#in the game kass clearly has Pockets of Holding in her waistbelt yeah?

[semperintrepida]

A Cut, Quick and Painless

While Kassandra knew that nothing awaited her in Kyra’s private chamber except for conversation, she’d be damned by the gods if she said she wasn’t hoping for something more. She’d even made a token protest, arguing that discussions of strategy could wait until they’d both recovered from their whirlwind excursion to Delos; but Kyra had dismissed it, saying, “Podarkes will be furious once he finds out we burned his precious weapons, and I want to have a plan in place before he makes his next move.”

Which is how Kassandra found herself sitting at a table in Kyra’s chamber, trying to keep her eyes away from the bed while Kyra used a lamp to light other lamps around the room. As the illumination grew, Kassandra could see that the room was small and roughly circular, with the bed shoved against the stone wall on one side and rough-hewn wooden shelves against the other. The table at which she sat was in the center, and to her left was the hanging cloth that covered the doorway.

The table before her was covered with scrolls. The shelves were stacked with scrolls. Even the bed that Kassandra was trying so decorously to avoid looking at had a scroll peeking out from between its pillows and its brightly colored blankets.

Kyra swept the scrolls from the table and into her arms before she headed for the shelves, but one escaped and fell to the floor at Kassandra’s feet. Kassandra picked it up and read its title. “Antigone.”

Kyra looked over from stacking scrolls into piles. “Surprised to see high art in such a low place?” There was an undercurrent of bitterness beneath those words. Seemed she still expected Kassandra to think the least of her when it came to her skills.

“No. I already know you’re well-educated.” Kassandra handed her the scroll and answered the question already forming on her face. “I don’t get many letters with the word ‘insatiable’ in them.”

“But you understood it.” Kyra placed the scroll with the others, then came and sat across from Kassandra at the table.

“A misthios only needs to know enough to read a bounty and count up the drachmae.”

“And yet: insatiable. Did you learn that word in Sparta too?” She was fishing now, casting her line in search of information.

“My mother taught me to read and write.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned her.”

“Surprised I have one?”

She looked amused at that. “Turnabout is fair play,” she said, to no one in particular. “Perhaps I’m just glad you didn’t spring fully formed from the forehead of Ares.”

“I learned my many skills the hard way.” They traded grins, and Kassandra decided she’d rather trade information than fish for it. “And who taught you how to wield a pen?”

“You don’t know? Not even a guess?”

Kassandra shrugged.

“I learned from mercenaries like you. I was living in the streets. I had nothing. But I realized pretty damn quickly that no one can steal the alphabet from you, so I did whatever I could to get it.” The memory rekindled a determined fire in her eyes. “Letters, words, poems in memory. Then much later, after we found this place, came the scrolls.”

Kyra had rebuilt her life from barren earth, without the head start Kassandra had been given in hers. She looked at Kyra again. The fires were still there in her eyes, hinting at the focus on survival that had consumed her. “You’re far beyond me in such things,” Kassandra said, gesturing at the shelves. “I can’t tell you who wrote that play—”

“Sophokles.”

“—or what the Pythagorean Theorem is about—”

“The relationship between the lengths of the sides of a right triangle.”

Kassandra absorbed that for a moment, then began to laugh. “And you can still hit a target from fifty paces with a bow.”

“Don’t get too down on yourself. You can lift heavy stuff and reach things that are too high for everyone else.”

“And serve as bait for a bear, don’t forget that.” Enough time had passed after yesterday’s excitement that Kassandra could joke about it now.

But instead of smiling, Kyra frowned. “How’s your back?”

Kassandra instinctively twisted around to look at her armor, where the beast’s massive paw had slammed into her and sent her flying across the beach. “A little sore, but tomorrow’s when I’m really going to feel it.”

“That bear was… I’ve never seen a monster like him.” Kyra traced the grain of the tabletop with her finger. “I was actually afraid for a moment there, after I’d gone through half my arrows and he still kept coming after you.”

If that was true, she hadn’t shown it. She’d stood on the broken deck of the beached ship and fired arrow after arrow into the behemoth, seeking the one, vital hit that would bring him down.

