Page 60 of A Queen and HER Bad Boy (Spies and Royals #4)
As the afternoon sun climbed higher, they walked through the grove where the priest led them up the hillside.
The sea sparkled in the distance. “This sacred place,” Eleni said reverently, gesturing to the ruins with his walking stick, “is where Aeaeans have exchanged their vows for over two thousand years. The ancients built this temple to honor Aphrodite.” He smiled at their joined hands.
“They believed that vows spoken here would bind two hearts so completely that not even death could part them.”
Bris leaned against Achilles’s arm, taking in the mystical beauty of broken marble pedestals where offerings of wildflowers were left by modern couples seeking the blessing of ancient gods.
Below them, fishing boats decorated with twinkling lights bobbed in the harbor, their masts adorned with garlands and colorful streamers.
“They call them Karavaki,” Achilles said softly. “Each boat holds the family’s hope that the sea will bring their sons home for Christmas.”
The view was breathtaking. The combination of ancient romance and living tradition made her heart swell—no wonder these people guarded their home so fiercely from outsiders. Seeing their traditions made her wonder how much she really knew about these strange warlike people.
The sun moved higher as they climbed further up the hillside, the light danced over waters that never disappeared, only stretched endlessly.
They came upon a small shrine tucked beneath a gnarled olive tree, its stone surface adorned with flickering candles.
A weathered plaque bore an inscription in both Tirrojan and Greek.
“This is the shrine dedicated to the man who protected our people from invaders,” Eleni said with reverence. “We call him, the Shadow, because he moves as darkness to shield us from the royal army’s brutality.”
Achilles’s face had gone white, and he barely moved. “O Skia?”
“Yes, that is who I speak of. He sacrificed all he was for the people of Aeaea.” And Phoenix had him executed. Did this island know what happened to their hero?
The priest rested heavily on his walking stick, stopping to catch his breath on the sun-warmed grass, though he never could quite recover, and so his words turned ragged.
“Our seas hold riches—vast riches that make foreigners hungry with greed. A prince made secret pacts with these sharks who washed up on our shores to starve us out and steal what belongs to us.”
She was pretty sure she knew who! “Which prince did this?” she asked.
“The youngest of them.”
Atreus Mnon? Her breath caught. Not her father? But how was that even possible? He’d formed the Myrdons to fight against his brother’s excesses—at least that had been his excuse. Had Atreus Mnon been the one to start the problems that he pretended to be outraged by?
“Being the son of a king was not enough for Atreus Mnon,” Eleni said. “He would pluck out the heart of our lands too, take everything from us and his brothers.”
Achilles stared at the ancient limestone shrine, its surface pitted and scarred by time. “O Skia stood against Atreus Mnon too?”
“He stood against them all.” Eleni’s voice rang with fierce pride. “He would not harm the innocent. No crown was worth the blood of our people.”
Was this the real start of Aeaea’s rebellion then?
Not a power grab, but a moral stand against those would steal their resources?
Now the confusion that had haunted Bris since the beginning became a fog, and she felt for a moment that if she accepted this as truth, she’d stumble into a deeper pit.
The people of Aeaea weren’t the bad guys in this story—their government was.
A rustling in the olive grove made her swivel with a gasp, and suddenly they were surrounded. Dark figures emerged from behind the ancient trees, moving with military precision. Bris’s heart skipped as she pressed closer to Achilles, feeling his whole body shift into something dangerous.
They’d stepped into a landmine of rebels.
Achilles swung around to their formerly pleasant tour guide. The man’s eyes no longer crinkled up at the sides in good natured lines. “What have you done?” Achilles hissed.
The priest shrugged. “You wear his ring.”
Apparently, they weren’t the brilliant liars they thought. Throwing the wool over the old priest’s eyes had been as unlikely as their touching story about rushing into a marriage to pass a lazy Christmas afternoon.
From the shadows stepped a man with graying hair and swarthy features, his dark eyes so similar to Achilles’s that she gasped.
His father! They’d found him. He moved toward them with the brute strength of a guerrilla leader, his worn fishing sweater and canvas trousers making him look like any of the olive grove workers, though he carried himself with the bearing of a soldier, an assault rifle held with casual familiarity in his sun-darkened hands.
“That was bold of you to come for me… and with your wife.”
Achilles whipped around, shoving Bris behind him as his hand snatched at his weapon. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
The man smirked. “Phoenix has always been a liar, young wolf. He couldn’t execute me. Now… have you decided to cut your puppet strings and become my son again?”