by Rebecca Ross
Laneus.
Evadne met Halcyon’s sorrowful gaze.
“The vile boy of Dree?” Evadne whispered to her. And Halcyon nodded.
It took everything within Evadne to calm herself, to draw in a deep breath. To continue feeding Halcyon her oats. Because that was what mattered most in this moment: restoring Halcyon’s health.
The days began to pass. Evadne often sat at Halcyon’s side in the light, watching her sister’s health gradually return. Halcyon slept more than anything else, but she was never alone. There was always someone near her. Phaedra mended garments; Gregor sang, low and sweet. Maia wove crowns, and Aunt Lydia shelled beans. Uncle Nico balanced ledgers, and even Lysander took a turn sitting beside Halcyon, reading an old scroll of legends, trying his best not to gawk at the ring on her finger.
It revived Evadne to see her sister safe at home—sleeping, dreaming, mending.
But with every day that passed, Evadne’s worries heightened. They were isolated here in southern Corisande. News did not come to them; they had to go to Dree to glean it, and ever since Bacchus’s slaying, her family had avoided going to the mountain village. And so Evadne wondered what was occurring outside the boundary of the grove. Did Selene have the All-Seeing Crown yet? What was Macarius’s next move? Why had all the men left Dree? Where had Laneus taken the Golden Belt?
She tried not to watch Isaura’s gates, which her father kept locked in case the commander arrived to demand Halcyon back. Which he would not, Evadne knew. Straton had more pressing matters to attend to now. But Gregor still kept the gates locked, and Evadne continued to glance to them, expectant.
Damon, where are you?
Whenever she thought of him, a small ache drummed in her chest. It was only because she was waiting for news. Because she was anxious. Not because she missed him. Or so she tried to convince herself.
Perhaps he would not come, then. Perhaps he had changed his mind and he did not need her anymore. Perhaps he had forgotten her.
The thought was strange, and she could not understand why it made her feel vulnerable.
Almost a week had passed before he finally arrived. Evadne, of course, was dusted in flour, kneading bread with her mother in the kitchen. She did not hear the gate bell ring, so lost was she in her thoughts, but Lysander came stomping into the villa, and she heard his announcement drift down the hall: “Uncle Gregor, there is a mage at the gate. Should I let him in?”
Evadne deserted her dough and was down the corridor, out the front doors before her father could so much as rise from his bench in the common room. She was barefoot; she felt the flagstones and the grass beneath her as she walked, the courtyard warm from the midday sun. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the air was bright, painful at first. But then her gaze found the tall gates of Isaura, and waiting behind the iron vines was Damon.
When she could see his face, when his gaze met hers, she could not breathe.
She stopped at the gates, and they stared at each other as if they had been apart for years.
“Evadne,” he whispered. His voice rushed about her like the tide, revealing his relief to find her here, safe. “I—” He was about to say more, but Gregor arrived.
“Who are you? What business do you have here?”
Damon looked at Gregor. Evadne flushed, to hear how rude her father spoke to Damon.
“I am Damon of Mithra. Evadne is my—”
“Evadne is my daughter, and you have no right to come here,” Gregor countered. “Be gone, back to wherever you came from!”
Damon took a step back.
“Father.” Evadne gently took her father’s arm. “You remember what I told you? I am Damon’s scribe, and I have been waiting for him to come.”
Gregor’s jaw clenched. But he met his daughter’s gaze, and she watched as he struggled to reconcile what he felt with what his daughter was asking of him.
“Are you certain about this, Pupa?” Gregor whispered to her.
Evadne nodded, smiling up at him. It was a rare thing for him to deny that smile.
With a sigh, Gregor relented and unlocked the gates.
“Pupa?” Damon asked her half an hour later, when they were finally alone, walking through the grove.
The sun trickled over their shoulders, and Evadne had to press a smile to her lips, her cheeks warm with embarrassment.
“I was hoping you did not hear that,” she said.