“And then he got you with his paw — I thought he was going to kill you.” Her finger drew circles on the woodgrain like a leaf trapped in an eddy.

“He didn’t. And I have you to thank for that.” In hindsight, Kassandra had been overconfident and ill prepared. She should have taken a javelin instead of her sword. She should have scouted the ship from afar instead of running straight for it. She didn’t want to think of what might have happened if Kyra hadn’t been there.

“I just wish we could’ve done something other than kill him.”

“He was a mighty beast. But he did not belong on Delos.”

“Because someone stole him from his home and brought him there! He had no say in the matter.”

“If you believe in the Fates, none of us ever have a say. Everything has been decided for us.”

A long pause. “And is that what you believe, Kassandra?”

“No, I don’t believe my fate is a thread already woven. But there are times when the strand hangs at the mercy of winds outside my control.”

“So if you were a bear, blown onto a strange island by a storm of someone else’s making, what would you do?”

She’d come closer to Kassandra’s truth than she knew. “I’d do exactly what that bear did,” Kassandra said. “Fight until something killed me.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?” Kyra asked, but then she waved the question away before Kassandra could open her mouth. “No, don’t answer that. I shouldn’t pry, though every time you answer one question it makes me want to ask ten more.”

“What would you do if you were that bear?” Kassandra asked. Trading information.

“I’d eat all the smugglers and savor the taste of revenge. And then I’d run to the hills and try to find some peace and quiet.” Her finger stilled on the tabletop. “I may not know what I want to do after Podarkes is gone, but when I dream, I dream of peace.”

“A worthy goal.”

“You think so?” Kyra’s gaze shifted from the table to Kassandra. “Would you ever put down your spear?”

Kassandra considered the question. There were so many people left for her to kill that the idea seemed impossible. “And what would I do? Raise goats?” She rested both hands palm up on the table. “Fighting is all I know.”

“A clever leader wouldn’t need to throw you at the front lines.” Kyra said it like a fact, full of confidence. “They’d ask you questions like this: what will Podarkes do without any spare weapons at hand?”

“He’ll beg Athens for another shipment and double up the guards at all the outposts. But the bigger question is, how long do we have before he starts killing civilians?”

“Knowing his cruelty, not very.”

“Then we should strike him quickly where it’ll hurt him most.”

“Are you saying…” Kyra didn’t finish, instead reaching under the table and pulling a large scroll from a basket. She unrolled it across the table’s surface. “This is Miltiades Fort, where the treasury for the Silver Islands is kept.”

“If we find it and steal it, the soldiers go unpaid, unfed, and unarmed.”

“Leaving Podarkes all alone with no one to defend him.” Kyra smiled. “I like this plan. I’ll have Praxos gather the troops.”

“Wait. It’s best if it’s just you and I. Save your fighters for when we attack Podarkes directly.”

“And here I was hoping you just wanted me all to yourself.”

Kassandra didn’t move, despite her accelerating heartbeat, despite her stomach becoming a bottomless cavern. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to rein herself in would have been too obvious. “I do,” she said eventually, carefully. “I want you up on the ramparts of Miltiades Fort—” ignoring the upward creep of Kyra’s brows “—because I can’t pull this heist off without you.”

“It’s so good to be desired,” Kyra said. “Now, what do you need me to do?”

“I need you to find us some sulfur, false-silver, and quicklime.” Ingredients for a dirty mercenary trick that would make it possible for the two of them to take on an entire fort.

“Oh, is that all?”

“I’m just getting started,” Kassandra said with a smile. “How do you feel about heights?”

.oOo.

Together they’d come up with a plan, and when the flaming tongues of the lamps around them began to sputter, starved of oil, Kassandra realized she’d lost all sense of time. It hadn’t seemed that long, sitting there side by side, Kassandra feeling the heat from Kyra’s leg against her own as they pored over the map and discussed how they’d spirit away the treasury without anyone raising an alarm.

“So it’s settled, then.” Kyra patted the map with her palm, then stood and stretched before she wandered across the room and began refilling the lamps with a small jug of oil.

