Chapter Four
Thalia
Sunlight filtered through the curtained window in Thalia’s quarters.
The scent of freshly cooked pastries and chai tea floated in the air, but she didn’t dare move from under the plush covers of the bed.
Light snoring came from beside her in the bed where Dafne slept, arms curled around her shimmering black psychí.
It was probably the first time in months that her sister had slept; Thalia could sense the ease in the way Dafne’s breath pulled in and out, remembering the first time hers calmed that way.
Mykonos hopped onto the bed with light feet, kneading on the blanket above Thalia’s stomach.
“I do not want to wake her, little one.”
“But I am hungry.” Mykonos peered up at her, yellow eyes bright and wide.
“You can wait a little longer. She needs her rest.”
“The prince will need your help to chart a course to Skiatha. You really should get out of bed.” Mykonos chirruped, bumping her head into Thalia.
“Since when do you care what the prince needs?”
“Since he brought me an extra portion of fish this morning.”
“You traitorous little thing!” Thalia narrowed her eyes at the creature. “So you have already eaten, and yet you still claim you're hungry?”
Mykonos cocked her head to the side. “Yes.”
Stirring came from the other side of the bed as Nyx poked her head up, teeth bared.
“Apparently, she is not happy you woke her.”
“Me?” Thalia shook her head. “You are the one that has been prancing around all morning, making a commotion.”
“Semantics.” Mykonos hopped back down to the ground, stretching out her legs behind her with a shake before freezing. Her hair stood on end and she turned her head over her shoulder, letting out a loud meow.
“Really?” Thalia glared at her. This cat did not take no for an answer, did she.
“Something is wrong. There is a commotion above deck.” Mykonos raced over to the door, pressing her ear to the wood.
Thalia closed her eyes, directing her focus on the thumping and muffled shouts coming from overhead.
Legion. It was the only word she could make out.
Gods dammit. The Lernaean Legion had come to kill them, take back what they had lost in an unfair gamble last night.
Shooting up from the bed, Thalia grabbed her sword, the amethysts in the hilt refracting a violet hue about the room.
Dafne rustled behind her. “What is going on?” she said in a hushed tone.
“Stay below, sister. Keep this door locked, do you understand?” Thalia slipped on her leather boots and attached a holster to her thigh that held two narrow bronze daggers.
“I can help,” Dafne replied.
She was too frail, too untrained. “No. You will stay here and you do not open this door for anyone except me.”
“Thalia—”
Thalia didn’t hear the rest of what her sister called out before she slammed the door behind her, praying Dafne would indeed lock the bolts and stay put.
If the Legion was here, Aarin would come to kill her, unless Thalia could convince him otherwise.
Unless she could barter something else away, a trade that even the Legion’s leader could not oppose.
A scream ripped from her throat as Thalia topped the stairs and raced onto the main deck.
At the edge of the dock, five men hung from the gallows, blackened entrails spilling from their guts.
The corpse in the center was tied by his wrists, only limbs dangled down.
A spike nailed the missing head to the hanging beam across, the only thing preventing it from rolling down into the tide-swept ocean beneath.
Although his skin had gone a ghostly gray and his eyes bulged from their sockets, Thalia recognized the man. Aarin.
Chills raced along her arms, inching their way up toward her heart. The low sweep of a northern breeze whipped from behind, shielded only by a tall figure that stood behind her.
“The prince,” Mykonos hissed.
Thalia whipped around, the vein in her forehead straining. “What. Did. You. Do?!” she screamed.
“I am not sure I know what you mean.” Cocking a brow up, Dimitris smirked at her. He was wearing the same formal attire as the prior night, though now it was speckled with crimson stains.
Blood trickled down Thalia’s palms from her nails, dug deep from clenching her fists. “Did you kill them?”
He shrugged. “Hmm…looks like quite the painful way to die, doesn’t it?”
What the fuck was wrong with this man? How was he smiling right now?
“Answer me! They are gutted—and not by a sword or a dagger, Dimitris, those are claw marks. I of all people would know. So again, I ask, did you kill them?”
“Possibly,” Dimitris drawled, wiping a trickle of crimson from his wrist. “Or maybe they had a run-in with a street dog. You know how vicious they can get if left unfed.”
“This is not a joking matter! An unprovoked slaughter of their men will send the entire legion after you—after us! Do you honestly think the rest of their crew will not want retaliation?”
“What crew?”
“You didn’t…”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, gatáki. No one will come after us.”
Insolent rake. This stupid, gods-damned insolent rake was going to get them all killed. What made him think he was above the law? Above the oath he took as a prince? As a Grechi?
“I’m glad he did it,” a hushed, but silencing voice echoed from the doorway.
Standing there, wrapped in a ruby quilt and clutching a cup of steaming tea was Dafne. Apparently, her sister was not one for listening to directions either. Her psychí, the now sleek panther, paws twice the size of her fists, circled around her legs.
