Chapter Forty-Four
I had dreamed of the moment since I first saw Aina riding Myrina. I had imagined what it would be like to sit on Erebus’s back, flying through the air. In such daydreams, I had imagined the ease. The lightness. The grace that I would radiate. How wrong I was.
My body slammed repeatedly into the horse’s back, jerking me up and down.
While Myrina’s feet barely skimmed the earth, my hair whipped into my eyes and mouth, and my hands gripped Aina’s tunic so tightly I feared I would tear it.
Yet through it all, there was a freedom, an exhilaration that eclipsed even the thrill of firing my first arrow.
Why would anyone choose to pound the earth on two feet when they could soar on four?
I would ride Erebus when spring came, I would ride Erebus, I promised myself. I would feel this sensation, this freedom and joy.
When we reached Iphinone, she was talking to the young men. There were nearly two dozen of them. Of those, five looked old enough to be fathers themselves, while the others were a similar in age to Aina or younger. The group stared at us as we drew near.
“What is this?” The one who stepped forward sported a beard, though it was thin and patchy as if he had only recently managed to grow it. “Why have we been told to wait here? Phile will punish you for delaying her herds.”
It was by luck rather than skill that I dismounted Myrina with infinitely more grace than I had mounted her, though I knew that on foot, I was no longer the intimidating figure I had been.
“You and I both know that is not true.” I did not know who this young man was, but my dislike was instant. “Phile knows I am here. She wishes for me to talk to you about the new arrangements in the village before you arrive.”
“What arrangements? Who are you?”
His eyes narrowed, but I did not falter.
“I am Otrera. And you are?”
“Kakos.”
Glykeria’s son. My eyebrow twitched slightly.
“You arrived last year,” Kakos continued. “Your husband is a drunk.” He sneered as if he had found a weak point, yet I kept neutral.
“My husband was a drunk,” I responded. “But he is no more.”
“Another widow then?”
If there was a tactful way to break the news to these young men, I no longer knew what it was. So I let the words that formed on my tongue free into the world.
“All the women here are widows now,” I said, taking them each in one by one. “Your fathers are dead. Every one of them.”