Page 9 of A Spark in Time (A Knights Through Time Romance #21)

T hree days of being Athens’ pet oracle had taught Bebe exactly one thing. Being worshipped was about as thrilling as watching paint dry on a particularly humid afternoon.

She sat in what the Athenians grandly called her “reception chamber”—a marble room with enough pillows to stock a harem and frescoes of nymphs that seemed to mock her with their painted freedom.

The morning light filtered through the high windows, casting everything in the kind of golden glow that would have been divine if she weren’t so thoroughly sick of being treated like a sacred relic.

Things they don’t tell you about being a living goddess: the hours are terrible, the company is worse, and everyone expects you to have opinions about sheep entrails.

A delegation of soldiers had arrived at dawn, their bronze armor clanking like a percussion section that had lost its rhythm. Now they knelt before her in perfect formation, waiting for wisdom she didn’t possess about a skirmish she’d never heard of.

“The Thebans have fortified the pass at Plataea,” their captain reported, sweat beading on his forehead despite the morning cool.

His voice carried the particular strain of a man trying very hard not to offend a deity who might smite him for breathing wrong.

“We seek the Silver Siren’s guidance for our assault. ”

Bebe fingered the silver bracelet she’d been given—yet another offering that felt more like a shackle. The metal was warm from her skin, etched with spiraling patterns that seemed to move in her peripheral vision. Around her, the air hung heavy with frankincense and expectation.

Think, Bebe. What would a divine messenger say? She’d read enough Greek myths to know the basics. Gods were petty, heroes were doomed, and everyone ended up either dead or transformed into a tree. Hardly the sort of cheerful guidance these men were hoping for.

But then she remembered something from one of Alistair’s tedious dinner conversations about military strategy—something about high ground and supply lines that had nearly put her to sleep over the lobster thermidor.

“The mountain path,” she said slowly, letting her voice carry the kind of mysterious authority she’d once used to convince her mother she’d been at the library instead of the Cotton Club. “Victory flows like water—not through the rocks, but around them.”

The soldiers exchanged glances. Their captain’s eyes lit up with something dangerously close to revelation.

“Of course!” He slapped his armored thigh with a clang that made Bebe wince. “The old shepherd’s trail—it’s treacherous, but it would put us above their position. Blessed Silver Siren, your wisdom pierces the veil of mortal confusion!”

Oh, swell. Bebe managed what she hoped was an appropriately divine smile while her stomach performed an anxious Charleston. “The gods... smile upon those who think beyond the obvious path.”

The delegation departed with much bowing and clanking, leaving behind an offering of honey cakes that smelled like home and tasted like guilt. Bebe picked at one absently, watching dust motes dance in the sunbeam like tiny spirits celebrating their freedom.

Two hours later, a different soldier arrived.

This one was younger, his armor dented and stained with something that definitely wasn’t olive oil.

Dark brown splashes across the bronze that could only be blood—dried now, but fresh enough that flies still buzzed around him.

He moved with the stiffness of someone trying not to jar wounded ribs, and his face carried news like storm clouds.

“The attack on Plataea...” he began, then seemed to remember where he was. He dropped to one knee with a wince that suggested the movement cost him. “Forgive me, blessed one. I bring word from the battlefield.”

The honey cake turned to ash in Bebe’s mouth. “Tell me.”

“The shepherd’s path was... it was a trap. The Thebans knew of it, had archers positioned in the rocks above. Captain Nikias fell in the first volley, an arrow through his eye.”

The young soldier’s voice cracked. “His body rolled down the cliff. We couldn’t even retrieve it for proper burial.”

Bebe’s stomach lurched. She could see it—the captain’s eager face, now missing an eye, tumbling down rocks like a broken doll.

“The survivors... they ask why the Silver Siren’s guidance led them to slaughter.”

“How many?” she whispered.

“Forty-three dead. Twenty-two wounded.” Each number hit like a physical blow.

“The wounded... most won’t survive the night. Gut wounds, blessed one. The Thebans used barbed arrows.”

The chamber spun. Forty-three men dead because of her casual words. Her clever little metaphor about water and rocks.