Kassandra heard footsteps outside the chamber, and Kyra must have also, for she paused between pours, the graceful line of her arm caught in silhouette against the wall. Kassandra tilted her ear towards the doorway, heard the soft clink of armor, and wasn’t surprised when the cloth swept aside to reveal Thaletas.

“I’m glad you're—” He stopped abruptly, looking at Kassandra. “Ah, misthios. Taking a break from causing mayhem?”

“Podarkes won’t execute himself.”

Kyra turned, lifting her chin towards him. “I thought you were waiting on the beach,” she said coolly.

Kassandra didn’t wait for him to answer, and she pushed her seat back from the table and stood. “It’s about time I got going.”

He held up a hand. “Before you leave, Kassandra, there’s a matter I could use your help with — no, not now. Come find me at my camp.”

She nodded very well to him and farewell to Kyra, then walked out of the chamber, and as she heard the faint murmur of their voices beginning to intermingle, she cursed herself for wishing she could listen in on the conversation she’d left behind.

.oOo.

Miltiades Fort squatted above dark, wind-swept cliffs, hunched over like an old guardsman sitting with his back to the sea. Moonlight sheened the rocks with silver, and the air was warm and heavy with the smell of saltwater and smoke. Kassandra jammed her hand inside a crevice in the rocks and canted her body out over empty space, smiling into a breeze that carried with it the distant sound of waves pounding the stones far below. She drank the air in like wine. It was a fine evening for thievery.

But the feeling faded the moment Kyra came into view below her, washed out by a vague unease that grew the longer she watched Kyra ascend. She turned back to the cliff face, adjusted the bundle slung on her back, and resumed climbing, taking extra care not to knock any stones loose with Kyra down below.

The moon was bright and the handholds plentiful, and when she reached the top, she carefully lifted herself past the edge. It wouldn’t do to spill the precious cargo she carried. Along with the bundle, she had her spear, slung in its sheath on a leather shoulder harness she wore over her chiton. No armor. Trading protection for silence and ease of movement had been a deliberate choice — taking on an entire fort’s worth of soldiers in combat was not part of their plan.

She’d lifted herself onto a narrow shelf of rock, a false top to the cliff. To reach the fort, they’d have to clamber over a chest-high lip of more rock, then cross a strip of grass dotted with bushes and wind-stunted trees. They’d be able to stay out of sight of the guards as long as they kept their heads down. On this side, closest to the cliffs, the fort was less a set of walls than a collection of collapsing ruins. With any luck, Podarkes’s lack of spending on upkeep would mean more silver in the treasury.

A short while later, Kyra’s head popped up at the edge, and Kassandra held out a hand and helped Kyra climb up next to her. They crouched there, looking at each other, Kyra’s skin glistening with sweat as she caught her breath, her eyes and hair gleaming silver with Artemis’s gift of moonlight.

Kassandra felt a faint tremor pass through Kyra’s hand, and as it disappeared into warmth and stillness where their skin touched, a matching warmth bloomed deep in her belly. Then Kassandra looked away, looked up at the fort, and reluctantly let Kyra’s hand go.

At their feet, only the bravest of grasses and wildflowers scratched out a living on the exposed stone. Kyra knelt among the tufts and tiny blossoms, untied the bundle slung across her shoulder, set it down carefully, and muttered, “Glad to be done with that climb.”

“I thought you said you weren’t afraid of heights,” Kassandra said, her voice just above a whisper. She untied her own bundle and placed it next to Kyra’s.

“I said that if we had to climb, I would do it. Didn’t mean I’d enjoy it.” Kyra opened her bundle and began pulling out its contents: shawls made from dun-colored fabric, and a few soft-sided flasks sewn from leather. “Of course you turned out to be part mountain goat.” She handed Kassandra one of the shawls. “I guess climbing’s easy when you know a fall won’t kill you.”

“How do you—”

“Did you actually think I didn’t see you jump from the top of the Temple of Artemis the other day?”

They’d had a conversation right after, and Kyra hadn’t given a single sign that she’d just witnessed Kassandra do the impossible. It took skill to hide something like that so deeply. It reminded Kassandra of another woman with the same skill, Aspasia. To convince someone in this house, even your eyes must tell a lie.

