Chapter Sixty-One
I was so stunned to see my former battle master that I couldn’t speak.
“Stupid girl,” he said affectionately. Then he did the most un-Demaratus thing imaginable and pulled me into a one-armed hug. If I hadn’t been part of it, I never would have believed him capable of it.
“Good work on the not dying,” he said gruffly when he released me. “Your hair is red. What did you do?”
I looked at him, still in shock that he was here. “Are you crying, Demaratus?”
“Daemonians do not cry. There was dust in my eye,” he said as he wiped his face. “Let me call for the others.”
He turned and shouted toward the boat closest to the dock. Thrax stepped behind Demaratus and pointed to his missing hand and delightedly mouthed, “Did you do this?” to me. I just shook my head at him and smiled.
“Cut off one man’s hand and suddenly that’s all you’re known for,” I whispered to Xander.
“To be fair, in this instance one is a lot.”
Surprise at seeing Demaratus in person had impaired my manners. I should have introduced him to Xander, but my husband did it on his own. He offered Demaratus his hand and they shook.
“I am King Alexandros, Lia’s husband. I love her more than my own life. I owe you a debt greater than you can possibly imagine. Thank you for teaching her how to survive.”
Demaratus’s face crumpled, and he turned his back to us while muttering about how terrible the dust in Ilion was.
It touched my heart how happy he was to see me, but I knew I couldn’t say as much or else he might run back to his ship and sail back to Locris.
When he faced us again, I asked, “How are you here?”
“I had a dream where I was speaking to you and you said that you were going to war and needed help. It took some time to gather men and supplies. And to commandeer the Ilionian blockade ships in the middle of the night.”
Oh no. “Did you—”
“Minimal loss,” he said. “We have brought everyone back who surrendered to be reunited with their families. Ship fights are pathetic.”
Soldiers walked toward us, and I realized that I recognized them. “Andronicus! Telamon! Linus! Polymedes!”
It was my regiment. I rushed over to hug them and they all talked at once, greeting me with grins. Then, almost as one, they took a step back from me.
“Who is that large man scowling behind you?” Linus asked me, his eyes wide.
“Oh, that’s my husband. Xander. You’ll get used to him.”
This time I did make the introductions, telling Xander that this was the regiment who had helped me train to run the tribute race. That improved his jealous glower immediately and he thanked each of them for training with me.
“Is Quynh here?” Andronicus asked me, and I heard the hope in his voice.
“She is. That man right there, that’s Thrax. Her betrothed.”
I saw how Andronicus’s face fell but I figured it was better for him to know right away. And it turned out to be a good thing, as Andronicus went over and introduced himself to Thrax and they had a very nice conversation.
“You were supposed to close the blockade,” I reminded Xander.
“I’ve been a bit busy,” he said. “It was on the list. But it’s a good thing I didn’t because if I had, the Locrians wouldn’t have had a way to get here.”
Behind the Locrian soldiers and the Ilionian sailors, there came a large group of men who wore armor similar to Demaratus’s.
“Daemonians?” I asked him.
He nodded. “We stopped in Olyer and recruited them to the cause.”
“We tried to contact them and they wouldn’t answer.”
“I owe this man a life debt,” a Daemonian officer said as he stood next to Demaratus. “He saved me in battle at the loss of his hand and eye.”
“Aristodemus is the commander of the outpost in Olyer,” Demaratus explained.
Saving his friend had cost Demaratus everything. It didn’t surprise me then that Aristodemus would be willing to join the fight if Demaratus had requested it.
We had a legion of Daemonians.
Artemisia had no idea what she was about to face.
Thrax came over. “We should take them to the barracks and find beds for them.”
“Agreed,” Xander said.
“I’m going to go with them,” I said to him. I wanted to keep talking to Demaratus. My husband kissed me goodbye and I walked with Demaratus and the men he’d recruited to join our cause.
“It’s strange that you’re married,” Demaratus said.
“It has been strange for me, too. Wonderful, as well.” He wasn’t going to care about my newfound happiness. “And speaking of relationships, I met someone I think you would like.”
“Oh?”
“Her name is Antiope. She’s currently in a coma, but you two are essentially the same person. I think you should marry her. If she’ll have you.”
“Why wouldn’t she have me?” He sounded indignant, and it made me laugh. I had missed him so much.
“How is my family?” I asked.
“About as well as can be expected,” he said. “They miss you.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed, suddenly realizing I hadn’t told him the good news. “I found Haemon! He’s alive!”
He grunted. “That will make your parents happy. And that mopey woman who was always at dinner.”
“Doria.” And they would all be thrilled. “Quynh is here, too. She’s going to get married.”
“You said you’d keep her alive and you did. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
It was one of the nicest things he’d ever said to me. Pride welled deep in my chest.
We passed through the gate and he muttered, “Walls. I can’t sit behind walls. It’s humiliating.”
“Can you do it for me so that I know you’re safe?”
He let out a beleaguered sigh. “Fine.”
Usually, when I made him sigh like that, he would take a drink. “Where’s your wineskin?”
“Left it behind. I need a clear head for this.”
He was so talkative that I had assumed he was already drunk.
“You should hate the walls, too,” he told me.
“Why?”
“Because as I told you, in all but birth, you are Daemonian.”
