Chapter Forty-Six
A woman was curled up next to the main tentpole, slight and shivering.
I realized why I hadn’t seen her initially—I had assumed she was a bag or a blanket.
She seemed harmless enough, but the last time something told me it had been waiting for me, they had a giant rock-monster sister who wanted to eat me.
“Who are you?” I asked as I crept closer to her. My hand went to my xiphos, ready.
“You won’t need that.”
She had a bandage wrapped around her eyes. She couldn’t see me. How had she known what I was doing?
“I am an oracle from Phocis. From a family of seers, but I was the most powerful. I was captured by the Carians, and they used my family to force me to prophesy for them.”
As I crouched down I realized that she was tied up to the main pole. I reached for her bindings, but she said, “No.”
“Let me free you,” I said. I would get her out of here.
“You should hate me. I told them that the savior of Ilion would be a Locrian maiden. It was why they tried to take you from your ship before you reached Troas.”
“But you just said they used your family to force you to comply.” I couldn’t blame her for that. I would have done the same thing in her position.
She hung her head low. “I went along with it until my youngest sister got sick and they wouldn’t take her to a healer.
I stopped doing what they wanted. I wouldn’t give them more.
That was when Artemisia joined the camp.
She killed my entire family in front of me, saving my mother for last. Then she blinded me so that the last thing I ever saw was my mother’s death. ”
That was so beyond horrific that for a moment I didn’t even know what to say. “I’m so sorry. Come with me. My sister can help you.”
She tugged down the corner of her tunic and I saw that her skin was mottled, bright red.
Like she had a terrible rash. “I have a wound that is infected. My blood has been poisoned. I have been fighting death because I was waiting for you. I knew that when I heard your voice, I would die soon after.”
“Why have you been waiting for me?”
“The god of prophecy wants me to tell you that his prophecies cannot be circumvented.”
My heart flew into my throat, expanding so wide that I could barely breathe. I knew how things had to be, but to hear it like this . . . “Will Ilion win this war?”
“The future is always shifting, always changing from one moment to the next. But your sacrifice will be necessary if you want any chance of saving Ilion and Locris.”
I nodded, wiping away the tears that fell down my cheeks. I was going to die.
All that hope I had told myself to have dissipated into the gloomy air surrounding us.
“Euthalia of Locris, remember that love is fire. Creation and destruction. It can be wielded either way—as a tool, or as a weapon.”
I was about to ask her what that meant, but she spoke again. “You’re running out of time. Go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to cut you loose?” I asked as I stood up.
“I’m sure. In a few minutes I will be joining my family in the next world.” After a beat she added, “The tent you need is not the one you seek. Look in the smaller tent to the south of that one.”
I didn’t want to leave her. If she was going to die, I didn’t want her to be alone. “Aren’t oracles supposed to be mysterious?”
“We are. I’m tired,” she said with a small smile. “Go, before it’s too late.”
I went back out into the rain, heading toward Artemisia’s tent. I saw the red banner and followed it. I still wasn’t sensing Xander, but I had to push that out of my mind and concentrate on what I was doing.
He was here, he was alive, and I would find him.
I located the tent the oracle had told me about and went inside.
Xander wasn’t there.
It was another man, faced away from me. Chained to the ground with a gag in his mouth.
The oracle had been mistaken.
I was about to leave when the man turned to look at me.
The entire world came to a complete stop. White noise rushed in my ears and my lungs would not cooperate. I couldn’t breathe.
All I could do was stare.
“Haemon?” I asked in disbelief.
My brother nodded.
With tears in my eyes, I knelt down and got the gag out of his mouth. “By the goddess, how is this . . . how are you . . . what’s happening?” I asked.
“Lia.” He sounded so weak. He was gaunt. His eyes were sunken. They hadn’t been feeding him properly. I saw open sores on him, new bruises, and older bruises that had faded over time. There didn’t seem to be an uninjured part of his skin.
I wanted to hug him, but I was afraid I would make his pain worse. “What did they do to you?”
“Look at you. You’re so grown up.” His voice. His smile. I had forgotten them. “Why is your hair red?”
As I sawed through the thick ropes at his ankles, I realized my entire family owed Doria an apology. Haemon had been alive the whole time and we hadn’t believed her.
“This doesn’t feel like a dream,” he said.
