Page 27 of Minas (Dying Gods #4)

Lykos

I am pledged to the daughter of a god.

Andricia hadn’t been surprised. Not like I was. She’d merely lifted a brow, demanded Sira use her healing ointment anyway, and muttered something about Sira being just like her older brother.

Her full older brother. Who is, apparently, also sired by the god Asterion.

I sit and stare at the woman sleeping in the bed beside me, her lips parted, her features soft, her hair spread out across her pillow. She looks vulnerable. Breakable. Nothing like how I would imagine the daughter of a god to look. Nothing like I imagined a queen to look.

Minas , I remind myself. Not a queen, but minas.

Except, she’s not the Minas Crete yet, not really. Not until the other minases arrive to support her claim. Not until she holds Knossos.

I swallow and tear my gaze away. I should be laying down beside her. I should be resting. Because as soon as Britomartis and the minases arrive, we will need to be ready to move. To sail. To fight. But daylight still filters in through the lattice windows high above the bed, and my mind is too full of everything to sleep.

The last sounds of Atreus’ labored breathing, the feel of my sword slipping past his armor as he fell on me, the look on Galenos’ face…

I fist the blankets and push off the edge of the mattress, then shiver at the feel of cold stone tiles on bare feet. It’s a steadying sort of discomfort. The sort that has my mind rushing back into my body, back to the room, to the fragile creature sleeping beside me.

Sira might be the child of a god, but she needs me. And I am no use to her sitting here, staring at the wall. I stride barefoot across the room, my tired muscles aching as I bend to retrieve my pack, rifling through it until I find what I’m looking for.

The stone.

“…when he gave it to me, it had been forged into a blade. A blade as silver as starlight and deadly as the night…”

I weigh the fabric-wrapped stone in my hands, being careful not to touch the cold, dark metallic surface. I nearly lost my life retrieving this stone for her. I killed my own brother because of it.

I am pledged to Sira because of it.

Outside, the sounds of the city hum. Voices and tools, and the distinctive rhythmic pounding of a metalworker in a forge. I give the stone a grim smile. Zominthos is famed even in Mycenae for its craftspeople. Perhaps there is someone here with the skill to transform this stone to a blade, as the starry god intended.

“Let’s make you your sword, little bird,” I whisper to the sleeping woman. Zeus willing she won’t need it. But I will not have her stand before her would-be allies and potential rivals unarmed.

No, she will stand before them with a blade gifted to her by the gods, so that none will doubt her claim.

Dawn is breaking by the time I return to Andricia’s house. To where I left Sira sleeping.

“You were gone all night,” Asil complains, stepping aside from where she’s been standing sentry outside Sira’s door. She shoots me an accusatory look. “Where were you...? Are you… are you drunk?”

I give her what I hope is a rakish grin as I lurch unsteadily on my feet, bracing myself against the doorframe with one arm, clutching the precious bundle against my chest with the other. Around me, the world spins delightfully, as if I’ve drunk five glasses of blue-lily wine instead of only water.

“Not drunk,” I slur, exhaustion weighing me down like so many ballast stones in the belly of a ship. “Making an enemy out of the forge-master.”

That is an understatement. When I’d left Sira’s side, the mid-afternoon sun had hung low like a ripe pomegranate above the horizon, and Inanna had offered to keep watch. The forge-master had been putting the finishing touches on some ornamental blade, sweat beading on her brow.

“Go away,” she had told me, not even bothering to glance up from her work. “I’m done for the day. Come back in the morning.”

That was before she saw the stone. Before I told her where it came from, and who the sword was for.

“And what is that?” Asil nods towards the bundle of fabric cradled in my arms, her brow dipping.

I pull the bundle protectively towards me, as if I can shield it from her notice. It is not for her eyes. Not until Sira has seen it. Not until I know she is pleased with it. Not until I’ve shown her how to wield it.

“Is my lady awake?” I ask by way of deflection. “Has she eaten anything yet?”

Asil shakes her head. “We haven’t heard her stir.”

I purse my lips. “Have someone bring her a fresh jug of water and a platter of food,” I say decisively. “She’ll need to eat when she wakes up.”

Asil lifts one brow, but I don’t wait for her to reply. Instead, I push past, opening the heavy wooden door as quietly as I can, before slinking into the welcome warmth of the dark room.

Sira murmurs in her sleep as I enter, but doesn’t wake. Sometime in the night she must have kicked the blankets away because long legs peer out from beneath a short sleeping shift. I blink dazedly at the sight of them, at the honey colored skin, at the delicate arch of her foot to the soft flesh rounding at the top of her thigh. Heat blooms at the base of my spine, a trembling sort of feeling that has my lungs constricting, my breaths coming short.

I look away. I shouldn’t be staring at her like this while she sleeps, exhausted and at my mercy. Imagine what she would say to me if she awoke. That thought, and the hot embarrassment coursing alongside it, has my cock stiffening uncomfortably beneath my kilt.

