Chapter 18
"The King"
"Does my account bore you, Princess?"
Her mismatched eyes spun to peruse the lines of councilmen, the beautiful Queen of Samnium caught up in a frown, and her husband at her side whose aggravation had assumed a steady pace throughout this meeting but now flushed with the raise of his graying brows. Four, pale streaks interrupted otherwise robust and vigorous features—compliments of a bear, the Queen had explained to her one afternoon, which had almost taken his life during a pleasant hunting trip. One cut through his thick brow. Two more indented the bridge of his nose, one sweeping so close to the inner corner of his right eye that he was nearly blinded. The final one was the longest and deepest, cutting through his cheek and down across his lips to his jaw. Aurora often stared at the scars for they flexed and twitched as he spoke like they were telling an older secret without words, but the Queen had warned her he did not like others staring at the wounds.
For the moment, she managed to find his brown eyes and lied effortlessly, "No, My Lord. I was only considering—"
"The implications," the Queen finished for her, a meaningful bite to her tone, and offered a soft, endearing smile to her husband. "You must understand, My King, that she has been told a tale much different and removed from our own."
The smile was a spell, and the King's attention lingered on his young, beautiful wife before turning to Aurora calmer and more composed. "A tale of lies," he contested gruffly.
By your eyes, her mind deferred though her tongue didn't dare to form the words. He spoke of The Battle of Three Kings: Apulian, Samnite, and Umbrian. It had been the battle to end all battles, or so they had said until new grievances were raised, arms taken up, and war waged. Every country cooked its own version of the event, peppering it with details both real and imagined to gain sympathy and regard among their lands. Gallad, her grandfather, had won the battle… or so her father Lycaon had told her.
The King took up his relaying of the events again to pin point out the historical context for his supreme hatred toward Apulia. He was meticulous in a daunting way: No look was unnoticed, and he hounded for information. Such was the legacy of his rule—his strategy, sharp focus, and thoroughness were renowned in his lands, though Aurora's people had less flattering names for these characteristics. Thus far she had been in the palace of Samnium five days. Her only explanation for her continued stay was Queen Raia who had offered her protection and kept to her word. Each afternoon Aurora joined Raia in her atrium and through several conversations the women had fostered a truce if not the beginnings of an acquaintance. In any case, Raia was the closest ally Aurora had though she couldn't quite afford to allow anyone near to her.
Five days. Three meetings with the King. At every encounter, Aurora was overshadowed. The King spoke and lectured and discoursed, but he had yet to let the woman have a word of her own say. Given her good fortune that she was safe within the palace walls and not kicked out onto the gutters of filth, she held her tongue and felt her eyes lose focus as her thoughts wandered from the throne hall to Rytilä.
"Swear to me."
"I'll find you."
That was the last she had seen him, and the brief exchange haunted her. She should never have left. She should have stayed and faced whatever fate awaited them. There was no peace in solitude and no sleep without knowing what had become of him. It was unfathomable really how she motivated herself to rouse from bed and face the day. Her recent plight had skewed her priorities so that sleep and food felt optional. Whatever drove her was much deeper and more powerful than those immediate pleasures. Yet she had been awakened at his side. No matter how she overlooked it, she slept like a babe at his side and remembered her appetite. She felt safe with him, not like an animal huddled in a corner and growling at anyone who dared to close. It was a rare indulgence for her, and she was almost spoiled by their brief time together. The lack of him felt so much heavier and empty now that she had known how she could surrender beside him without anxiety. If she saw him again… If she had the chance to face him in the stable again… Her mind fidgeted with the possibilities but couldn't dare to illuminate any of them. It would only torture her fragile state.
The large doors of the throne had been sealed tight, but they groaned loudly to life behind Aurora and interrupted the King mid-speech. She heard the rustling of fabrics and muttered words as those gathered stretched to see who would dare to interrupt a meeting of the King.
"What is this?" he snapped out across the hall.
Aurora turned with them though more delayed and slower given her heavy thoughts. She glimpsed exhausted across her shoulder, and her heart fell into her feet. She felt numb and tangled by her vision, and her eyes ached with effort to look and watch and understand…
He pushed through the doors, chestnut curls matted and dirtied, a mixture of blood and earth smeared across his arms, and his cloak swung shredded about his calves and missing a large section on one side. But her eyes were lost staring at his face. The dark beard had grown long since they left Apulia and masked the strong lines of his jaw so that she only knew beyond a doubt that it was him from the dark eyes, sharp and intent as a hawk.
"I tried to stop him!" a guard answered his king while running in after Haemon's long strides. The Alban Prince didn't even falter the slightest.
"Seize him!" the King roared as this stranger strode into his hall.
Eight guards from the edges of the hall reacted and rushed to take the Alban Prince.
"No!"