“I thought you were going to kill yourself,” Kyra said, “and then you jumped and it… didn’t.” She sat back on her haunches. “I’m just glad I hired you before Podarkes offered you the contract on my head.”

“I wouldn’t have taken it.”

“Are you sure, misthios?” She waited a beat. “Oh, don’t look so serious. I was raised by your kind, remember?”

Kassandra tried to ignore the pang that shot across her chest, and she realized she was twisting the shawl in her hands. Kyra’s image of her was incomplete, but even a fragment still held some truth in it. She couldn’t deny that she’d taken plenty of contracts from vile people.

Kyra’s dark eyes were studying her intently. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me what you need all that drachmae for.”

Now wasn’t the time, and Kassandra didn’t answer. Instead, she flipped the shawl over her shoulder and opened her own bundle, adding the flasks she’d brought with her to Kyra’s collection and sorting them into groups. Four flasks held a mixture of powdered sulfur and false-silver, four held quicklime, and the last flask was filled with water.

Kyra’s eyes never left her. “You look different without armor.”

“Oh?”

“I won’t say you look softer, because you might get offended.”

“But you just… did?”

Kyra grinned. “Are you offended?”

“No.”

“Good.” Kyra reached up and gathered her hair, pulling it off her shoulders and tying it into a loose knot. It exposed the lines of her neck, the hollow under her jaw curving up to her ear…

Kassandra’s mouth went dry.

Kyra pulled a shawl around her shoulders. “How do I look?” she asked.

Beautiful, Kassandra wanted to say, but what came out of her mouth was, “You fit the part.” With her plain, rough-spun chiton and lack of jewelry, Kyra could pass as a servant. She had to pass as a servant, for all their hopes rested on her ability to travel the fort unnoticed.

Kyra collected all the flasks into one large bundle. “I’m ready.”

Kassandra lifted herself up enough to look over the edge. To the left, a guard walked the closest wall, headed away from them. To the far right, two more guards watched the side of the hill that sloped gently down from the fort. Kyra wouldn’t even come close to their sightlines. The path was clear.

Kassandra’s heart squeezed within her chest, cranked tight, as if it were a heavy load being hoisted at the docks, something pulling its ropes, pulling it in perfect tension. “Kyra,” she said. “Stay safe.”

A nod. Kyra’s warmth brushing past and fading quickly. An indentation in the grass where she’d been. Kassandra peered over the edge, intending to watch Kyra pass inside the ruined walls, but what she saw was a transformation: Kyra’s shoulders drooping inwards, her confident gait slowing, her steps dragging. By the time she disappeared between broken heaps of stone, she’d become exactly what anyone in the fort expected to see, another servant girl struggling under the weight of a heavy load.

Still, Kassandra was uneasy. The tightness remained in her chest, a foreign feeling, especially now in the middle of a job, where she expected her heart to beat as steadily as the oarmaster’s drum on a trireme and her breath to come and go as smoothly as the sweep of its oars.

She had asked Kyra to do so much. It was Kyra who would locate the treasury, Kyra who would set the distractions, all because there was no way Kassandra could pass as the kind of servant this job required, the ones who existed in the background, seeing everything, ever present but utterly anonymous. And Kyra would have to do it alone and unarmed, surrounded by a fort full of soldiers.

Kyra had jumped at the chance, despite all the dangers. I said that if we had to climb, I would do it.

Suddenly, Kassandra knew why she was uneasy; why her heart felt tight in her chest; why this feeling felt so foreign. She was afraid. Not for herself, but for Kyra. She could count on one hand the number of times she had truly been afraid in her life, and now her fears had somehow become entwined with this woman she was just beginning to know. The realization made her rock back on her heels.

And now, all she could do was sit in the company of this discovery, and wait.

.oOo.

A quarter hour. A half hour.

The always-turning wagon plodded in the sky overhead.

Three quarters of an hour.

Silence from the fort, and no sign of Kyra.

An hour. More.

