THE PAIN SUBSIDES to a dull throbbing and Enyo forces herself to sit upright. Deimos enters the room —his chiton hanging around his hips— with two plates of food and as if remembering she'd not eaten in days, her stomach grumbles. She dunks the brown bread into a cup of wine before taking a large bite. "You're not training?" She asks, mouth full and wine dribbling down her chin.
Deimos shakes his head, cutting into a fig —handing her half of it. She tosses slice into her mouth, relishing in the honey-berry sweetness. He glances at her and the blood seeping through the white linen wrap. She's a mess. "You can barely move, Enyo," he says, quietly. He doesn't like seeing her like this. Enyo is strong —a demigoddess among mortals.
Her face twists. "I'm not your burden," she hisses, heart starting to pound. "This is was my doing," Enyo grits out, her voice tight and cracking as though she's trying to convince herself she deserved this fate. "My failure," she mutters. But it wasn't. Nisos knew what he'd done, and he'd acted on the orders the Cult. She was never meant to succeed.
Lykaon comes to the villa after several days, examining Enyo's wounds for himself. She'd escaped the risk of infection so long as the mending scabs were kept clean. He leaves a new batch of ointment —gods know she and Deimos will need it at some point.
When Deimos returns from the training grounds, he finds Enyo sprawled out in a wooden tub —bliss wrote on her face as a young serving girl massages her scalp with sweet oils. He leans against the doorway, not saying a word or making a sound. It'd been ages since he'd last seen her smile at anything other than death.
Crickets sing in the cool night air. Somewhere off in the woods of the high valley bears are grumbling and boars forage. Instead of settling in for the evening, Enyo and Deimos had gone to Kirrha before sunset. There were always so many people in the harbor and on the streets that they could walk without fear of being recognized. They looked like any other pilgrim who'd come to see the Oracle of Delphi.
Enyo stops by a merchant stall and purchases a pouch filled with beads of gold and pearl as she recalls listening to an old storyteller in Lalaia. He spoke of the gods and distant lands. The old white-haired man told them of a group to the east, where men never cut their hair and use beads and bells to signify their victories in combat. By looking alone one would be able to tell the fiercest warriors. It had given Enyo a budding idea.
Deimos comes away from a farmer's stand with a pomegranate. He cuts through the thick rind and cracks the fruit open revealing the red arils within. Dark red juice drips from his fingers like blood when he extends the pomegranate toward Enyo. "You're not trying to trick me are you?" She asks, lips curling into a faint smile. Persephone had eaten seven arils and was doomed to stay in the underworld with Hades for part of the year after he'd tricked the goddess of spring.
"I'm flattered you hold me to such high a regard as Hades," he remarks, tone borderline on teasing. Enyo rolls her eyes, snatching the piece of pomegranate from his hand.
Maybe it's because she's still healing, but Deimos lets her do as she pleases with his hair when they return to the villa after sundown. His dark brown locks are shorn at his shoulders —half pulled away and tied up from his face in a small bun. He sets a sword across his laps and drags a whetstone down the edge of the blade. Silence falls between them except for the shring of stone on metal.
Enyo threads the first bead over a lock of his hair and secures it in place with a loop. We marched into Messenia and secured the region for the Cult. The war factory of Hellas. One bead soon becomes six. Deimos picks up one of the golden ornaments hanging on a lock of half-matted hair and rolls it between his fingers. "Each bead is one of our victories," she explains, chin resting on his shoulder.
"SHE WILL MAKE him weak," Chrysis hisses. She'd seen them with her own eyes —like lovesick children as Deimos tended to the remnants of what remained from the lashing. Her goal was to raise machines —killers with no remorse, but they'd looked like any other young and foolish couple in Hellas.
Aspasia laughs behind her mask. The old priestess's concerns seem like nothing more than paranoia. People fear the very whisper of their names. Deimos and Enyo are demigods. They fight like demons trapped in flesh. So long as that does not change, Aspasia has little care for how the champions spend their time. "What do you mean? They still bring us victories," she notes, gazing down at the golden pyramid. "Enyo's failure to kill her brother is nothing in retrospect compared to what she has done for us."
