Page 18 of Minas (Dying Gods #4)

Sira

We do not make it to Zominthos by nightfall.

“We will make camp here,” Inanna proclaims, with all the certainty of one used to being obeyed. I was surprised to learn that she wasn’t the first acolyte to Astarte’s high priestess. Not even close to it, although she has served that goddess her whole life.

‘Birth still means more than it should,’ was all she had said on the matter. ‘The third daughter of a doulos cannot expect to lead a temple.’

I hadn’t had the strength to argue with her, and the wild, icy wind would have whipped my words away if I’d tried. But it hadn’t seemed right.

“You’re frowning,” Lykos observes, head cocked as he studies me.

He does that a lot, I’ve noticed, and he hasn’t left my side all day. In fact, I don’t think there’s been a moment where he hasn’t been close enough that I could have reached out to touch him, had I desired it.

Which, I don’t, of course.

I stare at the somber, barren landscape, strewn with boulders and the occasional gnarled shrub. A thin copse of trees shudders in the wind, any sign of autumn leaves blown away long ago from their naked branches. There is no Knossos, no coast. No farmland or carefully tended olive trees. The only landmark is Mount Ida, looming above us, like a monument carved by the hands of the gods themselves.

“I do not like this place,” I whisper, pitching my voice low so that Astarte’s servants don’t hear me. “This is Diktynna’s dominion. It… it feels wrong to sleep here.” Not to mention, there are only rocks and dried branches for our beds.

“You are right to be wary, minas. But be wary of mortals as well as gods.” Lykos inclines his head to where a few of Astarte’s servants are huddled together, talking amongst themselves in the fading evening light.

I follow his gaze and feel my heart sink. I don’t want to distrust these women who have risked everything to help me escape Knossos.

But, maybe he is right.

After all, I trusted Britomartis with my secret, told her that my sister had killed my mother and sister to take the throne. Never once did she tell me that my sister’s claim on the throne was forfeit. Never once did she tell me that I ought to rule in her place.

Worse, since speaking to Inanna on our long walk through the wilds, I have discovered that she learned my secret from Britomartis. That Britomartis told her what my sister did. And that Britomartis sent a dove to her, and to countless others, demanding aid to remove Xenodice from Knossos, and put me in her place.

As Minas Crete.

“And yet I should trust you,” I say, forcing my tone to be light, teasing, even as my cheeks heat with embarrassment as I remember those days with Britomartis. How eagerly I threw myself at her. How foolishly I opened my heart to her.

“Of course not,” Lykos snorts, giving me a rakish grin. “You absolutely should not trust me.” His smile falls, expression growing uncharacteristically serious. “You should trust your own judgement, Sira, no one else’s. Trust your eyes and ears. Trust the sword in your hand.”

His gaze drops to my waist, to the useless gold belt draped low across my hips, from the same stupid ceremonial outfit I’d been dressed in last night. “Oh. You don’t have a sword.” A little half smile, almost like he’s laughing at himself, then, “Well. That won’t do, will it?”

Without warning, he reaches to his waist, unbuckling one of the sword belts slung across his hips, then shoves it to me. I blink in surprise, staring at it as if it’s a writhing serpent, rather than a sheathed blade.

“I… um…”

“You do know how to use a blade, don’t you? I was under the impression all you Keptui women were fearsome fighters.”

“We are.” I straighten my shoulders and snatch the offered blade and belt from his hand. I don’t like the way he smiled when he said that, or the way his pale brown eyes glinted with amusement in the faded light. “How else do you think we have kept your kind from despoiling our shores?”

I instantly regret it the moment the words leave my lips. But if they offend Lykos, he doesn’t show it.

“Put it on.” He tilts his chin at the sword and belt, ignoring my insult. “And don’t hesitate to use it if you feel threatened.”

“Even by you?” I say, because apparently I can’t stop myself from wanting to rile him.

He lowers his head in a what could almost be a bow, were it not for the teasing smirk curving his lips. “Especially by me.”

“Sira, come here for a moment.”

My head snaps up at Drania’s familiar voice. She’s moving away from the cluster of Astarte’s servants, towards where Lykos and I are standing further along the path. Inanna and several of the other acolytes have gone into the scraggly forest, presumably searching for a place out of the wind—and hidden from any who might be trailing us.

“I was wondering if I could get your help with a private matter.” Drania’s tone is curt, and though her face is shadowed by the hood of her cloak and the failing light, I can’t help but feel like she’s frowning at me. “If you can leave your Achean guard for a moment, that is.”

“He is not my guard,” I say, forcing my voice to be calm, yet firm. The way I remember hearing my mother speak to those who would come to quarrel with her. “What do you require of me?”

I don’t know why Drania doesn’t like me. Perhaps she regrets turning against Xenodice to help me escape. Perhaps she doesn’t believe that I can be the minas my people need me to be. If it’s the latter, I can’t say I fault her. Not when my own doubts weigh heavy on my shoulders.

“It’s best I show you,” she says sharply, casting a distrustful glance in Lykos’ direction. “And it’s best discussed away from the ears of Acheans.”