The honey cake came up first, then the morning’s wine, then bile that burned her throat like liquid fire. She barely made it to the bronze basin by the window before her body rebelled completely, heaving until there was nothing left but dry spasms that left her ribs aching.

“Blessed one?” The soldier sounded alarmed.

“Get out.” The words came out raw, ruined. “Get OUT!”

He fled, bronze clanking in his haste.

Bebe slumped against the wall, her whole body shaking. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling—violent tremors that made the silver bracelet chatter against her wrist bone. She clawed at it, nails scraping metal, then skin, until blood welled up in thin lines.

Forty-three men. Forty-three.

She stumbled to the door, had to see—something, anything. Had to make it right.

“I need to go to the battlefield,” she told the guard, her voice still raw from vomiting.

“The Siren stays here.” His tone brooked no argument.

“Those men died because of me! I need to?—”

“The Siren stays here.”

She tried to push past him. He moved his spear horizontally, blocking her path. The blade gleamed, recently sharpened.

“Move, or I’ll?—”

“You’ll what?” Lysias appeared in the corridor, his face carved from marble. “Throw another vase? Demand terms?”

“I killed them.” The words tore from her throat. “I need to see what I did.”

“No.”

“They died because of my words!”

“They died because war is death.” He stepped closer, and she could smell bronze and leather and something medicinal—he’d been with the wounded, she realized. Had their blood on him. “Seeing corpses won’t change that.”

“I need to make offerings. At the temples. For their spirits?—”

“The temples won’t accept offerings from you. You’re divine, remember? Gods don’t apologize to the dead.”

She swung at him—a wild, desperate haymaker that would have made her boxing instructor weep. He caught her wrist easily, his grip firm but not painful.

“Let me go to them,” she begged, and she hated how broken she sounded. “Let me see?—”

“No.” His voice was stone. “You stay here. You continue being the Silver Siren. You give Athens hope.”

“Hope built on forty-three corpses!”

“Yes.” Simple, brutal, honest. “That’s what victory looks like. Corpses and hope in equal measure.”

She wrenched free, stumbled back to the window. Below, she could see them gathering—women in torn clothes, ash in their hair. The families. Word had already spread.

A woman, maybe thirty, stood directly below. She’d torn her chiton from neck to navel, scratched her face until blood ran down her cheeks like tears. In her arms, she held something—a helmet, dented, with a red plume.

The captain’s wife, Bebe realized. Holding the only piece of him they’d managed to retrieve.

More arrived as she watched. An elderly couple, the woman beating her breasts with closed fists while the man stood hollow-eyed, swaying like wheat in the wind.

Three children, the oldest maybe ten, standing silent while their mother wailed.

A young woman, heavily pregnant, sinking to her knees in the dust.

The sounds drifted up—keening, sobbing, the particular broken noise of grief that needed no translation. One woman had brought a knife, was cutting her arms in ritual mourning. The blood dripped onto the courtyard stones, dark as wine.

“Come away from the window,” Lysias said.

“No.”

“This helps nothing.”

“Good. I don’t deserve help.” She watched the pregnant woman below, saw her lips moving in what was probably prayer or curse or both. “That could be forty-three versions of grief, and I caused all of it.”

“The Thebans caused it.”

“I sent them to the Thebans!”

He moved behind her, not touching but close enough that she could feel his warmth. “You gave advice. The captain chose to take it. War chose the rest.”

“That’s sophistry, and you know it.”

“It’s truth.” His hand settled on her shoulder, heavy and warm.

“You want to starve yourself? Fine. You want to tear your hair and rend your clothes? Very Greek. But it changes nothing. Those men are still dead. Their families still grieve. And Athens still needs its oracle.”

“Athens needs a better oracle.”

“Athens needs hope. Even false hope is better than despair.”

She turned to face him and found him closer than expected. Close enough to see that his eyes weren’t pure dark—there were flecks of amber in them, like gold in deep water.

“Is that what I am? False hope?”

“All hope is false. We hope for victory, we hope for peace, we hope for love. It’s all lies we tell ourselves to keep moving forward.” His thumb brushed her shoulder, perhaps unconsciously. “But they’re necessary lies.”