“Nyx is very grateful you did as well. What they did to her was worse than anything they did to me. They deserved every shred of their flesh that you inflicted, and maybe the bodies hanging in the harbor will show that type of wicked man that they cannot take what is not theirs.”
“Perhaps, or perhaps someone saw him!” Thalia screamed.
Why were they both being so reckless? Especially Dafne.
She could not afford to be captured and sold one more time, she had already spent too much time with her bond cut off from Nyx.
Any more time apart and she might have begun to sink into madness—the curse that lies within all of them.
“No one saw me. Now, what do you say we set sail for our actual destination before someone can prove me wrong?” Dimitris said, hand clutched around a small wooden compass.
He strode over to Thalia’s side, brushing his fingers over her cheek before tucking a loose strand of her braid behind her ear.
“Don’t look so angry, gatáki, I did this for you. ”
Her heart fluttered at the words, skin turning a damning shade of rose. How was she supposed to spend the next few weeks with someone so reckless?
Cal’s booming laughter shook the deck of the Aphrodite when Thalia eventually made it back above deck, searching for where her sister had run off to.
He sat with Dimitris and one other person she could not quite make out, hidden behind the prince.
Padding over to the makeshift table that was lined with cheeses and meats, her eyes narrowed on the insufferable man.
Why was the prince always eating? And why was he sitting with her sister?
There was no way she was actually laughing at him, and yet Dafne’s shoulders shook, and it was paired with a full, brilliant smile.
The prince winked at Dafne and rose spread across her nose.
Thalia couldn’t blame her, Dafne did not really know Dimitris enough to be put off by his overinflated ego just yet.
If one took the prince at face value, she understood why her sister’s eyes sparkled and her chin sat delicately on her propped up hand.
Anyone could see he was handsome, jaw-dropping and intoxicating with his deep black hair that sometimes swept across his eyes in the ocean breeze—those silvery storm-swept eyes any woman or man would be grateful to drown in.
He was always dressed impeccably, much like today, with his tight brown leather trousers that hugged his thighs and a button-up white shirt, no wrinkles in sight, paired with a brown fur cloak that hung over his shoulders, shielding from the cold.
But he was a womanizing fool and that was enough to make him untouchable to Thalia.
“You didn’t think to invite me to whatever this”—she waved her finger between Dimitris and Dafne—“is?”
“Oh, gatáki, jealousy suits you.” Dimitris’s brow arched up and he flashed those argentine orbs at her with a feral gaze.
Lip twitching, Thalia reached for a cup of wine that sat alongside the platter of food. If they were allowed to indulge in a break during the day, Thalia would be damned if she couldn’t as well. “And what exactly would I be jealous of?”
“Me.” The word rolled off Dafne’s tongue with a twinge of poison as dark as the hair cascading down her back. Oh, she did not miss her sister’s cruel—and entirely incorrect—sense of humor.
“You can have him, sister. I prefer a man with substance.”
Dimitris’s jaw feathered and his knuckles went white as he gripped the stem of his crystal wine glass.
A pang hit Thalia in the gut at the sight—he was the one who changed his course to help her after all.
Gods, he was the reason she sat here now and not in some barricaded quarters on the Lernean Legion’s ship.
Although, he was also the reason the rest of the legion might set out to slaughter them all.
“I don’t understand why you loathe me so much. Did I not sit by your bedside every day making sure you were alright?” His words were gritty, straining through his clenched teeth in a snarl.
“You sat beside me because your brother asked you to,” Thalia replied. She was not going to have this conversation for the hundredth time with Dimitris. “Did you ever ask about me? Try to learn about what I love, what I’m passionate about? You were there because of duty…nothing more.”
Dafne looked toward Cal and muttered something Thalia could not make out and he gave her a cocked head, wide-eyed nod.
“And you would have let me?” Dimitris huffed, pouring yet another glass of ale.
“What?” The word came out in nothing more than a whisper.
“Get to know you. Because it seems to me like that is the furthest thing from what you want.” He took a long drag of ale from his cup, wiping his thumb over his lips.
“I—”
“You made up your mind about me already—that I am a shallow, callous prince who cares for no one but himself. Who only does things out of obligation—never of his own free will or empathy.”
“I never said that.” Thalia swallowed a forming lump in her throat. At least, not directly.
“You did. Many times you did. So I ask, are you any better than me, making flash judgments on a person you never bothered to get to know either?” The screech of wood against metal pierced Thalia’s ear as Dimitris pushed back the barrel he sat on.
“I am needed back at the helm. Cal, if you would join me after you are done, that would be appreciated.”
“Of course, Captain,” Cal said, shifting his eyes back and forth between the glaring gaze of Dimitris and Thalia before Dimitris turned, his right fist clenching and releasing.
“You really should give him a bit of grace, kóri.” Cal grabbed her hand and gave a light squeeze. “Has he once done something to you that would make you question his intentions, his integrity?”
Thalia’s face blanched. Gods, she hated when Cal was right. “That doesn’t mean he is a good person.”
“Maybe not—but where would you be, if the men and women of Skiatha had been so quick to judge you?”