“It’s not. I’m here.” I put my hands on his legs so he could see that I was real.
“How is that possible?”
“I came to rescue my husband and found you instead,” I said.
“Who are you married to?”
“The king of Ilion.” I clenched my teeth together as I resumed cutting. Why was this rope so difficult?
“Alexandros? He was here earlier but now he’s gone.”
That stilled my motion as my heart stopped. “What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“He escaped hours ago.”
The sigh of relief I let out . . . I had thought my brother was telling me that Xander was dead. “How do you know he escaped?”
“There’s not much to do here besides listening. He got out of his chains and stole a horse. The guards have been panicking, not sure what to do. Artemisia doesn’t know yet because she’s been in war council all night and they’re afraid to tell her.”
She wouldn’t take the news of her prize possession fleeing very well. Someone’s head was liable to get flattened.
But I had seen her walking around a few minutes ago. Did that mean the war council was done? Would she come looking for Xander?
She would sound the alarm as soon as she discovered he was gone. Which would prevent me from sneaking Haemon out.
“Did he know you were here?” Xander would have saved Haemon, I was sure of it.
“No. We were kept in separate tents. Artemisia keeps me gagged most of the time.”
Fury licked its way through me, igniting every cell in my body . . . I didn’t care about all the recent resolutions I had made to be better. To do better.
I was going to gut Artemisia and watch her die slowly.
And I was going to enjoy it.
And then I would kill every other Carian I came across. Because this was long-term damage that had been done to my brother. Somebody else had been torturing him long before she had rejoined her people.
“Why didn’t they kill you?” I was almost through the rope. Just a bit further.
“Because I’m Aianteioi. Not even the Carians would risk crossing that rule.”
I had never been so grateful for the laws that governed how Ajax the Lesser’s descendants were to be treated. “They’re supposed to have ransomed you, not kept you locked up.”
“Their king said that the law didn’t specify when the ransom demand must be made,” he said.
“So they were planning to just keep you as their prisoner forever?”
“No,” he said with a shake of his head, which I could tell took effort. “I don’t know what their original plan was, but Artemisia got their king to hand me over to her. She told me that she is going to use me in negotiations with our father. That if he will surrender Locris, he could have me back.”
Our father would have done it without hesitation.
She had intended for Locris to be the ransom paid for Haemon’s release.
And then without any kind of defense mounted, the Carians would have been free to slay every Locrian they came across. Just as Artemisia planned to do in Ilion.
She was so convinced her plan would work that she intended to do it twice.
I finally cut through the rope and pulled it free from his legs. He had so many sores and bruises. It made me angry all over again.
“The key is up there,” he said, nodding toward a tentpole. “Artemisia liked keeping it just out of my reach.”
I grabbed the key and used it to open the chains on his wrists.
“It was unnecessary for her to lock me up. I’m too weak to escape.”
“Was she poisoning you?” I needed to know so that I could have Io take care of him.
“No. She didn’t need to. Just constant deprivation.”
I refused to let myself dwell on my anger. I needed to keep my wits about me so that we could escape. Calm. Rational.
When I had initially made my plan, I had assumed that there would be guards at Artemisia’s tent. I planned to get past them by saying I had a delivery, making my way inside, freeing Xander, and then the two of us would take out the guards.
I’d planned for Xander to wear one of the guards’ uniform and armor.
But there were no guards nearby, and even if I found one, I couldn’t imagine that anything would stay on my brother. The armor would all slip off.
I helped him to his feet. He felt hollow, fragile. Like I wouldn’t even need to call on my aspect if I had to carry him. He swayed to the side when he stood.
“Come on,” I said, putting his arm around my shoulder. I would have to help him walk.
We went out into the rain and Haemon started to shiver. I felt terrible—he was suffering because of my plan, but there was nothing that I could do. I had to get him away from here.
When we rejoined the others, I wouldn’t be able to let him warm up or rest. We would have to move out immediately because, at some point, the Carians would realize that both Xander and Haemon had escaped and they would come looking for them.
With all the potential scenarios I had gone through with my adelphia, none of them had included finding my brother.
And not once had I considered the possibility that my husband would have already rescued himself.
I could see where I had come in and made my way there. We were so close. I hoped Ahyana would spot me and unleash her angry wasps soon.
But a tall man stepped out in front of us, his sword drawn and pointed at me.
Dolion.