her cuirass. It felt as if she was underwater; the sound was muffled, and her arms were heavy. But she lifted her armor and let it go; the bronze clanged on the ground beside her. All she wore now were her sandals and her red chiton, damp with her perspiration.
“On your knees,” Narcissa said.
Halcyon turned to the stave and wrapped her arms about it. Another hoplite came forward. Iason. He bound her hands to the wood, and she knew it was not to hold her here but to hold her up when she lost consciousness.
Iason did not meet her gaze. He looked stricken as he backed away.
Halcyon felt the commander’s presence to her right; he divided the wind, and his shadow reached for her across the ground.
The sound of footsteps. Narcissa approaching, unsheathing her kopis. She tore Halcyon’s chiton to expose her back.
There was a moment of silence. Of trembling peace. And then came the first lash.
VII
Evadne
Evadne stood in Dree’s market, her eyes vacant as she stared at the bloodstain on the ground. It had taken her and her family a few hours to arrive at the village. And she would have thought this was all some nightmare, that she would wake if she could only rouse herself. Save for the blood. The blood was real. It still glistened in the evening light, as if the dirt would not drink it.
She wondered how long it would take for it to fade.
The commander and his hoplites were gone, journeying back to Abacus, Halcyon with them. Evadne had caught a glimpse of her, through the gaps between armor and spears and horses. Halcyon was like a fallen goddess, dark hair draped over her face, the wounds on her back dressed and covered with white linen.
Her father had pushed a path through the hoplites, utterly reckless. He had finally been granted a moment with Halcyon, a moment where he touched his daughter’s unconscious face and breathed her name, as if she would awaken. Gregor only stumbled away when the commander said something to him, words that Evadne could not hear.
And then Halcyon and her people were gone.
Gregor knelt in the dirt between the tracks of the wagon wheels, just as numb as Evadne. The people of Dree began to drift from the market, the entertainment waning. A few remained, staring at Gregor. But none of them offered to help him, to comfort him.
And then Evadne saw the vile boy of Dree, the one Halcyon had beaten all those years ago. He was standing nearby, laughing with another young man. Something familiar was hooked to his belt. Halcyon’s kopis, sheathed in leather.
Evadne was striding toward him before she knew what she was doing, that anger kindling, burning away the last of her shock. She walked right up to him, and he broke his conversation off midword, arching his brows at her.
“And who are you?” he asked.
Of course he would not remember her. Not many people did, for who recalled the quiet sister when there was Halcyon?
“That does not belong to you,” she said, indicating the kopis.
He glanced down at his belt. “Well, I do not think Halcyon will be needing it anymore. Do you?” And he laughed.
She wanted to strike him. Gods, how her fists curled, and she wished that she had asked Halcyon to teach her how to fight.
But the moment never came. Another voice joined the conversation, one that Evadne knew and respected. Bacchus, the priest of Dree.
“And have you become a thief now, Laneus?”
The glee on Laneus’s face froze as he stared at the priest.
Bacchus continued, “Because I do not recall Halcyon bestowing her kopis to you. You should give it to her sister for safekeeping, or perhaps you would prefer to spend a few days tied to the stave?”
Laneus’s lips curled, but he unfastened the kopis and dropped it at Evadne’s feet. She heard him growl an obscenity at her, one that made her blood boil, but she had the kopis now.
She bent to retrieve it, holding Halcyon’s small scythe in her hands. And it almost made her weep, to have a remnant of her sister.
“You should help your father home, Evadne,” Bacchus said gently. “His soul is grieved.”
She turned to see her father still kneeling in the dirt. Uncle Nico and Lysander also watched him, eventually having no choice but to draw him upward. The sun was setting. It was time to return home and bear the news to the others who had remained behind in the villa for