“Misthios?” Sokrates asked, spotting her. All twisted to behold her.
She stepped inside through the unfinished wall. “There are killers on the loose. Phoibe has been murdered and—”
Two pained gasps sounded from the main entrance. All heads now swung that way. The two guard hoplites posted there spasmed, spears working clear of their breastbones from behind, then ripping back violently. The pair fell with wet sighs.
And then Deimos stepped over their bodies and into the temple, glowing in white and gold, his face bent in malice, twirling his twin lances before tossing them down and drawing his short sword with a hiss of iron on leather. He paced over to Perikles, the blade held level like a cursing finger, driving Sokrates, Herodotos and Aspasia back. A handful of masked men filed into place behind Deimos, brandishing spears in support. Deimos sank to a crouch and wrapped a mighty arm around Perikles’s neck. He looked up to meet the eyes of Herodotos and Sokrates, Aspasia and finally Kassandra. “I’m going to destroy everything you ever created,” he whispered in Perikles’s ear, placing his blade edge on the Athenian general’s neck.
“Alexios, no,” Kassandra croaked, taking one step forward.
Deimos’s arm jerked. Blood spouted and soaked Perikles’s gown. His wan body turned gray in a trice. Deimos released the corpse and stood, his white-and-golden armor streaked with blood.
Herodotos and Sokrates croaked in horror. Aspasia stared in disbelief.
“Now, Sister, I must deal with you as I should have done when last we met,” said Deimos. “You have been busy since then. But now it is time for a long, long rest.”
He lunged for her. His sheer speed was terrifying, and she could only dodge the strike by throwing herself backward. She rose in time to leap from a sweeping cut of his blade.
“Go, go!” she yelled at Sokrates, Aspasia and Herodotos, putting herself between them and Deimos and the Cultists. As they fled through the gap in the temple’s unfinished wall, she and Deimos circled.
“You were always the weaker sibling, Sister,” he growled as she tried to fumble her spear free of her belt. “It will end for you here.”
His sword swung and streaked down her shoulder and lower back, slashing open her leathers and tearing through her tricep, her side suddenly hot with blood. She cried out and staggered backward, leveling her spear at last.
“You cannot win,” Deimos spat, coming for her again.
He lashed his blade in a flurry of swipes, and it was all she could do to parry. When she saw a glimpse of his calf, she stabbed out—a cut across it would bring him down. But, like a viper’s tongue, his blade stabbed down to block, then licked up to slice across her forehead. Her eyes stung as blood rolled across them. Her strength began to ebb as the blood loss worsened.
Kassandra knew Deimos was right. She could not win. She backed out of the half-built wall, Deimos striding to keep pace with her, then swung her spear with all she had at one of the timber poles holding up the scaffold. With a crack of wood and a rumble, the whole structure of platforms and struts came crashing down, bringing great chunks of stone with it. Gray dust puffed up in a cloud even thicker than the fog, and Kassandra heard Deimos’s roar of anger as she turned and ran. A breakneck dash, down the Pnyx steps, leaping from a high wall and onto the rooftop of a market building, plunging down onto the corpse-heaped agora and then all the way along the long road to Piraeus. She scrambled aboard the Adrestia, Herodotos helping her on board, Aspasia there too.
“Put to sea,” she implored Barnabas. “Now!”
The ship groaned as it pulled away from the wharf under oar. As it was leaving, she saw a rare break in the fog, and it afforded her a brief sight of the Pnyx hill. A force of men was marching up the marble steps, a regiment of silver and white. Their leader was visible even from this distance, his flame-hair like a torch.
“A new power takes Athens?” Reza gasped, squinting to see.
“Kleon,” Herodotos groaned as the force spilled up and across the acropolis. “Of all the people to seize upon Perikles’s demise, why did it have to be that war-hungry, red-eyed ape?”
Kassandra’s mind raced with all that had happened. Then she spotted a lone figure on the jetty. “Sokrates?” She swung to Barnabas. “We must turn back.”
“Keep about your present course, Misthios,” Sokrates called back from the harbor. “More than ever, Athens needs me now. I will see that young Phoibe is buried… and I will try as best I can to limit the damage of Kleon’s rule.”
Kassandra stared at him for a time. “And you must promise me something: stay alive!”
He held up one hand in farewell. “What is life, but an illusion!” he replied, brief for once before the distance and the fog soon stole sight of him away.
For an age, she remained at the ship’s rail, gazing into the ether. Only after a while did she realize that Aspasia was doing likewise, staring back at the fading shape of her erstwhile home. No tears, just a cold, solemn glower. The cage of grief within was obviously strong. She edged over to the widow, rehearsing words of comfort. But Aspasia spoke first, without turning to or looking at her.
“I found out what you wanted to know. I know exactly where your mother is.”
ELEVEN
Kassandra perched alongside Ikaros, high up on the Adrestia’s spar, her skin sun-burnished and her lips cracked. The boat’s ropes and timbers creaked and groaned and the wind furrowed her loose hair. A year had passed since their flight from Athens—a year of living like prey, the Adrestia like a hare and the pursuing Cult galleys like wolves. They had chased hard for months, driving the Adrestia north into distant waters, along the Thessalian coast and almost to the distant Hellespont. It was only when winter came that the Cultists realized they could never outpace Barnabas’s ship. That was when they had tried to trap and ambush the Adrestia instead—once when she put into shore for freshwater, and another time in a narrow strait near Skopelos. Both traps failed. By the time spring came, seven of the Cult boats rested on the seabed, along with at least eight more masked demons. Now, in the height of summer once more, it seemed that they had finally, finally thrown off their pursuers. And so they tacked south again and into more familiar waters. The Cyclades…
The island of Naxos.
She eyed the isle: a sun-washed paradise of woods and silvery rock, a gemstone against the sapphire-silken sea. Aspasia was in no doubt: Myrrine had gone there from Korinthia. Kassandra stamped upon every flicker of hope that tried to rise. There had been too many false leads, too many grim surprises… and another one rose into view as they drew closer.
Boats. No, galleys. Scores of them—all bearing green sails, circling the isle slowly, watchfully. She edged along the spar and hurriedly climbed down the mast
“Another blockade?” Reza said as she came to the prow alongside him. “Those boats are from Paros,” he said, nodding toward the neighboring isle just a short way west. Paros was a stark contrast to Naxos, stripped of most of its trees, and the bare hills addled with quarries, great white gouges that looked like the bite marks of a titan.
“Why would Paros be blockading Naxos?” said another crewman. “Naxos and Paros are part of the Delian League, allies and both under the protection of Athens.”