Demetrios reins in beside the familiar shelter. He clasps me protectively to him as he swings from the saddle and hits the ground with jarring force. My teeth click together in my mouth. We pass from the sheen of rain into the low, dry interior. He crosses straight to the adjoining room and deposits me on the cot—his cot, and the same cot to which he brought me when I first arrived in this world. He checks to make sure I am comfortable, and then he cups my cheek with one strong hand, intensity bleeding from him in the shadows.
I study his face and the worry etched upon it, as though I might engrave his image on my mind.
The moment ends. He turns away to remove the boots from my feet.
Again I attempt to speak. Only a garble of sounds emerges.
“Anjeni,” he says, his voice as hushed as the rain that whispers against the tent walls, “I thought you were dead. What am I to do if you die?”
He does not say, “What are the Helenai to do?” I cannot answer him, and my heart might burst because of it.
The curtain parts and Tora enters, terror upon her. “What has happened?”
“She overextended her powers. Keep her resting. I will return to Cosi and the others. We should be back by daybreak.”
“Dima—”
“Tora, she mustn’t be left alone, do you understand? She’s stopped breathing more than once already.”
I did? I don’t remember.
Demetrios kneels beside my bed. He cups my face again, but this time he stoops to kiss my cheek—so near to the corner of my mouth that he might as well have closed that distance. “Rest,” he whispers. He holds my gaze in the dark as though to reinforce that single word. A chill supplants his warmth as he withdraws. He passes through the exit. Moments later, muted hoofbeats signal his departure.
Tora stands beside the curtain as though in a trance. Is she mortified by the intimate exchange she witnessed? I don’t care. There was nothing improper about it.
She shakes off her stupor and, with her customary composure restored, bends to check my condition.
I would apologize for causing her trouble, but my tongue still refuses to cooperate. My heart has gone out the door with Demetrios. Truthfully, so has part of my awareness. It’s as though I can pinpoint his presence even as he retreats from me.
Everything and nothing. I drift to sleep on those words, a splinter of myself galloping through the shadowed rains alongside the man who claims he loves me.
Huna attends me when I next awaken. Muted daylight illuminates the tent walls, but it cannot be long after dawn. I roll over and attempt to sit up, my strength renewed to a degree that allows me control of my own limbs at least.
My crabbed attendant thrusts a bowl of broth into my line of sight. “Drink.”
I sit up to receive the food. My vision fizzles into darkness and back out again. I keep my head low, pretending that my full attention is only on sipping my savory breakfast.
After a few swallows, I test my voice. It crackles in my throat. “Did Demetrios return?”
Huna grunts. “Not even an hour ago, with Cosi and Aitana and the others. What did you do, my foolish little goddess?”
I pause, the bowl near enough to my lips that its heat wafts against my nose. “I stretched beyond my limit.”
My head is much clearer this morning. This abject weakness resulted from expending magic through my projected form, I’m sure of it. I wasn’t anywhere near this drained when I attacked along Agoros’s thread to his physical sanctuary.
Projection magic must obliterate physical stamina. No wonder Agoros has yet to attack in that form.
I want to know the outcome of last night’s raids, but I suspect that Etricos will retreat to his own bed rather than reporting to me. Demetrios should probably do the same, but will he come here first or head straight to one of the guardhouses?
I’m selfish. I want him to come to me.
Almost unbidden, my senses expand. He is in the city—like a familiar face in a crowd his presence beckons me. I glance toward Huna, who has turned her back on me to ring out a washrag in the basin. Surreptitiously I set my drained bowl on the ground and lie again upon the cot, as though resuming my rest.
My eyelids flutter shut. I focus on that beckoning presence further in the city.
He’s going to scold me.
A ghost of a smile curves along my mouth. I don’t care if he scolds. I only want to see him, to know that he and the others are safe.
So I jump.
“You know by now what she is, Cosi! You know her nature! When you ask her to do these things, she will throw herself into the task—the gods alone know why!”
I stand within the council hall amid empty chairs while voices carry through the partially open door of the one private room at the back.
“All of our lives are at stake, Dima. She is no different than the rest of us.”
Who are they talking about? Aitana? Tora?
“She is different. She doesn’t belong to this world.”
Oh. They’re talking about me. I shouldn’t eavesdrop. I should return to myself, but something pins me here, keeps me fixated on the pair of brothers in the next room.
Demetrios presses on. “I don’t know what drives her to act the way she does, but if she continues like this, she will die. Where will the Helenai be if she dies? Aitana and Ria exhibit mere shades of her power. She wiped out an entire encampment on her own, while they could barely handle a pair of Bulokai foot soldiers.”
“That’s exactly why I need her,” Etricos replies. “Would you have me leave her in safety on her hilltop while the rest of us risk our lives to fight? We have given her everything she could possibly want. The full wealth and reverence of the Helenai rest upon her. She can sacrifice for us as well.”
A scuffling ensues. Half-numb, I ease up to the door that separates this room from the next. The slit of an opening reveals Demetrios with his hands fisted in his brother’s shirt, his face only inches from Etricos’s. “Not to her death.”
