Chapter 2
"The Shadows"
Hands cold as ice found her arms and shook away the dreams and sleep from her eyes. Aurora groaned and fretted in her numb waking, slapping at the hands like iron shackles pulling her out of her warm bed.
"Quiet!" her mother's hushed tone condemned, and she at length parted her heavy lashes to decipher her mother's outline in the dimming light. The fire crackled distantly, dying out and warning her of the hour.
"Mama," she lamented drowsily when the covers were drawn back, and the cold of the room swept across her.
"Shhh," she soothed in the same tense voice. "You must be quiet, my sun." Aurora was wrapped in the safety of her mother's arms, and her head hung limp and fatigued against the woman's shoulders while she buried her hands beneath her mother's warm robes. Her skin was soft and pliable, and Aurora let her stocky fingers cling to her mother's flesh.
"They're coming up the stairs," Alix warned from across the room, and their mother stiffened, unconsciously hugging tighter to her youngest child.
"Mama," she said again, tugging on her arms, "what's happening?"
"Hush!" her mother answered more sharply now, and lifting her head Aurora could see her mother's pale features illuminated by the full moon peering through her window. "Quickly! The back door."
"What of Leda?"
"Quickly," she repeated through trembling lips, and her brother rushed toward the side door, opening and locking it behind them. They found themselves in her nurse's room. The icy space was littered with shadows, their arms stretching up the walls and toward the ceiling willowy as the Black Woods outside, and Aurora clung tighter to her mother for fear of their chilly grasp. Her hand was shaking as it stroked her daughter's pale hair, but her attempt to soothe only heightened the child's terror. Her mother was always fearless. Always.
A shrill scream pierced the night, and all three were statues, fearing the slightest breath or movement might betray them while their ears strained to discern what unfolded feet from them. Another scream and louder, echoing down the length of the corridor, and now the trembling had spread to her mother's breast. A vase crashed, a final scream, a loud thump, and silence. They waited with breaths swallowed in their lungs until the pressure was unbearable. The unknown void stretched in their minds, and all their worst terrors filled it.
"They've taken Leda," Alix whispered when he could stand no more, and his young features had grown considerably stretching to somehow fit all the horror and disbelief.
"Hush," their mother said through a scratchy voice, and a warm drop landed on Aurora's forearm. Craning back her neck, she saw the tears shining on her mother's pale cheeks but couldn't find the courage to wipe them away. The shadows were drawing nearer. Her mother always held the light to fight away the darkness, but Aurora feared she had forgotten how.
The silence was shattered as the door was thrown open, so close they thought they had been discovered, but these strangers swarmed Aurora's room, making a ruckus as they threw back her bed and turned over tables. So night came knocking upon their door, and they each turned to the wall separating the rooms, so thin and immaterial when faced with the enemy.
"Alix," their mother whispered, her tone so shaking it was hardly audible, "take your sister."
Neither moved, and the torrent of destruction continued to their right.
"Alix," she hissed adopting the voice of their mother, and Alix obediently reached for Aurora, helping unwind her stubborn fingers tangling in their mother's robes and hair. "Let go, my sun," she coaxed softly, but Aurora was not so easily suaded.
"Mama," she whimpered, her full lips quivering and eyes pulsing.
"In a few moments, they will come through this door. You must hide –you and your sister, and above all else you must be quiet. Do you understand?"
Both children stared at their mother, eyes the same shade and faces as youthful and stunned. Her hands caressed their brows, and she attempted to blink the tears from her eyes.
"If you have the chance, run and never stop. Promise me this."
Neither could speak, and her smile was feeble, wiry, false and yet what her children needed.
"Go now. Hide."
The darkness was alive when she opened her eyes, sitting straight in her bed and gasping blindly at the air. It swarmed around her and throbbed with Morpheus' wicked creations, and she strained to focus on the familiar lines of her room. She was suffocated with the memories, and the fresh stench of death –fire and ashes to her nose and tongue. The dream was so vivid she struggled to realize fifteen years had passed since she was that little girl grasping at her mother's robes.
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"Evios' daughter has grown well…"
"Father!" Iliana chided and threw the man a condemning look.
