by Rebecca Ross
His gaze shifted to her legs, where the wind played with her torn garments. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Evadne said. She was trembling, and she could not quell it, no matter how much she tried. Nor could she resist the draw of Damon’s eyes. Their gazes locked, reluctant yet hungry, and Evadne did not know what he saw in her. Longing, terror, pain. Resentment. She felt a hundred things, and then nothing at all. He was suddenly reaching for her arm, but the commander’s voice stopped him from touching her.
“Toula? Bring Evadne something to drink, please. As well as some fresh clothes.”
The servants drifted away, but the commander and his son remained with Evadne. No one spoke for a moment, and then Damon’s sister called for his aid, and he departed, hurrying to one of the tents.
Evadne kept her mouth shut, waiting for the commander to break the quiet.
“Why did you stray from the camp?” Straton finally asked, his words clipped with anger.
She felt reckless, and almost laughed. Why? Because of his wife, with her fury and her sharpness. Because of the servants, who openly reviled her. Because Evadne had been so angry, she had craved to burn the entire camp to the ground.
“Were you attempting to run away, Evadne?”
“No, Lord. I felt like it was best for me to give your family . . . distance,” she replied carefully. “I still do not know where my place is among your people, Commander.”
He drew his hand over his face. His eyes were bloodshot when he looked at Evadne once more, and she remembered he had not slept the night before, either.
“I apologize for my wife,” he said. “I hope you will understand and give us time.”
She nodded, but her brow wrinkled, betraying her wariness. Why was he being so kind to her? Do not trust him, she told herself.
“Now, then. I would like for you to remain in the camp at night, where it is safe,” the commander said. “You have a place among us, in the tents. Toula will show you.”
Toula had just returned with a cup of wine and a tunic draped over her arm. She stopped short, hearing the commander’s pointed words. The older woman almost appeared repentant when she saw how disheveled Evadne was. But that flicker of compassion was gone as soon as Straton stepped away.
“You fool of a girl!” she chided. “Straying from camp in the shadow of Mount Euthymius! What were you thinking?”
Evadne was silent, accepting the reprimand and wine Toula handed to her. She took a fortifying sip and followed the older woman into one of the servants’ tents. It was empty; everyone was still shaken by the phantoms, remaining on guard close to the fire.
Evadne stripped from her ruined clothes, keeping her back angled to Toula to conceal her relic. She donned the new tunic, spread the wrinkles from the linen. It was too large for her, swallowing her curves. She struggled to knot her belt, a tremor still racking her hands. Toula acted as if she did not notice, pointing to a bedroll in the corner that Evadne could claim.
“Was someone wounded?” Evadne asked, remembering how she had heard a scream.
“Yes. Amara.”
Evadne felt ill, imagining it. “Where did the dog hurt her?”
“Dog?” Toula echoed. “Oh, you do not know. I suppose this is your first time passing Euthymius?” She beckoned for Evadne to keep drinking the wine. Evadne did, feeling the color return to her face. “If Ivina chooses to wreak havoc, which is common but not every time we pass the mountain, we each see something different. Our phantoms are shaped according to our fears.”
Of course. Evadne had known that. But in the fray, she had assumed the rest of the camp had also seen the bane of her childhood.
“What did you see?” she dared to ask Toula.
The old woman snorted. “Now, that I would not even tell my closest friend, let alone you.” And she must have realized how cruel she sounded, because she softened her tone. “Fears are intimate. Most of us never divulge what haunts us when we pass Euthymius.”
“I understand.”
Toula was quiet, but she stared long and hard at Evadne. Evadne did not know where to look and finished the wine before she crawled into her bedroll.
“You are very fortunate, Girl,” Toula said, just before she slipped from the tent. “You are fortunate Lord Damon realized you were missing from the camp.”
Lord Damon, indeed.
That thought kept Evadne awake, late into the night.
