Atalanta slows ever so slightly as she crosses the line, tilting her head back to the sky, eyes closed and mouth open in a laugh. The applause soars louder, ricocheting off and beyond the mountains, until I’m certain all of Greece can hear our corner of the universe.
She comes to a stop, and her opponent stumbles across the line seconds later. The crowd surges like a tide toward her, but Phelix and I wait it out. The waves eventually recede as she brushes them aside, and servants rush in to block her. I glance up to the rows of benches, now empty except for where Iasus and Nora stand on the top, looking down. Nora leans over and whispers something into his ear, and he nods.
Phelix grabs my arm and pulls me along with the throng of Atalanta and servants, and we trek back to the palace. They’re a flurry of laughter and excited conversations, but I look back uneasily. I wouldn’t be surprised, he’d said after his daughter’s first victory. I convince myself to shrug it aside. My faith in Atalanta runs deeper than his empty threats.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Atalanta
Each time I bathe, the dust of the racetrack gets harder to wash away. I’m not bothered by it. I like the reminder of the dust carving its way into my soles. I like the reminder that I am better than these men, my opponents. Finally. Undeniably.
I lean my head back, tilt my chin up, and stare at the ceiling. A few dull mosaics of Dionysus are built into the floor, but the ceilings and walls are bare. Bathing is not a necessity Arkadia can afford to be generous with. The bathing room adjoins my father’s room and isn’t used much—not with rivers and lakes within a few miles of Arkadia. But I can no longer go that far without suitors on me at every turn. I’ve avoided Zosimos relentlessly, but he’s the one who taught me all my tracking skills. I can’t forget that. I shut my eyes, and as soon as I do, I hear footsteps.
My eyes fly open and my hand reflexively reaches for my knife, just next to the bath. I raise myself into a sitting position, careful to move smoothly and not make any splashes. My knees tense, aching to stand and fight. I raise myself slowly, slowly, until I stand, knife in hand. Water drips from my body, and I cringe as it splashes onto the tile.
Her figure passes by the doorway fast, but it’s enough. I squint. “Kahina?”
She startles, her head whipping in my direction. Just as fast, she lets out a strangled yelp and jerks her head away. “What are you doing?”
The adrenaline of the almost-danger vanishes. Heat flushes up my neck, my face, everywhere, and I leap out of the bath, grabbing the nearest shawl. I wrap it around myself, and clear my throat. “Sorry.” Slowly, she turns around, her face still twisted in shock. Her eyes flick down my body once, confused and—is she actually horrified? I roll my eyes. “I could ask the same of you.”
I grab the torch from the bathing room and walk past her, lighting my father’s expansive room. It’s too big for the light to completely fill the space, but at least I can clearly see Kahina. She doesn’t seem happy to see me. Her jaw still hangs slightly open, her dark eyes furrowed. Finally, she shakes her head once and meets my eyes.
“I’m looking for the list.”
I tilt my head in question.
“Of the suitors who were invited.”
Her voice is steady, even if she still looks unhinged. It’s a simple but urgent request, so I walk through my father’s room. He’ll be up talking and bragging with the suitors for at least another hour or two. Or three. I hold the fire in front of me, inspecting the low sofas and his carved-oak wardrobe and dressers.
Kahina stays where she’s at. I feel her gaze follow me across the room. My other hand is still locked tight across my chest, holding the robe in place. I’m sure my hair is dripping all across his stone floor. A scroll lays atop the small table beside his bed. With some careful maneuvering, I’m able to hold my robe and torch in one hand and grab the list with the other.
I hand it out to her and she snatches it from me. Her eyes tear across the names. I stare down at my bare feet, at those thin and persistent lines of dust, and wish I knew how to read. Just as fast, Kahina rolls it up again with a relieved sigh.
“Oh, thank the gods,” she mutters. She tosses the scroll onto my father’s bed. I fight the urge to put it back as I found it. Kahina puts her hands on her hips and heaves another sigh. “Well. I’ll see you for tomorrow’s race?”