"I only mean for Ariston," Aeneas returned without the faintest appearance of guilt or embarrassment, all of which seemed to funnel into his daughter.
"You meant nothing so innocent," she murmured and checked over her shoulder to be sure the girl in question had heard none of their conversation.
"I have two of my four sons married –perhaps the third soon as well," Aeneas carried on pleasantly and nodded to the group of men who bowed their heads in respect as he passed. "I'm an old ass now, Iliana. My only happiness is my children and cultivating a future for them."
Her chestnut eyes rose to the Heavens, only to circle down once more toward her feet, and she prodded, "You never speak of my being married."
Aeneas promptly stopped and turned in the direction of the torn wall as though he were struck by its progress. "See how swiftly it's mended."
Undeterred, she approached his side and caught his attention with her unyielding intent. "Father…"
His features fell, and his blue eyes flashed, annoyed to have this conversation already. "There isn't a man I've found worthy of your fairness and your qualities."
"You miss Mother," she charged without fear of being condemned for her loose tongue, "and you enjoy that I fill her place in your life –not in the same way, but as close as any woman could."
Again, Aeneas looked to the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, appearing at once aggravated and despondent. "I do miss Myrina," he revealed with a tone reserved only for her name. As he grew older, time seemed a more tangible thing which he could bend to his needs, and perhaps then he gazed along it to a time with his late wife. The sound of a worker's tools falling seemed to remind him of his place, and glancing at his daughter, he finished more soberly, "But you do not replace her for me." They set off toward their home once more, and he left his melancholy character behind them. "You're my only daughter, my youngest," he bent nearer and whispered secretively, "my favorite." Iliana smiled and nudged him away with her shoulder, and he laughed as he ended, "I'll never willingly release you to another man until I know that he will be your happiness and your protector 'til the coins are placed on your eyes."
Still smiling though more incredulous than pleased, she directed his attention toward the men surrounding them. "No man dares step within five paces of me, and those who do look absolutely terrified that you or one of my brothers will round the corner and catch them so much as gazing at me."
"You curse us for it, but we weed out the weaker men. When a man approaches you, you'll know that he has honorable intentions and is worth your consideration."
"Or that he wishes to murder me," she said, each word laced with biting sarcasm, as she sensed her voice being trampled over by her father's.
Seeing her abrupt shift in demeanor, Aeneas attempted to concede what little territory his pride and his fatherly safeguard would allow. "Why does this concern you so much? Has someone caught your interest?"
"No," she lied, purposefully ignoring the forge to their left as they passed it, but she held her breath for a moment as her mind's eye turned to him. "I'm only exhausted of being the youngest," she said to break her own wandering concentration. If her father held a sole motivation, so did she –even if she had never truly talked to the man. "I watch my brothers enjoy the fruits of life first and am expected to wait patiently for my turn to come."
"You never wait, and you rarely come last," he assured her and pinched her side, knowing how she would bounce away with a little screech which made him chuckle. "You're like a little lioness nipping at your siblings for your place in the feeding line."
Only when her chestnut eyes turned on him, gleaming with aggravation, did Aeneas remember she was past the age where his tricks and games amused her. Now he was a proper father: a nuisance to his children more than a friend. His heart receded a bit deeper into his chest, and he was sure he felt the lines in his face fall with it.
"I miss Haemon…" she muttered from the doorway as she followed her father inside. Haemon always listened to her –when he could spare a moment of his time for his little sister.
Pretending he didn't feel the comment as a cut to his chest, Aeneas smiled and said, "The gods willing, he'll be home soon with a gift for our people."
"A wife, you mean." Iliana set the basket on the table and began unloading the vegetables she would use for their soup. She paused to smell the bunch of fresh fennel, savoring its aroma, before she wondered, "Do you think he will love her?"
Aeneas sighed and couldn't deny the exhaustion this train of conversation caused him. Even wise men were disarmed by the sweeping minds of children. He looked more to her features as to a sign of what answer she anticipated, knowing only one was correct, and at length, he decided, "Yes, one day."
"My father gave up a princess for my mother."
"Hector…" He absently knocked his knuckles on the table, beating out his concentration. "He was an exceptional man, and the circumstances of his life are more than any common man could wish for."
