Kryptic ↟ Deimos

fifteen: these violent delights

A WOMAN WITH white hair sits at a loom in the courtyard, combing through the threads of linen —her fingers knobby and withered. Lesya holds her breath as she steps into the moonlight, heart heavy and racing. She was certain she would never see this place again, never look upon her mother and brothers. It does not escape her that Deimos is the only reason she is standing here —within arm's reach of the woman who had defended her countless times from a cruel man. "Mater?" Lesya whispers.

Kalanthe turns on her stool and the color fades from her gaunt cheeks. "No–" she breathes, certain her eyes are playing another cruel trick, but she has only ever known two people to have copper hair and laurel eyes. "Lesya?" Her voice cracks as she reaches out, taking her daughter's hands to assure herself this was not a dream or a rouse by the gods. Lesya nods, biting down on her lip to keep it from trembling.

"I never thought I'd see you again." Her mother cries —fifteen long years had come to pass since that stormy night when everything changed. Kalanthe wraps her daughter in her arms. Lesya goes stiff and with a saddened smile, her mother steps back. The rumors surrounding her daughter were true then. "Why have you come back?" Kalanthe asks, not letting her suspicion betray the joy of seeing Lesya. She has heard the tales from her eldest son of the two demigods who can clear a fortress as though it is child's play, it is rarely a good omen to be visited by dread or destruction.

"Mater," Lesya starts, wringing her hands together, "I want to know about my real father." She had overheard some of the cultists speak of him, claiming his blood is why she could peer into the artifact like Deimos. Only she was afflicted, for the Cult took no interest in her brothers —save for ridding the Athenian front of Timotheus' command— or mother.

Kalanthe remembers the man well —Lesya is a reflection of him, for there is little about her daughter's appearance that resembles her. He had been handsome and spoke of history as though he were there to witness it and as if the gods were his friends. Akousilaos had come as a weary traveler one night while Leandros attended a symposium. "He approached me right after Timotheus was born." A wistful smile crosses her wrinkled lips. "There was something about him. Strange but alluring." And kind. Kalanthe lifts her hand, brushing away the copper strands falling before Lesya's face. "Then the gods gave me you."

The smile on her mother's lips fades. "Leandros knew. He took you from my breast and left you outside the city walls for three days." It had not mattered to him that Lesya had been born bearing the mark of Virgo on her small thigh and hair kissed by fire. The child was a bitter reminder of his wife's infidelity —born small and weak. He claimed it was a mercy to expose the girl to the elements —a sacrifice for the gods. Kalanthe had pleaded with her husband, but when he threatened the life of their young son, she sank into compliance.

Lesya shakes her head —rage festering within her at the memory of Leandros. Yet for the moment, she wills it away and finds the courage to ask of her brothers. "Timotheus?" Even after she failed to execute him, the Cult never did send Deimos in her stead.

"Ostracized for abandoning his post," Kalanthe tells her. He had shown so much promise as a polemarch in Megaris, but as quickly as he rose in the ranks, he fell. Timotheus was not to return to Athens under pain of death —Kalanthe was not even given the luxury of telling her son goodbye after the trial. Nor had he the time to tell his mother Lesya was alive.

"Little Tityos?" Tityos was a suckling babe when the Cult took her. Lesya remembers helping care for him and that her mother explained it was good practice for when she was married with her own children. Now where a mother's instinct should be, there is only bitter hollowness.

Kalanthe shakes her head. "Caught a fever one spring and could not shake it." Tityos had only seen five winters when she was forced to lay him in a shallow grave beside a stranger. "And Tundareos?" Her mother asks, guessing her daughter's next question. Lesya nods. Timotheus had mentioned him. "Once he was old enough, he went searching for you," her mother explains, doleful. "It's been years since any of us heard from him."

Lesya meets her mother's warm gaze and finds sadness behind her dark gaze. She's lost all of her children —even me. But all the pain can be traced back to the Cult and its puppets. "Leandros?" She growls.

"Don't Lesya," Kalanthe warns. She can see the cogs turning in her daughter's mind and how her fingers flex at her sides, eager to draw the dagger in her belt. It turns her into Enyo.

"I need to face him," Lesya says —there is no way around this. Leandros will come to see the monster he helped create.

Her mother draws in a long, steady breath. "He's at the Odeon of Perikles," Kalanthe tells her —knowing that once Lesya leaves the villa, she will not see her husband's likeness again.

LEANDROS TURNS FROM the mural to face his bastard daughter —to see the weapon she had become. "Deimos said you'd turn up here sooner or later," he remarks, voice and temper level.

"And here I am," she says, motioning around at the empty theater. Lesya steps toward the corrupt thesmothetai and feels a lifetime of caged anger bubbling up —festering. He had sent her into the arms of the Cult. Every terrible thing that had ever befallen her was his fault. It was his fault she'd become one of the most fearsome warriors in Hellas. His fault Kalanthe had endured so much grief.

"Do you know what they did to me?" She asks, tone low and menacing. The deep scars on her back sting at the memory, but while physical hurts healed —other wounds did not. "What they're still doing to me?" Her voice starts trembling, but then a sardonic smile spreads across her cracked lips. "All your sons are either dead or disappointments and the daughter you despised is the one with a destiny."

His cold laugh echoes off the smooth walls. "You don't have a destiny, Enyo," Leandros spits. "You're nothing more than the bastard child who never should have been reared!" Had it been his decision, he would have slit her throat as a babe to save himself a lifetime of embarrassment.

"It shouldn't have mattered whether I was your blood or not!" Lesya shouts. "I was a child." The Cult had taken everything from her.

"I would do it all again and a hundred times over given the chan–" Leandros' words die on the tip of his tongue. His gaze is drawn down, unsurprised to see Lesya clutching the hilt of a dagger now thrust deep into his chest. Warmth begins to sluice down his trunk as she draws the blade back —red staining the front of his white chiton trimmed in gold. Leandros' knees give out. His hand comes away gleaming dark red in the torchlight.

She grips his thinning silver hair and pulls his head back, exposing his neck beneath a long grey beard. Cold rage, vengeance, and instinct drive her. Lesya lifts the bloodied blade to his throat and presses the sharp edge into his flesh then slowly drags the dagger to the right —watching as his eyes widen. The last thing he will see is Enyo smiling down at him.

His hands leap up to his throat, clawing at the open gash in a feeble attempt to stay the bleeding. There is a brief terrible gurgling as he chokes on blood followed by silence. Leandros' body lands face-first on the marble floor with a thud, red pooling around him. Lesya tosses the dagger next to his corpse and strides from the Odeon. The sun has yet to rise.

Kassandra notices her in the street and the blood on her hands. The Eagle Bearer pulls Lesya to the side in the shadow of the Acropolis, having spent half the night searching for her. In the distance, guards are shouting and people screaming. It is no coincidence. "What have you done?" She hisses.

Lesya glances down at her hands —bloodied and scarred— then smiles. "I killed my step-father," she laughs.

A chill starts at Kassandra's neck and chases down her spine. A squadron of light soldiers passes them, making their way to the Odeon of Perikles. This marks her first encounter with Enyo, and it is an unsettling one. "Get back to the Adrestia," Kass snaps, pushing her in the direction of the port.