Kryptic ↟ Deimos

twenty-seven: a mother's hope

EACH OF THE sentries posted outside the leader's home cast wary glances to one another after Lesya enters. Ikaros perches on the corner of the roof above the doorway, staring at her with dark, mistrustful eyes. Even with all she has helped Kassandra achieve, the eagle still does not trust her. It remains a mutual feeling as ofttimes Lesya feels she is being watched, and the passing shadow always takes the shape of an eagle. With a loud piping call, Ikaros hops from the roof, spreading his wings into the night.

Lips pursed, Lesya passes through the villa's entrance, stopping beneath a stoa connecting the andron and kitchen —the Eagle Bearer nor her mother are in the atrium. Ikaros flies above the villa, circling and squawking. The commotion brings Kassandra down a flight of stairs, both her sword and spear drawn. "Lesya!" she cries —sheathing her kopis but not the Leonidas spear— shocked to find the former champion standing before after she left her in Athens. Kass' initial relief fades, replaced by suspicion surrounding her sudden and opportune arrival. "What happened to you?" She asks, dark eyes narrowing. "How did you get here?"

"Tundareos," Lesya answers, pushing aside the former question —it will take more time to explain what happened after Deimos left Perikles' corpse at the feet of Athena.

"Lamb?" A warm voice calls —reminding Lesya of her mother. The voice belongs to a woman with silver-brown hair and a kindly face that is neither young nor old —her resemblance to Kassandra and even her wayward son is unmistakable. Myrrine. Her gaze falls on the woman standing next to her daughter, a head shorter but just as strong with striking copper hair. "You must be Lesya," she notes, smiling despite knowing who she is and the atrocities she has committed. Lesya nods, dipping her head down in greeting.

Myrrine looks between Kassandra and Lesya. Her soft smile does not diminish. "Will you walk with me?" She asks, meeting the unsettling laurel gaze of the former champion —one of the few people in Hellas who could say they knew her son. Swallowing the lump in her throat, Lesya nods, stepping forward, but the Eagle Bearer watches her leave apprehensively and gives Ikaros a knowing look. Shadows are harder to see at night.

The trodden path Myrrine leads Lesya down is the same one she'd taken to the villa, but instead of turning toward the docks —they move toward where a great statue of a lion is under construction from flawless white marble. A tribute to Leonidas and defiance against the Delian League, who claim control over the island. She stops beneath the half-shaped mane and sits on a massive paw, clasping her hands together in her lap.

"Kassandra tells me you know my son," she starts —love and guilt lacing the statement. In the moonrise, Lesya watches solemnness overtake Myrrine when she nods, knowing there is much that should have been different. The artifact in the Cult's Sanctuary revealed what happened during a stormy night on the slopes of Taygetos. "She also tells me he's beyond saving," Myrrine adds, profound sadness slipping into her voice.

"That's not true," Lesya snaps, anger churning in her stomach. If Deimos were beyond saving, he would not have risked everything to protect her from the kiss of the Cult's blades when they came. He would not have tended her wounds or sought her out in Korinthia. She will not believe it, for if Deimos is beyond saving, then all her efforts to stop the Cult are in vain —but they are not.

The unspoken promises on his lips still sting her cheek —one day. Lesya is certain of all the people in Hellas she is the only one who knows what kind of man Deimos is and the man he can be. "Yes," she starts, softer than before and with tears stinging her laurel eyes at the flood of memories, "he's done terrible things, but I've done terrible things, too." No one would say otherwise. The blood Deimos and Enyo spilled could turn the Aegean red —they both deserve to rot in Tartarus for their crimes.

"You love him," Myrrine notes —having seen the fire rise in Lesya's eyes. She knew the look of a woman in love too well.

"I do," Lesya replies, lips kinking into a smile. "Forgive me," she begins, gaze downcast, "but Kassandra does not know him." Three chance meetings could not replace two decades of nigh always being with one another —seldom parted for more than a moon. Myrrine follows Lesya as she begins to pace, unsure what else to tell a mother of her son.