"You don't think Haemon is exceptional?"
Her eyes were perfectly open, piercing him with their honesty, and he scratched his beard disconcerted. He grappled between truth and kind words with his daughter, uncertain what she was old enough to hear and what was still too heavy for her to bear. "I think Haemon is more like his father than he will acknowledge, but there will come a day when he sets aside his anger and sees through Hector's eyes... I'm certain he will be greater than any man who came before him."
At last, he had chosen the proper words for Iliana withdrew and took the knife to begin chopping the vegetables.
Aeneas exhaled, nearly sweating, as he recognized an end to their tiresome exchange. "I'll leave before you ask me the purpose of life," he announced, and Iliana smiled impishly, revealing she was aware all along of her role. It seemed he was the one who was still charmed by her games and tricks and likely forever would be. She extended her cheek his direction, and he grinned, sweeping in to place a kiss on her temple. "You're worse than your brothers."
She laughed and continued chopping pleasantly.
"When Ariston arrives, fetch me."
"I will," she agreed, still smiling, and Aeneas left her to the kitchen.
Reflecting on her conversation with her father, she inevitably thought of her eldest brother. Haemon who bore the most striking resemblance to their father: as tall and massive a man with the same dark coloring to his thick curls and beard. He was a fearless leader, a terrifying enemy, and a loyal brother, but honor, duty, and justness did not motivate him. Rather than following the legacy their father's death had laid at his feet, Haemon fought. When the Fates swept him one direction, he struck back and barreled the opposite way. He was propelled by rage, so full of this volatile emotion that it overflowed at the least expected moments. He could smile and as swiftly take you by the neck. It had always seemed a characteristic which they could contain and control –like attempting to lull a beast to sleep once more. His siblings learned to ignore his crass words, his mother avoided what topics she had learned to incite him, but Aeneas was not a man to retreat… It was a common day barely four years after they arrived on these shores that it awoke from him as if it might rip through his skin. Two neighbors had pulled Haemon with a broken nose off his father, and Aeneas had merely wiped the blood from his mouth and remained silent as to what had sent his son into a rage that day.
With a decade separating them, and their opposing sexes as a barrier, Iliana and Haemon had no common ground on which to stand. It was only after their mother died that their dynamic shifted. Iliana suspected Haemon felt guilty that he had not been kinder to their mother during her life, and in his little sister, he saw the opportunity for atonement. He and his brothers behaved as men, jostling, taunting, stirring trouble, fighting, but Iliana's affections necessitated more tact. He soon realized that what his little sister wanted above all else was simply a voice. Where others yelled over her, trampled across her sentences, and ignored her, Haemon sealed his lips and listened, and she loved him more than any other brother for that kindness afforded to her.
"We'll need all that you can manage before Scipio's next attack," Ariston's voice echoed down the corridor and toward the kitchen. Iliana stepped away from the table for a moment, thinking to call for Aeneas, when she heard him answer.
"Of course, but I'm limited by what little I can forge in such a small space."
"Oh," Iliana murmured beneath her breath and looked toward the corridor where she could flee without the men being wiser, then back at the pot beginning to boil at the hearth. It sputtered noisily, spitting out over the top, and she knew it might soon overflow without tending. She rushed to the fire, prodding at the hearth to trim the flame and not ruin the soup she was only just beginning.
"I'm sure we can gather a few men to apprentice," Ariston continued, his voice growing to its full strength when he stepped into the kitchen, and Iliana straightened all at once as if a cornered animal and faced the men.
"I'll call Father," she burst out before either could formally acknowledge her, and Ariston casually looked at his sister and sniffed the air.
"No," he said to halt her hurry toward the corridor. "I will. Keep about it." He motioned toward the soup and smiled hungrily. "Make sure you have enough for all of us." Her chestnut eyes trembled uncertainly, but her brother was oblivious as he called back to Damian, "I'll be a moment. I'm sure Father's looking over his maps again."
