glory of Mycenae. He means to halt the king-sacrifice. Your people will be his slaves.”
“Chrysaleon, a traitor, like Harpalycus?”
Menoetius gripped her arms. “He won’t stop until he destroys the Goddess-of-Life-in-Death and makes her subject to his gods.”
Selene stared at him, too shocked to speak.
“I won’t stay to watch it happen.” Menoetius’s eyes narrowed. “I am leaving here. I mean to make my way to the isle in the west where my mother came from.”
“No!”
His jaw clenched. “Come with me.”
“I….”
“Come with me, Selene.” He drew her close, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I want you with me.”
She pulled back, blinking away the sting of tears. “I am with child.”
It was his turn to stare.
She nodded. “The night before you took Aridela into the mountains. Remember? The Moon of the Olive Harvest.”
He was quiet then he nodded, and smiled. “Yes.” He reached for her again, turning her so her spine rested against his chest. He put his arms around her, his hands on her abdomen.
“Are you pleased?” she asked.
He kissed her, and held her face. “I am pleased,” he whispered.
She watched him swallow, watched the faintest hint of moisture gather in his eyes, and was deeply moved. “I wondered if you would ever notice,” she said lightly, to preserve his pride.
He laughed. “I thought you were eating more.”
“Even if I were not having your child, I wouldn’t go,” she said. “I cannot leave Aridela. I won’t leave her. Especially if what you say is the truth. She will need me, and you, too.”
“She doesn’t trust me.”
“Of course she does.”
“No. I kept secrets from her. Secrets Chrysaleon revealed. Now she thinks he’s the truthful one and I, the liar.”
“What secrets?”
He looked away, toward the tapestry on the wall. Then he shrugged and faced her. “My father wanted to add Crete to his holdings, make it his possession. That’s the only reason we came here, to find a way to overthrow you. I am as guilty as Chrysaleon. My only desire was to make my father proud. Chrysaleon told Aridela. I didn’t. That’s why she trusts him more than me.”
She asked with her eyes what she could not bring herself to ask out loud.
“I haven’t felt that way for a long while,” he said. “Since… that first night in the Cave of Velchanos.”
“You are one of us.”
He nodded.
She rose from the bed, straightening her tunic. “We must go to Aridela. We’ll tell her what you’ve told me.” She picked up the knife she’d been sharpening. “Somehow, I always knew this about Chrysaleon. But I could never make her listen.”
“No.”
She turned to him, surprised. “No? You cannot mean to think I won’t tell Aridela of this.”
He came to her, took the knife, and placed it on the table. “I want to see Chrysaleon when he comes back. Perhaps something will have changed, as it did for me. Maybe he’ll return ready to fulfill his promise.”
Selene snorted. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. He’s High King now. You can’t think he’ll want to give that up. Not for us, not for anyone.”
“Swear to me you’ll say nothing,” Me
noetius said. “I need time. I must be certain. It is not so easy to betray my brother and my king, to knowingly draw the wrath of the Erinyes. Swear to me.”
“Very well,” she said. “But you must promise me something.”
“What?”
“That you will not leave us. This is your home. I am giving birth to your child. Promise me you will stay.”
He paused, finally nodding. “I won’t leave unless you go with me.”
Selene turned away, swiping at a flood of tears. “Aridela loves him,” she whispered. Fear and hopelessness spread through her limbs like a wasting illness. “Mistress, if this is true, take vengeance upon him alone.”
Chrysaleon tossed his helmet to Alexiare and strode across the beach to clasp Aridela’s outstretched hands. It meant something that she’d come to the harbor instead of waiting like a queen for him to come to her at the palace.
“At last,” she said, her smile as brilliant as the face of the moon.
The shadows that had lingered beneath her eyes after Harpalycus stabbed her were gone. Her skin was lustrous. Perhaps the intensity he thought he glimpsed behind that smile was no more than imagination, from so many days of being overtly studied by too many people. He bent and kissed her, breathing in her musky scent. “My nights have been dismal,” he said, and in that instant, he spoke the truth.
Her laughter sparkled. She wound her arms around his neck. “My Zagreus. My beloved. And now, High King of Mycenae.”
He frowned.
“Forgive me.” She drew back, pressing her hand to his cheek. “I mean no disrespect to your father.”
“He died before his time.” Clasping her waist, he said, “I see no evidence of a child.”
In the Moon of Asterion (The Child of the Erinyes) Page 6