"Deimos gave me freedom at a great cost to himself," she admits. The newest scars on his sides were proof enough. "I can't give up on him." Lesya turns to Myrrine, hands clenching into fists at her sides and expression turning to a cold grimace. "I will not stop until every Cultist and Cult puppet knows a fraction of the pain we have endured at their hands." They would all fall eventually, either to her blade or Kassandra's.

THE SILVER LIGHT of a full moon reflects off the dark waters. Across the narrow channel lies Paros, the golden glow of braziers pocking the harbor and dwindling polis. Lesya stares at the island with contempt —recalling the last time she had stepped foot on the white sands and the reason behind the visit. Silanos' reign was founded on a path of blood and bone paved by the Cult's champions.

"We strike Paros tomorrow," Kassandra announces, leaning against the balcony. Myrrine and Timo reasoned the sooner they could rid themselves of Silanos, the better. The Athenian polemarch was a nuisance —threatening the security and livelihood of the denizens of Naxos. "What do you know about their leader?" The Eagle Bearer asks, after hearing her mother's suspicions about his ties to the Cult of Kosmos.

Lesya shrugs, not taking her gaze away from the neighboring island. "He's a coward mostly," she tells Kassandra. Silanos was not a man of repute even amongst the Cultists, relying on deception to climb through the ranks of Kosmos and the Peloponnesian League. "Deimos and I disposed of the previous Parian leader and cemented the way for his rise to power," Lesya explains.

From the corner of her laurel eyes, she watches the Eagle Bearer's face pinch —she often wore such an expression when hearing of Lesya's exploits for the Cult. "They did not say why we had to do it, but now I know." Installing Silanos as the Parian leader meant they could keep a chary watch on Myrrine of Sparta.

GUARDIANS WATCH THE docks of Piraeus when a lone merchant vessel arrives in the night, and the Cult's Champion disembarks, striding forth in only a dark chiton and the Damoklean sword at his waist. Kleon sent a small army through the plague ravished city in search of Deimos in the days following Perikles' death after discovering his bloody armor at Hermippos' villa. The coward playwright claimed to know nothing when questioned. Three of the Cult guardians step into Deimos' path, pointing toward the Acropolis in the distance, shrouded by low-hanging clouds and the night.

He pauses on the steps below the propylaea. The blood painting the white marble was scrubbed away, yet he still could see Lesya's blood on his hands. Flexing his scarred hand, Deimos continues through the gateway and toward the Arrephorion, where Kleon now resides after desecrating the House of Athena's maids. Kleon looks up from the piece of papyrus before him when Deimos enters, setting down a reed pen next to a small pot of wet soot. "Where did you go, boy?" He asks, dry lips curling.

Deimos tilts his head to the side, counting and sizing up the Athenian psiloi posted around Kleon's quarters on the Acropolis. The small force numbers ten, not counting the ones posted at the temple and treasury. He would not even need the sword on his hip to dispatch them. "Does it matter?" Deimos bites back in the same patronizing tone.

Kleon grits his teeth at the champion's defiance and rises from his desk. Hermippos may not have confessed the truth, but with enough persuasion, his servants had. Deimos fled the city aboard a pirate trireme with her. The old hag, Chrysis, had been right to call for Enyo's execution —if she lived the Cult would never be able to control Deimos again. "You don't see it," the new Athenian leader begins, hands clasped behind his back, "but she makes you weak." Weakness could not be allowed to grow within the ranks of Kosmos. "A demigod groveling for the approval of a woman," Kleon sneers.

Deimos cannot help but laugh, his dark gaze a silent threat. In Enyo's absence, many seemed to have forgotten what had done for the Cult and what she was still capable of doing. Midas' mangled corpse in Argolis should have served as a bitter reminder of the weapon they helped create. "You once trembled in fear and called her a demigoddess," he reminds Kleon before turning and taking his leave of the Athenian general's presence.