Page 2 of Minas (Dying Gods #4)
Lykos
“Perhaps your mood would be better if you wet your spur,” King Atreus muses, twirling the ends of his beard absently. “You always were insufferable when you didn’t have a lover.”
“Wet my spur,” I echo in disbelief, then turn my glare on the sea. Nobody calls it that anymore, except old greybeards. And Atreus, apparently.
The sea doesn’t deserve my ire, though. Especially when it stretches ahead of us in endless blues, Zeus’ pale sky resting on Poseidon’s domain in the distance, with no sight of land in between.
Just the way I like it. Or at least, I would, if there were wind filling our sails.
“And who, would you suggest, be the honored recipient of the glory between my loins? Argyros, perhaps?” I snort at my own joke, tilting my chin to where the keeper of beasts is bent over the rail of our ship, emptying the contents of his stomach for the benefit of Poseidon’s children. The wormwood wine, which cures seasickness in most men, has apparently been ineffective for him. “He has good hindquarters, I suppose. Though I doubt there will be much left of them by the time we reach Crete.”
Atreus grins but shakes his head. “He’s too high born to bend. Even for someone like you.”
“What?” I deadpan. “For a bastard?”
“For my brother.” Atreus claps me on the shoulder. “Many others would though. There’s a whole fleet, Lykos. I’m sure some of my rowers would be to your taste. None would refuse you , you know.”
I swallow back the bile at just the thought of it, my nostrils flaring in disgust. Free men in name only. Men serving out of desperation, out of hunger, out of hopelessness. No doubt any one of them would leap at the chance to be my lover, to warm my blankets at night. The brother of their king—even a bastard, even a fifth born—I would be a prize.
“Perhaps when we get to Knossos,” I say dismissively. “Perhaps I’ll find some willing Keptui to bend.”
Of course, I would most likely be the one bending. Not that I could ever tell my brother that. Bátalos , he would call me. A spur-taker. Weak. Less than a man. An embarrassment to my station.
Just another reason to remain celibate while at sea. When every single one of these men answers to him, there is none who can be trusted enough to bed me the way I would want.
Truth be told, there have been few who merited that trust, even on land.
“What of this queen?” I ask, if only to change the subject. “This Xenodice. I hear she is young and beautiful—do you plan to take her as your bride?”
I shoot him a teasing grin, but his expression grows somber, his gaze darting carefully around the ship as he takes a step closer, his voice lowering to a whisper. “Who have you spoken with? Was it Galenos?”
I blink in surprise and shake my head. “I was only jesting.”
My own gaze wanders to our ship. To the four ships flanking our own, bobbing like swans on the water alongside us, their wooden hulls low with the weight of all they carry. If a Keptui ship was to come upon us, we would be doomed. But still, these are our best ships. Our best men. Even some of our best horses snort and stomp beneath the wooden decking. Poor creatures. And now, with Argyros taken ill, they have only me to care for them.
“I thought you merely sought to secure more favorable trade terms.” At least, that is what Atreus told me. What he told our brothers and all the land-owning families who helped fund this mission, dangerous though it is. “To ensure we receive first pick of the copper from Crete?”
Copper that we desperately need, if we are to forge the bronze weapons required to defend ourselves.
Atreus squares his shoulders and juts his chin out defensively. “That is our purpose. I would not lie to our people.”
I lift a brow. “Of course you wouldn’t,” I say with mock solemnity. “You don’t have the cunning for it.”
Atreus glowers, but doesn’t reply. Partly because he knows that it is true—anything involving wit has always fallen in my domain. And partly because the only reply he knows how to formulate to such an attack would be one of sword or fist, and he won’t attack me. Not the brother he still views as a child. Not the only brother incapable of stealing his throne.
“Though we are heavily armed for simple negotiations,” I wonder out loud, tapping my chin with one finger. “And too heavily laden for speed…” I would say our ships were prepared for trade with the Keptui, but that’s an almost laughable proposition. They do not want our trinkets and baubles any more than they want our horses and men. “But if you were negotiating something more complex, like a marriage, you would want your men there. To show your strength. And then, of course, there would be wedding gifts to make, and then you’d need provisions for the perilous journey home…”
Atreus’ expression darkens, and he steps into my space. “Silence, Lykos. Must you always be so meddlesome?”
I grin back at him. “So, who is the lucky woman, if not the queen herself? Some sister or cousin?”
He bares his teeth, a vein throbbing on his forehead.
I shoot him a look of mock concern. “Oh. Is she ugly? Is she half-bull, like the queen’s brother is rumored to be?” I grimace. “That would be a secret worth keeping, I suppose. Though the people will discover it eventually. They always do, you know.”
“Zeus’ cock.” Atreus mutters, glaring up at the pale blue sky in supplication. “I should have left you at Mycenae.”