Etricos remains unperturbed. “Death may claim any one of us. It is the nature of this fight.” His brother shoves him back and stalks to the other side of the room. Etricos straightens his shirt. “Of course I don’t want her to die. She might have cleared all of the Bulokai camps within an hour with her magic if she hadn’t collapsed. It cost us all night and the lives of four good men without her. I need such a weapon to be strong, to be reliable.”
“She’s a human, not a weapon,” says Demetrios over his shoulder, a snide twist to his voice.
“In war, we are all weapons. The more she fights, the better she will control her power.”
“If she survives. If you ask the impossible of her, she will die trying to achieve it.”
Etricos grunts, a satisfied sound that rankles his younger brother.
“You think that’s something to gloat about?” Demetrios asks.
The elder brother shrugs. “I gave her to you, Dima. It’s your job to inspire her towards restraint, not mine.”
“I’ve tried—believe me, I’ve tried. She disregards my efforts.”
“You’ll have to try harder. Engage her sensibilities. Manipulate. She’s not that different from Aitana.”
Humiliation plunges through me. Is his treatment of me nothing more than calculated manipulation?
Demetrios rakes one frustrated hand through his hair. “You’re wrong. She’s completely different. Cosi, if she dies, any hope we have dies with her.”
The sympathetic smile on Etricos’s face lacks sincerity. “I know. That’s why you need to do your job. But don’t get in the way of me doing mine. A weapon at rest is no weapon at all.”
Demetrios growls his dissatisfaction. He stalks toward the door that separates us, and I back away on instinct. He wrenches it open. As he passes through, our eyes meet. He stops short, the blood draining from his face.
Somehow, in the intensity of their conversation, I forgot that I’m not really here.
“Anjeni,” he says, reachin
g one hand toward my spectral form. I wink out of the hall and back to his tent, landing in my body with a jolt. Huna still fusses at the water basin, oblivious to my small excursion.
I can’t stop the tears that leak from my eyes. Quickly I roll to my side, my back to the old woman. What exactly did I overhear? Etricos gave me to Demetrios? I knew he told him to flirt with me, but this goes beyond that. Has everything been an act, two brothers orchestrating my emotions to accomplish their desired ends?
I know I’m a weapon. I didn’t know it in such bald terms, but what else would I be? My purpose in this era is to establish Helenia, and certainly I must survive for that to happen.
But I have been willing. They didn’t have to meddle with my heart to persuade me.
The curtain flies open. Demetrios stands wild and breathless upon the threshold. I hunch deeper into the cot, my face to the wall.
“Baba, I need to speak with Anjeni, alone.”
“It is improper—”
“Baba, I need to speak with her. Alone.”
His intensity spurs Huna, who silently vacates the room. The curtain falls behind her.
I remain motionless, my breath trapped in my lungs as I listen for his approach. What am I supposed to say to him? I should not have overheard his conversation. Does it change anything?
It doesn’t have to—at least not externally.
“Anjeni—”
“I’m glad that you’re safe,” I interrupt, my voice more watery than I’d like. Carefully I wipe my cheeks with my sleeve. “The raids were successful, then? I’m sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“Anjeni, look at me.”
My eyes slide shut as I burrow fractionally deeper into the thin mattress. “I’m still tired, Demetrios. I only meant to see that you and Etricos had returned.” It’s a paltry lie—Etricos had nothing to do with it—but I squelch any sense of guilt. The pair of brothers has worked me as they might work a mule, Etricos to spur me on and Demetrios to rein me in.
“Anjeni, please.”
He’s not going to leave until I talk to him. I exhale a sigh and reluctantly push myself up. I can be calm. My purpose here still aligns with their goals. We are allies in this fight. “I’ll be more careful on future raids,” I say, my back still to him. “I didn’t know how far it would deplete me. I should have started with the lower intermediates instead of the higher ones.”
“You should not have done any of it. This is not your fight.”
I look up at him, wonder and sorrow and muted anger all at war within me. “It is my fight.”
“Why? You are not of this world and you will not remain here.”
I meet his gaze even though my heart feels like it’s breaking into jagged shards. “But my world depends upon it.” Demetrios recoils, and I elaborate. “My world cannot exist if the Helenai perish. It is as much my fight as yours. Perhaps it’s more. You hope to spare a few hundred lives, but millions depend upon my success.”
His brows furrow and his mouth tightens. “Is this the burden you carry?”
The question turns over in my mind. From the beginning I was a mistake, useless for anything but sarcasm and resentment. My advent here and the magic that it triggered give me purpose—something I wholly lacked in my own time. Resignation bleeds into my quiet response. “It’s no burden. The fates aligned to grant my desire, but at a price. I must see the Helenai establish a sovereign nation in these lands. I won’t die, if that’s what worries you.”
“Of course it worries me,” he says. “How could it not?”
How sweet. If only I could trust his motives.
“I’m tired,” I say, returning to the mattress, my back to him. “You must be tired too. You should sleep.”
“I will sleep here.”
My head snaps toward him. I half rise on my elbows, alarm lacing through me. “You can’t—!”
But he already curls up on the stretch of ground beside what should be his cot, where I rest instead.