Aurora's voice called out as unyielding and forceful as the King but sounded hollow and washed out in her ears. Without hesitation, she rushed to meet Haemon, seeing the guards circling from the edges, and terror struck her like lightening to her core to think she could lose him again. Her arms took his shoulders in their grasp, her body pressed against his like a shield, and she buried her fingers into his hair and clung to the edges of his borrowed armor. She held so tightly she felt she could stretch herself and wrap around him and protect him, even knowing how small she was at his side.
"I thought you were dead," she whispered hoarsely, and the juncture of all her worst fears and his reassuring presence threatened to unleash a fresh assault of tears.
Only then did she feel his arms thread around her, and unconsciously she laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.
"I didn't have a horse," he answered, and his voice was gravel in his throat. Such a simple explanation for five days of horror.
He needed water Aurora realized and lifted her head once more like she could call it forth. He needed to wash. He needed food. He needed to rest. All these thoughts spun through her mind, but she found his gaze without searching for it. The dark eyes were heavy, opaque with weariness and pain, and something else was revealed to her.
"You're hurt," she noted and stepped back to look at him, but his arms held her captive.
"Say nothing," he commanded under his breath, and his gaze now strayed past her to the guards with spears brandished around them and waiting for the command to impale them both and set their corpses outside to rot.
He needed to appear strong. She could understand that, but her arms were stubbornly tangled around him like she could hold him from harm. He tugged at her elbow to release himself, but she dug her fingers in deeper. She needed him to understand.
"I'm so sorry," she pressed, short and abrupt, and Haemon turned to her immediately looking surprised. In the sights of his chestnut eyes, she continued earnestly, "I'm sorry I left you. I should never have left you."
The dirt collected in the lines of his face, deepening his frown, and his gaze simmered as if annoyed with her apology. He bent his face closer to her until their noses almost brushed, and this near, his gaze was electric. "We will speak of this later."
Her lips parted, but no sound escaped them.
He exhaled shortly through his nose and noticed the stain of dirt on her cheek from laying her head against his armor. Swiftly, he brushed his knuckles against her cheek, only smearing the dirt and adding a bit more from his hands, and there was something laughable and beautiful about her eyes staring lost up at him, her skin so pale and fragile he was angry she had not taken care of herself, and that dirty smudge across her cheek. He didn't know if he should reprimand her or take her.
"Later," he repeated distantly and tore his gaze away from her to the King once more who had stood from his throne and descended the short stairs in front of them.
"Haemon?" the King wondered and frowned as he dared closer.
"Deidus," Haemon returned sternly, and at last Aurora released him so that he could step forward almost brushing the edge of his chest plate against the spears around them. His gaze flickered toward the weapons and then back at the King. "Hoping to kill me?"
"If I want you dead, it had better be my hand!" he said, but for the threatening words, a grin broke out across his face, mangled in the scars on his face. "Stand down!"
The guards immediately abandoned their battle stances and parted for the King to approach closer, Haemon meeting him along the way.
"I didn't recognize your ugly features beneath the filth…"
"Your eyes are going."
The King grunted and acknowledged, "So you're alive. I'd begun to think Savas and his whipped dogs had caught up to you."
"Not yet," Haemon said and smirked.
"It was noble of you to send your wife ahead."
"Occasionally I make a wise decision."
Here, the King's attention strayed to glance at Aurora standing at Haemon's side. Her borrowed grey gown was stained with dirt from Haemon much like her features, but the King's scarred features gave no indication as to how he felt about their reunion. He looked to the Alban Prince again.
"An Apulian?" he said as if questioning Haemon's "wisdom."
"Yes," the Prince answered bluntly.
Again, Deidus glimpsed briefly at Aurora, less to care if she heard their conversation than to size her up. "I have daughters."
"Your oldest is six."
"Six more years, and she'll be a pretty prize for one man."
"Not for me," he said without apology, and the King grumbled inaudibly.
"You're fortunate you arrived today. Another day or so, and I'd thought to have her killed."
Aurora's blood ran cold, though she'd had the intuition her days were limited in the Samnite palace.
"It is fortunate," Haemon agreed. "I plan to go to war with Apulia, but Samnium is along the way."
"Peace, my friend," Deidus said and lifted his hand, palm outward. "You know of our distrust toward Apulians. It was not a personal offense."
"She is my wife. Any more personal, and you'd have to stab me yourself." The Prince frowned, and he assumed that stance of ultimate authority Aurora had seen him capable of as if he could project the influence of presence across a space. "I expected that title alone would grant her a warm welcome into your home."
"And she has received one," Deidus countered, ignoring Aurora's hard stare. "You see she is untouched. No harm has come of her."
"What I see is a woman called to a trial to answer for the faults of her forefathers," Haemon said sharply, and Aurora couldn't halt the look of alarm that passed across her features.
