THE NEXT TWO days pass in a blur. Irene isn't sure how she'd found herself fighting rogues in a burning warehouse with Alexios and a Spartan after chasing Phoibe through the streets, but the flames lick at her skin and fire rages in her blood. She ducks beneath the swing of a two-handed axe and lurches forward, cutting deep into the man's thigh. The howls of pain are silenced when Alexios drags the point of his kopis across the man's throat in a tight slash.

She rises with blood spattered across her face -chest heaving, eyes wrought with harsh obduracy. Alexios' gaze lingers on the princess for just a second too long and he doesn't notice the assailant approaching him from behind -sword raised. Irene darts forward, uses the dead man's body as leverage, launching herself into the air over the Eagle Bearer's shoulder. She bears down upon the man with the broken spear, driving it through his neck. Lidless eyes reflect the glow of the inferno.

Something slams into her side before she can rise -sending her backward into a burning post. Scrambling to her hands and knees, Irene sees a discarded shield and rolls toward it. Bones rattle at the impact of a heavy sword against the metal. She drives her attacker back and regains her footing -wielding both sword and shield.

The second blow to the shield reverberates through her arm. She sweeps the shield wide, opening her foe's defenses and plunges her sword deep into the man's belly, wrenching it free in a spray of blood. She snarls, kicking the collapsing corpse away and tossing the shield aside. It only slowed her down.

Smoke begins to burn her eyes and scratch her throat. Through the flames, she sees the Spartan -fending off two men. He doesn't see the third. Irene recovers her broken spear from a corpse and throws it with all her might. As the Spartan turns to face the man, he is already falling backward -the hilt of a broken spear rising from his eye.

The Spartan gives her a curt nod, before turning his focus to the last rogue. Alexios already as his attention on the same man. The princess retrieves the spear. It comes free from the corpse's skull with a soft squelch and pulls his burst eye out of socket, too. Planks creak above, it won't be much longer before the half-rotten wood collapses and the roof caves in on them.

Night air floods the warehouse. It is cool by comparison -but only for a moment before it makes the flames grow larger and hotter. Irene returns to one of the civilians that'd been too weak to leave of his own volition. He drapes his arm over her shoulders and tries his best to push forward as she pulls him from the burning warehouse.

Alexios and the Spartan are dispatching the rogues that'd been waiting outside the flames. Irene eases the elderly man to the ground against a stack of crates. His gaze is empty and unfocused -eyes fogged over. He raises a withered hand, trembling, and reaches toward the princess. The tips of his fingers brush her bloodied cheek. "The gods will bless you," he cries and it almost sounds prophetic.


IRENE SHAKES THE water from her hands and looks up at the Eagle Bearer. There's a fresh cut above his left eye that hadn't been there when she'd last looked at him in the flames. "Why are you bleeding?" The question doesn't come out the way she'd intended, but a mix of what happened and you're bleeding.

Alexios lowers himself onto the dock after sheathing his sword with a dry chuckle. "Misstep on my part," he says, brushing two fingers over the cut above his brow. Blood trickles down his face in a rivulet and comes away on his fingertips, but he isn't concerned. It's minor -a scratch compared to injuries he's had in the past.

The Spartan, Brasidas, has already left to return to his camp. Much like Anthousa, he has plans for the Monger too, though they differ from the hetaeras. Brasidas wishes to lure the brute into the sacred cave and do away him without spectacle to spare civilians from the anarchy that could follow a public execution.

Either way, Korinth would be free of his reign of terror. Her gaze lingers on Alexios as he washes away the blood. "What do you think should be done about the Monger?" Irene asks -she's already made her choice but is curious who he will side with.

His jaw clenches. "If I were in Anthousa's place I'd want the satisfaction of seeing his head mounted outside the theater, but I think Brasidas is right," Alexios announces, "the less bloodshed the better." Irene nods, it is good to know they both agree on the task at hand.


IRENE GLARES AT him from across the fire. Alexios is sharpening the blade of a newly acquired labrys. She isn't so lucky to have come across treasure, only a room full of soldiers. "Sneak into the fort, you said," she grouses, trying to reach the bloody scratch on the back of her shoulder. "It'll be fun," she mocks.

He smiles a small smile. His lips twitch like he's trying not to laugh. The Eagle Bearer sets aside the labrys and whetstone, his eyes soften as they trail over her. "Come here, princess."

