chapter ten

It is the calm that destroys me. As my body bows—purged of jarring disbelief—to find the night as still and same as moments before. Only the ringing in my ears does not subside, like cicadas in the opaque July dusk; messy white noise. Like barrages of waterfall that are cacophonous and murmurs in the shift of a heartbeat.

The knobs of my knees collide as I fall in strangled steps towards the bed. There is nothing but skull left, and residue of fur and flesh. The black of blood that wells through the furrows of sheets in rose spirals. They had skinned him. Tortured. Maimed. Slaughtered. The bleached bones splinter like thorns. My stomach turns. My body coils, expelling horror in sour green bile.

Under my fingers, the brittle bones are still warm with fresh life-blood.

He is almost unrecognizable, remnants of a fed-upon carcass. Only the onyx beads of his eyes remain untouched, familiar. Theros' thoughtful eyes, ones that had gleamed with the sharpness of an unspoken quip, then gentle acceptance. I feel them burning empty fires now, the same death-touched gaze as my sisters'. My kin, my friend, my faithful companion.

Left incomplete, a severed head. Like roadkill.

Theros, what have they done to you?

It hurt, somewhere along the third rib, or is it in between the skeleton where I could not hold my hand over the bleed—the ache, it is like a rotting tooth.

"This is what you deserve", voices tell me.

But not you, never you.

I whirl around; feel a molten rage pour through me, swell like magma through the fissures of grief.

Nameless men. Evil men. I did not know hands could be so cruel. Three ghosts haunt my shadows, wraith-like apparitions. They had washed their skin but I can still see the spots of blood beneath the crescents of their nails, traces of their transgressions that soap could not cleanse.

"Why?" I breathe. The question rips from the jerk of my throat. I did not mean to ask, did not mean to plead for answers I already knew. But it could not be so simple—please—his suffering, it could not be so meaningless.

Freckle-face steps from between the two men. A smile lacerates across his thin face. "You took something from me," he says. As if it was a justification; a paltry retaliation of a juvenile game. Predictable, predictable, predictable. His eyes laugh. "So I took something of yours."

But Theros was not mine to own. He is worth more than your scorn. The self-loathing is sharp, itching beneath my skin. I scratch at my chest, where the sting burgeons, just out of reach.

“And you will die for this,” I hiss. A promise.

They think it is absurd, and they laugh. Loud, bleated humour.

They laugh as I pull my dagger into my hand; laugh as I draw my fingers over the curved gelid steel; laugh as I scream vengeance from my sandpaper throat. They sing their mirth as I throw my body against theirs. My stomach tightens like a bird losing flight. And then I am plunging: into the black, sightless waves; my knife into their bodies. I did not care where I hit, knew only the thrust of my hand and the split of their skin like cleaving hot butter. A blind rage swept over. A fevered grief that threatens to rip me apart. I did not care for the cut of my own skin as they tore me away with their hands.

The ground is hard against my side. The side of my head catches glass on the floors. “Crazy fuck,” they murmur, rubbing over slashes and shallow stabs on their abdomens and thighs. Trails of blood ravel down their limbs like vines. “Ouch, would you look at that.” They grin. Soldiers do not whine over flesh wounds. A frustration wretches, red and whetted. I hate that they would not hurt. Resent that they would not feel the pain they inflicted. Gods. The agony Theros must have felt, the fear, as the jarred rusted teeth of death pressed against his throat. Did he cry for me? Did he, in his death, hate me? Time over time he saved me. I had failed him.

This is what I deserve.

I do not flinch when they press their feet onto my hand, fingers breaking around my dagger. I let them punt the soles of their boots into my body. And then those filthy hands that tear through my hair, and fracture my face into the floor. Nothing compared to the pain of my grief. Minutes pass. Hours. I could not know for sure. I am numb, no more than another corpse. There is so much death.

“What is that—” they stop “—look.”

It is my blood, yellow in the low light, trickling down my cheeks where tears would not.

They back away in alarm. “Mierda— let’s just go.” I hear the rustle of their feet as they head towards the door.

“Wait—” I rasp. I could not see through the swells of my wounds. I turn my broken body towards the sound. “Wh-where is the rest of him?”

His body is not whole. For eternity he will wander the shores of Acheron, restless between two realms. It is a disservice to the departed.

They do not stop, their steps fading pass the threshold. But one of them would speak. There is no humour now, only quiet doubt. He would doubt his crimes for the rest of his life. “There is nothing left. The cooks needed a bit more meat for the stew.”

A flood of horror engulfs me. My body heaves. Vomiting over my own skin. Stew that I had tasted, still fresh on my breath, crawls from my mouth. I convulse, repulsion rolling along my spine. Time turns to ashes. I lay on the floor, writhing through the dry sobs that wrack through my body.