Kassandra could deviate from the plan. She could sneak past the guards. She could get inside the walls. She could find—

A rustle of leaves. Grass parted by footsteps. She reached back and wrapped her fingers around the handle of her spear, just in case, but then Kyra was lowering herself gracefully into place beside her.

“Done and done,” Kyra said, with a satisfied smile.

Kassandra’s heart beat freely again.

“I don’t know how long we have before the quicklime ignites. I tried to measure the water out, but— Are you all right?”

Kassandra didn’t answer that question, but another. “It’ll be soon.” Then the sulfur and false-silver would start to burn, producing thick smoke and choking gas and, eventually, fire. “Where’s the treasury?”

Kyra motioned Kassandra beside her, and together they looked at the fort. She pointed to the wall to their left. “That wall. Follow it until it turns a corner to the right. Keep going until it ends at a staircase. The building above you will have the treasury on the second floor.”

“Where will you meet me?”

“At the northeast corner.”

Kassandra adjusted the shawl over her shoulders, making sure it covered her spear. She just needed to be convincing enough to look like a servant from a distance. “Let’s go.”

“Kassandra, wait.” Kyra put her hand on Kassandra’s forearm. “If things look bad, get out of there.”

“You got us this far. I’ll not waste it.”

“No.” Kyra’s fingers dug into her arm. “This drachmae isn’t worth your life.”

She wasn’t going to let the matter drop until Kassandra gave her what she wanted. “Very well.”

Kyra released her grip, and Kassandra lifted herself up and over the edge.

“Look,” Kyra said, pointing towards the fort. There was a plume of stark white smoke to the southwest, and the sound of far-off shouting.

Kassandra looked at Kyra, smiling faintly. “See you soon,” she said, and then she crouched and moved away, through the tall grass and past the trees and bushes. No guards in sight. The shouting was louder now, and there was more of it, and the white column of smoke was sullied by dark streaks — a sign that the fire had grown beyond the powders Kyra had planted and into flammables like wood.

She moved to the wall Kyra had shown her. At this end, it had collapsed into a rough series of steps. She climbed swiftly, and when she reached the top, she was rewarded with the sight of the watchtower on the far side of the fort being attacked by flames.

She picked up her pace, not even bothering to crouch. The wall turned hard to the right, and brought her across the top of the fort’s entrance. She looked down into the courtyard and saw the stables, the horses and wagons, the servants trying to flee and the soldiers trying to stop them. That’s where Kyra was headed, where she’d wait for a chance to steal a wagon.

The wall ended just as Kyra had said it would, at a set of stairs to the left with a large building looming overhead, framed by a second plume of smoke billowing into the sky. She couldn’t tell if the treasury building was on fire, or one of its neighbors.

“Hey! You!” A soldier’s voice, far to her right.

She pretended not to hear him, turned, and hurried up the steps. They brought her to the fort’s upper level, a labyrinth of rooftops and wooden walkways between buildings. Dirty grey smoke hung in the air, acrid and heavy with sulfur, and orange tongues of fire licked out the windows of the building next to the treasury. She ran towards the fire while everyone else was running to get down below, where she could see soldiers and servants crowding the paths. Some carried buckets of water while others milled about in confusion and fear.

The walkway dumped her into the third floor of the treasury, where the smoke wasn’t yet as thick as it was outside. She threw off her shawl, drew her spear, and looked for the way down to the floor below.

She found the hatchway and ladder in the far corner, a portal down into an orange-tinted haze. She couldn’t risk sticking her head through to take a look, so she listened instead and heard movement. A cough. Footsteps. But the noise from the chaos outside was too great for her to be certain of numbers. If she dropped through, she could be facing one soldier — or ten.

She dropped through.

Three. No, four. There were four, and she launched herself at the first, braced her forearm against his chestplate and pushed him back as she stabbed him in the gut with her spear. Everything slowed down, Chronos smiling upon her as he always did in a fight. She grabbed the man in her hands by his armor, spun him around, and hurled him into the next soldier, one who stood there holding a torch. Both went sprawling. The torch flew to the floor, and the room and its smoky haze darkened within its diminished light.