“Gods help me,” I mutter, dragging one hand across my face. “I must truly be depraved.”

I’ve long suspected it, but previously gave it little thought. My first lover, a man ten years my senior, had given me my first taste of my depravity. “Look at you, my little bátalos ,” he had told me—though at eighteen I’d been nearly the same size I am now. “What would they say if they could see you like this, taking my barb like a hetaíra ? Begging me for it.”

I had begged for it. I’d also come untouched, with just his cock and his words and the burning embarrassment of it all bringing me to ecstasy.

“Lykos,” Sira murmurs, dragging me back from my shameful remembrances. “Lykos, is that you?”

“Yes,” I croak, nearly stumbling as I cross the stone tiles to the bed. “Yes, my lady. It’s me.”

She pushes upright, rubbing bleary eyes with the heels of her hands, those sinful legs crossing beneath her. I try not to stare at them, I really do. But her thighs are spread now, and the short tunic barely covers them, and all I can thinks is I wonder what her sex looks like.

“Lykos?” Her voice is sharp with alarm, and I blink, hot shame burning my throat as I snap my gaze up to her face. She gives me an unreadable look, her brow dipping ever so slightly as she examines me. “What are you hiding there?”

For a brief moment, I think she is asking about the erection currently threatening to tent the heavy linen of my kilt. I nearly fall to my knees before her, ready to beg her forgiveness, to beg her mercy. Or worse, to entreat her for just the faintest of touches, for some relief.

“What is in the packet?”

“The… the packet?” I echo stupidly.

Sira smiles, a sleepy, soft sort of smile that has those dark eyes tilting up at the corners. “The one you’re holding.”

“Oh.” I look down at it, at the sword wrapped in fabric in my arms. “Oh. This.”

A new sort of panic rushes over me—the sort that has the heat in my blood mercifully cooling enough that I’m able to cross the room to the bed and close the distance between us without completely humiliating myself. What if she hates it? What if this isn’t what she wanted me to do? This was a sacred stone gifted to her by a god, by her father, and I’ve mutilated it. Transformed it. Irreparably destroyed it. Gods above, I am an idiot.

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, dropping the packet on the bed beside her. “Zeus’ cock, I’m such a fool, Sira. I… I should have asked you first. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I press my hands to my face and wish that the underworld would open up beneath me and swallow me whole. I think I could live there quite happily.

“Goddess.” Sira’s gasp is barely more than a whisper. I dare a glance over just in time to see her peeling away the fabric, exposing the ornate gold and leather scabbard that covers the blade. “This… this is beautiful.”

She looks up, those dark eyes fathomless as Poseidon’s depths, her graceful fingertips poised above the weapon, as if she isn’t quite sure she should touch it. “Is this… is this for me?”

I nod, my throat tight, then find myself sinking onto the edge of the mattress, my legs trembling like those of a newly born calf. I blame it on the exhaustion. On walking for days and sleepless nights. On another sleepless night spent staring into a forge as an angry metalworker glared at a perfect blade.

“It’s a sword,” I tell her stupidly, as if that isn’t completely obvious. “It’s… it’s made from the stone. The one you had me get for you. You know, the one that… um… well, you said you had that dream. I thought perhaps this was what you wanted. I shouldn’t have assumed…”

My words trail off, catching in my throat, because to my horror, her eyes are welling up with tears.

“You… you had this made for me? Just now? While I slept? How?”

Okay. So she’s not angry.

I give her a cautious smile, then peel back the rest of the fabric, lifting the sheathed sword from the mattress and holding it out to her with both hands. The gesture reminds me of watching my brother’s men offering their fealty, pledging to give blade and blood for their king. Except I have already pledged myself to her, and she has had both my blade and my blood since almost the moment I met her.

Even if she didn’t know it.

“I told the forge master I wouldn’t leave until she made it. I’m surprised she didn’t bury it in my ribs when she finished,” I tell her honestly. “Though truth be told, I think she was as eager to work this new metal as I was to see the sword made.” I start to unsheathe the blade, then stop, looking up to give her a questioning look. “May I?”

She nods, her eyes glowing with unshed tears, her lips parted. “Please.”

The sound of leather sliding against freshly forged metal is like a song, singing of every battle I’ve ever fought, and every battle I long to win. I grin at the sound of it, at the clean blade coming free, at the way it glimmers like starlight in the lamplight, silver and black. Completely unlike any metal I’ve ever seen before.

Seeing it up close like this, away from the fires of the forge, there is no doubting it is not of this world.

Sira lets out a choked sound, one slender hand flying to her throat.

“Do you like it?”

I shouldn’t ask. A moment ago, I wouldn’t have dared to. But now she is looking at the sword and smiling, her eyes wide and her lips parted.

