“I don’t think they saw us.” Theo helped me stand. “You threw that boulder farther than I thought you would.”
“I was angry.”
“You have a temper.”
I brushed sand off his shoulder. “I’ve never denied it.”
Our closeness stirred up mixed feelings. I had two impulses: to touch his soft, scruffy face again, and to shove him for not letting me train with Zeus.
The latter won.
I pushed him in the chest and took off. “Race you back to camp!”
“We’re not finished for the day.”
“Then you forfeit!”
I sprinted down the path. When I no longer heard the waves, I began to feel that my feet weren’t touching the ground. Sometimes when I ran, I imagined I had wings and could soar, but this felt different. This was in my chest, a feeling like fire. Like the firelight had glowed across Theo’s naked back . . .
All right, so this was lust, plain and simple. It happened from time to time. Occasionally, when some of the more attractive village boys had watered their sheep at the pond near the temple, I found myself daydreaming of their broad shoulders and big hands. After we had a good romp in the woods, I never had the urge to see them again.
That’s what I needed from Theo. Once I felt his weight on top of me, I would be satisfied. Then I wouldn’t have to think about him in that way ever again.
Over the next four days, Theo and Zeus trained, sleeping only a few hours a night. Bronte and I tiptoed around the tribe and tried to stay cool in the unseasonably warm spring weather. The tribe would not remove their velos in our company. Having worn a mask in the sticky summer months back home, when every breath felt heavy and wet, I pitied them.
We tried to keep busy. The younger girls, born on the island from mothers who were with child when they fled their homes, would gather outside the schoolhouse and listen to Bronte sing and act. She captivated her audience, and the girls liked her so much they asked her to help them put on a play. Bronte would also forage in the woods for currants, mushrooms, herbs, berries, and nuts. The tribe’s cooks happily accepted her offerings. And once they discovered that she was a skilled shot with a bow and arrow, the huntresses took her out with them. She brought back her first deer within an hour, then spent another hour in a friendly debate with members of the tribe about philosophy.
I kept to myself. As hard as it was, I stayed away from Theo and Zeus, training with my spear and shield in the woods alone, and taking long walks up the mountain to the cooler air. I discovered a stunning beach with pink sand and a cozy cove with aquamarine water where I could swim with colorful fish. Though the isle provided endless opportunities to explore, I was still restless. Bronte and I ate meals at our own table, avoiding the nightly bonfire where everyone congregated to socialize. Sleep came in fitful bursts.
Adrasteia visited camp daily to check on us, but she never stayed long. She and Ida lived elsewhere. I hadn’t discovered where, though they couldn’t have been far. Euboea was in charge of tending to our needs. We rarely saw her, except in the evenings when she returned with the day’s catch of fish.
On the fifth day of Zeus’s training, I planned to practice with my shield and spear, only to find them missing. Bronte’s new bow and arrow, given to her by the tribe, were there in our tent, but my gear was gone. I went to ask Bronte at the schoolhouse, where she was organizing the play with some girls. Across the field, a crowd had assembled, all of the women cheering and shouting.
“Have you seen my spear and shield?” I asked one of them.
“Euboea and another girl borrowed them. They said you knew.”
The women had gathered around a marked circle. Euboea and a second woman were in the center, locked in hand-to-hand combat. Euboea threw her opponent to the ground and landed on her. The cheering erupted. Euboea let the woman up, then paraded around with her arms over her head victoriously.
My shield and sword were off to the side, propped against a bench. I slipped through the crowd and pulled up short. A girl sat by my gear, and she stood when she saw me.
It was Sibylla, the guard I’d ambushed outside Zeus’s cave the other night.
“Do you remember me?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Do you remember giving me this?”
She pulled back the scarf around her neck. Her throat was bruised where my arm had pushed down on her windpipe. My mouth soured with regret. I didn’t recall holding her that tightly.
