His lips parted. The breath halted in her lungs… and she saw why he did not speak. The gnarled, ragged stump of gray and black was all that remained of his tongue. It had been recent too, she realized, going by the rawness of the cauterization wounds. “I’m sorry, I… I didn’t realize. Look, I need something, something more than this half message. Help me, please.”
He stared at her, eyes wet with tears, then gazed past her shoulder.
Kassandra’s heart thumped as she turned. Nothing. Just the southern border of the Asklepion vale. Then, out there, far beyond… she saw it. A pinprick of light in the wooded darkness there.
“The answer lies there?” she asked.
He nodded once, sadly.
She turned away from Dolops and fell into a speedy run. Ikaros swooped down from the portico roof, coming with her. She plunged into the trees, surged through the undergrowth and barely blinked as she went, lest she lose sight of that strange beacon. At last she saw what it was: a small, round, forgotten shrine—dedicated to the healer, Apollo Maleatas. It was topped with a cone of red tiles and ringed by columns clad in lichen and moss, some listing and cracked. From within, she heard the gentle crying of a baby. Confused, she crept over to the temple entrance and felt the heat of the orange bubble of candlelight on her skin as she stepped through the doorway. Inside, a woman was crouched, back turned, the crying baby in her arms, before an old drape and an ancient stone altar. Flower petals were scattered across the floor. For a moment, Kassandra’s heart flame rose and touched every part of her. It couldn’t be, could it? “M… Mother?” she croaked.
The woman rose and turned to her. “Not quite,” Chrysis said through a cage of teeth and a shark’s smile. She held a dagger over the baby’s chest.
Kassandra’s heart froze.
“Though I could be your mother, if you so wished? My real son, Dolops, is an idiot. I presume it was he who betrayed me?”
Kassandra said nothing.
“Your real mother came here—I realize you’ve worked that out now,” Chrysis continued.
“With a child,” Kassandra panted, seeing Chrysis, the dagger and the baby in an even bleaker light now. “What did you do to them? What did you do!”
“The baby lived, and this you know also,” Chrysis purred, taking a step toward her. “Deimos is my boy now—despite some of my group complaining about his animal behaviors.”
“And my mother?”
Chrysis’s smile deepened. “I still remember the night she brought me my child. The sad, pathetic thing, crying in the rain. Ah, had I only known then that Myrrine had two children… but, here you are. My family is complete.”
Kassandra stared at her, head dipped like a bull ready to charge. “Where. Is. My. Mother?”
“I let her go. Bereft, she was, that I could not save little Alexios.”
“But you said… but… you lied to her? You told her Alexios had perished?”
“She entrusted him to my care, you see. Alexios was a remarkable child. The Spartans tried to kill him, but I saved him, raised him. Gave him all the best teachers in art and war. He is mine, as are all the children Hera brings to me.”
Kassandra’s veins flooded with ice. “What are you?”
Chrysis set the baby down on the altar by the candles and took another step toward her. “You know what I am. You know what my group are. Now, for the puzzle to be complete, we just need you to join us as Deimos has. So, Kassandra…” She leaned in to whisper in her ear, the breath hot and wet, “Will you let me be your mother?”
Kassandra’s entire body convulsed in horror. She thrust Chrysis back. Chrysis flailed, then brought her dagger around to point at Kassandra. But when Kassandra drew her spear, Chrysis’s eyes flared and she backed away. With a roar, she swept an arm across the altar, knocking the candles and the now-screaming baby to the ground. The hanging drape went up with a whoosh as did the petals and dry bracken on the shrine floor. Chrysis backed out of the rear exit, laughing. “You cannot catch me, Kassandra, else the babe will die in the flames. You wouldn’t want another baby to be lost because of your poor choices, would you?”
Kassandra stood there, torn in two by the dilemma. But a trice was all it took for her to know what was right. The monster, Chrysis, could wait. She plunged into the flames, scooping up the baby, throwing the folds of her exomis around the mite then staggering from the rear exit herself. Coughing, retching and spitting, she fell to her knees, smoke-blackened, eyes stinging. Chrysis would be long gone, she realized. So when she looked up and saw the Cultist standing just a pace ahead, back turned, she froze.
And then Chrysis fell onto her back, her face cleaved with a woodsman’s ax.
Dolops walked silently over to the shuddering corpse of his mother and plucked the ax free. He moved his lips silently, speaking to her one last time: I’m sorry, Mother… but now you are gone, the young ones can live.
With that, he took the babe from Kassandra in his free arm and wandered quietly back through the woods toward the Sanctuary of Asklepios.
NINE
The masked man stormed across the center of the chamber, his robes flailing in the wind of his stride. He reached the center of the circle and hurled the garment down. All stared at it—torn crudely and stained dark brown with dried blood.
“Chrysis was found in the woods. The wolves had ripped most of the meat from her body and so we can’t tell how she died. The two posted there with her, however”—he gestured at the fresh gap in the Cult circle—“died by spear and sling.”
“The sister,” dozens rumbled.
“We should raise one of our silent regiments, send them to Argolis to hunt her. She may be fast and strong, but nobody can fight one thousand spears.”
“She is no longer in the Argolid,” the man in the center snapped. “Her boat remains moored there, but she has moved off overland, alone.”
“Then where—”
He threw up a finger for silence, then stepped over to a tessellated section of the floor, showing a map of Hellas. With the toe of his soft leather slipper, he traced a line, from Argolis, moving north across the countryside and to the collarbone of land bordering the Megarid, halting at the dark tile on the coast, underlined by one word.
Korinthia.
One Cultist let a dry laugh spill from his lips. A moment later two more joined in and soon all were enraptured. One—built like an ox and breathing heavily like one too—stepped into the center and revolved on the spot, arms outstretched in glory. “There, her journey will end. It is time for me to return home.”
Kassandra felt her lungs working harder than usual as she strode through Korinthia’s streets. The city was enveloped in a yellowish haze of temple smoke and dust, and the garishly painted and overly high tenements and villas loomed over the road. She had heard much of this city: bustling, Spartan-allied and wealthy. But today the streets were deserted.
The market was but a carcass of empty stalls, untended carts and stockpiles of the region’s famous pots and vases—some bare clay, others etched with black-and-orange images of gods and ancient heroes. The taverns were but a sea of empty benches and stools. No citizens, no traders, no children at play, no voluptuous and purring pornai—prostitutes for which Korinthia was well-known—in the tight alleys. The steps to the High Temple of Aphrodite were bare too. Every so often she heard the creak of a shutter or a snatched whisper, her head swinging to catch sight of pale faces ducking from sight. The people were here, but they were in hiding. Terrified, as if fearing an approaching storm. The war? she wondered. The war had not scarred this place yet—Korinthia was the naval superpower upon which Sparta heavily relied to fend off the Athenian navy, but as of yet, the city’s high, grubby walls were intact. She spotted a tavern keeper then. His eyes grew moonlike and he ducked behind a barrel. Unfortunately for him, he was about three times fatter than the barrel. She stomped over to him and kicked the barrel. “Out,” she demanded.