She looked to Queen Raia who too had descended the stairs and stood near enough to hear the men. Her green eyes held no lies, and Aurora might have kissed both her hands were they near enough. Raia was the only reason she was alive.
"You're mistaken, Prince. It is only a meeting. The Princess asked to speak with me, and she has."
"You've not allowed me to say a word in my defense!" Aurora countered before either man could say a word, but the sadness that had numbed her these long days was gone. She was furious. "Three times you've called me before you to lecture me on the crimes committed against your people when I came in search of safety and to offer you peace. The Queen is the only one who has listened to me."
"You claim to be a daughter of Lycaon," the King growled back shortly. "No child of Lycaon breathes today."
"I do."
"These lies!" Deidus said, this time looking at Haemon though he pointed to Aurora. "How can I bear her blatant lies?"
"You won't listen to the truth!" Aurora hissed angrily, and Haemon barely turned his head to consider her over his shoulder. In his face was a warning. She bit her tongue sullenly but did not back down from his side.
"She is Lycaon's heir," Haemon said to Deidus, and the King snorted with derision.
"You've been fooled, Prince! You've not been in these lands so long as I have. You do not know the silver tongues of the Apulians."
"Enough!" Haemon barked gruffly and took another step toward the King. The guards flexed instinctively around them, but the Prince seemed immune to their presence. "I know the woman I took from Apulia. I know the legacy she bears. If you do not trust her word, then hear mine. She is Lycaon's heir… And I will march on Apulia and take back her throne from the bastard king who claims it now."
The tension wrought between them so sharply it almost crackled between their locked regards.
Haemon searched the older man's scarred face and wondered, "Will you march with me?"
The scar across his cheek and lips trembled with thought and agitation, seeming like he might order his execution, but the King turned away dismissively and paced toward his throne.
"I must speak with my councilmen," he called back toward Haemon. "Go. Wash. Rest. We'll discuss this tonight."
Haemon answered his back, "I'll await your response. There's no time to be wasted."
Deidus turned and repeated, "Go. You are in my lands, Prince. I will answer your request when I see fit."
This time the Prince conceded, however petulantly, and he left the hall with Aurora at his side. She partly expected the King to call for her to remain, but it seemed Haemon's presence had ended whatever trial or meeting was occurring, to her relief. They made for Aurora's borrowed quarters, still under the guise of a married couple, and since no other shelter had been offered to the Prince. His pace was swift and curt as if agitated, and Aurora found herself almost trotting beside him to keep pace. With every step, his features sagged deeper and tangled with dirt and sweat, and the Princess couldn't understand whether it was fury or something else.
As soon as they entered her quarters, he dismissed the servants with a rough snap, "Out!"
The tone was akin to a whip, and the servants appropriately scattered with as much haste as they could manage. The door had barely closed behind the last of them when Haemon staggered, and unconsciously Aurora braced his side and wedged her shoulder under his arm. His weight swung her direction, and her knees shuddered with the effort not to buckle under his brawn. She pushed back with all the strength she could muster and helped him steady atop his feet.
"Bed," he commanded shortly, and the pair lurched and stumbled toward the bed with as much grace as a drunken cripple.
Aurora helped him however she could, but she could hardly handle his size and weight. Still, she tried and did not release him until he sat clumsily atop the mattress. His body sagged with relief to be supported, but his gaze was wandering, rolling from side to side in a way that she didn't understand. He breathed heavily, and Aurora remembered his wound and realized it was more than he had suggested.
Without hesitation, she tore away the knotting at his neck and allowed his dirty cloak to fall limp onto the bed behind him. Her fingers addressed the latching on his chest plate next and struggled to unravel the hitches. Her dexterity was abandoned with her calm guise, and her concern made her awkward and slow. She drew a steadying breath, gritted her teeth, and forced the leather to yield even as one of her nails broke with it. The flare of pain was minute and easily overlooked when she took the heavy chest plate and began to lift it from his body.
"Help me," she commanded shortly, and with his dwindling strength the largest piece of armor was removed and landed on the floor with a loud clatter that didn't register in Aurora's mind.
She yanked at his stained undershirt and pulled it over his head and down his long arms. His bare chest was revealed to her, dirty and sweaty, but otherwise she could see no lesion. Her hands walked across his arms and chest, searching and feeling for the slightest interruption in his skin, but there was nothing to be found.
His curly head hung heavy, his forehead rested on her shoulder as she tended to him, but as with everything else, she didn't notice until he spoke so near her ear she almost startled. "You were afraid for me."
"Where?" she asked impatiently and unlaced his sandals in the interim to give her shaking hands a purpose.
"You thought I had died," he continued as though deaf to her concerns.
"Where are you injured?" Aurora countered, having removed each of his sandals, and now she addressed the last layer of clothing around his waist.