With that she turns on her heel, striding towards some heavy boulders uphill from the path, their shapes no more than shadows silhouetted in moonlight.

Lykos makes a dissatisfied sound in the back of his throat as I start to follow. I shoot him a warning glare. If I am to be minas to my people, I must at least help those who have risked everything to support me.

He grasps my hand, ignoring my attempts to pull free of his hold. “Keep your eyes open, Keptui.” His voice is a low whisper, brushing against the shell of my ear. “Trust only your own heart, your own eyes.”

I swallow, mouth dry as I stare up at him in question. What does he mean? Surely Drania wouldn’t hurt me, regardless of whether she likes me or not.

He presses my hand to the hilt of my borrowed sword in reply. “Please,” he grits out, jaw ticking.

When he releases me, snow-kissed wind dances through the weave of my cloak, making me long for the warmth of his touch.

By the time I catch up with Drania, she’s nearly out of sight, her cloaked form obscured in darkness as she leans against a large boulder. Her companions from earlier are nowhere to be seen.

“What is it?” I ask, my heart thundering with a mixture of excitement at the thought of being useful and fear that I will fail. “What do you need of me?”

Drania scoffs at that, a low, almost indistinguishable sound. “Need of you? What could I possibly need from someone like you? Soft, weak, naive as a child.”

My heart plummets at her words, even as my shoulders stiffen. Why lead me away, then? Was it merely to insult me?

Drania peels away from the boulder, her hood slipping back. “You’re nothing more than a piece in a game. Like one of those carved figures on a senet board. You realize that, don’t you? The Achean had to carry you from Knossos, for gods sake.”

Clouds shift in the wind, peeling back like a curtain to reveal a sky smattered with stars. My gaze snags on them, on the vastness of the starry god’s realm, before dropping back to see Drania staring at me with a look so full of scorn it has ice rushing down my spine. My fingertips prickle.

“You did not choose me.” I flex my hands at my side. A warning is buzzing beneath my skin, sharp and indiscernible as the millions of stars glowing above us. “I understand that.” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “But I swear to you, I will always put our people first.”

“Our people,” Drania echoes bitterly.

She kicks at some loose stones, the noise of them startling in the still darkness, making me flinch despite myself.

“What do you know of our people? You, who has never known hunger, or the exhaustion of working from dawn to dusk. You, who has never had to accept some sweating, disgusting man between your thighs in the name of a goddess who has forgotten us. Who has never had to choose between serving that goddess or serving some cruel lawagetas. You, who has never felt the shackles of being a third daughter—an enslavement more permanent than the service of any doulos, because they at least can taste freedom at the end of seven years, but we, we are always third daughters. Always less. Always serving our sisters, our mothers, our grandmothers, but never ourselves.”

“I am a third daughter-”

“You were never a third daughter.” Drania cuts off my words on a hiss, like a blade cutting through air. “Not like me. You were the daughter of a minas. You have never known hunger. You have never known want.”

I open my mouth, then close it again, uncertain of what I could possibly say to refute that. Because it’s true. Even this past year, trapped in Potina’s temple, praying for the dead or some newly-blooded young woman, or tenderly dressing the wrinkled corpse of some grandmother, or hunched over my loom—I have never gone hungry.

“You are right,” I say, stepping closer, pressing one hand to my chest. To the bare skin still exposed by my ceremonial garb, ill-suited as it is to the icy winds of Mount Ida. “I have not suffered as you have. I cannot know your pain. But chains wrought of gold are still chains. And while my cage might have been more comfortable than yours, it was a cage nonetheless.”

Drania’s sneer deepens at my words, her lips peeling back until her teeth are bared. “Save your honeyed words for Potina,” she hisses. “I do not care to hear them.”

I stare wide-eyed as her hand flies to her hip, to the small sword sheathed there. It’s as if time slows down, and every detail casts itself in sharp relief in my mind. The arch of Drania’s eyebrow, the huff of breath clouding from her lips. The singing whisper of bronze slipping free from leather, the glint of metal under moonlight. The stars peeking through the clouds, their brilliance dimmed by the heavy waning moon.

And then, it’s as if the cold fire of those stars has lit itself inside me.

I move. I burn. My vision whites at the edges as I grasp the hilt of Lykos’ sword, pulling it free, the weight unfamiliar and yet steadying as I swing it blindly in front of me.

Drania’s blade hits mine with more force than I would have expected. I grunt, nearly losing my grip. But I don’t. By the mercy of the gods, I don’t.

“Weakling,” Drania hisses, bringing her arm back, her wrist twisting as she angles her blade for another blow. “You do not deserve to be minas.”

This time, the hit scrapes off my borrowed sword, the sharp tip of her blade scratching my exposed knuckles. I gasp, then jump back as she thrusts towards my unguarded thigh. I am not fast enough. Not fast enough, not strong enough. Her blade catches in the thick folds of my layered skirt before I can stop it.

The near hit seems to fuel Drania’s rage. She lunges, sword hacking at my own. My arms tremble with each strike, knees threatening to buckle against the force of her. I’m panting, cold air searing my lungs, my racing heart screaming against my ribs.

I’m not fast enough.