“Hmm,” I agree, brushing sea salt from Atreus’ leather armor. “But then who would help you negotiate your marriage contract?”
In truth, Atreus would never leave me behind. Not when I am the only one he can really trust—aside, perhaps, from Galenos, who doesn’t seem to have an ambitious bone in his oversized body. Not when there is no one else who knows these ships and this sea as well as myself.
“If I tell you…” Atreus drops his voice to a low whisper, “you must promise not to breathe a word of it to anyone. Not any of my men. Do you swear it?”
My teasing expression falls away and I school my features into something that I hope replicates solemnity. “I swear it, my king.” He always likes when I call him that. Perhaps because I rarely do.
His cheeks darken with pleasure at the obeisance and he clears his throat. “I will be taking a bride. She is beautiful, if the rumors are true. Untouched too—a rare thing among those Keptui women, you know?”
He pauses, and I realize he’s looking to me expectantly for a response. As if I know a single thing about Keptui women. I barely know anything about our own women, except that my mother is one. “Oh,” I say. “Yes, indeed. A rare thing.”
He smirks, apparently satisfied with my response, and goes on. “She is young as well—about your age...”
My nostrils flare with indignation, but I’m controlled enough to keep any comments to myself. Young. About my age. I have seen twenty summers. I have spilled the blood of beasts and men on land and at sea. I am not some youth.
“… and apparently of a tractable nature. Obedient. Quiet. Almost timid.”
His breathing is coming quicker, and I try not to wrinkle my nose in disgust—both at the smell of it, and because I can’t imagine anything more repulsive than being bound to some frightened Keptui girl.
“And, most importantly,” Atreus rubs his hands together, “she is Xenodice’s younger sister.”
Well. I suppose that is something. Though there will be many at home who would disagree—and quite a few who will be furious to see a foreigner, a Keptui, sitting at Atreus’ side instead of their own daughter.
Atreus’ dark gaze bores into me, and realization dawns. That is why I haven’t heard even a whisper of his plans so far. He knows the fathers of the great families back at Mycenae will oppose the union, and many of their sons are on these ships. I give Atreus a grim, joyless smile.
“Many will wish her dead,” I tell him baldly, though he must know this. “She may not make the crossing back to Mycenae.”
“Which is why you must not tell a soul. And why you will be charged with protecting her.”
I make a face—probably the same sort of expression I would have made when my mother asked me to remove my boots before coming into the house, or when my tutor asked me to read some particularly boring text.
Atreus makes a frustrated grumbling sound in the back of his throat. “Yes, protecting her, Lykos. You are the only one I can trust not to throw her in the sea. And you have a moderate sort of skill with the blade.”
A moderate sort of skill… “I could best any man on this ship, and you know it,” I retort hotly, then grit my teeth when I realize he’s been baiting me. And I, like the youth he’s accused me of being, have taken the bait.
Atreus smirks. I narrow my eyes at him.
I shudder at the thought of having her on board. She’ll probably weep the whole time or make unreasonable demands. My gaze darts over to where Argyros is now sitting against the guard rail, his head tilted back, his face pale, his eyes glazed. No doubt this girl will be sicker than our master of beasts is now.
And yet, Atreus is right. There is no one to do the task but me.
I give a resigned sigh. “Fine. I’ll watch over this Keptui for you. What did you say her name was?”
Atreus gives a satisfied grin, folding his arms across his chest as he leans heavily on the rail of the ship. “Sira.” He rolls the foreign name on his tongue as if it is a delicacy, made just for him to consume. “Her name is Sira.”
I take the first watch that night, just as I have done every night since we left Mycenae. Normally, I relish those quiet moments, when the murmurs of lovers fade away, when even the horses are still, with only the stars and the waves for company.
Tonight is different. Tonight, my thoughts have become a silent scream, cast up to the unanswering darkness.
“Is this to be my life, then?” I whisper to the stars overhead. “Am I to be my brother’s dog for the rest of my days?”
The stars glint against the black obsidian of a cloudless, moonless sky, but don’t answer. I squeeze my eyes shut, my fingers flexing around the wooden tiller. His loyal wolf, that is what he calls me sometimes, when he has had more wine than he should. As if I am a wild creature that he has tamed to do his bidding. A beast of tooth and claw, content to sit at his feet. To eat the scraps from his table.
If he only knew all the things I hunger for…
“Don’t worry,” he had told me, after boasting of the many supposed beautiful features of his soon-to-be bride. “I will find a good woman for you when we get home. Some pretty, well-bred girl from a respectable family. A girl who won’t cry to her father when you take a lover.” He’d clapped me on the shoulder, beamed at me with self-satisfaction, as if he’d just given me a gift. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
I hadn’t replied, but dread had twisted like a serpent in my stomach.
“I don’t know what I want,” I whisper to the stars. “But I know it isn’t that.”