He stepped from the room, and in his place all manner of tangled, uncomfortable tension wrought the air. Iliana stared after her brother, her hands twitching anxiously at her sides, and she mused how she could still follow and avoid such a humiliating encounter. Her eyes swept tentatively in Damian's direction, only daring to peek at his feet, and mentally she counted three paces. This doesn't count! her mind growled at her whimsy, and she jerked like a nervous animal, returning to the table and chopping. Say something… It's kind of you to help Father. You're really very skilled. Do you find the heat a hindrance? I hope Ariston hasn't plagued you with his rambling. Her tongue was tied with the million thoughts rushing to fall from her lips, and each seemed so trivial, so trite, so stupid that she couldn't bring herself to say a single thing.
"It looks like it will rain today."
She perked up uncertainly, meeting his dark gaze which didn't dart away from her this time, and she realized with numb pleasure that he had spoken first. The blood nipped at her cheeks, and she smiled shyly. "Does it?"
He nodded, and the edges of his mouth drew away. Briefly, her features fell open to see him reward her with a smile, which she returned as if hesitating even the slightest might discourage him.
"Damian," Aeneas said to announce his arrival, and immediately the two looked away from each other. A conversation suddenly seemed too daring as it stirred a year's worth of pent up desires. He was swept away with her father and brother, leaving only the faint scent of ashes in his wake as he passed by her. She caught his gaze with a fleeting, sidelong glance before he left her sight completely, and that one glimpse validated all the others.
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"It is a pity… To spoil something so perfect!" Ascanius burst into laughter almost kicking the floor as he held his chest to sustain his roar. Bending over his knees, he realized, "No wonder the woman didn't say a word at dinner!"
"I was being polite," Haemon returned seeming as unconcerned as his brother was amused, though recalling the look on the Princess' face when she realized his identity did spur a smile.
"Complimenting a woman's breasts is not exactly tactful, brother."
"I wasn't commenting on her breasts." He idly picked at the dirt beneath his fingernail with the tip of his dagger, bored and tired of waiting when he could be better used protecting their borders from Umbria's onslaught. "She has none of which to speak."
Again, Ascanius threw his head back and laughed, and his brother smiled at his own wit. When he could manage to catch his breath and wipe the tears from the edges of his eyes, he said, "You shouldn't be cruel to her. Isn't it torture enough she has to marry you?"
Ascanius' forearms narrowly deflected the empty chalice thrown his direction, and Haemon corrected, "She'll only have the pleasure if she is Lycaon's daughter –which I doubt."
"She knows how to speak down to men."
"She has no skill for it."
"Perhaps she's sweet."
In his mind's eye, he saw her venomous gaze peering up at him and chucked. "She's not sweet."
"I think you scared her away," Ascanius continued, still laughing as he thought of Haemon's brash words to the Princess in the hallway.
Before the other man could retort, Solon entered, and both Princes turned their attentions to the ambassador who bowed his head in a hurry.
"Forgive my lateness," he began breathlessly, and his features were shining with sweat as though he had sprinted from one end of the palace to the other. "Savas wished to speak with me this morning as well, and being our host, his company took priority."
"It's almost noon," Ascanius pointed out, both brothers equally perturbed to wait on their subordinates though there was not much else to draw their attention in the foreign palace.
"Yes, well," he muttered and adjusted his robes, "it seems the King took your arrival as an agreement. It was my duty to correct his hasty judgment." Solon's eyes swiveled irritably toward his lieges, knowing they could not justly imagine the thorny political discussion he had to smooth over.
"I won't return with an imposter at my side. Any king should understand that," Haemon spoke.
"No king enjoys being accused of lying."
"Or he's aggravated we've found out his secret."
Solon exhaled a restrained grumble and adopted the air of an ambassador, cool and cordial. "The King wishes to know how he might ease your worried minds."
"We will investigate this matter ourselves," Ascanius acknowledged and stood from his seat to pace toward the window where the rain was beating down and pooling at the entrance of the window.
The ambassador's features hardened, his suspicious gaze turning from Ascanius to Haemon who continued about his idle work without looking up from his hands. "What have you done?" Both were silent with mutual confidence, and Solon's eyes nearly burst forth from his head. "Do you realize the delicacy of this situation? You risk inciting a war by merely stepping down the wrong corridor!"
"The matter is being handled discretely, Solon," Haemon said and finally sheathed the knife. "If she is not Lycaon's heir, we will have proof within the week."