She offers him a harsh glare. "Princess?"

Alexios shrugs, going to her instead. "Well, you are a princess," he reminds her. She only scowls. He pushes her hair away and unclasps another pin on her shoulder, baring the full length of the slim cut. The blade must have slipped beneath her linothorax cuirass. Taking the damp cloth from Irene, he lays it over the scratch and finds his attention drawn to the scar running upward beneath her left arm.

His fingertips brush over the raised scar of their own accord. Irene's breath hitches and tiny sparks emanate from his touch, racing all over her body. She shifts -not fully turning to face him, though she can see the silent question in his gaze. Lifting her arm, she exposes the full length of the scar curving around from her back to just below her breast. "A mercenary intended to collect the bounty on my head while I slept," Irene explains.

She'd been in Argolis delivering news to Hippokrates and taking care of a group of bandits causing trouble for one of Alkibiades' friends. The blade had been quick, but the princess was quicker. Euterpe the Snake's dagger had missed its true mark and Irene had buried her spear deep into the mercenary's neck. By the time she arrived at the clinic in Argos to find the physician, she was drenched in blood and sweat. It's the closest she's come to meeting Hades.

A look of deep contemplation furrows Alexios' brows as he wipes away the dried blood on her back. He offers to wrap the slim cut, but it no longer bleeds and Irene wishes to save the bandages for more pressing needs and grievous injuries. Righting her chiton, the princess turns toward the fire.

"Alexios." Irene takes his hand and traces over the pale scar running across his palm -it's more recent than the ones wrapping around his arm. She'd felt the raised mark against her skin while he tended her minor injuries. "This scar," she begins, "how'd you get it?"

He looks down at the scar -and how small Irene's hand is in comparison to his own. "When I snuck into the Cult's meeting in Delphi, one of the Cultist was collecting offerings for the bloodline," Alexios pauses, "I offered my blood so it wouldn't raise suspicions."

Since meeting the Persian princess on the shores of Samos, Alexios has slowly begun learning her many expressions and what they mean. For instance, the way her lips are pursed and dipping downward and the soft wrinkle in her brow are a good indicator she is deep in thought about something. "What is it?" He asks.

"Hermippos bears the same scar," she tells him, "I've seen him with his hand wrapped many times too." Far too often for a just playwright and given his disposition against Perikles, part of her doubts it is merely a coincidence.

Before the morning comes the fire turns into a pile of ash and the chill of autumn lingers in the air. Alexios pokes the pile of ash with a stick and a flame jumps up then dies out. The brief flash of light is enough for him to see Irene curled into herself, shuddering. He rises, moving his thin bedroll next to hers. The princess shifts, rolling toward him -his warmth a magnet.


WORD PASSES AROUND the streets quickly of what had occurred at the Monger's warehouse in the Port of Lechaion. Whispers rise that he is making his way back to Korinth from Epidauros to face whoever had disrupted his dealings. Even with haste, it is a two-day journey and until the Monger arrives, Alexios wears the moniker of a misthios again.

By the day's end, he's secured two small pouches of drachmae and Irene has given away twice that much of her coin to those in need on the streets. Korinth is not a kind city and such help does not come often, but when it does -the people are indebted with gratitude.

Stars are veiled by thick, low hanging clouds shroud the countryside just outside the city walls in darkness. Flames cast long shadows in the ruins of an old temple next to a spring -bubbling with fresh water.

"Honestly, how do you even find a helmet to fit your inflated head?" The princess inquires, wringing water from her pitch hair. Alexios won't admit it, but he enjoys their banter. Some things he does just to get a rise out of her. Most of the time it works well enough -though he had not meant to provoke her scrutiny earlier in the day. "Well, luckily for you I am one," Irene says, puffing out her chest and trying her best to imitate the timbre of his voice. "I mean who says that?"

Alexios leans back against the felled stone column, trying his best to hide a smile as Irene paces back-and-forth. "Just because you have the body of a god doesn't make you one," she snaps without thinking -her cheeks turn burn bright red upon realizing what she'd said aloud.

He sits up straighter and has the audacity to smirk. "You think I have the body of a god?"

Irene grumbles and turns her back to him and the fire. "Forget I said that," she says over her shoulder, wrapping herself in a pale yellow wool blanket, "good night." Alexios shakes his head, smiling, then glances up and finds Ikaros hovering above them, keeping vigilance.