“I spent the past few days with no voice,” Sibylla said, still sounding scratchy. She began stripping.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
“Keep your apology,” she spit. She continued to remove her clothes, down to her undergarments, a band across her breasts and loose trousers. Her body was sculpted and lithe, like a wildcat’s. “Meet me in the ring.”
“Excuse me?”
“You want your gear back? Wrestle me for it.” Sibylla walked to the center of the ring. “Or is Stavra Lambros’s daughter a coward?”
My mother’s name sent a veil of quiet over the crowd. Their respect for her was probably why they hadn’t cast us into the sea. I couldn’t fail to live up to her memory.
After undressing to my undergarments, I stepped into the ring. A wrestler’s goal was to throw her opponent to the ground from a standing position. A point was awarded when an opponent’s back or shoulders touched the ground. Three points won.
Euboea came forward. “No time limit. Holds are restricted to the upper body.” She lifted a salpinx to her lips—a straight, narrow bronze tube with a bell—and blew into the bone mouthpiece. A piercing noise shot across the field. The crowd shifted closer, right up to the edge of the ring.
Sibylla’s arms encircled my upper body. The next thing I knew, I was on my back, staring up at the morning sky.
“One!” Euboea yelled. She stood over me and hefted me to my feet while my opponent chuckled. “You awake now?”
I shrugged out of her hold and faced Sibylla. I wasn’t much of a wrestler, but I had been in enough tiffs with my sisters to dodge throws.
Sibylla grabbed for me again. I twisted around her, keeping out of her range. She anticipated my next evasion, caught me by the middle, tripped me, and threw me to the ground.
“Two!” she shouted, glowering. “Euboea was right. You’re nothing like your mother.”
I leaped up and grabbed her, pulling her to the edge of the ring. The crowd shoved us back toward the center of the ring. I held Sibylla and threw her to the ground.
“One,” I said.
After I let her up, she launched at me again. We locked arms, pushing shoulder against shoulder, legs low, knees bent. She gave ground and plowed into the crowd. I kept pushing, and we broke through the spectators and toppled to the soil on our sides. She shoved at me, pushing my back closer to the dirt.
I wedged my knee beneath us and thrust. She flew back, almost landing on her back. I leaped at her, brought my arm across her bruised neck, and shoved.
“Two!”
Euboea waved us back to the ring. I started to return, but Sibylla was on me. She threw me down, yet I spun before my back hit the dirt. I crouched at her and charged. My head plowed into her middle and drove her backward, farther from the ring. The rest of the audience followed. Bronte and the girls at the schoolhouse came out to watch.
It didn’t matter.
I was done with their games and their glares and their judgments.
Grabbing Sibylla about the waist, I pushed. I shoved and shoved all the way to the mess hall. Her back struck a table, and I threw her down and kneeled on top of her. She cast me off, and we tumbled to the ground. Then she was on me, her lips at my ear.
“I’m going to enjoy your spear and shield.”
I pushed up with all my strength, rolled her beneath me, and held her shoulder blades to the ground.
“Three,” I breathed.
Another piercing sound carried across the field. Euboe
a came over with the salpinx in hand and raised it above her head.
“Althea Lambros: the victor!”
I rotated onto my knees, chest heaving. Bronte ran over from the schoolhouse and helped me up. Sibylla was still recovering her breath. I had landed on her hard and knocked the wind out of her. The crowd didn’t cheer much as Bronte drew me away.
I called over my shoulder. “I expect my spear and shield delivered to my tent!”
Sibylla glared back.
Bronte led me faster. “What were you thinking?”
“Did you see me?”
“Everyone in camp saw you.”
“Good.”
“Good?” Bronte shook her head. “These women are our allies, Althea.”
“Tell that to Sibylla.”
We entered the tent, and Bronte poured water from the pitcher into the washbasin. “You strangled Sibylla until she was unconscious. She had good reason to challenge you for her honor.”
“Honor? That was an ambush.”
“Then you’re even.”