“I thought I misheard at first.”
“No. My father affectionately nicknamed me after larvae. For as long as I can remember, he has called me such.”
Damon was quiet. Evadne snuck a glance at him to see he was trying his best not to laugh.
“It suits you, Evadne.”
She swatted at him, and his laughter unfolded, startling a sparrow from the boughs. For a moment, the world was not a treacherous place. They were not a mage and a scribe with an impossible challenge awaiting them. They were just a young man and a young woman, walking together in a grove, their arms brushing, their hearts content and luminous.
But when the moment passed, Evadne and Damon both fell quiet again. She saw the god tree in the distance, the tormented olive tree inviting them into its shadows. They came to a stop beneath the ancient branches, and Evadne sat in the grass, her ankle plaguing her, while Damon rushed his hand along the gnarled trunk.
“This grove is a hard place to find,” he said, admiring the tree. “I rode all morning trying to locate the road that would lead to your gate.”
“It is intended to be that way,” Evadne replied, leaning back on her elbows, tilting her head up to the sky. “Kirkos’s last enchantment, before he fell.”
“Your home is beautiful, Evadne.”
She felt his eyes trace her, and she met his gaze. He stood close by, his shadow cascading over her, and her heart ached. That small ache she had felt for days, waiting for him.
“I have news,” she said, ignoring the spark she felt.
Damon sat down beside her, a few hand lengths away.
“I met with the Basilisk last week,” she announced, watching the shock move across Damon’s face.
“What? How did he know where to find you?”
“He is my uncle.” She was not surprised Ozias had kept his connection to her and Halcyon a secret. But Damon was.
“Your uncle?” He laughed, incredulous. “My gods! He should have told us. That could have risked the entire mission.”
“But it didn’t, did it?” Evadne said, despite knowing that Ozias would have opposed her going into the mountain.
“Does Halcyon know it is him?”
“I do not know. I gave him Kirkos’s relic, and he left, returning to Mithra.” She picked a blade of grass, wrapping it around her finger. “He did not tell me much at all. I have been waiting for you to bring me news.”
Damon let out a long sigh. “My father believes Selene is going to press on with her coup. The heralds have proclaimed that Queen Nerine has ordered all the gates of Mithra to be locked, that no one may leave or enter. It is an act of war and my aunt’s way of summoning my father to come and challenge her, one final time. Because my mother and my sister are now trapped within the city, beneath my aunt’s power. And my father cannot abide that. He has rallied his legion, and he plans to march with his hoplites today. They will march to Mithra and breach the city to save the queen.”
Evadne was quiet, soaking in this terrible thought. And then she whispered, “Will Selene send the queen’s army to fight your father?”
“My father does not believe so. The queen’s army respects him. He has trained many of them. Selene would be a fool if she thought she could turn the queen’s hoplites against my father.”
“Then who will the legion have to fight?”
“That we do not know.”
Evadne was uncertain on what to say, because it suddenly felt as if she was not needed. She and Damon were not hoplites. What could they do in the face of a siege and a battle?
“Despite a
ll of this,” Damon said, and his hand drifted closer to hers, “my father has asked for my support. He wants me to march with his legion to Mithra.”
She resisted the temptation to look at him. “Do you want me to join you?”
He was silent for a moment. “Yes, Evadne. I want you to come with me. But before you answer . . . I need you to know that this will be dangerous, perhaps even more than our journey into the heart of Euthymius. And I will understand should you choose to remain here with your family. In fact, I want to beg you to stay, and yet I want to beg you to come, and I can hardly understand how you have inspired this in me, that I should desire two different things in the same breath.”
He stopped speaking abruptly. As if he could not believe he had just said it aloud to her.
But his eyes . . . they continued to speak.
What have you done to me?
She glanced away. To hide her own longings. But she felt his warmth and heard his breath falling swiftly, as if it was both pleasurable and painful to be so close and yet so far from her.
