Melita coughed up the mix of salt water and sand, the briny taste lingering in her mouth. She pulled herself to sit on her haunches and flipped her hair away from her face, feeling like she had been pummeled and battered by dozens of fists all at once. Her body throbbed with pain in places she hadn’t realized existed. She tried to count the places that ached but found it easier to focus on the few parts that didn’t, and she could count those on one hand.
She stood, feeling the kinks expand in her back, legs, and neck. Each step sent fresh jolts through her. Her head hurt the most. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms against her temples, which did no good.
Gritting her teeth, she wrung her hair to dry it. So much sand everywhere. Somehow, her satchel stayed around her shoulder, and her sword belt – without the sword – hung over her hip.
It was day. Morning, she guessed. A white blanket of clouds covered the sky. A beach. A line of palm trees beyond the sand. No one in sight. The wind carried the scent of salt and rotting seaweed, mingling with the faint rustling of palm fronds in the distance. No signs of habitation. No bodies either. Not enough debris for a ship. The beach stretched endlessly, the sand rippling with the retreating tide. Shells clinked together in the surf, a rhythm her uneven steps broke.
Her mind raced with dozens of questions at once. Did the Endoxos survive? Was she the only one here? How long had the waves washed and dangled her about like a puppet? Did she live only because of her divine blood? She took a deep breath and tried to piece together the events that led her here. The Endoxos. Miltiades sent her to be with Nicias; she recalled his stink with a shudder. The captain had been all niceties, telling her about the ship as he turned on the charm. She smiled back and nodded a lot, pretending interest but counting down the moment until she could get away from him.
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Then Epicasta’s voice. Water crashed against her. She tumbled. She kicked. She rolled. The waves dragged her beneath the surface, her limbs thrashing against the pull of the currents. She fought, swimming back to the surface, gasping for air before being dragged down again. She could still feel the eerie songs of the sea nymphs, their ghostly laughter filling her ears as they dragged her into the abyss, their fingers as cold as death. And then sweet darkness.
She woke up here on this island.
Wherever “here” was.
“The gods saved me, but why? To scrape by on a desolate shore? Or to remind me what I’ve left behind? What will happen to Aree now?” She forced out a chuckle to fight the tears that surged beneath. “Maybe the gods are saving you for some cosmic punchline. Demigoddesses always get mixed up in strange adventures, don’t you know? The blood of Hermes didn’t keep me dry? Nor did it make me smart.”
She said a short prayer to the sea gods for sparing her life before turning her attention to immediate concerns: fresh water, food, and shelter. She planted branches in a circle in the soft ground near the tree line, marking it as her arrival point in case she ever needed to find the place again.
Next, she found herself a walking stick. The island seemed peaceful, but the dense foliage ahead could easily hide predators. Melita gripped her walking stick tighter. People she could deal with, but beasts or monsters were a different situation. A stick could deal with snakes.
Looking to her left and right, she decided to leave because the wind blew in from that direction. Better be downwind from any predator.