Chapter Sixty-Six
I regained my composure, though I struggled to keep it. Iphinone had still not left Aina’s side, and as night fell and the women fashioned what beds they could, Iphinone remained, singing to her dead child.
I watched from a distance, the sickness of my hypocrisy churning within me.
I wondered what would have happened if, when I had ridden Erebus to the forest alone, I had not returned.
I wondered what would happen if I left the women by themselves.
After all, I had brought them so much death, so much pain and guilt.
But I did not consider the idea for long.
I had made this world, and I would stand by it.
Althea led a hunting party to find food, and upon my insistence, she had taken Damaris with her. Like me, Damaris had been unable to draw her eyes away from Aina’s body and was as useless as the dead in helping us clean up the aftermath. Despite her injury, I hoped a hunt might help her.
Later, when the aroma of roast rabbit lingered in the air, Sotiria came and sat beside me.
“I am sorry for your loss,” she said.
I wanted to smack her apology away.
“You have nothing to apologize for. I am sorry for the loss of your women too. We will ensure they are buried in whatever tradition you choose.”
“Thank you. I do not know your intentions, but the speech you gave has roused the women like never before. They will follow you anywhere. As will I.”
I scoffed. “You would follow me when I bring you death?”
“No, Otrera, you bring life. It has a cost, yes, but you bring life. You must know that, or why else would you have led us here when you could have left us to die?” She shook her head. “But that is not why I have come to you. I was thinking about our village. About Oreia.”
A weight dropped into the pit of my stomach.
She had said only moments before that her women wished to follow me anywhere.
Had she said such a thing merely to appease me?
Were they planning to ride back to their homes, taking all we had taught them, leaving their marks forever etched on our landscape?
“Oreia is larger than Ninniya. We have resources there. Forges.” She pressed on that last word, knowing how I would respond. “We are partway there already. Surely it is worth a trip? Even if we do not stay, we can take what we can find. Metals, leathers, anything of use.”
“You mean pillage?”
I had heard enough of bandits who would rampage through small villages, killing the inhabitants and taking what they wanted. That was not who I intended to be. Sotiria read my expression.
“We did not kill the men in order to pillage,” she insisted.
“We killed them for our freedom. And those are our belongings. If we do not take them, someone else will. There should be enough in Oreia to supply all of us. We could build somewhere new. Find somewhere entirely different, with no memories of the men and the violence. It is worth consideration, is it not?”
It was. Every word she had spoken was true, but I did not have the capacity to consider it.
“Tonight, we sleep,” I said. “Tomorrow, I will decide.”
I thought my words would be enough, but her expression tightened instead.
“There is one other thing,” she said. “We could consider butchering the dead horses. There is so much meat, they could provide a worthy offering to the gods.”
From her tone, I knew Sotiria expected the same reasonable response as her first request, yet I straightened my back and locked my gaze on hers, making no attempt to hide the anger that flashed in my eyes.
“We would not have survived today without those horses. Your women would not have their freedom without those horses. The horses were gifts from the goddess Artemis. I will let you know my ruling on Oreia in the morning, but advise your women to hold their tongues when it comes to the animals.”
“I apologize,” Sotiria said, lowering her head. A moment later, she left me there to be haunted by the ghosts of my actions.