“I won’t eat.” She said it flat, definite. “Not while they starve in grief.”

“Yes, you will.”

“You can’t make me.”

His smile was sharp as a blade. “Can’t I?”

That evening, he proved he could.

She’d refused lunch, dinner, even water. Sat by the window watching the families below, counting them. Forty-three dead, but more than a hundred grieving. Mothers, fathers, wives, children, siblings. The web of pain she’d woven with her careless words.

Lysias arrived with a tray. Bread, olives, watered wine. Simple food, soldier’s food.

“No,” she said without looking.

“You’ll eat, or I’ll feed you like a child.”

“Try it.”

She should have known better than to dare him.

He set down the tray, picked up the bread, and tore off a piece. “Open.”

She pressed her lips together, turned away.

His hand caught her jaw—not hard, but firm—turning her back. “I’ve force-fed dying soldiers who gave up hope. You’re not nearly as stubborn as a Spartan with a gut wound who’s decided to die gloriously.”

“I’m not?—”

He used her open mouth to his advantage, shoving the bread in. His thumb pressed her jaw up, forcing her to close her mouth on it.

“Chew,” he commanded.

She tried to spit it out. His hand covered her mouth, gentle but implacable.

“I can do this all night, Bebe.” Her name on his lips, for the first time. Not ‘Siren,’ not ‘blessed one.’ Bebe. “You can suffer nobly, or you can eat with dignity. Choose.”

The bread tasted like sawdust and shame. She chewed, swallowed. He fed her another piece, then another. His fingers brushed her lips with each bite, and she hated that she noticed, hated that even in her grief and guilt, her body responded to his proximity.

“The olives too,” he said, picking one up.

“I hate you.”

“Hate me tomorrow. Tonight, eat.”

The olive burst bitter on her tongue. Then another, and another. He was methodical about it, patient. His free hand stayed on her jaw, thumb stroking almost absently along her jawline.

“The families,” she said between bites. “They’re still down there.”

“They’ll leave at dawn. It’s ritual—they mourn through the night, then return to prepare for the funerals.”

“I should be with them.”

“You’re a god to them. Gods don’t mourn mortals.”

“I’m not a god.”

“I know.” He held the wine cup to her lips. “Drink.”

The wine was more water than grape, but it still burned going down. Some spilled, running down her chin. He caught it with his thumb, the gesture oddly tender.

“There,” he said when the cup was empty. “You’ll live another day to feel guilty.”

“Why do you care?”

He was quiet for a long moment, his hand still on her face. “Because Athens needs you. And because...” He stopped, pulled back. “Forty-three is a terrible number, but it could have been four hundred. Your advice might have been wrong this time, but next time it might save lives.”

“Or end them.”

“Yes.” He stood, gathering the empty dishes. “Welcome to war. Where every choice kills someone, and the only question is how many.”

“I want to see them,” she said. “The wounded. I should see what my words caused.”

“No.”

“Lysias—”

“Goodnight, Bebe.”

He left her there, her mouth tasting of olives and wine and forced charity. Below the families continued their vigil. She could see the pregnant woman still kneeling, swaying slightly. The captain’s wife had built a small fire, and was burning something—clothes, maybe, or letters.

She stayed at the window until dawn, watching them grieve. When the sun finally rose, painting Athens gold and pink like a wound, they dispersed slowly, supporting each other, leaving only bloodstains and ashes behind.

Forty-three men dead. More than a hundred hearts broken.

All because she’d wanted to sound wise.

The silver bracelet had left marks on her wrist from where she’d clawed at it, red welts that would probably scar. Good, she thought. Let them scar. Let her carry some mark of this day, this failure, these deaths.

Next time, she promised the empty courtyard, the bloodstained stones, the ashes of grief. Next time I keep my divine wisdom to myself.

But even as she made the vow, she knew it was another lie. Athens wouldn’t let her stay silent. Lysias wouldn’t let her fade away. She was trapped in this performance, this deadly charade where her words carried the weight of lives.

Somewhere in the city, forty-three pyres were being built.

And tomorrow, Athens would expect her to prophesy again.