Kryptic ↟ Deimos

thirty-five: in flames

TIMOTHEUS GIVES THEIR NEW heading —Messenia. He overheard the Spartans speaking of a brewing storm, and Lesya knows who will be within the eye. Deimos. Tundareos, Timotheus, and Lesya sit around one of the lit braziers on the ship's deck after the sun sets. It feels odd to have both her brothers back in her life —sitting next to her, smiling and laughing about their days of childhood in Athens.

But the stories end too quickly, tainted by the night the masked men in dark robes came, taking Lesya away. It was the night her childhood ended. "What happened after pater gave you up?" Timotheus asks. Tundareos told him little of what their sister endured at the hands of cruel people, thinking it best if she were the one to explain.

The question shouldn't have caught Lesya off guard, but it does, after all, Tundareos had asked the same thing. She looks down into the cup of watered wine, seeing herself stare back with hollow eyes. It's been years since she was under the Cult's yoke and foot —still they control so much of her life. The Cult made her a monster, and even her attempts to disprove them only made the truth clearer. No matter what, whether it be for Kosmos, Sparta, or Kassandra, she is a killer, thirsting for blood and relishing in destruction. Maybe I still am Enyo under it all.

Her brothers wait in silence. Tundareos knows the tales, and it will hurt to less a second time to hear of what Lesya suffered through. Drawing in a slow breath, she begins the tale of a girl named Enyo and a boy named Deimos and how the Cult of Kosmos molded them to become the most fearsome warriors in all of the Greek world.

Timotheus remembers the night she came for his head, leaving empty-handed and giving him a warning he'd taken to heart. Lesya shifts, slipping her chiton off one shoulder to reveal the deep scars crisscrossing her back. "This was my punishment for not bringing the Cult your head," she says —recalling the feel of Nisos' lash biting and tearing flesh and long weeks of recovery afterward. Timotheus cringes. Part of him always wondered what became of her after that encounter. Now he knows, and his face contorts in anger. "But I'd do it again," she tells him with a soft, kindly smile.

THE NEXT TIME Deimos and Lesya's paths cross, Pylos is burning. Smoke stings her eyes, almost as badly as the stinging pain in her thigh where the broken shaft of an arrow remains. Gritting her teeth, she pushes through the pain —I have endured worse than this. Dispatching an Athenian with a dagger through the throat, Lesya searches, trying to find Kassandra or Brasidas through the thick haze. Across the battlefield, she sees him emerge from the flames —eyes set on the Spartan general as he thrusts a spear into a Spartiate's belly and rips it free from his back. She breaks into a sprint, knowing what must be done.

Lesya collides with his side, throwing him off balance before he can reach Brasidas. They both roll through a burning blanket of heather. Deimos stands before her. He cocks his head this way and that —like a predator eyeing his prey. His gold-and-white armor streaked with black smoke and running with blood, face uplit by flames and twisted into a grim smile. There is a flash of madness in his eyes as he leaps for her. Bloodlust taking him. "Didn't learn your lesson last time?" He grits out, sounding like a stranger in the months passed since that night on the Megarian beach.

He knocks her back to the ground, and Lesya scrambles for a fallen shield, throwing it up to take the next blow. His sword bites deep, breaking the bronze coating and crumbling the timbers below. She tosses the ruined shield aside, kicking out and back to her feet. Deimos' sword lashes for her again, but she parries the stroke and strikes back —drawing blood from a slim cut running down his bicep. He stumbles, looking at the cut and the blood on his fingertips, not able to remember the last time he saw his blood drawn in battle.

Sparks fly as they hammer blow after blow, until exhausted, Lesya catches his next strike on the edge of her blade. They strain against one another, teeth bared and panting, both shaking —vying for the upper hand. Around them, the ancient trees groan and fall over in great roars of fire and smoke. When she edges the Damoklean sword slightly to one side, Lesya sees Deimos' confident glower waver. But it is like fuel to his madness, and with a roar, he pushes back, swatting her blade aside. Lesya rolls clear of his swipe and stands, backing away. "Deimos," Lesya warns, pressing her hand against her bloody thigh, "stop this!"