There’s another slash against the back of my hand. A scrape along my arm. A prick against my hip that has blood blooming beneath the linen, warmth trickling down my thigh.

I barely feel it.

All the while, Drania curses me, words swarming around me like wasps. I don’t hear them. Don’t understand them. I focus on her blade. But it still isn’t enough.

I am still not enough.

Her blade twists, twining around my own like a venomous serpent. And then my sword is sailing through the air, twirling above our heads like an acrobat leaping over a bull.

I watch it, stupidly staring at it as if I can somehow call it back. Like maybe, if I wish hard enough, I can go back to when it was safely grasped in my hand. Or even further back, to when I was safe in Knossos, with my mother still alive and the sound of children’s laughter filling the courtyard.

But there is no going back. My sword clatters to the ground.

Drania raises her blade over her head, the metal bright as starlight. My empty hands flutter uselessly in front of me, like autumn leaves already dead before the wind steals them. Time slows, as if the gods themselves know these are my final moments.

Behind Drania, a few stars fall, burning brilliant against the sky. I wonder what ancient immortals have lost their place in Asterion's realm today. I see them, and that blade, moving inevitably towards me, and think of Britomartis. Of her lips on mine, and her sweet whispers and the lamplight dancing across her skin.

I will never see her again.

There’s a hot, screeching sound, like a hundred arrows fired at once, like a storm against the cliffs at Amnisos. Like Potina herself is screaming. At first, I think it is the sound of my soul, of that goddess-blessed piece of me giving its last cry to a world I’m not ready to leave.

But then Drania falls, collapsing like a dropped banner, the flat of her blade hitting my booted feet before it clatters against stone. I stare down at her in disbelief, my mind not quite understanding what I’m seeing.

Drania’s eyes stare up unseeingly at the starlit sky, legs folded beneath her, arms spread wide. But no arrow has felled her, no blade has cut her down. Instead, there is a stone imbedded in her chest, black as jet, streaked with silver, as if has swallowed up the stars themselves. Blood blooms around it, seeping into the linen of her tunic. Steam rises in the icy air, hissing softly, like a discontented snake.

Drania is dead. Killed by a… stone.

Instinctively, I glance up to the stars, half expecting to see more stones raining down on us, but there is only laughing starlight, bright and cold. Untouchable as the gods themselves.

“Sira.”

Strong arms wrap around me, the familiar scent of leather and sweat strangely comforting.

“I heard a scream. I came as soon as I realized… I’m sorry. Poseidon’s cock, I’m sorry. I should never have let you go with her.”

Lykos turns me to face him, his hands and eyes skating frantically over my injuries with an almost feral look of panic. “She hurt you.”

I peer down at my body, at the dark staining the fabric of my tunic, the dark lines across my bare arms, the dark patches on my brown cloak.

I suppose I am hurt.

I don’t feel anything.

“I’ll kill her,” he hisses. “That lying snake. I’ll make her wish for Potina’s underworld.”

“She is already there,” I rasp, nodding towards where Drania lays sprawled behind me. I don’t particularly want to look at her again.

I have seen many dead bodies. Washed them and dressed them and sang the sacred chants to help their souls along Potina’s dark halls. It is not Drania’s corpse that frightens me.

It’s the stone.

Lykos rushes to where Drania lays, dropping to his knees to inspect her fallen form, his hands hovering over her, but not touching. “Zeus’ hand,” he murmurs, sounding reverent as a supplicant before a goddess’ altar. “Or rather, Asterion’s hand…”

He gazes from the stone, to the sky, to me, his eyes so wide that even in the moonlight, I can see the whites of them fully.

“Asterion struck her down.”

He says it with such conviction, such certainty, that I feel a frisson of fear sluice through me.

“Asterion?”

There’s a strange achy longing when I say that name, even though I know Lykos isn’t talking about my brother. A brother I haven’t seen in over a year. A brother who is somewhere across the sea, with Britomartis.

No, Lykos is talking about my brother’s namesake. The god of starlight. The great bull who pulls the stars across the sea.

“Who else?” Lykos’ voice is higher than usual, as if he’s on the verge of hysterical laughter. He steps away from Drania. “He sent the heart of a star from the heavens.” He points one trembling hand to the stone that lays imbedded in Drania’s chest. “A star. Gods above.”

“A star?” I whisper, recalling the stars I had seen shooting across the sky as Drania fought me. The screeching flash as I had stood unarmed before her, completely at her mercy. “A star for me?”

Lykos drags one hand over his face, then stumbles across the rocky ground toward me, taking my hands in his own and dropping to his knees before me. “For you. For the Minas Crete.”

Minas .

I swallow, then tense when I see movement at the distant tree line. Hooded figures emerge from the shadows. The rest of Astarte’s servants. Do they feel the same way that Drania did? Will they be angry to find one of their own dead, and me living?

Will they try to kill me too?

Lykos follows my gaze. “They will have to accept your claim,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. “If there were any doubts, there can be none now. Not when they see what the gods themselves will do to those who try to harm you. Not when they see that even Asterion himself watches over you.”

All the same, he rises to stand, placing himself between me and Astarte’s servants as he unsheathes his blade.