The deep bite of mourning nestles in my hatred. Guilt is needles and icy shards pressed into my skin. My fault. It is always my fault. The irreparable consequences of my heedless acts. Everything, everywhere hurt all at once—my head, my chest, my leftover soul. Eventually, I find the strength to pull my body onto the mattress, and curl next to Theros. But I knew better to apologize. It serves no one but myself. It would not bring back his life. In the darkness, I can imagine he is still there. Imagine we are quiet in the beginnings of pleasant dreams under the coarse cover of sleep.

“Theros,” I cry softly. With trembling, swollen fingers I unfold a piece of cheese from my pocket. It is in clumps, disfigured and softened. I press it into my palm. An offering in his honor. It is how we coax our dead to stay amongst the living, even if, for only the fragment of a second.

"Theros. I am here now."

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As you have been for me. As you are now.

Against the leathery black seal of my eyes, I thought I felt the wet of his nose press against my cheek. In whispers. Gentle comfort. Tiny soft paws grapple at my side. Yes, I answer, I can feel you. An image burns in the darkness. The pepper streaks in his hairs. The soot of his cheek. I fold the sheets over what remains, and cradle him against my body. For one more night, I would sleep by his side. One final night.

And in the morning, three men would be dead.

***

I awake to hands in iron bands around my arms, wrenching me from dreamless rest.

I flop to the ground as they pull me to an incline, my legs fighting dust on concrete floors. I struggle against their callous grip, but they would yank my arms towards the ceiling; send a searing pain across my back. It is futile. I curse at their heels as they drag me through the floors, knowing, stomach full with rocks, of their intentions.

The blaze of day cut through shadows as we cross the threshold of the barrack. The musky scent of earth and sun, it is bitter with death. Through the slits of my swollen skin, I note the soldiers that hold me in their captive, the heavy edges of their swords dragging lines by their feet. They have no point, flat and square like the tail of beaver. Years ago I had watched heads roll over the town square under the same blunt blade. It is an execution.

I did not understand why I fell limp them. And let the pebbles cut into my stomach, over the blossom of bruises. Did not understand why I let my protestations burn to ash in my throat.

They drag me into the yard, and throw me before a heap of hoary bodies. They are grey and stiff, encased in stone. An arm meets my fingertips, cold and smooth as marble, and I could not help the curl of my lips. There is not a sip of blood left to warm that slate skin, stippled with the recognizable pigmentation.

A ring of soldiers sway languidly in blur of my eyes, perhaps still drunk from the night before. The Commander is the only steady movement, approaching my kneeled body and stopping a foot away. “Is this of your doing?” he questions. There is no anger I find, perhaps only muted curiosity.

I raise my head to meet the gunmetal of his eyes. I let them run over my distended features, and find however slight, the illusory justice in the trauma. I swallow, finding my throat tight and sticky with sap. One of the soldiers that held me tosses something small on the ground, it hisses as it finds the dirt. My eyes hone in on the crusted god-touched steel of my strewn dagger. Had I murdered them?

It is Trisphone that unsheathed my dagger, Alecto in the swing of my blade, and Megaera that summoned their blood. The goddesses of retribution had fed me power to kill, like honeyed grapes between my teeth. I had relished in the brief act of saccharine vengeance. The Erinyes had answered my call. Had they not?

I nod my truth.

“You took the life of these men, your brothers. You are aware, these crimes are punishable by death?”

A choking sound escapes me. It takes a moment for the men to realize it is laughter. For myself. A stir of unease whips through the crowd. I lance my stare through the corpses, my supposed brothers. “I…aware.” The words crack from my mouth, every syllable a thousand spears to my skull. Sometime in the night, the adrenaline had died and the pain lived. Something was terribly broken. My heart. My jaw.

The crease between his brow deepens, in question of my boldness. “Yet you will not defend yourself?” I swing my head slowly. No, I will not snivel and shout lies. It must be a first. I grit my teeth.

“Th-they…deserve--”

A shout barrels through the clearing then. Elymus breaks through the circle of soldiers, stepping in front of me. I jolt back in reflex, eyes widening.

I could only see his back, the lines of his shoulders puckering as he pants. “Commander, these deaths are accidental. It is clear these wounds were inflicted in self-defence." A pause would say: think about it. "He was one boy against three men."

I tense, torn between a shock of appreciation and a surly thread of displeasure that unspools from my gut.

“Lieutenant, you are out of line.” The commander’s voice hardens, taut as a bowstring. The interruption is impudent and he did not care for it. He reprimands him with swift thrashes in his native tongue.

It is sufficient to extinguish Elymus' short-lived temerity. He would duck aside quickly, tail between his legs, bearing me to the commander’s risen irritation. “Is this true?” The commander tilts his head, and measures me with the cool chafe of his gaze. There is something akin to fascination in its weight.

Elymus glances at my briefly. I narrow my eyes at him. Don’t fight my battles. He looks away.

