The trees thickened when they set out the following day.

  Jagged peaks rose in the distance, a mountain covered in further trees. The ridges appeared to form a half ring near the shore.

  All morning the smell of the forest grew stronger and stronger.

  Green trees bearing yellow fruit. Brown-leafed trees with meaty red branches. White-skinned trees with leaves purple as Hanno’s finest cloak. They covered the rising hillside in ever-increasing abundance, and their heady scent brought the king to the rail.

  He took a stiff inhale, and shook a sudden dizziness out of his head.

  “It’s beautiful,” Liva said. She sniffed as well, and reached out her hand to brace herself against the king.

  They both wobbled together a moment, and laughed.

  The oars slowed. The waves lessoned, and the ship turned with the current toward the now nearby mountainous shore.

  “What are you idiots doing?” Artemisia asked.

  The helmsman wrapped a strip of cloth around her mouth and tossed a couple bands to the king and the Lixitae.

  “Put those on. Now,” Artemisia ordered.

  Hanno’s tongue felt thickened, and he chewed on it a moment before saying, “What have you been on about, Greek?”

  “Jabnit! Jabnit!” The helmsman spotted the piper lying near the mast. She ran toward her, took the instrument out of her stilled hands, and played a single off-key note as loud as she could.

  The ship lurched forward, the oarsmen stirred by the sound.

  Artemisia raced back to the stern to lean on the rudder, turning the trireme away from the shore. The other rudder wavered against the rail where Aba sat down with her eyes closed.

  Only then did Hanno blink and realize they’d been heading straight for a jagged cave at the mountain’s edge. A hot breath of wind came from the cavern, whistling through sharp stalactites.

  The current increased, and Hanno felt the pull of the water driving the trireme toward the mountain.

  “Oars, quick!” Hanno shouted.

  A great roar came from the cave, and the rowers thrust the ship in reverse. They stayed still, unmoving while the water rushed and splashed through the rocks.

  Hanno failed to shake the fog growing in his head.

  “What is happening?” he asked.

  Liva shouted through the cloth she’d tied around her face, “It’s the mountain!”

  “I don’t care what it is — we’re getting away from it!” Artemisia said.

  Bostar struggled to stay on his feet and shot at the cavern opening, accomplishing nothing more than the loss of an arrow.

  A horrible laughter came from the mountain.

  “Bostar, strike me,” Hanno commanded.

  “What?” the bowman asked.

  “I can’t think straight — hit me!”

  Liva slapped the king hard across the face.

  Hanno shook his head clear, and his vision straightened.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Each man, hit the one beside you at once!” Artemisia shouted.

  She hefted Aba to her feet and punched the priestess across the jaw.

  Aba screamed awake.

  “You’re welcome,” the Greek said.

  Hanno struck Bostar, who rushed below deck to pass on the order.

  The pause in their rowing propelled the ship close enough to the mountainous maw that the spray of water rushing against the rocks wetted the sails. But with the crew’s battered senses restored, they halted the ship.

  “We need a better approach,” Artemisia said.

  “All set for a turn?” Hanno asked.

  “Ready as ever.”

  “Port side forward!”

  Artemisia played the pipe to signal the port rowers to reverse direction. She leaned on the rudder to turn starboard while Hanno shoved forward with the opposite side.

  The ship turned atop the swirling water without moving, and faced away from the cavern.

  “All ahead forward!” Artemisia shouted, then played the command.

  With the bow splitting the current, they found the strength to shove the ship free of the cave. Pipe and thrust and sweat and heart-pounding strength fought against the flow, until they returned to the rising and falling waves far from shore.

  “Go further out,” Artemisia commanded.

  His muscles tense and his breath fast from effort, Hanno’s senses remained intact, but he could smell the incense-like aroma of the trees.

  “What sort of magic was that?” Hanno asked once they drew further out to sea.

  “Nothing I’ve ever heard of,” Liva shared.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “The mountain tried to eat us!”

  “I’ve heard tale of plants that do this. They have alluring smells and sweet-tasting stems to attract insects, then close tight around them like mouths trapping food.”

