“I loved you, Alexios,” Myrrine sobbed. She grimaced for a moment, as if quarreling with herself. “To the pits with Spartan ways, I loved you… and I still love you.”
Slowly, Alexios reached up to his shoulder scabbard and began to draw his sword. “My name is Deimos. The one you love is dead. My destiny is clear and you will not stand in my way.” He stepped toward Myrrine and tore his blade free in a flash.
Clang! Kassandra’s spear met his strike, saving her mother. Myrrine did not flinch—his blade edge a finger’s-width away from her head—but her face flooded with fresh tears.
“Alexios, no!” Kassandra cried.
Spittle flew from his cage of teeth as he tried to force his blade upon his mother.
Kassandra yelled and summoned all her strength, throwing him back then pointing the spear at him. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“I told you at Amphipolis, Sister. One of us must die,” he drawled, then leapt for her.
Their blades clashed in a fury of sparks and the terrible song of steel rose from the mountain.
“No, no!” Myrrine cried, backing away, sinking to her knees.
Deimos launched a flurry of strikes, ripping at her arms, cutting her forehead, nearly driving her from the precipice, and were it not for her quick thinking and a kicked-up puff of dust, he would have run her through. The angry clouds gathered and rumbled above, and Kassandra felt a great anger rise within her. Rain fell as she battered and battered at his sword, saw his demon’s glower crumble away, saw his sword spin from his hand and off into the abyss, saw her brother crumple to the ground, hands thrown up like a shield, felt her spear arm tense, then her whole body convulse as she sank to strike.
The spear tip halted right before his breastbone.
They both panted, staring into each other’s eyes, she cradling him, holding him on the edge of death. The sky growled with nascent thunder.
Myrrine crawled over to them, clutching at her hair. “Please, no.”
“I have done terrible things,” he whispered. “Sister, it could have been so different.”
Kassandra felt that warm flicker of flame inside her heart. “It still can, Brother.”
He shook his head. “I told you that one of us must die here. None possessed the strength to better me… until I fought you on Sphakteria. You were my equal there. And then at Amphipolis. Had Kleon not struck me down, you would have beaten me.”
“It matters not,” she pleaded. “Think of what could lie ahead for us. A family as we were meant to be.”
They shared a look then—just like that moment of their shared childhood, when Kassandra had nearly caught him. A fresh tear spilled down Alexios’s cheek, mixing with the rain. “I cannot be what you want me to be.” His head shook slowly, his lips trembling. “The weeds burrow too deep.”
She saw his hand move toward the edge of his greave, saw him draw the hidden knife from there, saw him strike toward Myrrine’s neck. Time slowed. Kassandra felt her body spasm, as she drove the Leonidas spear deep into Alexios’s chest. The knife toppled from his grip, and then he stared into the sky with a long, slow, final breath.
Myrrine let out a plaintive wail, and Kassandra sobbed long and loud. The thunder rolled overhead, and only as it faded did Myrrine’s weeping fall silent.
“I tried to save him, Mother,” Kassandra croaked as the rain began to ease.
“I saw what happened,” Myrrine whimpered. “He is free now.”
They embraced each other and Alexios’s body for hours. Eventually, the clouds parted and shafts of deep orange light stretched across the heights of Mount Taygetos.
EPILOGUE
I walked through the darkness, and I was not afraid. I was a Spartan, a misthios, a war hero. My footsteps sounded so lonely in that dark old place. As I went deeper underground, the summer heat behind me faded. I struck a flint hook to light my torch, and passed the now-empty rock-cut chambers. The chains were still there, and the long-dried bloodstains of the Monger’s victims. I passed the forgotten hall with the grim snake statue. The trough below its fangs had long run dry of blood, and so the snake would starve. The altar where I had first met that twisted soul, Chrysis, now languished under a thick coating of dust. On I went.
Part of me dreamed, like a child, that I might find my brother deep in these old caves, just as I had found him that night when the Cult had gathered here. But the memory of splitting his heart with my spear was still too close and raw. It had been almost a year since his death. We buried him and we wept. None had expected any others to attend the ceremony, but when Nikolaos and Stentor appeared to watch from afar, I gave them both a solemn look, inviting them to come closer. That night, we dined in the old family estate. It was desperately awkward at times. When Nikolaos, at one end of the table, asked for a cup of wine, Mother, at the other end, poured one… then drained it in one gulp herself, before carrying on eating. Stentor chuckled in amusement, before disguising it with a cough. Aye, those wounds did not heal with that feast, and they most probably never will. But there was an understanding now—the hatred of the past was buried, the Cult with it.
It was with Mother’s blessing that I set out once more the following spring, on one last voyage that I knew I could not avoid. As the Adrestia cut across the seas, Barnabas and Herodotos were inseparable, recounting the tales of our adventures together, the captain acting out and wildly exaggerating events on the deck, while Herodotos tapped away with his stylus at woodpecker-like speed to record it all, tongue poking out in concentration.
We came to the broken island of Thera on a serene day—the sea like a teal silk, not a breath of wind in the air. Herodotos offered to accompany me into the black mountains. But I declined. This was a journey that I had to make alone—well, with Ikaros on my shoulder. I walked around that crescent, barren husk of rock—long ago blown apart by a volcano—wondering if Meliton’s claims of elaborate carvings high up on the rocks had all been a hoax, a wild jest. What was there on this forsaken isle but ash and stone?
I trekked into the heights. I spent days searching the rugged land. One day, I came to a sheer wall of rock—blank to the eye. It was only when I slid my hand along the surface for balance that I felt the fine etchings. Now when I stood back I saw the strange inscriptions—betrayed by the merest hint of shadow. I stayed there for days, exploring, reading the symbols again and again, watching them at night in the hope they might light up as they had done for Meliton. One night they did, and a section of rock peeled back to reveal a hidden gateway into the mountain. I stepped inside, and that was where I found him. My real father.
The legend, Pythagoras.
Alive some sixty years after most thought him dead—many, many more years older than men should live. His eyes were bright, his mind golden. His words changed everything. He showed me things that I knew I could never explain to another soul… except maybe Barnabas. The island of Thera was a smashed husk, yes, but beyond that rocky gateway, golden wonders lay. The strange carvings were only the beginning of it. He gave me an ancient staff—a fine piece that felt strange to the touch just like my spear—and showed me many other such marvels. Yet as if tragedy had shadowed me here, I spent only a few days in his company. The brightness in Pythagoras’s eyes began to wane, his gait became shambling and his breaths shallow. He explained it was because this was meant to be, that the staff had granted him his extra years and now I was to be its bearer. It was on the third day that I awoke to hear him wheezing, saw his lips had turned blue. I tried to help him, to give him back the staff, yet he refused and insisted it was his time. He died in my arms, just like Alexios.