Chapter Thirty-Nine
She crumpled on the ground, the fleshing knife lodged between her ribs, as a glistening pool spread outward beneath her. Even in the moonlight, there was no disguising the deep red that was seeping into the earth.
“Melitta, no, no. You will be fine. You are fine.” I grabbed the hilt of the knife, my hand quaking.
Did I pull it out? Could I stop the bleeding?
For the first time since I had fired my first arrow, I doubted my actions.
My mind raced but refused to form a coherent thought. “Tell me. Tell me what to do.”
Behind me, a man grunted. I jumped to my feet and, with no arrows left, swung my bow at him with all my weight behind it, smacking him across the face. The force was not enough to kill him but enough for him to stumble and hesitate before running back to the village.
I dropped back down next to Melitta.
“My friend, I am so sorry. This is my fault. What should I do? Please, how do I fix this?”
Her eyes shone with all the brightness of the morning sun. For a moment, I believed it was raining, only to realize it was my tears that fell onto her paling skin. Hastily, I wiped my cheek.
“I can carry you to Phile’s. One of her men has sewn wounds before. They will be able to fix this.”
I moved to pick her up, yet before I could, Melitta reached up and grabbed my wrist.
“Otrera, the gods have decided my fate,” she said.
I shook my head, tears flying.
“No, no. This was not the gods’ fault. This was mine. I can put it right. You will live. You have to.”
“You cannot change destiny. Otrera, you have risen. You have risen into a woman I never thought I would see. He stabbed me while I watched you. I thought I was staring at Atalanta herself.”
“Please, Melitta, let me carry you.” As I heard my words, I knew the truth. I would need to spend every second of my life atoning for her death, or else I would join Morsimus with the rest of these men in Tartarus.
“Go,” Melitta urged me. “You have done nothing wrong. I forgive you. The gods will forgive you too.”
“Melitta—”
“The women need your help. Make sure I have my coins, won’t you?”
“Always.”
“Take the knife. You will need it.”
“No, Melitta.”
“Yes. Do not worry. There is no pain.”
I could well have stayed there until the sunrise, feeling the warmth wick away from Melitta’s skin and the hope fade from my bones, but a single word caught on the breeze.
“Help.”
I twisted my head to see Thalassa on the ground, Xanthus viciously kicking away her last shred of life. Though it was not intentional, my face must have hardened, for Melitta spoke again. They were to be the last words she offered in the land of the living.
“Save her.”
“Otrera.” Thalassa’s voice came again, though so weakly I do not know how I even heard it.
Still blinded by the tears and the pain that throbbed through my chest, I pushed myself to standing, wiping my friend’s blood on my robe.
Thalassa lay on the ground, her eyes closed, and if it had not been for the strained gurgles that rose from her throat, I would have believed her dead.
I will not deny it, I wanted to leave her there.
She deserved to die. If she had not told the men of our plans, Melitta would have lived.
But it was my actions that had led us here. Led me one step closer to Tartarus.
I pulled an arrow from a dead man’s body; a slight tug was all that was required. With blood still dripping from the metal tip and my own hands stained, I nocked it and fired it into Xanthus’s back.
Only then did I realize my mistake. His body toppled forward, his weight enough to crush Thalassa. I ran toward him, grabbed the back of his chiton, and pushed him aside. His body thudded to the earth. I did not check on Thalassa though. I had done all I could for her.
Only as I retrieved my arrows did I see all Melitta had done.
One drunk lay on the ground, his throat slit.
Another was bleeding out slowly from a wound across his stomach.
She had done her part for me, lost her life for my cause, and I would not let her be forgotten.
But I could not stay and pay her respects. Not then.
I ran toward the village, where orange flames licked the sky and the scent of smoke filled the air.
My feet pounded the ground. This was not like the laps Hirtus had commanded me to do around the compound, where my speed had been purely for my own gain and satisfaction. I was running for everyone’s lives.
Iphinone was outside, silhouetted by the flames. Aina stood behind her. “Halysia has been killed. Brysta too. It is their husbands who have set the fires. They are heading to Phile’s.”
I heard no more, for I was already running toward the tannery.
The moment the men came into my sight, torches in their hands, I let an arrow fly.
The first body dropped to the ground, yet to my surprise, so did the second.
I squinted out into the night, expecting to see the gargantuan frame of Hirtus looking back at me, but the figure I saw was only half his height, gray hair shining in the moonlight.
Of course Phile could shoot. I did not have time to congratulate her though. Instead, I raced back to the village.
* * *
By the time the sun had breached the horizon, the fires were smoldering.
Gray ash caught the last swells of heat and drifted upward in graceful plumes.
The Ninniya I had known was gone. Now, the earth ran red with blood.
I had shot all my arrows, thrown my knife, and beaten with my fists until every husband in the village was gone.
But the men were not the only ones who had lost their lives.
I found Aina and Iphinone pulling a sheet across a body, tears streaking their cheeks.
“Who?” I said.
“Thalia. Her husband did not drink the hemlock. He forced it down her throat. She made it out into the street before she died.”
Images of Thalia, writhing in pain, poisoned because of my actions, sickened me to my core. I choked down bile and turned to the mother and daughter.
“What of her husband?”
“We have not seen him. We believe he fled to the forest.”
The pain of losing Thalia deepened. If we had not even killed her husband, her loss was for less than nothing.
“How many women have we lost?” I asked.
Iphinone kept her head bowed for a moment longer before she spoke. “Four. Three by their husbands. Coarallei was caught in the flames. She believed her child was still in the house.”
Nausea billowed through me.
“Where is the child now?”
“Found, smoke-covered but safe. All the children survived.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
Tears pricked my eyes. It was a comfort, though perhaps that was the wrong word. A lessening of guilt would be closer to the truth. Every woman should have survived that night, but because of one, five were dead.
“Kallista did her part,” Iphinone said.
“From the tavern?”
Iphinone nodded. “When Morsimus and Thalassa left with the others for your home, she slipped the hemlock into the wine of every man still drinking. I think the pain of this act has shaken her.”
I could only imagine, but it was not her guilt to hold, and I would do whatever I could to lessen that for her.
“Otrera, have you seen Thalassa?” Aina asked. As I looked into her eyes, I wondered if the change from child to young woman had happened that night or before, for she was no longer the youth I first recalled meeting. “People are talking about what she did.”
My jaw locked. The muscles in my hands itched as if they were desperate for an arrow to finish what I had not let Xanthus do.
“We have more pressing issues to concern ourselves with,” I replied.
Silence swelled between us, a silence I feared would swallow us entirely until Aina spoke again.
“What do we do with the men’s bodies?” she said. “Shall we burn them? They deserve to be burned.”
I shook my head.
“No. We bury them. We will place coins in their mouths as payment to the ferryman Charon. More than enough for them to make the journey ten times over.”
Lines creased Aina’s young face, but it was her mother who spoke.
“You will pay for their crossing?” Iphinone said. “Why? Let them wander as wraiths forever. Why would you give them the gift of a payment?”
A small smile flickered on my lips. I had anticipated this question. There were those who would disagree, but in this, I was resolute.
“Without the coins, they will not be judged. And without judgment, they will not be sent to Tartarus. That is what these monsters deserve. To burn for eternity.”