He lifted his head and swung back where he was on level with her face. His dark eyes were watery with exhaustion, but they seemed focused alone by this sole realization he had stumbled upon. "You felt guilty."
"Yes," she answered bitterly, aggravated that he wished to have this conversation, and stared him down with increasing frustration that tore away any sense of self-awareness that she held. "You're all that I have—and I'm terrified of being alone… Please. Tell me where you're hurt."
"I know," he muttered roughly from his chest and bent forward until his forehead rested against her own.
She gripped to his knees to keep from bending back with the burden and felt her skull blaze with the pain of bone against bone. She stared up into his eyes, so close now she could only focus on them and nothing else.
"I had to protect you," he continued, his voice losing its momentum but stubbornly speaking all the same.
She felt his breath sear her lips. They were trembling, and her vision blurred even as she strained to focus on him. "I don't care if you protect me," she admitted in a barren tone. "I just want you to stay with me."
His nose crashed clumsily into her own, and she winced only to have the sting soothed over by his lips on hers. She stretched up, fighting against the weight of him bearing down on her, and kissed him brazenly, unleashing nearly two weeks worth of frustration and fear, all cut away by the sight of him. Her lips parted against his, wanting more, nibbling and kissing as she wanted him to do, but he was slow and distracted.
"Please," she pleaded directly into his mouth, and finally he relaxed away from her and revealed the bandage tied around his upper thigh.
There was the missing part of his cloak, and she unraveled it to see the messy wound, two swollen slits on either side of his thigh—an arrow's mark. The wound was nestled in the outer edge of his thigh. It would have gone through and through had it not been tangled up in his sinewy muscle. The fletching and end had been torn off, but there was still something keeping the wound from healing and undoubtedly causing him great pain.
"There's still something inside," she gaped in alarm for the wound was red, bloody, irritated, and swollen. Pungent puss spilled from the edges, and her lips curled unconsciously.
"I couldn't lose the blood," he answered, "and I needed to move." He swallowed and rested his palms behind his hips to help support his weight. "When I tried, it had worked deeper inside. It broke. It needs to be cut out."
It had probably taken all of his strength to walk into the palace and stand before the King, and she stared at his face, now mangled in pain, with awe and disbelief.
"You need a healer," she said and stumbled to her feet, but he caught her wrist and held tightly.
"No."
"Haemon," she said sternly, aggravated by the time that had already been wasted, "this is more than a cut. You need help."
"Yes," he agreed but did not release his grip on her. "You must do it."
Her jaw fell open at the mere thought of what it would require, and she couldn't even stomach the violent images sprung from her imagination. Her stomach flipped, and she looked away from him and toward the door.
"I can't…"
"You must." He pulled on her wrist—hard—making her turn to look at him, at the severity in his face. "We are here alone. No guards. No friends. Alone."
"The King is your ally—"
"A king only feels allegiance to himself." He swallowed and looked even wearier, weaker than she had ever seen him. "He can't know. He'll see an opportunity."
A cold sweat gathered across her brow and the edges of her mouth, and her flesh felt chilled and weak. It was an odd sensation to face when previously she had been so electric with the desire to help him.
"Aurora," he said and seemed to pierce through her reluctance. "I need you."
She stared at him, wide-eyed and terrified, but the look morphed as he felt her other hand cup his grip on her wrist. She nodded.
‡‡‡
The mattress depressed with the added weight seated upon the edge, alerting Iliana to her unannounced visitor, but she could estimate well enough without turning or speaking who had come to her.
"Your mother never told you how I kidnapped her when we were young," Aeneas commented in a soft tone and folded his hands comfortably, gazing off toward the door, while his youngest child pretended he didn't exist. He peeked at her with his pale blue eyes to check that she hadn't stirred in slightest and exhaled slowly.
"I was brash then," he recalled idly and let his eyes trail across the familiar angles of the room. "Too clever for my own good, and my lies had won me favor, bets, and women."
He rolled his jaw, reflecting back on those days, when his arrogance made him immortal. He would have run into battle without his armor if the mood struck him, all the while reminding the soldiers charging him that he couldn't be killed. He was the son of Aphrodite. The gods favored him. He smirked and shook his head slightly. If he were to meet his former self, he'd give the young fool a black eye to match his dark intentions. He'd been able to wile away so much on his good looks alone.
"Your mother, Myrina, she was the only one who saw through my tricks. The only woman who could outwit me, and I lavished off of it. She never bowed to me. She never apologized. She was this fiery ball of sharp wit, and I wanted her—I wanted her to condemn, object, and criticize me the rest of my miserable days."
Again, Aeneas peeked at his daughter, but Iliana had Hector's stubbornness and hadn't budged.