She moves to leave and since my hands are preoccupied, I call her name. Kahina glances over her shoulder at me.
“Care to explain any of that?” I ask, half a laugh escaping from my throat. Doubt creeps into her features. She looks like she did those first few weeks I’d known her, and it stings. “Please?”
She hesitates, but turns around and walks past me, sitting on the bed. She braces her elbows against her knees. “My cousin,” she says softly. As if it’s an entire explanation.
My eyebrows raise. She never told me much of her family; I know she’s from Corinth, a sea-trading city on the Peloponnese. She’d told me her father is a successful merchant who’d seen every corner of our world. He’d met her mother while trading in northern Africa. There was never a mention of any siblings, let alone a cousin. I glance at the doorway one last time to make sure my father isn’t near, then sink myself into the bed beside her. She hasn’t exhaled, and her eyes still roam across the ground—all signs I’ve realized she makes while bearing the weight of words unsaid.
“See, Atalanta—” She pauses again, looking to me nervously. My heart picks up. Her face is rather close. “You know him well.”
I blink, wrapping the robe around me tighter. I wrack my brain quickly, trying to think. I don’t know many people. Many fewer well. She turns her head sideways, so I can see her face fully—but I know every line and curve of it already.
Even when she finally tells me his name, my mind still won’t recognize it; it can’t reconcile that Kahina—brilliant, extraordinary Kahina—could share his blood. My voice stutters out the four syllables that I haven’t spoken aloud in months.
“Hippomenes?”
She nods carefully, as if any movement on her part might hurt me. And it does—only now am I forced to realize that for all their differences, they still have the same firm set to their brow. Their jaws are strong, carved by some divine artist. Despite Hippomenes’s pale skin and poison-colored eyes, the resemblance is there. It’s distant and buried, but the ghost of him suddenly fills the room. I wrap both arms around me.
“I saw the Calydonian Hunt, Atalanta.” Kahina speaks gently, but her words still embed themselves in my core, twisting everything. “I know he—that he—”
“Killed Meleager.” I’ll say it. I’ll say the truth, even if it makes me sick.
Kahina winces. “And not just that. The way he talked to everyone . . . especially you. I volunteered for the mission not knowing he would be on that hunt. If I had—” She pauses, and a thick curtain of silence falls. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened then, if she hadn’t been there. I wouldn’t have lived to find Arkadia, my father and brother, a chance at a new life.
Or her.
None of it would have mattered, because without her, I would have been the boar’s next victim. I try to process what Kahina’s just told me. “Why were you scared of your cousin?”
She gives me a grim smile. “My father offered me his ships. His entire company could be mine, once he retired. I was actually born on a ship, you know,” she says. Her smile turns more real.
“That must have been . . . stressful.”
But then her smile fades again, like clouds shifting over the sun. “Hippomenes believed they should have been his. His father was my father’s brother, and since I was my parents’ only child—a girl . . .”
Both of us understand how that ends. Both of us know how Hippomenes viewed us.
“He decided to take me away so he could claim it,” she says. The matter-of-factness in her voice star
tles me, especially after how terrified she’d looked as she read the list. “He took me to Delphi. He said it was just for a trading trip—I was hardly fourteen, I didn’t realize—” Her eyes stare into nothing. I find it oddly comforting that she and I both know the City in the Sky. My stomach drops as I wait for her to continue.
Her words come out stilted, but her voice never shakes. I lean forward, elbows on knees, and run my hands through my hair as she tells me how her cousin brought her to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. I don’t know how she doesn’t tear her hair out and sprint all the way to the god himself—I’m certainly about to. She tells me that the god’s priests and priestesses had all been affected by Apollo somehow. He’d given them all part of his gift: foresight, prophecy, some divinely infused glimpse into the cosmos. Kahina hadn’t been exposed to much before Artemis and her huntresses infiltrated the temple.
“But still,” she mutters, her voice low and resigned. “Ask me something I don’t know.”