“Demetrios,” I hiss, crouching on the bed as I look down upon him. He lies on his side, his back to me. “Huna will have your hide.” I prod him in the shoulder to drive home this point, but he ignores me. “Demetrios.”
“Sleep, Anjeni,” he says. “The Helenai need you to be strong.”
The Helenai need me. Their hope dies if I die. He acts to benefit his people.
The wall between us solidifies, and something in me breaks.
“Don’t tell me that!” I swat at him, tears spilling from my eyes. “I already know it! Don’t tell me that!”
Demetrios twists and sits up, astonishment on his face. My vision blurs, but when he reaches for me, I recoil beyond his touch.
“I don’t need your sympathy. I don’t need you to offer false comfort to keep me in line.”
“It’s not false comfort,” he says. He grabs my arm, but I wrench away. “Anjeni, please. Don’t misunderstand.”
“I’m not misunderstanding. I’m a weapon. I already knew it. And you have to take care of your weapons or they might fail you when you need them most.”
“You’re not a weapon! Cosi has no right to treat you like one!”
“He has every right! My whole world hinges on his success!”
He catches my flailing arm and yanks me from my perch on the cot, toppling me down on top of him. When I attempt to rise, he crushes me to him, tucking my head against his shoulder, wrapping me in strong, restraining arms.
“Don’t, Anjeni,” he murmurs. “Don’t misunderstand.”
More tears escape unbidden. In such a tight embrace, there’s no point in my continued struggle. I lie stiff, fighting the urge to melt against him, to accept the comfort he offers.
He sighs, and my body follows the movement of his chest. “You already know I love you,” he says.
Why must my treacherous heart flutter so much against a few paltry words?
“Is this where you engage my sensibilities to manipulate me?” I ask, miffed at both him and myself.
For the barest instant he doesn’t respond. Then, “I’m trying, but you never cooperate.”
And I laugh, a cynical response, because I’m too far physically and emotionally spent. Demetrios’s hold loosens enough for me to roll to one side of him. We lie next to each other, each breathing deep, each staring at the tent ceiling.
He clasps my hand in his. I should pull it away, but I don’t. Instead, I curl my fingers into a firm grip.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Etricos has no clue that I overheard any of his conversation. He sits in the main area of his tent, with the afternoon sunshine spilling through the wide-open doorway. A practiced smile leaps to his face when I exit from the side room. He asks my condition.
“I’m better,” I say, which is true. I’m able to stand on my own two feet without blacking out.
Demetrios, beside me, glares at his brother.
“No doubt Dima has told you our raids last night were a success,” Etricos says. “We have left men garrisoned at the camps to receive the next shipments of refugees.”
“Will they be strong enough to overcome the Bulokai who bring the shipments?”
“They will have the element of surprise.”
That doesn’t answer my question, but I decline to press the issue. “And what of Aitana and Ria?”
Demetrios speaks before his brother can. “They exhausted their magic last night and required rest.”
“Your students practice up the hill, Goddess.” Etricos points through the open doorway. “Dima can escort you there.”
“Where are you going?” Demetrios asks, suspicion on his voice.
His brother stands and straightens his shirt. “The other tribal elders wish for a report. Now that our goddess emerges unscathed, I go to speak with them.”
“I’m sorry if I caused you trouble,” I say.
Demetrios lays gentle fingers on my elbow, turning me toward the door even as he glowers at his brother. “Don’t apologize to him. You caused no trouble.�
�
A glimpse of Etricos shows amusement plain upon his face. Demetrios and I pass from the tent to the street beyond, where dozens of Helenai tend to afternoon errands and chores. They glance our direction but avert their eyes again when they realize who I am. Many heads bow in deference as I pass through their midst.
Puffs of white cloud dapple the sky above. My students have taken advantage of the fine weather to practice outside. Ineri oversees them, but she pauses their exercises when she recognizes me coming up the hill. Ria is with her. Aitana is nowhere to be seen.
My students greet me with reverence. Ineri exchanges an uncertain look with Ria as I approach. I take it that Ria has informed her of my condition the night before.
No matter. It’s good for them to consider the consequences of their magic, should they ever reach that level of mastery.
“Are you rested?” I ask Ria.
She nods, wordless.
“And Aitana?”
“She is resting still.”
My attention strays to the nearby dormitory. Is she actually resting, or is she being antisocial? Should I look in on her?
In answer to my question, as though summoned, Aitana exits the house. She holds her head aloft as she walks, her eyes looking past Demetrios and me as though she does not see us. She has been sulking, in other words.
She deigns to address me after she has joined the other two girls. “Goddess, I trust you are sufficiently recovered?”
I see. She and Ria reported my condition not only to Ineri, but to all of my students.
“I stand before you,” I say. “Shall we continue training?”
“We can manage, if you would like to rest.”
As if I would allow her to hijack my students. “I would not like to rest. My intermediates, follow me. Beginners, break into groups with Ineri, Ria, and Aitana.”
I sweep past the trio. In my wake, several students peel away from the group and follow.
“Don’t overdo it,” Demetrios whispers under his breath.
“I won’t. We’re practicing the upper intermediates, not any forbidden principles.”
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