"Do you know why?" he asked rhetorically. "Because she was the only person, I thought, who could see me. Not Aeneas the Prince of Dardania. Not Aeneas the son of Aphrodite. Not Aeneas the trickster and bedder of women… She knew I was an arrogant, pigheaded ass the moment she saw me. I loved her for that."
"She hated you," Iliana whispered softly, and Aeneas perked up his pale eyebrows.
"Oh, so I do have an audience?"
The Princess was silent again, and Aeneas smiled.
"Yes, she hated me," he admitted, "and I didn't care. She made me want to be better. No one had ever had that effect on me or held me accountable for what I did or said. She made me feel like a man with no title and no fortune. She made me fight to prove my worth to her… So I kidnapped her."
"To prove your love for her?" Iliana clarified sarcastically. "It's something a god would do, not a man."
She might have Hector's stubbornness, but she also had Myrina's tongue. It could never stay still for too long.
"I didn't say I was magically changed by my love for her," he countered. "I made my share of mistakes. Many, many mistakes."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Aeneas scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Because what I did was wrong. I didn't understand how to love someone. I was selfish and proud. I knew she loved another man, and I didn't want to lose her. I thought I could make her happy, care for her, offer her everything she didn't have… But I only hurt her."
"She forgave you."
"Yes, and I was able to love her and place the coins on her eyes when she passed… I want you to know that I understand. Eros shoots blindly, and sometimes the effects aren't beautiful and perfectly constructed stories. Sometimes it is painful and work and feels like you're climbing Mount Olympus."
Finally, Iliana turned so that her shoulders rolled back onto the bed, and she could look back at Aeneas. "Then why are you punishing him?"
"Because you're my daughter," he answered immediately.
"And you've never let a man come near me!" she snapped and sat up in a flourish. "You've never let me even try to love or to be loved, and the first time I find someone who cares for me and wants to take me for his own for the rest of his life… You lock him away and torture him!"
"He isn't imprisoned for loving you!" Aeneas countered before he could catch his temper. He looked away and gathered his calm, answering to the wall, "He hurt you, Iliana. He could have killed you…"
"It was an accident! You heard him! He told me everything. He had no reason to do that. He's wrought with guilt, and you know it!"
"I'm trying to protect my family and my city. He's Menelaus' son. You may not remember what that name meant to Troy and its lands, but I do."
"Menelaus never claimed him! He didn't sail across the seas to Troy!" Her chocolate eyes were wide and almost frenzied staring at Aeneas. "I don't care that he's Menelaus' son. I don't care about Troy. This is my home, and I love him…"
"You said you never want to see him again," Aeneas recalled stiffly, trying to keep the disapproval from his tone. In theory he could understand that she had the least stake in Troy, but he disliked that she would dismiss her past and heritage so quickly. It was a mistake of youth to abandon the long line that came before you.
"I…" Iliana's eyes fell, her shoulders sunk, and her body was concave with defeat. "Whatever had flourished between us… It will never resume. We'll never see each other the same. We'll never be able to overlook the things that have passed and were said." She exhaled heavily and glanced at Aeneas, dark eyes burning with sincerity. "I want him to have a chance at a life away from here. I want him to be able to move on. I can't offer him that."
A beat of heavy silence passed between them before her father asked gently, "And what of you?"
Iliana looked at her lap where the lines of her dress had twisted around her hips and thighs and hugged the shape of her curves. Her belly was flat between, and she felt no sense of worth or attachment to the possibility between her hips. She didn't yearn for a lover. She didn't yearn for a husband or a family.
Turning away from Aeneas, she lay down again and answered, "I want to be left alone."
‡‡‡
She adjusted the pillow beneath her head, pushing the padding up to support the weight of her temple, and brushed her blonde hair back from her shoulders. The candles about the room flickered in the chill gusts within the palace, and she edged closer to his side until her breasts brushed the edge of his calf and she could place her lips to his ankle if she wished. Instead, she curled inward and tilted her face down to stare across the lines of his naked body shrouded by a thin sheet and to his upper body propped up on pillows at the head. His eyes were closed, and his chest slowly rose and fell with the waves of his deep breath. She had washed him from toe to nose, even his hair which required her drying it with a cloth as much as she could to keep away the chill, and she had trimmed his beard so that it neatly contoured to the lines of his jaw and neck. Aside from his pallor and the unseen gnarled wound in his thigh, he looked like the man she had met in the Apulian palace weeks again. And yet different still. Her gaze trailed along the curves of her body matched against his side and to his hand resting heavy and comfortable on her thigh. The gold ring glinted in the candlelight. She looked at Haemon's features unchanged and leaden with sleep and then once more to the ring.