“Spare his life,” he says solemnly, “and I will personally dole out the punishment you see fit.”

Objections rip from the crowds. The commander whirls and snaps his teeth at them. “Silence!” An inhuman sound wrests from the back of his throat. Like an animal. For a moment, the illusion of man gives way to the god in his soul.

He is a man carved of beast instincts. A leader obliged to enforce order in his camp. But also a creature that had perhaps even found what had happened...titillating. Despite his friable flesh, there is little humanity in that mortal husk. He cared little of the lives of those dead men. Perhaps he saw the echo of his thirst in those drained bodies. The god of war does not want the centaur's palliating words. He looks at me, waiting for my answer.

"Th-they challenged me," I breathe icily. "Solo los fuertes sobreiven. I live."

Elymus stills, and he looks at me as if a stranger. But the commander mouth twists to a bloodcurdling smile. I have given him the answer he desired.

"So you do," he replies. “Sixty lashes for the boy.”

And I would survive that too.

But Elymus disapproves. "What of the mission?" he asks.

"What of it?"

"The severity of the scourge guarantees that he will not be able to ride in only a day, much less fight. Let another take his place."

An indignation sluices through me. I did not need his protection. Never have. Time after time he decides what is best for me. Not once does he care for my opinion. Mortal men. Divine men. I am no damsel in distress.

“No,” the commander agrees. He shakes his lion mane and stares with wolf eyes. "He has earned his place. That is not for me to decide."

I dip my chin.

He chuckles, leaning forward. His scar is a slash of sun, grazing hail eyes. "Do not give me your answer now. Tell me on the back of a horse, with a spear in your hand."

***

“I’m sorry, Persephone.”

Ropes bound my wrists to the post, the harsh bark against my fingers. I press my face into the insides of my arms. “Thank you,” I say instead, “for not letting me die.” Eight months of silence to my abuse has earned me a pretty word. Elymus did not answer; he knew it too.

The first lash seared like the sun on my skin. The second like a brand. I press my teeth into the leather strip until gold dripped from my gums. The slap of the scourge is like firecrackers. I imagine they burst like daffodil stars across my back.

***

When dawn stroked the sky, I pull my shattered body over the back of a horse. I press my face into the stubby hairs of its neck, and breathe. The air is cold and unforgiving. I try not to black out. Heat wells to my eyes, but I would rub them away. Achingly, I rise to meet the commander’s stare.

And I raise the spear in my hand in answer.

So eighty soldiers made their way across the desert, in the wind and the sand. I look behind me, at the fading white walls, wan in the morning light, and a relief finds me, sudden and arresting, that I would not find myself on the other side again.

The hawks circle above our helms, perplexed by the formation of ants marching over clay terrain.

For the coming days, there would be seldom rest or reprieve from the journey. Until our lips cracked like the drought earth and our lungs are black with dirt. I stole again. From the land. Where seedlings unfurled from the cervices of the ground, I imbibed from their fragile life force, sipping the green of their leaves yellow. They died along with my conscience. Under the commander’s watchful eyes, I could lift my head, then stretch my back, and the rose in my cheeks returned. He did not say a word, but I knew he was watching.

Eight months ago I would have succumbed to the strident conditions, but now days passed between blinks and it all became the same. The bloated dehydration and scabbing skin and the rampant bugs that made quick meals from our flesh scarcely bothered me.

Almost a week into our travels, we would reach Roussillon. The desert came to an end, and green life flourished. We would pass by streams that tasted like nectar past my lips. Roussillon is paradise, one I knew would soon be painted in blood. But I had not forgotten what beauty looked like, as we stood over a field of wild roses, twisting from the fertile soil into crimson blooms. So I kneeled, and poured my power into the ground, watching the flowers sigh and quiver. I clipped one with my blade, and placed it gently into my water pouch, so it hung tenderly over the flute of it. Then I unwrapped the stained sheets from my satchel, and buried a friend in those enchanted meadows; for in the ugliness of his death I wished he would live forever amongst the effervescent blooms.

That night, the men set up camp near the woods. Thickets of oak trees that whistled in the dark. Tomorrow, they would reach the bivouac. “I will go gather more firewood,” I told Elymus. He waved his dismissal, fussing over the fire. “Go,” he said.

I closed my eyes then, and breathed, “goodbye.” He did not turn.

When I led my horse to the edge of the forest, I noticed a shadow rested against a trunk. In the shroud, those storm eyes are black as the abyss.

“You are leaving,” the commander said.

For a second I thought he might stop me, strike me, kill me for deserting. But he simply nodded his head. “I feel,” he said quietly, “that are paths will cross again.”

He stalked towards me, with his feline grace, and lowered a paw in front of me. “Until we meet again.”

“I look forward to that, sir.” I pressed my palm into his, feeling the rough of his skin and feeling comforted at once. Then I walked past him into the unknown.

No, I thought, we will not meet again.