At last, she was finally beginning to understand why Kirkos had chosen to stay on Earth. Why he had chosen to give up his wings and his divinity.
Not yet, her mind said. Do not lose your reason just yet.
She tilted her head back until her hair brushed the grass. Sun and shadows on her face, she closed her eyes, knowing Damon was still watching her.
“Will there be endless stairs or waterfalls or angry immortal mages involved?” she drawled.
He snorted, amused. “Divines, no.”
She relented to open her eyes, to look at him.
What have you done to me? She wanted to return to him, like the whisper just before lips touched. Because she wanted to stay and she wanted to go. She wanted the same things as him.
But she did not speak them. Not yet, not yet.
She smiled and said, “Then yes. I will go with you.”
Halcyon still slumbered in the sun, deeply trenched in healing dreams. Evadne knelt beside her, dressed and packed, the hair braided back from her eyes, moments away from departing with Damon.
Their mother worked nearby, mending a new chiton for Halcyon. The villa was quiet, and the walls almost felt sad, to know that Evadne was about to leave them again.
“Should I wake her?” Evadne whispered.
Her mother glanced to Halcyon. Her dark brows lowered. “I do not know, Eva. If she wakes . . .” And her voice trailed.
But Evadne knew what her mother was thinking. If Halcyon wakes, she will want to go.
Evadne dropped a kiss on her sister’s brow, marveling at how much color had returned to her skin, how her wounds and bruises had all but faded. It felt wrong to leave Halcyon without a goodbye, but Evadne had never been fond of farewells, and she managed to rise and turn, striding from the common room before her resolve broke.
Phaedra followed her out into the courtyard, where Damon waited with two horses, Gregor speaking to him in a stern voice.
“Father,” Evadne said, and Gregor stopped midsentence to look at her.
His eyes lost their sharpness. He walked to her and gathered her close. “Why must you leave, Pupa?” he whispered into her hair. “You only just returned.”
Evadne leaned back to meet his gaze. “Remember how we like to sing, Father? We sing all of the stanzas, or else the song hangs unfinished in the air. And so I must go now, to finish something I began. I must honor my word, as you have taught me to do.”
Gregor cupped her face, and she worried he would cry again. But he only smiled—a sad, painful smile—and kissed her brow. He released her, and she embraced her mother next.
“You will return soon, Eva?” Phaedra asked, smoothing a few unruly threads of hair in Evadne’s braids. “And Lord Straton’s legion will protect you?”
“Yes, Mother.” Evadne resisted the urge to look at Damon, knowing he had mentioned the legion to ease her parents’ minds. He had not, however, mentioned the siege and the imminent clash at Mithra’s gates.
Uncle Nico and Aunt Lydia waited next, to hug her goodbye. And Maia, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and Lysander with envy in his eyes.
She turned to Damon. He waited for her, mounted on one of the horses, and Evadne walked to him, drawing herself up into the saddle.
She followed him through the gates. And Evadne looked back, just once, to catch a fleeting glimpse of her family. All save for Halcyon and Uncle Ozias.
But she memorized the image of them, pressed it into her memory like a wax seal.
And she rode without fear to the east. She rode with Damon to meet Straton’s legion.
To finish what Halcyon had begun.
XXX
Halcyon and Evadne
When Halcyon woke, it was evening. The air was calm, tranquil.
And yet something did not feel right.
She sat up, surprised to discover she was in her bedroom. An oil lamp burned on her wash table. By its gentle light, Halcyon studied Evadne’s side of the chamber. Her little sister’s bed was perfectly made. Her tablet sat on her oaken chest, the Haleva symbols still pressed within the wax.
Halcyon rose and walked to the tablet, holding it in her hands. She studied the symbols, traced them with her fingertips, Magda’s sunstone glittering with the movement. And that was when Halcyon realized what the nagging feeling was. Every time she had woken, Evadne had been present.