Aurora snaked her hand down from beneath her head and carefully laid it atop his own. She checked his face, but as before, there was no change. Her fingers curled around his palm, sliding her hand gently beneath his, and still, he did not move. Ever so carefully she took hold of the ring and slid it down his finger. At the swell of his knuckle, her slow progress halted, and she bit her lip, stared at his sleeping face, and tugged. The ring slipped over his knuckle. Haemon's features twitched, but nothing more came to pass. With the excitement of a thief, she pulled the ring from his finger and brought it up to her face to inspect the worn edges and warped band. Its age was evident. The face was beginning to brown and obscure the embossed seal, and she ran her thumb across it to better tell its shape. It was warm from his finger, and she thought again on the story he had told her of his parents meeting.
"What are you thinking of?"
His voice rumbled up his sleep-oppressed chest like thunder grumbling among the heavens, and yet Aurora almost jumped from her skin. Her eyes darted guiltily toward his face to find his lids parts, though heavy, and his chestnut gaze observing her.
"I thought you were asleep," she murmured, trying to ignore the flush warming her cheeks.
"And so you took my father's ring."
"I was only curious…" she continued, chin dipped toward her chest, looking at him contritely from beneath her lashes. She rolled the ring between her thumb and forefinger and then held it out for him to take.
Haemon glanced at the ring and then her face again. "Then look at it," he said dismissively, so calm and even that she realized he wasn't angry.
She brought it back to her chest and continued twisting it between her fingers. She slid it onto her thumb, but it was still too big to be worn. She oddly liked that and tried it on her next finger where it was even larger, and she smiled as the sensation recalled an old memory.
"My father had a ring like this," she said and watched how the gold glinted in the dull light. "He would let me wear it sometimes—to distract me if he needed to speak with his councilors. I was always fascinated with them. He'd only ever wear the same two, and I thought they must be special for him to have them, like they were magical or held a piece of him."
She smiled wider at her childish naivety and glanced to see Haemon still watching her. She continued fidgeting with the ring and watched it rotate in her grip until every side was warmed with her touch.
"They burned our home after… I had run into the woods, and I could see the flames. I stood there all night watching everything I knew dissolve to ashes." She was lost watching the ring's revolutions and muttered, "I wish I had grabbed something to remember them…"
"It wouldn't have helped," Haemon commented at last, and she looked distrustfully to him. "When I wear that ring, and I look it, I see my father being dragged behind Achilles' chariot and to the enemies' camps. I don't see his glory, only his death."
Unconsciously, her brow furrowed at the glimpse into his mind and she wondered, "Why do you wear it?"
"It reminds me… You never abandon your family—never."
His words hammered into her breast, and she bowed her head in shame with how they pinpointed her fatal flaw.
"What?" he prompted to see the shift in her demeanor.
Aurora barely shook her head but stubbornly kept her face hidden away.
"Look at me, Aurora."
She bit her lip and defeatedly turned her face to peer at him where her eyes glistened with the tears pooling in them.
He frowned, less disappointed than aggravated, and he commanded curtly, "Come here."
His tone left no room for disagreement, and she had no strength left in her after the trials of this day to defy him. She tucked the ring in her palm and gathered herself up to her knees, the pale sheet unfolding her naked skin underneath, and she drew closer to him until he grasped her elbow and tugged, sending her off balance and collapsing against him. She tried to adjust herself, blushing as she felt her naked flesh spill across his chest. Simultaneously his arms corralled her and held her captive until she abandoned her brief struggle and looked at him with face flush and eyes glittering in the dim light.
"You're upset because you left me, and you feel guilty for what happened to me," he said, still frowning deeply, but his voice was calm.
"Yes," she confessed, though it was only part, and turned her face away. The thought of Alix facing those men alone bladed through her, and she cringed.
"Look at me," he demanded again.
She glanced at him from the corner of her tearful eyes but would not face him fully.
Aggravated with this, he took her chin and forced to her to turn to him once more so that they were eye-to-eye. "I sent you away to protect you. It was my choice. You did not abandon me."
"I should not have left you," she muttered automatically, but Haemon gripped her chin more tightly to silence her.
"What would you have done if you had stayed? I wouldn't have been able to fight looking back and trying to protect you. We both would have been captured, and we'd most likely be hanged now or sitting in a dark dungeon awaiting execution."
"You almost died," she whispered, faintly aware the tears were falling down her cheeks and slipping across his fingers holding her chin.
"This?" he said and referenced his leg. "I've dealt with worse, and I'm not dead. Yes, much could have turned for the worse, but it didn't. There's no reason to cry or to feel guilty. You did what I asked you to do. You survived."
Her eyes looked down at his chest rather than facing his barren gaze. The words seemed to ill placed so as to almost seem mocking.
"You traveled the High Pass alone. You convinced your enemies to welcome you into your home. You faced a foreign king alone…" He shook his head and tilted her chin back until her mismatched eyes found him again. "Do you not see how strong you were?"