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"Are you hungry?"
"No," Aurora assured him and passed her damp cloak to the servant. The rains had begun again, a sign summer was waning to fall, and the storms would bring the chill from the mountains down to their lands. It was an untimely development given the Princes' presence at the palace. None would dare traverse outside with the mud, the chill, and the dampness, and so they would all be trapped within the confines of the palace to face one another and the mounting restlessness. Aurora couldn't bear it –not with her dream weighing heavily on her mind.
Ignoring her, Atlan instructed a servant to bring them soup and answered Aurora's perturbed gaze, "You barely eat when you're tensed. You need your strength. You can't seem weak around this men."
She had no mind for arguing and led herself to the small dining area where she settled into a seat at the table, as comfortable in Atlan's home as if it were her own, then again she had spent years within the comfort of its walls whenever she wished to escape. Atlan's final comment reminded her of the Princes whom she would be forced to face at dinner once more that night. The memory of his omniscient smile nipped at her, every pinch causing a grimace of embarrassment to flood her at her brashness and foolishness, and she dreaded the torture of his presence. Several times the previous night he had directed a statement toward her or inquired about some menial aspect, and she could only glimpse at him, eyes wide and tongue mute like a child who had been scorned by a parent and couldn't dare to utter another word. How long would his silence please him? How long before he revealed her behavior to Savas? She could not predict what retribution would await her as she rested her elbows on the wood and placed her face in her hands, deflating in a long exhale. "Only one day they have been here, and I'm already weary of them."
"You despise anyone who draws too near you," he commented while taking the seat opposite her.
"I have too much to consider," she amended and dropped her hands from before her face, and she considered the man's wrinkled features, pale as her own but so visibly worn from the hardships he had faced. His cool grey eyes were slightly sunken beneath the weight of his brow, and his pale blonde hair faded to white in places, almost blending into the tone of his skin and eradicating him of anything but the lines in his face. Staring at him, she wondered how the time had run from them so swiftly. Only shadows remained of the hunter who had found her in the woods more than a decade ago, and she swore she would give her bones for him to remain at her side. He was the sole person she trusted on this earth.
"You're dreaming again," he understood, and a servant placed a bowl of hot soup in front of him and then before Aurora as well.
"I'm remembering more… They're so vivid. I think it is a sign. I think I'm drawing closer to understanding."
Despite her enraptured revelation, Atlan bowed his head to attend to his soup, and only acknowledged the pause in her speech by pointing his spoon at her own untouched bowl. Obedient as a child, Aurora picked up her spoon and looked at the soup, feeling the waves of steam waft toward her face and warm her cold nose. She moved the pieces of vegetables around, but Atlan was not fooled. Only when she took a bite and chewed did he allow the conversation to continue.
"It's been fifteen years, Aurora. We've searched out every possibility, but each road leads to nothing. Your dreams are not a divine message from the gods… They're a manifestation of your nerves brought on by the Princes' arrival."
"This has nothing to do with them!" she snapped with such abrupt anger, insulted by the insinuation that anyone could affect something so private, so personal to her.
"Peace," Atlan appeased without the slightest disruption to his calm demeanor. "Finish your meal… Tell me about your dream."
She considered him haughtily, making a show of the silence between them, but her fixation could not be hushed. "I dreamt of my mother waking me-"
"As you did the night before," he pointed out.
"Yes, but I've never…" She extended her hands out before her trying to grasp at the elusive language to explain the sensation that gripped her still like knives to her gut and a weight to her chest. "I could feel her hands on me, Atlan. I could feel her!"
"She's dead, Aurora."
She would not be disheartened, and she ignored his contribution, rushing onward, "My father knew he would be betrayed. He alluded to it in his notes."
"His notes are senseless," Atlan intervened. "He wrote pieces of thoughts that have no meaning without context."
"Then why would my brother have given them to me to hide if they meant nothing!"
He waited for the rush of her anger to pass and said calmly, "You are grasping at air, Aurora. It is time you stopped looking over your shoulder and faced the day ahead of you. You might realize that it is dawn, that there is time for you to begin again."
Her eyes were pained staring at him, her face contorted almost in betrayal, and she shook her head. "You are the only one who has ever believed me."