  “So it was a mountain that needed to eat?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Only an angry god could dwell in such a place,” Aba declared. She twisted her jaw, rubbing the swelling on her chin. “Did the beast strike me? My memory seems fuzzed.”

  “You fell on your face when we turned,” Artemisia lied, and handed Aba her daughter’s pipe. “Here, go wake up your kid. Her break’s over.”

  Jabnit and Mapen lay like children asleep in each other’s arms. Aba nodded and went to rouse them, urging her daughter to stop sucking her thumb and play the rowers’ rhythm.

  “Thank you, Artemisia,” Hanno said.

  “What, for hitting the priestess? That was just a lucky opportunity,” the helmsman noted.

  “No, for keeping us on our senses. How is it that the trees didn’t affect you?”

  Artemisia shrugged.

  “The smell was too perfect,” Liva added. She took a deep breath. “Even now I can feel it tickling my nostrils like the finest flowers, the best foods…” She shook the rapture out of her mind. “I guess a little slap clears you of it.”

  “That’s what kept me from succumbing,” Artemisia said as she sighted in the bow with her needle-crossed ring.

  “You slapped yourself the moment you smelled the trees?”

  “No. Each time I’ve smelled something sweet, salt water, flowers from my husband, the soft head of my infant son, events in my life have slapped me hard as can be. I’ve learned to distrust such smells. They always lead to pain.”

  Liva stared at her feet while Hanno frowned.

  After too long a silence, Hanno leaned his head back and laughed. The king clapped Artemisia on the back and nearly fell over in glee.

  “Something funny?” the Greek asked.

  “It’s the utmost fortune that happiness and life could only come from someone so dead inside,” Hanno declared.

  “I’m glad my demons amuse you.”

  “They don’t, Helmsman. Forgive me, it’s merely the serendipity of survival I feel. However, I shall make it my life’s work to share a temptation that stirs a form of joy in you.”

  “Do you really not like good smells?” Liva asked.

  Artemisia frowned. “Like I said. The trees smelled good. I knew such a thing was too good to be true,” she explained. “So I put a cloth over my face.”

  “Let us remember this place. If we immunize ourselves to it, perhaps the smell can be harnessed. Xerxes would pay a fortune for his Persian women to smell like this,” Hanno advised.

  “Xerxes likes his women to bathe in sand before he lays with them,” Artemisia clarified.

  “A man of all tastes. Then joy of joys that a predator mountain turns your nose.”

  Liva put her hand on Artemisia’s shoulder. “You have friends here, you know. We can have good things,” she said.

  Artemisia shook free of the Lixitae. “I’m starting to regret not crashing into the mountain,” she replied.

  Hanno laughed.

  “Then press on,” Hanno said. “The mountain is wide. Let us find something more to our helmsman’s taste.”

  It took the rest of the day to withdraw from the alluring scent. When they finally found open ground with the mountain far behind them, the sun had set. They beached the ship on a narrow strip of sand and made camp in a nearby clearing.

  The crew slept well, lullabied by the gentle waves.

  When the moon had fully risen, the king lay in his tent contemplating the encounter.

  One of his sentries parted the canvas flap.

  “Pardon, my king,” the sentry said. “The Lixitae wishes to speak with you.”

  “You can call her Liva if you wish,” Hanno corrected.

  He stood and investigated his tent. It was barely big enough to stand in, a practical bedding far different than the carpeted pavilion his father had taken with him on his wars. Such a tent would have taken up too much space on a trireme, though, so it had been left behind in favor of a twin-posted sheet of canvas, with only a cot and small table for the king to rest beside.

  Also, his father’s tent had been lost in Sicily.

  The sentry withdrew and Liva stepped inside. She stopped at the opening, clutching her hands at her waist and struggling to keep her eyes on the soil.

  “I wanted to thank you,” she said.

  “You’re the one who slapped me into my senses,” Hanno replied. “I should be thanking you.”

  “Not that.”

  Her smile dispelled the chill from the night air. Hanno’s gaze lingered where her fingers met her belted tunic, and he quickly turned to the desk to offer her a chair.