I threw up my hands. “Why are you taking her side?”
“I’m not. I’m reminding you that we need their hospitality. Throwing one of their guards across camp isn’t going to earn their respect, and we certainly don’t want their fear. We know what it’s like to live in fear. It breeds contempt.”
I sat on the edge of my bedroll. “I had to win.”
“But you didn’t have to brag about it.”
My lips spread wide, showing my teeth. “Did you see that last throw?”
“Althea,” Bronte groaned.
“Sorry. Last time.”
She went to the doorway. “I need to return to the schoolhouse. You should keep to yourself for the rest of the day, and maybe tomorrow as well.”
“I’m not hiding like a coward.”
“You’re safer here. I’ll worry less knowing you’re not getting into more fights. Now I have a play to put on. I cannot be interrupted by more distractions.”
“Fine,” I grumbled.
She slipped out of the tent.
My arms and legs were caked in mud and dirt. I scrubbed them until the clean water was too muddy to be of use, then changed my clothes. A few bruises had already darkened on my sides. I was going to be sore all over, but at least everyone knew that I was, in fact, Stavra Lambros’s daughter.
That was worth any pain.
14
That evening, nightfall scattered the irritating itch of the daytime heat, but I still felt mucky from the wrestling match. I did as promised and stayed in the tent all day, taking supper there with Bronte, who brought us bowls of venison stew.
She chatted as she ate, telling me about the play she and the girls were putting on. They were reenacting the birth of Aphrodite, the tribe’s favorite tale to recount. “It isn’t very long, just one act, but they’re so excited, especially for the final song. They have no idea how fortunate they are. They wouldn’t be allowed onstage anywhere else.”
“When does it start?” I asked. “I want to arrive early to get a good seat.”
Bronte stirred her stew without meeting my gaze. “Things have been tense since this morning. You disgraced Sibylla not just once but twice. Her friends are rightly unhappy. Some of them have children in the play. You should probably keep to yourself, at least until tomorrow.”
“You don’t want me there?”
“Of course, I’d like my sisters there.”
Sisters.
“Cleora would be proud of you,” I said gently.
“She would, hmm?” Bronte asked. “Or would she wonder why I’m teaching little girls to act and sing, instead of helping her break free?”
“Dethroning Cronus is only one way the world needs to change. We also need to teach girls who they are, and offer them new options for who they can become.”
Bronte set on her head a leafy crown that the schoolgirls had made her. “That’s me, changing the world, one children’s play at a time.”
It stung that she didn’t want me to attend that night, but I put on a smile and walked her to the door. “If I wasn’t grimy, I would hug you.”
“You smell too.” She kissed my cheek warmly and left.
I finished my supper, then sniffed myself. She was right. I collected my bathing things and set out.
The small pond just outside the main camp in the woods was deserted. Silvery moonlight sparkled across its surface, undisturbed. Slipping out of my clothes, I stepped into the cool water and waded in up to my waist. I scrubbed my hair and scalp with soap that Adrasteia had given us when we arrived. I had more bruises on my body from the wrestling match, but some of them were already fading.
I finished lathering and waded farther in to rinse off. The light on the surface of the pond around me dimmed. I looked up through the treetops at the sky. Strange. Not a single cloud, and the moon was now accompanied by a masterpiece of stars.
A cold current slithered around me. The dark spot on the water widened, eating up the starlight, and shifted closer. I made out the shape of a man’s shadow hovering below the surface, like the one I had seen on the boat. The Star Eater.
Daughter . . .
His raspy voice vibrated through the water, pushing in around me. I froze, my head and hair dripping. Something cold and slimy slid across my upper thigh. I jumped and covered my bare chest.
“Who are you?”
We are the heavens. The sun is our throne, the moon our footstool, the stars our retinue. We are the true alpha and omega, the first and the last.
His tone held an undercurrent of rage.