She caught the third man before he’d even finished drawing his sword, whipped her elbow up through his jaw, turned and slid past the thrusting sword of the last soldier, took the arm it belonged to and pulled the body off-balance so she could drive her knee into a groin. Another kick sent him straight into the wall. His body slumped to the floor, unmoving.

Footsteps slapped on wooden planks, a soldier running away, scrabbling up the ladder and out of sight. Then nothing moved, except the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

The treasury awaited, a heavy wooden box banded with iron. She lifted its lid, reached in, and pulled out a heavy bag, untying it and looking inside just to be sure. Drachmae. Four bags in total, containing thousands of coins.

This was going to be one Hades of a load, and she didn’t want to make the trip more than once. The smoke was growing thicker every moment she delayed. She glanced around and spotted a set of scales resting in a bronze tray on a nearby table. She swept the scales aside and took the tray, then picked up two of the bags and headed for the ladder. Climbed high enough to toss them up to the next floor, followed by the tray. Then back down for the last two.

She piled everything onto the tray, squatted and lifted, the muscles in her arms and back and legs pulling tight as anchorlines as they held the weight.

She emerged into heat and smoke so thick she could only see a few paces in front of her. The building next door was a pyre, the lower floors engulfed with flame, and it was only a matter of time before it spread to the rooftops, devouring everything in its path and leaving only scorched stone behind. Its light helped her find her bearings, and she turned to the right, taking lumbering steps across the walkway to the top of the fort’s stone walls, heading to the northeast.

By the time she reached the agreed-upon corner, the smoke had thinned, and she looked over the side of the wall and saw Kyra sitting on the seat of a small wagon, its bed filled with a load of hay. Kassandra whistled a greeting, then began pitching the bags over the side, each one landing in the wagon with a loud bang. Behind her, she heard shouting from somewhere in the smoke. It was time to go.

She swung herself over the side and began climbing down, but at the half-way point she pushed away from the wall and leapt down to the ground. She popped up next to the wagon. From here, she could see the fort’s entrance, and a line of soldiers trying to hold a large crowd of servants back from fleeing.

“None of that blood better be yours,” Kyra said, taking up the reins as Kassandra climbed into the seat beside her. “Ela!”

The wagon lurched into motion.

“It’s not. But it could complicate things if we run into any soldiers.” And there would be soldiers, for she knew that if she turned around, she would see the fort wearing a wreath of fire. Every Athenian camp on Mykonos would know that the fort burned soon enough.

Kyra drove the horses at a steady, unhurried pace. Galloping off at speed would only attract attention. “What do you want to do, then?” she asked.

“Take us to those trees.” Kassandra pointed to a small copse of pines by the road at the foot of the hill.

They drove on in silence.

Then they heard hoofbeats behind them, gaining fast. Men shouting “Make way! Clear the road!” Would they notice the spear on her back? Notice the blood on her hands and chiton?

Kassandra’s fingers twitched, but she kept her hands at her sides and didn’t turn around. Her seat rocked gently as Kyra slowed the horses and pulled the wagon to the side of the road, and moments later, two soldiers on horseback blew past them. Probably off to tell Podarkes the bad news. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

A short while later, Kyra brought the wagon to a halt just outside the stand of trees. Kassandra hopped off the seat. “Meet me at the overlook outside the Temple of Artemis.”

Kyra nodded. “Don’t take too long,” she said. Then she lifted the reins and drove off, headed for the drop-off point where she’d hand the wagon over to a small group of waiting rebels while a few others secured the loot and brought it back to the hideout.

Kassandra stood by the road for several moments, listening to the sound of the wagon’s wheels crunching on the dirt, then she turned, stepped into the trees, and began to run.

.oOo.

Kassandra found Kyra waiting for her at the overlook. She’d cleaned up and changed clothes, just as Kassandra had, and she stood still and quiet in the moonlight, seeming more a carving of ivory than a living being. But at Kassandra’s approach, she turned and was alive again, her eyes gleaming, her lips curving into a smile.

“The treasury is ours,” she said. “Praxos is guarding it personally.”

“How much drachmae was there?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “A lot. But I’ll count it later.” Her eyes settled on Kassandra. “I imagine you’ll be wanting your cut soon enough.”