A mist passes his eyes —as if something about had thrown him into the past, but it fades and his lips curl into a mockery of a smile. The Cult has sunk their talons in even deeper. "You don't understand," he says, jabbing a finger down at the smoldering earth, sweeping his hand around the blazing cage of trees. "This is my home."

She watches his body tense before he lunges for her again, blades locked in stalemate again. "You know I understand," Lesya spits, pushing away from him. Of all the people in Hellas she was the only one who understood what it was like to be a tool —a weapon. "It doesn't have to be like this." Her voice sounds like nothing more than a whisper above the roaring flames. The harsh glare in his tawny-gold eyes softens, the grim smile fades. He lowers the Damoklean sword and backs away as though he realizes alas what he's doing.

"Deimos–" her words are cut short by a harsh groaning, and then a crack as a burning tree starts to fall. Lesya watches as it leans toward her —eyes wide— before swinging down like an executioner's axe. Deimos lunges for her. His weight landing atop her just at the tree crashes down, sending them both into darkness.

THE WORLD COMES rushing back in a hazy fog. Deimos stirs and finds his back aching and head throbbing. Laid out beneath him is Lesya —he spared her from the brute of the tree's impact. Only a few feet away, he notices his sister sprawled out too, blood trickling down her temple. A group of men encroaches around them. He recognizes the long dark robes and can make out the terrible ivory masks surveying the aftermath of a bloody battle as the island still burns.

"Take the Eagle Bearer," a low, rough voice says before stepping back where the two champions lay. "I'll deliver Deimos to Athens." Kleon would need his champion to instill fear and control over the Athenians again.

"What about her?" One of the men asks —Enyo could be at their mercy. It was no secret the Cult would benefit from having her among them again. But many of their ranks had fallen on her blade, and those transgressions could not be overlooked. "We should slit her throat and be done of it," another says, that had been their plan years ago, but she slipped through their fingers and grew to be a thorn in their side.

Deimos rises, seizing the Cultist by the neck, face twisted in rage. The others step back, petrified —there is nothing, and no one to stop the champion from acting on his anger. "Touch her," he hisses, tawny-gold eyes ablaze, fingers tightening around the man's neck, "and you'll beg for death."

"Of course, champion," the man sputters, lifting his hands in a show of complacency. Deimos sneers, pushing the Cultist back. He bends with a groan, slipping his arms under Lesya's knees and around her shoulders, carrying her to the war galley, which will bear them to Attika.

Deimos pulls a canvas screen to, closing off a small space at the stern of the ship away from the rowers. He sits on his haunches, eyes skimming over his counterpart —finding a bloody wound on her thigh and several burgeoning bruises on her arms. Sighing, he reaches for the ties of Lesya's armor, sliding the greaves from her shins and the vambraces from her wrists. He's done this a hundred times over, but there's something bittersweet now.

His attention turns to the bloody spot on her thigh, sullied by black ash and dirt, but he recognizes what caused the wound —an arrow. Carefully, Deimos wipes away the drying blood and dirt before prodding the wound with his fingers, checking if the arrowhead is still embedded in flesh. It's not, she'd been able to pull it out cleanly. Dipping a torn piece of linen into a barrel of fresh water, he scrubs away the blood and binds it tightly to stay the bleeding.

Wounds tended, she lay unmoving —strangely peaceful. Deimos buries the anger he feels at himself, tries to bury the guilt too, but he cannot dig a hole big enough. It takes a moment to realize the dampness on his cheeks is not sweat —it's tears. He reaches for her, hand cradling her cheek as his thumb follows the scar cutting through her brow, across her eye. Silently, he bids Lesya wake. She doesn't. "I'm sorry," Deimos chokes, pulling her into his arms and burying his face into her neck. It's among the hardest things he's ever had to say, but he knows he's to blame, and there's no water in Hellas capable of washing her blood from his hands.