Travel was slow the following day. Amara’s arm had been wounded, and she languished in one of the wagon beds, her face pinching in pain every time a rut jostled her. The commander’s daughter, Lyra, chose to forgo her mare to sit beside Amara, keeping an eye on the girl’s bandages and coaxing her to sip a pungent brew to keep fever at bay.
Evadne returned to being unseen, sitting in her designated uncomfortable spot, watching the land roll by as she worried about Halcyon. She did her best to particularly remain out of Cosima’s sight, but it seemed the commander’s wife was still rattled by the night attack, riding close to her husband at the front of the caravan.
When they made camp on the second night, Evadne had finally oriented herself with the chamber pots. Her initial task.
Straton had positioned them in a valley beside the River Zan, as far from the mountain’s shadow as they could manage, and Evadne carried the brass pots to the bank. She was drawing water from the rapids, preparing to scrub the pots clean, when the commander startled her. She had not known that he had followed her to the river.
“Lord?”
“Put that down,” he ordered.
Evadne stepped back onto the moss, lowering the water bucket. A note of dread reverberated through her as she waited for him to speak, wondering why he had sought her out. When he spoke at last, his words were a surprise, like a splinter catching in her palm.
“You are not to scrub the chamber pots, but to serve my family’s wine.”
She might have gaped at him. “But, Lord, I thought—”
“I know what you thought,” he interjected with a sigh. “But I have spoken to my wife, and she has agreed that you will be the best replacement until Amara’s arm has healed. Do you agree?”
Evadne swallowed her shock. “Yes, Lord. But . . .”
He arched his brow, waiting. “What is it, Evadne?”
“If I should die of poisoned wine . . . what becomes of my sister? Does she still have to settle the five years of servitude?”
“I am not going to let you die,” he said, as if he truly were a god, holding the threads of life and death. “Now leave those pots for Toula and come prepare the wine.” He turned and strode back to the camp.
Evadne hesitated for a breath before tracing his steps. She quickly braided the hair away from her eyes and brushed the wrinkles from her tunic, washed her hands with water and a drop of spikenard—fragrant oil harvested from a plant. She struggled to understand why the commander had made this arrangement for her as she arrived to taste the wine and tend to their cups.
Again, the family did not speak. They reclined on cushions of every color—indigo, saffron, olive, ochre. They rested beneath their hanging oil lamps, the firelight gilding the golden hues of their skin and their hair and their eyes. They gathered around a dinner they hardly touched, their hands holding empty cups, waiting for Evadne to fill.
It was only when Evadne poured Cosima’s wine, when she felt her hard gaze, that Evadne finally understood. This had not been a test of wills, a spar between a husband and a wife to see who would prevail over the assignment of the new servant girl’s task.
This was a tactic.
Because, Evadne was beginning to learn, when you had an enemy in your house, you did not make them scrub the excrement from your chamber pots.
You gave them a position of honor, of trust.
You kept them close.
You kept them just within your reach.
XII
Evadne
Mithra exceeded Evadne’s expectations, and her breath caught at the sight of
the city’s magnificent sprawl across the land.
The royal city was built around a small summit, where the queen’s palace sat on the mountaintop. One main road led to the palace, branching into streets that flowed east to west and north to south, pooling about markets and temples, stretching as far as the eye could see. From a distance, Mithra gleamed like tarnished silver, trees and greenery blooming from private gardens. Divine pennants waved in the breeze with lazy flashes of color. The great River Zan cut through the eastern quadrant of the city like a blade, and on her wide banks rested docked vessels and barges. It smelled of smoke and moss and fish and incense.
Mount Euthymius was now out of sight, nothing more than a hazy nightmare to the south. But the common quarry, Evadne noticed, was visible; it lay to the west of Mithra, a wound in the Dacian foothills. There was a road winding from the western gate of the city, through fields of barley, all the way to the quarry outpost, a tall narrow building surrounded by an impenetrable wall.
Only a matter of miles would lie between her and her sister, Evadne thought, studying the place where Halcyon would soon arrive. It was as comforting as it was disheartening.