"You haven't seen how they look at one another," Chrysis spits. She indoctrinated her children to accept love as a weakness, and there was no place in a champion for weakness. This world is pain.
"Did you expect something else to happen?" The hetaera questions. She knows the Cult's champions are old enough to understand their bodies and their desires. The old crone shifts, glaring at the Ghost. "Enyo is fair with a woman's body. He is a man —young and personable. They may be weapons, Chrysis, but they still have blood in their veins and worldly desires." One could strip away humanity and replace it with hatred, but the body itself could not be reprogrammed in such a way. "Let them be," Aspasia commands, stepping away from the pyramid. "For now."
SWEAT BEADS DOWN her forehead as she pulls back on the string of the bow. The muscles in her back burn in protest. Enyo releases the tension on the string and doubles over, panting. Since the scabs have faded into deep, uneven scars, she has not been able to shoot a bow —the skin of her back is too tight. Enyo steadies her breathing and straightens, holding out the bow and nocking an arrow again. Pushing through the smarting, she forces herself to draw the string back completely with shaking arms. With a cry, she loses the arrow and watches as it glides through the air, embedding into the thorax of the straw-stuffed target.
Throwing down the bow, Enyo withdraws one of her blades and throws it at the same target, screaming. It punches through where a man's heart would be. Weakness must be purged from the body Chrysis told them as children, but the scars on her back could not be erased.
Deimos steps onto the training field bearing a writ —the black seal of Kosmos broken. She already knows what it means, they have a new assignment. "Where are we going?" Enyo asks, ripping her blade free of the target. She needs this. A way to prove to herself the scars on her back have not rendered her useless.
"Chios," he answers, passing the scroll to her. The Cult sank its claws into the leader's twin brother. They were to dispose of the current leader and instate his twin —if done properly the people would never suspect a thing. "We leave tonight."
Enyo looks over her shoulder, the sun already has begun its descent. Over the tree line lies the Gulf of Korinth, its dark waters churning. Unrest would take the sea during the winter months. "The seas will not be kind this time of year," she remarks. Deimos nods his agreement and motions for her to return to the villa with him —preparations must be made before their departure.
The ship is waiting in a cove away from the Kirrha harbor. Enyo recognizes it immediately as the Aerion. The three-masted trireme still looks the same as the first time she'd looked upon in Piraeus. Cult guardians carry coffers of weapons and coin from the dock —enough to pay and arm a small militia. "My dear champions," Elpenor greets as Deimos and Enyo cross the short ramp, arms spread open in welcome. Of all the cultists, the merchant was the kindest.
The Aerion departs from the rickety wharf just as the sun dips below the water but storm clouds are brewing on the horizon. "Can't sleep?" Deimos asks, his voice surprisingly soft. Enyo nods her head. She's never been one for sailing and the raging storm only makes it worse. She settles next to him, looking across the ship deck from beneath the stern pavilion. Being in the bowels of the ship with waves tossing them to-and-fro was unbearable, she would take her chances above deck. A rough swell collides with the flank of the Aerion and Enyo grips onto Deimos' thigh to steady herself.
He drapes his arm over Enyo's shoulder, shifting to bring her closer. She offers no protest and turns her face into his neck, breathing in his sylvan scent. Before they had sailed headlong into Poseidon's wrath, she'd spoken to the merchant —the grand mastermind behind the scheme to take Chios. The task rests heavily on her shoulders, Deimos is simply insurance. "Elpenor told me what I have to do," Enyo murmurs.
"If any of them-" he starts, voice low and dangerous but she shakes her head, lips kinking. "I can handle myself," she reminds him, meeting his dark gaze. There was a reason she stood at his side as the Cult's champion. Bursts of wind shake the canvas and dim the lanterns. Enyo unwittingly leans further into him. He's not wearing armor, and it feels good to be enfolded in arms and warmth.
Deimos covers the hand still resting on his thigh —fingers curling around hers. He can feel her pulse racing against his fingertips pressed into her palm. "You're heart's beating fast," he notes and the words brush over her temple.
"The storm," Enyo whispers, and you she thinks. Something between them is beginning to change and neither of them can say whether it is for better or worse.