I smiled. “The walls are going to be helpful because there are earth dragons coming.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so?’” I asked.
“Do they bleed?”
I didn’t actually know. “I would assume so.”
“If they bleed, then they can die.” He dismissed the dragons as if they were irrelevant.
We arrived at the barracks and spoke to the officer in charge, who showed the Locrians and Daemonians where they would be sleeping.
Xander rode up then and my heart fluttered at the sight of him. I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face.
“Did you miss me?” I asked him.
“Always.” He kissed me. “Thrax told me the Thracian contingent arrived this morning and I came over to greet them. That must be them.”
There were a bunch of ridiculously tall men and women, all with yellow or red hair and the same blue tattoos as Thrax, loudly singing and getting into drunken fights, swearing at one another in their native language.
But I was distracted by the sound of a woman yelling. And when I saw who it was, it was like getting punched in the stomach.
Antiope.
“Who is in charge here?” she demanded. She was carrying a sword that I could only assume she had liberated from some guard on her way down to the barracks. This was why Maia had said to send her love. She had known that Antiope was about to wake up.
I ran over to her. “I was just talking about—”
“Where is she?” Antiope demanded. “Where’s Artemisia?”
“She’s coming. She plans to attack Troas.” I quickly filled her in on what she had missed while being in a coma, including Lysimache’s treachery and the false vows she’d made us take. I told Antiope that she was going to get the chance to fight very soon.
This seemed to mollify her. “Who are all these people?”
“Ilionian, Locrian, Thracian, and Daemonian soldiers. All here to fight. Including my former battle master, Demaratus.” I pointed him out to her.
Her eyes narrowed. “I noticed some of your bad habits when you first joined the temple. He and I need to have a word.”
This was not how I wanted this to go. I thought they might like each other if given the chance, but Antiope looked like she wanted to fight somebody.
I hurried after her but my husband was there, pulling me to his side. “What is happening?” he asked me.
“Antiope is going to . . .” I didn’t get to finish my sentence because she was already yelling at Demaratus. He kept responding calmly to her while she shouted about his bad training techniques.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but whatever it was, Antiope ordered him to take out his sword. He did so with an amused smile on his face. I had never seen him smile before. It was strange.
She raised her sword and attacked. I put a hand over my mouth because I had seen her fight before, and by the goddess, she was going to cut off his other hand.
But to my shock, Demaratus was holding his own despite the fact that she was goddess-blessed.
Antiope looked as surprised as I felt. Perhaps it was because she had just recently woken from a coma?
They went back and forth, neither gaining the advantage, and even the drunk Thracians stopped their arguing to watch them.
It was like when I’d seen Xander and Thrax fight during a training session.
They had been like two immortal gods locked in an eternal battle.
That was exactly what watching Antiope and Demaratus fighting was like. I had known Demaratus was good. I had never realized that he was this good.
Would all the Daemonians fight like him? If they did, this war might be over quickly. Not even the Carians’ red soil could give them the advantage over this level of skill.
Antiope was out of breath, something I’d never seen from her before. She stepped back and then dropped her sword on the ground.
And two seconds later she launched herself at Demaratus and kissed him.
My mouth hung open while the Thracians cheered loudly.
“That is the strangest and fastest courtship I’ve ever seen,” I said.
“Lions mate the same way,” Xander replied. “And isn’t this what you wanted?”
I nodded. I just hadn’t expected it to happen like this. I watched as Demaratus eagerly wrapped his arms around her waist, and then I turned away.
Because I did not need to see any of that.
It was like watching my parents kiss.
And it was strange to have these different parts of my world colliding. I thought of how Demaratus had called me Daemonian.
I was so many things now. A queen. An acolyte, a sister, a daughter, a friend. A wife.
A savior.
Locrian, Ilionian, Daemonian. I had once thought I had to choose one over the others.
To make only one of those things matter, but it wasn’t true.
I was all of them, and it was time that I started blending the separate parts of myself into one so that I wouldn’t feel as if I were being pulled in so many directions.
I could be many different things and they were all me.
And I was stronger because of them.
It was late when Xander returned to our room.
“The Carians have been spotted,” he said. “They’re not to the walls yet, but they will be here soon.”
I had spent the evening with my adelphia. Ahyana had complained about Rokh for a good amount of that time.
“He wants us to wait because of my broken ribs. I told him I’m fine, but nooo, he wants to be considerate and caring.”
“What a monster. Want me to kill him?” I asked her playfully, but she didn’t respond to my joke. I knew she was frustrated. I had certainly been there.
Suri called us over and we moved into position so that we could power her. She dug massive trenches around Troas, which expended a great deal of energy. I made a comment about how we were using the magic so openly.
“Things are going to change at the temple when I reopen it,” Io said. “The magic was intended for us, and that’s how it’s going to be going forward. All of Ilion will know.”
The soldiers had gone out and put wooden palisades inside the trenches. The ends were sharp and they hoped to prevent horses or dragons from getting closer to the wall.
Xander telling me about the army’s imminent arrival only served to remind me that both he and I could die. The fragility of our existence had become abundantly clear to me after losing my life.
And I no longer wanted to worry about it. I wanted to turn my mind off.
“If the Carians will be here soon, then we should make the most of the time we have,” I told him. “Undress.”