She set the tablet aside and left the room, following threads of voices down the stairs into the common room. Her family was eating supper by firelight, and they startled at the sight of her standing on the threshold.
“Sprout,” her father said. “Come and eat with us.”
Halcyon’s gaze flickered from face to face, all beloved but none the one she sought. “Where is Eva?”
Her family seemed to freeze.
“Eva?” Maia echoed with a nervous twitch, like she had never heard of her before.
“She is away for a little while, Halcyon,” Phaedra said in a smooth voice. She filled a bowl of stew, extending it for her to take. “Come, my love. Join us.”
“Where is Evadne?” Halcyon asked again, her voice sharpening.
Uncle Nico looked away first, and Halcyon’s suspicions multiplied.
“Father,” she said. “Father, where is my sister?”
Gregor rushed his hands over his face. He sighed and stared across the room at her, and even though he parted his lips, he seemed unable to speak.
Lysander said, “Evadne left with Damon to join up with the legion.”
“The legion?” Halcyon looked at him. Her face was guarded, but her stomach was aching. “My legion?”
She did not need them to answer. She knew it then, studying their faces.
Evadne had left her. Without a word.
Halcyon backed away, out of the firelight, out of the room, her thoughts a tangled blur, her breaths coming fast and hard. It felt like someone had just punched her.
Phaedra stood, spilling the stew in her haste. “Halcyon, please. You must remain here!”
Halcyon was already halfway up the stairs by then. She blew into her bedchamber and began to dress and pack her things, a tremor racking her hands.
She had fastened her belt and draped a shawl about her shoulders when she felt her father’s presence in the room.
Gregor stood and watched her, and Halcyon hesitated when she looked at him, at his sorrow.
“Father, I must go. You know that.”
“I know, Halcyon.”
He was silent, regarding her. Halcyon shifted her weight, clenched and unclenched her hands.
“But your mother is worried, Sprout.”
Sprout. She could not believe her father still called her by that old nickname. That it still held such a gleam in his voice.
“About what? My health is fully restored.” That was a lie. Halcyon knew she was not whole yet. Her strength was still striving to regain what had been stolen from it. But she would not confess that.
Halcyon exhaled a long breath as she thought of her commander. She remembered how he had held her, wept over her. He had striven to keep her alive, even after all the pain she had given him.
The world would darken without you.
He had wounded her, but she had wounded him, too. And the final portion of her healing could not begin without him.
Her redemption was not here, in Isaura. It lay to the east, where the commander walked among his hoplites in the moonlight, preparing for the unknown.
“Lord Straton needs me, Father. I am one of his warriors, and I must answer the call he has sounded. Sentence or no.”
Gregor nodded, weary. And yet there was something else within him. A spark of pride. “Then let us prepare you the best we can, Sprout.”
She followed him into the kitchen. To her surprise, her mother and aunt and Maia had already packed her provisions. A sack heavy with food and two water canteens. And then Lysander came rushing into the room with a set of leather gloves.
“Hal, you need to cover your ring.”
Halcyon had become so accustomed to the relic that she nearly forgot its presence on her finger. But Lysander was right; Magda’s sunstone needed to remain hidden.
Halcyon slipped her hands into the gloves, grateful. And then she looked at her family, gathered close about her, watching her with dewy eyes.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I will return soon. Or I will send word with Eva.” And she began to walk away from them when her father cried, “Halcyon!”
She stopped and turned, stunned by the emotion in his voice. She thought he had changed his mind, that he would not let her leave. But it was his arms, open wide. For her.
She stepped into his embrace, wrapping her arms around him, holding to him tightly. She embraced her mother, her aunt, her cousins, her uncle. And it surprised her how the affection rekindled her. All this time she had been telling herself to let go, let go. But there was beauty and strength in the holding on.
Without another word, she turned and strode from the courtyard of Isaura, past the gates, to the road. She waited until she felt the wind push at her back with invitation.