"I didn't feel strong," she murmured earnestly. She had been sick with worry and fear.
"You were. I thought I would find you along the High Pass, not in the Samnite king's throne hall."
At last, he released her chin and brushed back a stray strand of blonde hair draping across her brow.
"Fleeing captivity suits you," he acknowledged. "You've grown braver and stronger."
Aurora focused on the indentation of the ring in her palm rather than his kind words. Perhaps it was the exhaustion or the weight of the day that made him so lenient… Her eyes dared to look at him. Or perhaps it was their separation that gave him perspective as it had her.
He added, "Though you haven't eaten or slept since we parted it looks."
"Barely," she admitted. "I didn't have you around to pester me about it."
His eyes narrowed subtly, and his brief smile flickered out and died. "You don't eat or sleep when you're afraid… I don't want you to be afraid."
She was the one to smile tentatively, and she revealed, "I'm not afraid with you here."
"I promised I would protect you."
"Not because you can protect me," she corrected, nervous and excited by the prospect of an honest conversation between them, and she added the final note, "but because I'm not alone."
An abrupt calmness swept through her, kindled by the depth of his eyes absorbing what she had said, but rather than soothing and pacifying her, she felt electrified and brazen. His features widened with surprise when she dauntingly straddled his waist, her knees bracing his hips, and the length of her naked torso and breasts unraveled before his gaze. Her toes brushed the bandage on his thigh, and without hesitation, he gripped her knee and wrenched it up until her foot was flat on the mattress, her other knee still curled against his side. She had braced herself with her hands on his chest, but the same ones swept up to cup his trimmed beard and hold him for the assault of her lips on his own. They parted. The increasingly agitated breath exchanged back and forth. He cupped her thigh, running his hand along the smooth length; he bit her lower lip and reminded himself of its soft texture in his grip.
"Wait," she mumbled against his lips, and for a moment his mind didn't register the command. He was feasting on her supple mouth, and his body was waking with how long since he had tasted them. Her eyes closed, she exhaled indulgently, and she was caught up in the spell of him.
"Haemon," she tried again when he released her lip to take her chin and jaw. "Please. I don't want to lose this."
Her hand uncurled between them to reveal the golden ring in her possession. He swiftly plucked it from her hand and set it on the bedside table with a muted clatter but did not seem to even notice or care what he did with it. She was almost startled; she rarely saw him without it, but she had no opportunity to consider the implications when he took hold of her and forced her to him, nibbling on her lips until her body caved atop him. His hand tangled in her hair, holding her and guiding her where he devoured her as he desired, and she was flustered with his ministrations shuddering throughout her body. She impatiently tore back the sheets separating them with a burst of want. His palm cupped her waist. She stretched through her spine to hold his lips and obey his hand drawing her back.
The chill night winds swept through the windows and killed the final flickering candles.
‡‡‡
The bolt retracted bluntly, and a moment later the door swung open. Damian lifted his head and winced at the light filtering in from the exterior. It felt like endless nights that he had not seen the light. The torch was too bright, and he groaned for it seemed the flames were licking at his eyes and burning through to his mind. A figure stepped closer, though Damian couldn't make out any defining characteristics while his sights adjusted and he blinked blindly to regain his vision.
At last he could see through the darkness, but the face that met him blindsided him even further.
"I come on behalf of my daughter," Aeneas spoke after having passed the torch the guard outside so that the light accentuated his outline standing tall in the doorway. "And my family and my city."
So it had come. He'd lost count of the days, but he'd sensed his time was near. "Which city, King?" Damian asked.
The healer had visited him as Iliana had promised. His wound was healing. The infected skin had been cut away. He had been given water and food. His body felt weak from crouching and sitting at all hours, but otherwise he was strong. He felt like he was a hog being fattened up before slaughter.
"Both," Aeneas answered as evenly.
"Killing me will bring you no vengeance… Menelaus does not claim me nor know of me." It was less a plea for mercy than a statement. He couldn't give them what they needed. He had no power.
"The same blood flows through you as does him. That is temptation enough for my sons."
"And not you?"
"I would kill you for placing a blade to my daughter's throat. Your heritage is an added reward."
Damian gave no response. He didn't deny he deserved punishment for what he had done to Iliana, and he bowed his head to his fate. But it evaded him a while longer.
"You are more cunning than you claim –to attach yourself to my daughter, thinking you could bring yourself among our ranks, and you played your part well, Spartan. Even now she begs me to spare your life."
"She's young," Damian acknowledged, once charmed by her innocence and optimism. "She doesn't realize my fate has been sealed. I am dead whether by your hand or another's."
"You welcome it," Aeneas observed given his frank tone.
Damian glanced at him from beneath his heavy brow and looked away. "I have no life awaiting me if I leave this room. There is no place for me in Latium, nor Sparta."