The stars don’t answer, but the sea does, laughing merrily against the hull of the ship. Laughing, no doubt, because the gods have cursed me with an insatiable hunger that I cannot even name.
When I was a youth, I thought this longing would pass once I became a man, once I’d fought my first battle, taken my first lover. For a while I thought earning my brother’s praise, rising in the king’s favor, would satisfy it.
It has not.
“Fine.” I give the endless dark sea stretching ahead of me a petulant glare as the admission whispers across my tongue. “I want freedom. Laugh all you like.”
That is what I want, even if I don’t know what it looks like. Even if it is as foolish a thing to crave as joy or sunlight or love. I want that feeling I get when I set out to sea with a full wind in my sails. I want the exhilaration of flying across open fields on my horse, Cyllarus, with my brother’s city far behind me. I want the wild abandon of being held in a lover’s arms, with only sweat and skin and tongue and teeth.
I would give anything for it. If I could just grasp it. If it could be more than just a fleeting moment…
I’m startled from my sulking by the flutter of wings, followed by the dusty, feathery scent of pigeon.
“Zeus’ cock!” I hiss, releasing my hold on the tiller, my hand going instinctively to my blade. The pigeon stares blankly at me, it’s round eyes glinting in the starlight before it gives an offended fluff of its feathers, then lets out a mournful coo.
I chuckle, shaking my head in embarrassment. A bird. It was just a bird.
I take up the tiller again, then lean back until I’m resting against the wooden rail, the fat little bird by my shoulder. “You’re lucky it’s me on watch tonight,” I tell it conversationally. “Another would have snapped your neck. Men get tired of eating dried meat and fish, you know.”
The pigeon coos in response and adjusts its wings, lifting them and shuffling its feet beneath its feathered belly.
And that’s when I see it. A flash of white, glowing like a beacon in the dark, tied with string around the pigeon’s leg.
A message.
My heart leaps, excitement catching like a tempest in unfurled sails. I move, a grin spreading my face until my cheeks hurt, my hands darting out with more speed than grace to capture my prisoner.
“Got you,” I murmur, pulling the little creature against my chest, its wings pinned to its sides. It’s warm and soft and I can feel its heartbeat beneath my fingertips, a wild thrum, thrum, thrum that matches my own. Gently, I turn it over, rolling it until it’s on its back in the crook of my arm, its little legs sticking up, its little body going pliant. My fingers work to untie the message, deftly, quickly. “There!”
The message comes free, slipping with surprising ease into the palm of my hand. I release the pigeon, setting it carefully on the rail of the ship. It makes a sound of annoyed protest, fluffs its feathers again, but doesn’t take flight.
I eye it with interest. It must have flown from far away to be so in need of rest.
“What message did you carry, little bird?” I ask, the scroll pressing hard against the palm of my hand, the need to read it burning almost as bright as the stars above. “What secrets do I now possess?”
Unfortunately, neither starlight nor the strength of my own curiosity will let me read what’s on this parchment. I need either lamplight, or sunlight—though the thought of waiting until morning is a maddening prospect.
The bird stills, cocks its head to one side, and blinks. It’s a slow, deliberate blink. Intelligent. Assessing.
A chill runs up my spine.
“What are you?” I whisper.
The pigeon stares back, unblinking. I shift uncomfortably on my feet and look away, focusing on adjusting the tiller, on checking the position of the stars overhead, on tucking the stolen parchment into the pouch tied at my belt.
When I turn back, the bird is still staring at me, unmoving and implacable as a statue. I feel exposed, naked, as if this creature can see right to my very core, can see all my hidden weaknesses and secret longings. My breath catches, chest tight and sharp as if I’ve taken an arrow to the heart.
“What are you?” I say again.
As if in reply, a sharp wind gusts, chill with ice from the north. A driving wind that fills our sails, making the boat lurch beneath me. I hiss in dismay, and grip the tiller, pulling to keep the boat on course. Sleepy grumbles come from where some of the men have made their makeshift beds on the deck. They know they must wake, that I will call for them soon. That we must take advantage of the wind, even in darkness—especially when this is the first good wind we’ve had in days. Especially when that wind is driving us to where we need to go. To Knossos.
“All hands on deck,” I call out, my words carrying across on the wind. “To the sails.”
The men grumble their replies but move to obey. It would have been nice to have this wind at daybreak, at any time besides the darkest hour of the night. But we are at the mercy of the wind just as we are at the mercy of the gods.
Speaking of gods…
Panic tightens my stomach as I think about the pigeon. About my silent, desperate plea cast up to the stars and the bird’s sudden appearance. About the parchment tucked at my belt, still unread, and the wind now filling our sails.
I might be young, but I am no fool. I know the signature of the gods when it is written for all to see, even if I do not know what designs they have, or why they have cast their all-seeing eyes upon me.
I turn to give the pigeon an accusatory glare.
It is gone.