“Is it… did I do okay?”

“Okay? Okay? Lykos, this is…”

I hold the sword out to her, and she reaches out, carefully taking the hilt in one hand, the delicate fingers of her other hand beneath the flat of the silver blade. “This is exactly like in my dream. Exactly. How…”

She looks up, her dark eyes finding my own. “This is perfect,” she whispers. “You are… you are perfect.”

She shouldn’t look at me like that. Like I am the god who hung the stars for her. Like I myself forged this fallen star into a blade for her. Like I am good.

I am not good.

I should look away. I should tell her she is wrong. But I can’t.

“It’s sharp,” I tell her, gently taking the blade from her outstretched hands and sheathing it. “Sharper than any bronze blade I’ve ever seen. Sharper even than those shards of obsidian the barbarians of my homeland sometimes use.” I shoot her a wry smile, then add, “I’ll show you how to use it.”

It’s meant to be teasing. She should, perhaps, be offended. If she were one of my brother’s men, an offer to show them how to use their sword would be met with derisive laughter at best.

She nods, her expression open and guileless. “I would like that. Please. I want to be able to protect myself. I want to show them that I am fit to lead, fit to be minas.”

My chest constricts, and I focus on wrapping the sheathed blade back up, then carry it carefully to rest beside my pack on the floor.

“You are minas,” I tell her earnestly, coming to sit beside her on the bed. “You are the Minas Crete. Blade or no blade, whether or not some god’s blood runs in your veins. It is your birthright.”

Her eyes drop to her lap. Without thinking about it, I reach forward, gripping her chin in my hands, lifting it until she is meeting my eyes again. At any other time, I would hesitate. But exhaustion has my world spinning like poppy smoke and blue lily wine, and whatever meagre self-preservation instincts I had seem to be long gone.

“No,” I tell her sternly. “Do not drop your gaze, little bird. Not before me, not anyone. You are the Minas Crete. I will teach you how to fight, but a sword does not make a queen. A kingdom isn’t ruled by a blade. You will not defeat Xenodice with your hand alone.”

Her lips part, soft and supple, her tongue darting out to wet them. I track their movement, noting idly how close that tongue is to my thumb, and that I can feel the movement of her jaw working beneath my fingertips. I release my hold on her, my hand dropping heavily to the mattress between us.

“You will have your kingdom,” I rasp. “Not by brute force, but by right. By strategy and alliances. Because those queens, those minases arriving on Crete’s shores will stand beside you. Even the gods have declared themselves on your side.”

Her throat bobs, and my gaze tracks the movement from the smooth column of her throat down to the scooping neckline of her sleeping tunic. I blink dazedly, forcing my gaze back up to her eyes, fisting the bedding as if to steady myself.

“I would though,” she murmurs. “I would fight for it, if it came to it.” Her eyes widen with the admission, as if it surprises even herself. “I never wanted to rule, never wanted to be Minas Crete. But now that I am here, now that my allies’ ships are coming to our shores like a vengeful storm, now that it is me or Xenodice—I would fight for it.”

“I know you would.”

The world spins, and I find myself grinning at her, then reaching out to rest my hand on her knee. It’s a simple touch, meant to be the sort of gesture I would have made with one of my brother’s men. One of camaraderie.

She draws in a fluttering breath. My palm heats, burning with the heat of her skin.

“And I would fight beside you,” I add, but the words come out strained, my heart thundering as if I’ve just fought the very battle we’re speaking of. “If it came to it.”

I go to draw my hand away, but her own hand settles over mine, pinning it in place. I freeze, and she fixes me with a challenging stare.

“Why?”

Heat surges through me at the question, at the gentle force of her hand on mine and the imperious tilt of her brow. It shouldn’t excite me—not when it’s a question I’m terrified of actually answering—but everything about it, about her, seems designed to strike at my most depraved cravings with the accuracy of Astarte’s arrow.

“Lykos, I have known you a handful of days. You carried me from Knossos, defended me against your own brother, against your own people. Pledged yourself to me.”

I open my mouth, then close it, at a loss of how to reply.

“I am grateful,” she gives me a sad smile, then takes my hand up in both hers. “And I trust you. Despite everything, I feel safe with you. But…” she trails off, long lashes lowering, voice growing shaky. “Maybe I trust too easily? I never learned cunning at my mother’s side. And the last person I trusted… she took my secrets, and left me, left me ignorant and alone. Used me, perhaps, for her own interests, whatever they are.”

She must mean Britomartis I realize with sudden icy clarity. Her lover, the one she cries out for in her sleep. The woman who, this very moment, might be landing on Crete’s shores, only a half-day’s walk from Zominthos.

When Sira’s eyes meet my own, full of hurt and hope and gentle demand, I want to crumble before her. To throw myself at her feet. To tell her everything.

Until she crashes her lips to my own, and every thought goes blank.