“How? How can it be?” Myrrine croaked. “Every night, for more than twenty-three years, when I close my eyes I still see you falling.”
They parted just a little, noses a finger’s-width apart, both faces wet with tears. “I have so much to tell you, Mother. That night—”
Myrrine placed a finger over her lips. “No. First, I just want to feel you in my arms again,” she said with a sob, hugging Kassandra even tighter than before.
After an age, they sat together. Kassandra told Myrrine everything: about the night on Mount Taygetos, about Kephallonia, about dear Phoibe, the mission to the Megarid and the confrontation with Nikolaos… and then the bleak dealings with the Cult ever since.
“They have been there all throughout our lives, Mother. It was the Cult of Kosmos—not the Oracle—who was behind the foul order to toss little Alexios from the mountain that night.”
Myrrine’s hard, unflinching expression told her this was not a surprise. That was when she realized she had not actually told Mother everything. The hardest part of all remained unsaid.
“In Argolis, I uncovered a dark secret,” she said, her body tensing. “I know you visited the healer’s sanctuary.”
“I took Alexios there,” Myrrine said quietly. “He did not die on the mountain, you see.”
Kassandra smiled sadly. “I realized that. And that it was you I heard coming through the bone pit that night. I ran when I heard the noise, thinking it was someone coming to finish me off. If only I had possessed the courage to wait.”
Myrrine clasped and squeezed her forearm. “You are here, after all that has happened to you. You have courage in your marrow, Kassandra. Perhaps if the healers near the Asklepios Sanctuary had managed to save Alexios, then he too might have grown to be like—”
“Mother,” she interrupted, eyes closed, tears building. “Alexios lives.”
Silence.
“Mother?” she said, opening her eyes to see Myrrine staring, haunted.
“I have rebuilt my life from ashes… I lived with the shades of you and him on my shoulders. And now you tell me that he too still walks the earth?”
Kassandra nodded sadly.
“Where is he?” she said then caught her last word as if it was a secret. Her face paled even further and she began to tremble. “They… have him, don’t they?”
Kassandra faced Myrrine, and they clasped hands. “The Cult use him as their ‘champion.’ They call him Deimos.”
“Deimos? They named my boy after the God of Dread?” Myrrine’s eyes searched every patch of the balcony.
“Mother, he is not the boy he might have been had he been raised by you. The Cultist bitch, Chrysis, poisoned his mind, feeding him with hate and anger.”
“Then she will pay,” Myrrine drawled.
“She already has. She took an ax in the face as punishment.”
“Good,” Myrrine snapped, her face twisted in malice, her top lip lifting like a hound satisfied it had driven off a rival… then sagging as a deep sob arose from within. “But my boy…”
Kassandra guided her back inside, whispering tender words in her ear.
Months passed. Kassandra and Myrrine ate together, slept in the same bed, walked everywhere as a pair. Kassandra felt her revelation about Alexios was eating at her mother’s conscience but she could not help herself from enjoying this precious time with her. She learned of Naxos’s troubles and advised where she could. Aspasia, Barnabas, Herodotos and the crew came to the village and were afforded good homes in the leafy paradise. Barnabas even took a fondness to one of the local women, Photina, allowing her to tattoo his back and braid his hair. Reza and his closest crewmen went spearfishing every day on the coast, catching bream then flicking obscene hand gestures at the Parian blockade or standing knee-deep in the shallows, roaring and swinging their genitals at the enemy boats. Herodotos immersed himself in his writings, cataloging the flora and fauna of this wonderful island and jotting down local folktales and making sketches of old ruins. Ikaros spent the days soaring across the forest, finding rich pickings among the dense woods. Aspasia withdrew into herself, spending much time alone. Kassandra visited her often though, just to be sure she was well. She was taciturn but never sad. She always seemed to be lost in thought, her eyes bright, her mind engaged in some deep contemplation.
One day Kassandra and Myrrine sat on the balcony again, wearing soft linen robes, looking down the green-wooded hill to the shore and the sparkling waters, the sun bathing their bare feet and legs, the awning shading their faces.
Neither spoke for an age, and the silence was blissful. But it did not last.
“We have to find him, to cut him free,” Myrrine said.
Kassandra turned to her mother.
“Whatever Alexios has become,” her mother continued, “we have to try to save him.”
In truth, Kassandra had known this moment was coming, that those words hovered behind Myrrine’s lips and hers, that these few months were but a passing calm. She sucked in a deep breath, preparing to become a misthios once again.
“But…” Myrrine gazed across the shore and the sea, “there is no damned way off of this island.”
Kassandra eyed the Parian boat ring, drifting silently around like a school of sharks. “We got in easily enough.”
Myrrine’s eyes grew hooded. “They let you in, Kassandra. No one gets out. That is why I came here today, to watch, to see if my best remaining sailors might prove me wrong.”
Kassandra followed Myrrine’s outstretched hand, the finger pointing to a sleek galley setting sail from the stony turret at the Ferryman’s Finger. The boat’s hull was emblazoned with yellow, orange and deep red—tongues of flame. The Siren Song, Kassandra realized, having seen the wondrous boat in the Naxian harbor. A knot of brown-armored Naxians were aboard. “You send your best ship at them?”
“It has to be this way. All my other boats have failed.”
The ship’s sail bulged as it sped toward the blockade ring. Myrrine grasped the balcony edge, her nails scraping as she watched. The galley made excellent time, spearing toward a gap between two boats… and then the nearest two green-sailed Parian triremes tacked around, scenting blood. They came together upon the Siren Song, one ramming the aft through and the other raining arrows on the crew. The Naxian ship pivoted up on its rear as the water frothed and gurgled. Men and timber pieces spread out from the disaster, the Parian archers picking them off with ease. The sounds of distant screaming gradually thinned and ended.
Myrrine slumped. “Another fifty good soldiers lost. Men I could not afford to lose. I have less than one hundred spearmen left on the island.”
Kassandra watched as the Parians roped in one thrashing Naxian. She saw a figure in a white cape aboard the archer ship and realized this was the smiling man from the day they had arrived. He seemed to be directing his crew as they stripped the Naxian survivor naked, then slashed at him with knives. The man screamed, his pale body laced with red lines. Then they roped his ankles and tossed him back in the sea. The blockade continued silently, the roped man being dragged behind the archer ship, leaving a red trail in the water. A short time later, fins broke the surface and the man’s screams rose once more as sharks tore him apart.
“The bastard on that boat, who is he?” Kassandra asked.
“The Archon of Paros,” Myrrine replied dryly. “Silanos.”