Because he spoke with the royal “we,” I couldn’t tell if he referred just to himself or to someone else as well. Whoever he was, he was not my father, and he was not overstating his influence over the heavens. His mere presence shrouded starlight and paled even the moon.
I started to carefully wade back toward shore. The Star Eater caught my leg and pulled. I went underwater so fast I had no time to take a breath.
Darkness blanketed me. No moonlight penetrated the water. I tried to kick free, but the Star Eater grasped my other leg too. His cold snaked up my body, pinning my arms to my sides and anchoring me under. My lungs throbbed. The pond felt bottomless. My skin burned with bitter cold.
Daughter, you must set us free. The voice boomed all around me and rang in my ears. Open your wings and rise.
My back burned as though two fiery hands had been pressed against my shoulder blades. I arched in pain, and my arms and legs broke free. I kicked hard, hoping I was headed toward the surface. My hollow lungs felt close to collapsing.
Bursting into the air, I swam hard to the embankment and dragged myself out of the water. I choked, gasping, and rested my cheek against the pebbled ground. The bathing pool once again shone with the heavens’ light. The Star Eater had gone.
My shoulder blades still burned. I looked over my shoulder and saw handprints high on my back, seared into my skin. As I watched, they faded away.
A shadow fell over me. I lurched to my knees, looked up, and saw Euboea there with a bath sheet in her arms. She wasn’t wearing her velo. Her face bore scars in a crisscross pattern across her cheeks and forehead, but they didn’t have the red, puckered look of burn scars. They were too fine, like knife cuts.
“You’re not Stavra Lambros’s daughter,” Euboea said.
“You keep saying that. I know my mother was a great woman. You can express that without putting me down.”
“No,” Euboea said thoughtfully. “Stavra was a good woman. You . . . you will be great.”
I pushed my wet hair from my face. “But you hate me.”
“I’m not willfully ignorant. You impressed me during the wrestling match.”
“No one else seemed impressed.”
“They are willfully ignorant. Anyone with eyes could tell the shape of your soul is powerful. Your body barely contains it. It practically shimmers off you.”
I had no response. Her praise was genero
us and unexpected, and I wouldn’t humiliate her by rejecting it. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” she insisted. “You’re terrifying.”
“Oh.”
She set a bath sheet down beside me. “Consider this a gift from my father. He would want me to repay your parents for what they did.”
“Your father?”
“Proteus. He’s a fish merchant in the city.”
“Yes,” I said, surprised. “I know Proteus.”
Her eyes grew wide. “How . . . how is he?”
“He’s well. His fish shop is the best in the agora.”
“Good,” Euboea said, albeit sadly. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. Years ago, I was married to a man who threw a jealous fit if I spoke to another man. It didn’t matter if I was haggling with a merchant over our supper ingredients. My husband would wait until I was home and strike me until I couldn’t walk. My father reached out to Stavra and Tassos for help. I was one of the first women they smuggled here to Crete.”
“Do you know why my parents started moving refugees?”
Euboea picked up a handful of pebbles and began tossing them into the pond, one at a time. “Your mother’s older sister, Hebe, was married to my husband’s brother. My husband was awful, but his brother was worse. Stavra tried to help Hebe get out with the first group of women, but Hebe was too afraid. My father lent Stavra and Tassos one of his fishing boats, and I was to operate the sail. We had to leave, or we would miss our opportunity, so we embarked, and your mother and father promised Hebe they would return. Three days later, while we were at sea, Hebe was found dead with her tongue cut from her mouth. Her husband was questioned, but he denied ever touching her.”
My tongue suddenly felt sticky. “I never knew my mother had a sister.”
“Stavra didn’t talk about her after that, but Hebe was the reason she began running refugees.” Euboea threw the last stone into the water and watched the ripples spread. “The velo design that the tribe wears emulates Stavra’s mask to honor the sacrifices she made for us.”
I hadn’t thought it possible, but now I was even prouder of my mask. “My mother never said anything about this place or the tribe or the refugees.”
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