“Okay.” I pause nervously. This might be cheating, but I ask, “Will I win the race tomorrow?”
Her neck goes slightly rigid—something I only notice because I’m staring right at her. “Yes.” She smirks. “Though I hardly need to be an oracle to tell you that.”
My cheeks flush, and I look away. “But isn’t that kind of . . . nice to have? To know things?”
She stares at me with hollow eyes. I’ve disappointed her. “It only works if someone asks me. It’s not my thoughts. Or my will. It’s invasive, and not fair.”
I hadn’t considered that aspect. The harsh sound of faraway laughter from the suitors drifts into the room. Suddenly, a million questions emerge from within me. I fight the urge to blurt them. When will these races end? How did my father lose me? What happened to Phelix?
The hardest one to keep inside is for her. Are you going to leave?
“I’m so sorry, Kahina,” I say. I’m not sure how else to say it.
She gives me a small shrug. I reach out and touch her shoulder briefly. Her eyes meet mine, and for a second—
“But he’s not on the list. And that’s good, right?”
I blink and refocus. “Uh, definitely.”
“He’s ruined enough for us.”
The memory of Meleager’s easy smile and twinkling eyes flashes before me. I drop my hand from Kahina’s shoulder. “I’ll ruin him if he comes after either of us again. I swear it.”
“You’re making an awful lot of promises, Atalanta.” Kahina stands, peering down at me.
“And I promise I’ll keep them all.”
I mean it. I’ll do whatever it takes for us to reclaim our lives.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kahina
Another handful of races rush past. I tire of the preparations, the crowds, the endless dawns spent trekking to that ellipse drawn in the dust. But as soon as Atalanta lines up and takes off, I remember why this plan is foolproof. I’m as guilty as any of the suitors; my eyes eagerly devour the daily spectacle.
After a particularly glorious race, and at Phelix and Atalanta’s urging, I take as many grapes, wine, and figs as I can wrap inside my shawl to the stables that afternoon. They’re already inside, and I walk in right as Phelix releases an armful of hay in Atalanta’s direction. She yelps, darting to the side, but small pieces still get stuck in her hair. They laugh harder when they see me in the doorway, and I hold up the fruit and wine like a prize.
The horses whinny softly, pacing agitatedly. They haven’t been out in over a week, and I stroke them softly as Atalanta and Phelix organize a haphazard picnic on the floor. Iasus’s mare, white as a first snow, nuzzles into my arm. I lean my forehead against her, murmuring nonsensical words until she slowly relaxes.
“Kahina,” Phelix says. “Aren’t you gonna have any of the fruit you stole?”
I roll my eyes, but settle down on the stable floor. The dust and hay are going to take forever to scrub out of my clothes, but I don’t mind. We eat in comfortable silence, the sweet crispness of the fruit a blissful release from the afternoon heat. I can barely remember the last time the three of us were able to spend time alone. The suitors, and all the preparations that went into their insufferable arrivals, have been all-encompassing. They steal more than just our lodging and our food: they’ve stolen this from us, and they want more still. They want Atalanta.
I grab the canteen of wine and chug a few sips.
As if she heard my thoughts, Atalanta turns to me. She nibbles on the remnants of a fig half-heartedly before sighing and tossing the rind aside. Her fingers trace random patterns in the dirt, but she keeps her eyes, gray and unwavering, on mine. But when she speaks, it’s to her brother.
“Phelix?”
“Yeah?”
“That girl you loved,” she says. I stare at the dust swirling through the air, because suddenly, it feels strange to look at Atalanta. Tension threads its way between us all, and I decide to take another few sips of wine. “How did you know? What made her special enough to change that whole temple?”
I feel him look at me, and I realize that now he knows that I’ve told his sister about his past. I hope he doesn’t hate me for it. He certainly would if he knew what I’m trying to do to it. He traces gentle patterns through the dust and hay on the ground while his sister stares at her lap. Phelix doesn’t look at us when he answers.