They entered the eastern gate of the city through the clamorous fish market, steadily wending their way on wide streets. But the noise and bustle became reverent and quiet as the people took note of the commander and his family, and the wagon that carried a coffin. The somber silence followed them all the way to the shadow of the summit, where Straton’s villa sat like a sentry overlooking the eastern quadrant of the city.
Evadne’s first impression of the commander’s house was that it was grand, a smaller replica of the queen’s palace. The villa was fashioned from white marble, its bronze roof upheld by a grand colonnade. A wall encircled the verdant grounds of the property, and within its embrace were trees and flowering shrubs and two small shrines to the goddesses Magda and Ari. There was a sparring circle and an armory and forge, and even a stable and pasture for the horses to graze beside a small pond. The entire villa boasted a striking view of the river.
And it was to be Evadne’s home for the next five years.
She hardly had time to soak in the grandeur before Toula approached her with a scowl.
“You’ll bunk on the lower floor, with Amara,” she said, glancing at the injured servant girl, who was too preoccupied with pain to protest the arrangement. “You can draw water from the servants’ well and find a bowl and the essence of spikenard in the cupboard, to wash with. A fresh tunic and sandals will also be there. The family is burying Xander at sundown, but they will return here for dinner, and you must be ready to serve the wine. Amara, show her the way.”
Evadne’s mind was spinning, and she felt like crawling into a hole to hide. But Amara walked into the villa, and Evadne had no choice but to follow her. The front doors were made of hammered bronze, so tall a giant could walk with ease through the passage. They ushered the girls into a receiving chamber; it was roofless, an open courtyard that welcomed a glimpse of the sky. The floors were set with hexagonal-cut jade and carnelian, and in the center of the courtyard was a reflection pool.
Evadne lingered as she walked by the pool, to gaze within it. A Pegasus mosaic gleamed just beneath the shallow waters, her wings outstretched, her body highlighted in gold.
“At night during the summer, the constellation Zephyra shines on the water, just between the Pegasus’s wings,” Amara said, surprising Evadne. Her arm was bandaged, and her movements were stilted, but a rosy hue had returned to her face. “It is my favorite thing about the villa.”
“It is beautiful,” Evadne confessed. She was quiet the remainder of the way to their chamber. She worked to memorize the corridors they took, and at last they arrived at a small room with two beds and a window, which was open to let fresh air flow.
“You have a few hours before night falls,” Amara said, easing herself onto her bed. “I would rest, if I were you. Sometimes the family remains up late, and they expect you to be attentive at all times. Especially when Lady Selene is here.”
“Who is Lady Selene?” Evadne asked, slowly sitting on the other bed.
“Lord Straton’s sister. Do not let her cup go dry.” And that was all she would say. Amara angled her face away from Evadne and soon fell asleep.
Evadne rested, as Amara advised, but she was too anxious to sleep, worried she would be late for dinner. When she rose, she did as Toula instructed, washing with water and a drop of spikenard. It smelled of sweet earth and musk, stirring Evadne’s emotions. She longed for home.
She braided her hair, found a tunic that was better tailored to her body—high-necked, to conceal all traces of Kirkos’s Winged Necklace—and followed the aromas of dinner up to the main floor. She located the kitchen, where servants were preparing the meal, and then farther along the corridor, Evadne found the dining room.
Small iron braziers provided light and warmth as the night crept closer, and long, transparent linens hung between columns, stirring with the slight breeze. A low-slung table made of polished oak anchored the center of the room. Silver plates and goblets were set, and a stream of flowers flowed down the spine of the table—knots of lilies and anemones and hyacinths and myrtle leaves.
A wine station sat between two of the pillars. Jars had already been brought up from the cellar, still cool from storage, their seals unbroken.
Night soon fell, and servants began to carry in platters of food, arranging them along the table.
The family arrived quietly. Evadne stood between the columns, listening to their footsteps on the marble, the whisper of their clothes as they entered the dining room. Straton and Cosima. Damon and Lyra, and then another woman Evadne assumed was Selene, the commander’s sister. They gathered around the table, sitting on cushions, and Evadne took up her wine jar.