  “Please, sit,” the king offered.

  “I think I’d rather stand,” Liva said. “I wanted to say thank you for teaching me to read, and for letting me accompany you.”

  Hanno sat, his breathing fast and his nose filled with the same heady aromas that had blinded him before the mountain. He locked his eyes on the empty chair while Liva’s gaze never wavered from the dirt.

  “I find myself…” Liva muttered, and shook her head. “Are you as distracted as I am?”

  “I suppose,” Hanno admitted.

  “Those trees really did a number on us.” She took a step toward Hanno and stopped. “The alphabet you helped me make. It will help my people in ways you can’t understand.”

  “I understand.”

  Hanno stood.

  Liva shook her head and said, “The knowledge we have. The things we can share now that… I never knew what it was to want something until today when…” She lifted her chin and, for a moment, her eyes met the king’s. “When I almost lost it.”

  Their gazes locked.

  “I have lost much,” Hanno admitted.

  “I suppose you have,” Liva agreed.

  “But should it keep me from wanting again?”

  “It shouldn’t.”

  “No. It shouldn’t.”

  Hanno stepped forward, their bodies separated by a warm breath.

  “Not if you want something enough,” Liva said. She set a finger on Hanno’s arm. Just a touch, a stroke of her flesh upon his.

  The king wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. Liva melted in his arms and a fire of want erupted in the king’s pounding heart.

  They smothered each other, lost in the rush of greedy, searching hands.

  “Wait, stop,” Liva said, and stepped away.

  Hanno nearly fell over in his want to retrieve her.

  “The trees,” Liva realized. “This is just the after-effects. I feel drunk, don’t you?”

  Hanno swallowed.

  Liva slapped him.

  He staggered.

  “Has your mind changed?” Liva asked.

  The heat on Hanno’s cheek was nothing to the desire raging through each of his limbs.

  But when he reached for her, Liva ran out of the tent.

  Hanno raced after.

  The camp was silent, save for the sounds of others submitting to the trees’ lingering intoxicants.

  Hanno cursed his shame for lacking the self-control to resist the fragrant temptation, and considered his tent before he heard a splash.

  The king ran to the beach, and saw Liva standing in the sea, the low waves sending water over and under her shoulders in gentle repetition. Hanno’s beached trireme separated them from the rest of the camp.

  “What are you doing?” Hanno asked, keeping his voice low.

  In the dim light, Hanno saw Liva staring at the moon’s reflection against the blackened ocean.

  “I’m trying to discover the truth,” she shared.

  “The truth of what?” Hanno asked.

  He stepped into the water, and Liva stayed still.

  “What is it you want, Hanno?” she asked.

  Hanno paused with the water at his knees.

  “I want my kingdom,” he admitted.

  Liva nodded.

  “That’s good. I thought the cold might reveal the truth,” she said.

  “But not only that,” Hanno added.

  “You want the things a king wants. The same things all kings want.”

  “And you fault me for this?”

  “There are things I want too.”

  “The things a princess wants?”

  “Nothing like that. I want many things. I want the things I want and I want the things I don’t know I want. Do you know what that is? To want something so badly even though you had no idea it existed, but now it is the most important thing in the world?”

  Hanno waded waist deep into the low waves.

  “I’ve known this,” he said.

  “But how can you truly know this is what you want? How do you trust it?” Liva asked.

  Hanno reached for her and she allowed him to turn her by the shoulders to face him.

  The king dunked his head beneath the water, and came up dripping and cold.

  Liva laughed.

  “What was the point in that?” she asked.

  “When I purge myself of all senses, all I want is you,” said Hanno.

  Liva dunked herself as well. When she surfaced, her eyes locked with Hanno’s.

  Time moved far too slowly for their arms to embrace. And when they found themselves wrapped together, it felt as if the sea might boil.

  Impatient flight from the water led them to the shadowed trireme’s side, where Hanno blessed the hull with Liva’s back.

  They fumbled against each other, never losing touch. Shivering, they returned to Hanno’s tent, where they completed their journey to rapture.