"There's no need to keep your act with me. You would be a fool not to rush to Menelaus' ear."
"Yes," he agreed, "but I would not."
The Alban King drew nearer then. His sandals crunched on the straw and dirt floor, and he squatted to be on level with the prisoner who rewarded him by looking into the King's face. Aeneas did noting but say, "I don't believe you're so noble."
Damian frowned, staring treasonously into the Aeneas' eyes, and replied, "I don't care what you believe."
"Why?"
The blacksmith frowned. He was being baited almost with the prospect of his own death and instead forced to carry on a conversation with the King. Biting his tongue against more acidic responses, he said, "Present circumstances excluded, Alba Longa has been the first city to accept me since my birth…" He wet his dry lips and admitted, "The only chance I have to prove my loyalty to these lands and to your daughter is to die."
Aeneas said nothing, and Damian was tired of whatever game they were playing. "Slow or swift, I will go to Hades. It is your decision when."
"My daughter has begged me to free you," the King commented. "I cannot allow that, but I can offer her some piece of solace."
Finally, Damian understood and offered the King a weary smile. "Kill me and tell her I've left… Clever trick."
"She'll be able to live her days without your blood on her hands, and you'll never have the chance to disappoint her or destroy my family."
She'd think he had abandoned her without a word or even a glance. She would be devastated, but she was young still. These wounds would have time to heal. She could find a better man to live out her days beside, and he would never be tempted to ruin her happiness by arriving unannounced. Damian's black eyes noted the hilt of the blade at the King's side and nodded. It was a fair trade.
"Let me die on my feet—not on the floor like a coward," he requested and looked at the Alban King.
Aeneas took each of Damian's arms, his wrists tied behind his back, and helped the blacksmith to his feet where he staggered uneasily to regain his balance considering his weakened state. He found the will to stand tall, spreading his feet to ground himself, and his fingers curled to hold on to the rope binding his wrists. He was ready.
Aeneas drew his blade, the same one Damian had forged for him, and the blacksmith smiled at the trick of fate. Killed by his own blade. Somehow he knew this was how it should be.
Damian swallowed thickly. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as if he could anticipate Thanatos' chilly presence waiting to catch him when he fell. He shrugged his shoulders lose of their tension and stood taller still, all the while looking Aeneas in the eye and feeling stronger to know he would face his fate like a man.
Aeneas took the hilt in both hands, twisted, and pulled the blade back, ready to pierce Damian through the chest.
The blacksmith nodded his thanks: A swift, clean death was not often offered among his kind. He held tighter to the rope, needing to grip something for a reason he couldn't quite name. The tension between had assumed its peak like a bow pulled to its fullest reach. Staring in the King's blue eyes, he saw the end in sight. It felt noble, sacrificing himself for a woman like Iliana. It was more than he deserved, and he welcomed it.
All at once, the King charged. Damian braced himself, but rather than the slice of pain as a sword penetrated his chest, he was thrown back against the wall behind him and almost fell to his feet for the shock and surprise that make him stiff and unresponsive. Aeneas grabbed his arm to hold him steady and growled through his teeth, "Prove your loyalty with your life, not your death. Fight and earn the trust of these people."
With that, he spun the numb blacksmith around and sawed apart his binds. Damians' hands fell limp to his sides, tingling and pulsing as the blood flowed unhindered into his fingers, but he left them untended and twisted to face the King again.
Breathless, confused, he wondered, "Why are you doing this?"
Aeneas sheathed his blade, and though he looked furious and rueful, he answered proudly, "Because I am a son of Troy, and unlike your father who killed every one of my brothers and sisters, I know mercy."
The King turned from him then and strode for the open door, but Damian spoke to his back, "I hear we will go to war."
Aeneas paused in the threshold, wondering briefly how a prisoner could hear such rumors, but even guards would gossip especially with a war on the horizon. Savas would pay for betraying him.
"Yes," the King answered curtly.
"I want to fight," Damian responded, and Aeneas glanced over his shoulder at the bastard son of his sworn enemy.
"You will."
Author's Note: Hey lovelies! How about that for a chapter! :D I'm sorry for the delay in my updating. I'm in a very busy time unfortunately. But hey! Haemon's back, and Damian's released. Hmmmm... I wonder what will happen next ;)
Thanks to ZabuzasGirl and klandgraf2007 for the sweet words!
ZabuzasGirl: Goodness! So demanding ;) Well, here's the update. Hope you enjoyed! xoxo
klandgraf: Seems your intuition was proven correct, missy! The King is a bit of a dick, but understandably so considering who Aurora is. He'll come around in the future chapters. You're so sweet! Maybe one day I'll publish these things. I'm trying to have a few of my short stories published, but I won't get word back until March whether they were approved or not. Sooo we'll see! I hope you like this chapter xoxo