“I’m in no hurry.” The words slid out before Kassandra had even thought them through. She was supposed to be in a hurry. She was supposed to be searching for her mother, supposed to be hunting down the Cult. All those supposed tos had kept her busy, and busy kept her from facing a truth about her nature that she hadn’t yet figured out how to handle: she was so very good at killing people because she enjoyed it, and she enjoyed it so much she was beginning to crave it. That is, until she’d arrived on Mykonos.

Now she killed without feeling anything at all, and she needed to know why, even if the implications scared her enough that she could no longer say she could count the number of times she’d felt fear in her life on one hand. Now she needed two…

“Chaire, Kassandra.” Kyra’s hand was waving in front of her eyes. “Should I be worried by that look on your face?”

“No. It’s nothing. What matters is that we took Podarkes’s treasury from him, and once the people here realize he’s lost every coin, they’re going to rip him to pieces.”

“He’ll never recover from this,” Kyra said. The realization of what they’d done hit her then, pouring into her like the fabled nectar of the gods, filling her with strength and possibility. She glowed with it, shimmered in the moonlight. Artemis’s favorite.

Kassandra stayed silent, letting Kyra enjoy the moment.

“I burned that fort to the ground.” Her smile was brilliant.

“You did.”

“Surely even Athens will want to be rid of him now. I’m so happy, I could kiss you.”

Kassandra knew Kyra was exaggerating, that she’d said it without meaning it. But Kassandra had never shied away from asking for what she wanted, and Kyra had set her up with a gift on a silver platter. “I don’t see anything holding you back,” she said, holding out her arms to gesture around them. “Hades could take us both tomorrow.”

Kyra’s smile faded. “You breathe life into me,” she said, and Kassandra instantly knew what was coming next: But… She looked away, unwilling to meet Kassandra’s eyes. “If only you’d come here before Thaletas.”

Kassandra had read the situation correctly, but it still hit her like a punch to the heart. And now she had to say something. She considered her words, ran them through her head, and found it easier to play dumb. “You and Thaletas? I didn’t realize.”

“He’s stubborn, arrogant, and hot-headed.” That could describe nearly every Spartan, Kassandra included. “We don’t always agree. But behind all the bronze and brawn, there’s a good man I could see by my side when this is all over. If we survive.”

So Kyra loved him after all. Kassandra would retreat gracefully, then. “The two of you fighting Athenians on the beach sounds romantic. I’d hate to interfere.” But why did it feel like her chest was being crushed in the jaws of some great beast?

Kyra’s face was unreadable, but then she leaned forward, closer and closer, and then Kyra’s hands gently grasped her arms, and Kyra’s breath brushed her ear, and Kyra’s lips touched her cheek.

The kiss lasted just a moment, and like a cut from a sharp knife it had been quick and painless, but what damage it had left behind: gods, she wanted Kyra. It was a terrible, terrible thing, to want someone this much while knowing she couldn’t have them. Another feeling as foreign to her as fear.

Kyra studied her at arm’s length. “Would you even recognize me in the Underworld, I wonder.”

“You introduced yourself by throwing a dagger at my head. You’ll be damn hard to forget.” She smiled, made it look open and affable. No hard feelings here. She’d cope with the bruising longing on her own. She had to.

Kyra stepped back, letting Kassandra go. “I’ve never properly thanked you for coming here. You’ve brought me hope where there was none.”

“Glad to be of service.” Thanks and drachmae would be her consolation prize.

“Come with me to the hideout? I’m sure someone’s cracked open the wine by now.”

She was tempted, bruises and all. She was. “Sounds fun, but I really ought to get back to the Adrestia.” Where she had a bunk and her own stash of wine, as much as she hated drinking alone.

Kyra didn’t push it, a small mercy that Kassandra appreciated as they traded good nights. Then she watched Kyra walk away, Kyra with moonlight in her eyes, moonlight in her hair, walking up the path, disappearing into darkness; and then Kassandra turned, stared out over a city oblivious with slumber, and let her go.

Part of the Elegiad. Go back to the previous story, or on to the next...