"And I still do, but now there is an opportunity for you to move on."
"What are you talking about?" she asked, looking more alarmed as if a secret brewed beyond her knowledge.
Atlan sighed gently and set down his spoon, so simple a gesture though it meant everything to the shift in their conversation. "I'm glad you came to speak with me today. There is something I've need to discuss with you." She was stiff in her seat, still as a statue, but her eyes followed his slightest movement, searching his grey eyes for the words before he spoke them. "You should be cautious of the company which surrounds you… It is dangerous to visit me."
"Why are you speaking like this?"
"I've heard the King has been discussing your conduct."
The frown on her face could not capture her displeasure or her confusion. "For years the King has not acknowledged that I still breathe let alone told me he disapproves of my behavior."
"With the Alban Princes in the palace, Savas is cautious about maintaining appearances."
"And why should an Alban Prince be bothered by the company I keep?"
His frank expression drove a knife beneath her breast before he ever answered, "Prince Haemon came here to negotiate for your hand."
She hurried to her feet, siezed by sudden terror, but she could not fathom such a turn. Long had she been past the marriageable age. Long had her uncle overlooked her…
"It has not been finalized," Atlan spoke and too was standing to face her. "This is a delicate arrangement, Aurora –one for which peace hangs tandem. It is best to please the King."
"I am twenty-six, orphan, and still a virgin," she said in a hollow tone. "What could any man want with me?"
"You are the sole heir of Lycaon, son of Gallad."
"If my blood interests him, then he can have it. He'll discover it holds no power. I am trapped beneath my uncle's thumb."
"Not if you marry."
Aurora's features hardened with renewed purpose, and she shook her head forcefully. "No."
"A shadow follows you, Aurora. I watch it creep closer each day, wind its way around your throat, choke the youth from your spirit. If you remain here, I fear it will be the death of you."
"You know I cannot leave. How dare you ask it of me."
"I am only asking what a father would of his daughter."
"I have no father. He was killed years ago –murdered in his own home, and his killers wander free! I will not leave until those men are captured, charged, and hanged. Perhaps Prince Haemon could offer their heads as a bride price!"
"You think death will bring you peace?"
"Death stole my innocence, my happiness, my family! Why can it not give me something now?"
Atlan drew closer like a handler to a nervous steed, trying to grasp onto the leash that would control her agitation. "You're afraid of marriage. I understand. But you can't hide behind your past. It won't shield you from the nightmares and the pain. You carry your name like a burden upon your back, but I see the exhaustion in your eyes. Leave this, Aurora. I beg of you. Leave this and begin anew!"
"I am not a phoenix to rise from the ashes…" The search had consumed her for fifteen years. She did not know how to abandon it –least to become someone's wife. Her body was trembling, the anger and anxiety rushing through her as though it might tear her in two, and she hurried toward the threshold. "I must know why my family had to die, and if you won't help me, I will do it alone."
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The tides of day shifted to the darkness of night. Basins full of roaring fire lined the hallways, and his own chambers were scattered with candles and an open fire stoked in the center. Night brought with it the chill promise of fall's approach, and as he adjusted the lacing on his robes, he mused how he should have brought heavier clothes to fight away the cold; but he had never considered this a matter that would require much time. Marriage was nothing more than a contract between two countries that could ease the fears of his countrymen, and to that end, he gave it no further thought –even as his unruly memories wound a tale that made his head ache. Memories of a man who placed honor above family, who had paid the ultimate price, and who lay now beyond the River Styx. Haemon had tried to forget like cutting the decaying flesh of an infection from his body. It weakened him, and it was easier to look away. He wished he had looked away that day so long ago instead of realizing that in death you are alone. To face Hades, to understand how short the wick of your life, to see how swiftly the flame might be snuffed, to acknowledge how small and insignificant your place no matter how towering you once thought your purpose. All men are mortal. All life ends the same. And in that way, why did any of it matter? In these times, he envisioned meeting this man, and lke two pieces of glass mirroring the other, they would stand as tall. Would they embrace like old friends sharing the same secret?
"No," he muttered unconsciously, so engaged in his thoughts that he did not realize how they spilled over into his reality. "Because you are not the same."