“Look,” he begins, voice flat. I bite my lip. “I straddle two worlds here. All the time. That much is obvious. It’s impossible for me to stand on either side, right? Not a prince, but not quite a servant either.”
Atalanta’s jaw tightens. I can tell she wants to ask how that connects to his love. I wonder if he’s resentful; his fully royal sister has been pampered and paraded for all of Greece while he clings to the shadows, lighting torches in the rooms he hides from.
“She was the only thing that ever made me feel like the middle was enough. Like I was born exactly into the world I was meant for.”
I swallow, my throat growing raw.
“And then what?” Atalanta asks.
“And then she woke up, I guess.” His voice cracks, and he blinks hard against the beginnings of tears. “I came on too strong, maybe. Her parents died when she was very young, and there was nothing else keeping her here. I can’t blame her for wanting more.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t it,” I whisper, because I have to. I don’t know who this girl was, but the memory of her has never left him—that much is clear. Atalanta hugs her knees. Maybe now she regrets asking.
Finally, and somehow too soon, Phelix stands with a sigh. He brushes off the backs of his legs, and with forced cheer, recites all the chores he still has to do by dinnertime. I wince with pity for him, but make no move to help—he wants to be alone. Phelix shoves open the stable doors as he leaves, and the sunlight spills in fast and hard, leaving me blinking rapidly until the doors close, taking the light with them. More subdued sun strains in from the windows along the tops of the walls, and I see Atalanta stand as soon as Phelix leaves, as if she’d been waiting for him to.
She stalks over to her father’s horse and asks, “Care to ride?”
“Do I have a choice?” I ask drily.
Atalanta glances back at me, unamused. She walks back over and offers me a hand up. I take it, standing slowly and brushing off my skirts. She drops my hand, then leans down and tosses me my leather saddle, which I throw across the dappled horse that Phelix favors. It physically pains my backside to watch Atalanta mount bareback. I jog over and open the doors to the sprawling fields and wild sunlight, then easily climb onto my horse’s back. We squeeze our horses’ torsos, urging them forward. Eager for flight, they break into a gallop almost immediately. The wind tears into our hair, and we don’t bother shutting the stable doors behind us.
In the late afternoon, the light drips heavy and gold onto the leaves. Wildflowers burst forth along our
upward path, and I try to steer my horse away from trampling on them. My stomach churns a bit from the excessive amount of fruit I’ve just consumed combined with the precarious trek up the hill.
Atalanta and I don’t speak as we finally disembark at our usual spot. The edges of the sky burn orange and pink, but gold spills all around us, and Arkadia below bustles with dinner preparations. I can see pricks of light where Phelix must have begun to light the torches.
“Why did you ask him that?” I finally ask. My eyes don’t leave the view below.
“I didn’t mean to upset him,” she mutters. “I just thought it’d help me understand him more. Maybe understand the temple, too.”
When I try to think of a reply, no words come. That answer wasn’t what I’d expected, but it makes sense. My cheeks flare, so I keep my face purposefully turned away from hers.
“My father rescheduled the races for next week.”
I frown and turn to her. She scoffs, and starts angrily undoing her braid. Her fingers trail through her hair until it falls in even waves of gold. “He’s having Zosimos compete in nine days. He claims it’s because Zosimos needs to leave before the harvest moon, but I know he wants these races over with. He wants me to lose. To him.”
Panic swells within me. I’m watching the ocean close in over my head, and I’m in way too deep. “So win,” I whisper.
“I will.” Surprisingly, she takes a few steps closer to me, until our feet are only a few inches apart. I frown, studying her. Her gaze strikes me to my core. “But, Kahina . . . I wanted you to know—”
“What?” I prompt, even though she hadn’t stopped speaking. My heart’s pounding faster than it ever has during her races.
“That even without the prophecy about my marriage, even without any of your ideas, I would still run from it. At any cost. Because . . .” She trails off, and I can see she’s frustrated. Her hands clench and unclench, and she heaves a sigh, staring up into the leaves above.
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