She approached Straton first. He watched as Evadne took the first sip of wine, and she waited to feel the heat of poison seep through her, counting her frantic heartbeats between breaths. But the wine was clean. Straton motioned for her to begin pouring.
Cosima was withdrawn and pale. She only put a few morsels of food on her plate, and she did not take note of Evadne’s motions. No one did. Not Damon with his guarded face, or Lyra with her red-rimmed eyes. Evadne realized that the family would not notice her movements as long as she was quiet and did her task.
Not even Selene. She shared the commander’s height and startling blue eyes, but that was where their similarities ended. Upon first glance, Evadne would never have surmised they were siblings. Selene was a contrast to him; her skin was pale and flawless, her face round and pleasing, her hair a light shade of brown, curly with threads of copper and gray within it. She was dressed in white, her chiton trimmed in purple. And as she reached for her cup, Evadne saw the flash of silver. A ring on the thumb of her right hand.
So, then. Selene was a mage. One with the deepest well of magic.
Evadne resumed her post at the wine station, the night breeze playing with her hair. She watched and listened as the family began to converse.
“I am concerned for you, Damon,” Selene said. It sounded like she was resuming a previous conversation that had been abruptly ended.
“There is no need for it, Aunt. I will manage.” Damon granted her a small smile, but he sounded exhausted. The gravel in his voice had roughened to a burr. He did not eat, even though food sat on his plate.
“Scribes are tricky,” his aunt continued, swirling the wine in her cup. “Did you hear what happened to Orrin a few weeks ago? His scribe stole his enchantments and sold them to his rival. He is still recovering, but his reputation is ruined.”
“As I heard,” Damon said. He glanced to his father, but Straton was still detached. “I am sure Orrin will recover soon.”
“Why do you even need a scribe?” Lyra asked, her voice wavering. “You have not needed one so far, Damon. It feels too risky, for you to trust someone else.”
“Most mages hire scribes, Lyra,” Damon explained. “It i
s to our benefit, even with the risk of betrayal.”
“Is it because of your handwriting? Because it won’t remain on papyrus? I could scribe for you, Damon,” Lyra said. “If it is enchantments you need recorded, I could do it. I know I could.”
“No, Lyra.” The commander finally spoke, his eyes sharpening as he looked at his daughter.
Lyra appeared crestfallen by her father’s curt tone. Cosima reached out to weave her fingers with her daughter’s, trying to smile at her. It emerged more as a grimace on the lady’s face.
“You know that I need you at the infirmary, my love. There is still so much illness in the northern quadrant.”
Lyra nodded, but she refused to let the topic die. “But how can you trust them?” She looked at Damon again. Her voice dropped to a tremulous whisper. “I do not want anything to happen to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to your brother, Lyra,” Selene said. “I am going to help him find the perfect scribe.”
Damon cleared his throat, tracing the rim of his goblet. “I appreciate that, Aunt. But I am in no hurry.”
“And why should you be? You only graduated from the Destry this past spring.”
“Yes,” Damon said. “It can wait.”
Evadne was entranced by their conversation. She did not realize that Selene’s cup had gone dry, not until it was too late.
Selene held her chalice up, lifting her gaze to where Evadne fumbled for the jar. And just like that, Evadne’s aloofness vanished.
“Is this her?” Selene asked, staring at Evadne as she filled her cup.
For a moment, Evadne thought no one would answer, and she could not move from her place beside Selene. But finally, the commander’s voice broke the stilted air.
“No. Her sister.”
Selene continued to study Evadne, saying, “I thought I smelled the blood of Isaura. The unmistakable smell of spoiled ichor, the reek of a disgraced god.”
Her words stung. Evadne felt her face warm, her hands quiver. She did not meet the mage’s eyes, but oh, how she wanted to return Selene’s cold stare, to reveal there was nothing less about her for descending from a broken god. Indeed, it only made Evadne all the more dangerous, for she had come from the one divine who was not afraid to break.