"Speaking to yourself again, brother?"
Haemon turned to see Ascanius had entered and was dressed as well for dinner, and the former jested half-heartedly, "It's more entertaining than your company."
Ascanius was immune to the jab and merely adjusted the cuff on his wrist. "We should leave for the hall before the others are left to wait."
"You'd never let the wine wait, brother."
"It would be an insult to our hosts," he said and grinned.
Haemon tied off the threads, nearly tearing them with his rough hands, and muttered, "So you say."
The large doors groaned again, and their attentions were drawn to the threshold where the guard Kaunos entered and bowed before them. "I bring news, My Lords."
"What have you discovered?" Haemon wondered, intrigued at how swiftly he had acquired intelligence on this matter.
"The Princess left the palace this afternoon," Kaunos answered.
Haemon and Ascanius shared a similar look, teeming with inferences, and the latter pressed, "Where to?"
"A man's home on the outskirts of the city. They say he is Atlan, son of Borus, the King's hunter."
Haemon smirked with the arrogant pleasure of a man proved correct in his assumptions, but Ascanius had an alternate theory, "Her lover, perhaps?"
"Her messenger. She receives her instructions through him."
"Why a hunter and not a councilman?"
"Because none would suspect a hunter. He's insignificant as a servant by all appearances."
Ascanius was not similarly convinced. "It's very foolish for her to run to the man a day after our arrival."
"She had no reason to think she was followed." He shrugged as though her reasoning was of no concern to him. "And she is a woman. She's victim to her emotions. The pressure might be too great."
"We've been here one day," he disagreed. "I think it much more reasonable to assume an affair."
"Isn't it as foolish to run into her lover's arms when we are here?"
"As you said, she's passionate. Maybe your words incited her."
Haemon couldn't spare a laugh at the notion. "Affair or conspiracy, these are grounds to deny the engagement. We can return home and deal with Umbria."
"And what will we tell Savas? Our spies have been watching your supposed niece, and we think her behavior unfitting?"
"Let Solon handle it," Haemon muttered dismissively.
"I'm as eager to return home as you are, but we need more than an assumption, Haemon."
At length he met Ascanius' earnest expression, and his chin dipped slightly, knowing the truth in his brother's words no matter his impatience and his annoyance. "Then we will find our evidence." He turned to Kaunos who awaited further instruction and instructed, "Bring me something more concrete."
The guard bowed and exited the chambers, leaving the two brothers to settle their own plan of action.
"We'll stall the engagement until we're sure," Ascanius assured his brother, and Haemon nodded brusquely while striding toward the door.
"Let us be swift about it. I won't waste time on a pretender."
Author's Note: Hey my loves! I apologize if some of you noticed the "story not found. code 1." I'm honestly not sure what it meant, but I ended up sending an e-mail to the support team which seemed to work :) Hopefully all is well now! So things are still a bit mysterious, but the next chapter will clear up some key points!
Thank you to AmyLNelson and klandgraf2007 for the sweet reviews!
Amy: You're so sweet :) I was really worried that I would somehow disappoint people, and I'm relieved and happy to know you are enjoying it -well, so far! As for my fast writing, I've actually been building this plot for like months haha I just couldn't find the right way to apply it, and then I was browsing through GitW and it seemed so obvious. I probably won't be this fast all the time, but might as well take advantage of it while I can! As for Paris and Helen, I'm letting mythology take the reigns. Depending on which story you read, Helen went back to Menelaus (whether or not she flashed her boobies first is up for debate haha), and Paris was wounded by Philoctetes in battle and dies. Thanks so much for the input and patience and support! It means a lot xoxo
klandgraf: Ah I'm so glad you loved the irony with Aeneas. It seems so fitting, doesn't it? He knows what a cad he was in the past, and he's like growling at any guy who gets close to Iliana haha Haemon is meant to be like Hector, but clearly he has some issues with that. He's a bit more brutal, more intense. As for Iliana and Myrina, I didn't intentionally mean to make them alike though it makes sense they would favor each other somewhat. I think in following chapters, you'll see Iliana's very sweet and very naive :) I'm so happy you enjoyed it, and I really hope the momentum keeps going! :D xx
