When he woke again, he felt a thousand times better. His sight was clear, and from his peripheral it was obvious he was no longer in the ruins. He lye on a makeshift bed of pillows and animals furs. The first thing he realized was that everything was painted in black. Were it not for the few candles placed methodically in the small, windowless, room he would be in absolute darkness. The next thing he realized, was that he wasn't alone. He couldn't see it, but he felt a presence there, watching him. Although he doubted this presence meant any harm, it was nonetheless unsettling. He tried to sit up, but was instantly greeted with vertigo, beside him was a pail that he hastily grabbed and wretched into.
"The venom lingers in your blood," the voice is soft but eerie, like the whisper of a shade.
"But you sweated out most of it. I suggest you rest for a week or two, the venom has stunted the healing for the wound."
"How long have I been here?" he queried, after spitting up the last of whatever was left in his stomach.
"You've been unconscious for three days," the figure finally stepped forward. Revealing to be a woman, clad in a black peplos. Encircling her golden eyes and painting her full lips was black soot, a feature he knew to be common amongst followers of the God of the Underworld. Coily, black hair fell loosely along her oblong face and onto bare umber shoulders. If he weren't so delirious he would've admired her beauty, however he was trying desperately not to heave up his organs.
"The Gods have truly blessed you warrior. If I hadn't found you, you would be dead." he almost wanted to laugh at that. The Gods never intervened whenever he was too close to death. No... there was one who listened to his pleas for life and victory. It was the same God who had purposefully caused the very genesis of his misery. He wished he hadn't been so stupid.
"Do you have water?" the woman walked soundlessly across the room to a table he couldn't quite see as the furniture was also black and blended in with the darkness. She brought him a small vase filled to the brim. She gave him the vase and warned him not to drink in haste. But he was so thirsty, he ignored her and just as he finished he felt it all coming back up his throat. He vomited into the pail again.
"You're impatient. Aren't Spartans supposed to be the epitome of self discipline?" He stared at her as she took the vase from his hands.
"You know who I am?"
"Everyone knows about the Ghost of Sparta," he internally cringed. That was an alias he would never get used to hearing. Typically people ran away from him once knowing who he was. Yet this woman didn't seemed remotely disturbed that she saved a man who'd slain thousands of people, many of them innocent.
"Although I must admit. I don't know you're real name."
"...Kratos."
"Raw, unstoppable power. That is a fitting name for a man of your...physique." her eyes appraised his body and despite his fatigue and illness there was no helping the subtle heat spreading in his pelvis. She stood and went back to the table, fixing him more water.
"Slowly." she said, when she handed it back to him. He took his time, gulping down the water at a sluggish rate.
"You have not told me who you are." he said. The woman took the pail, gazing into it and grimacing.
" I am a simple priestess." she said. With the pail, she left the room through a door covered by black curtains. He still felt awfully weak and lethargic, so he went back to asleep.
For the next few days he didn't see the priestess. She came when he slept, proven by the food left by his bedside and his wound routinely cleansed and rebandaged. He could get up and walk around, though the task was laborious. Somehow the Priestess had brought him into a small and old abandoned temple likely meant for a minor god. Mostly he slept, and was glad the nightmares spared him. He did have one peculiar dream. He was in an unfamiliar land, standing a few yards from a cliff overlooking a grey ocean. The grass was long and scratched against his thighs. A woman stood inches from the edge, her back to him. She wore a long, translucent, silk dress with an olive brown coloration. The silk clung to her as the wind blew, accentuating her wide hips. No words were exchanged, in fact the dream was entirely silent. When he woke up, the priestess stared down at him, her lips curved into a smile.
"You're dream was pleasant." she said. He kept his mouth shut. "I apologize for my absence. I had a couple of things to attend to. The poison has been flushed out for good. Your wound should heal normally now," Smooth, cool, fingers probed the scar tissue on his abdomen. "Only demigods heal this quickly, does it hurt?"
"No." he was used to physical pain.
"Well...are you a demigod?" her fingers trailed away from the injury, tracing the long red tattoo that partially covered his left pectoral. He watched her closely, wondering if she were simply curious of the tattoo. As for her inquiry, he neither knew nor cared whether he was or wasn't.
"Why did you help me?"
"As a priestess of Hades I am bound to serve humanity. But I suppose you want a stronger reason than that," the Priestess's fingers glided past the tattoo on his chest to touch the one snaking down his bicep.
"I'm in need of your strength and I think the Gods have sent you to assist me. You were a thread from Hades door, surely finding you was no mistake," Kratos certainly agreed to that.
"My sister and I both serve at a temple of Hades near Athens. We're both the healers of the temple. Every year my sister and her husband journey off to replenish our inventory. It should have only taken them a month- and I had waited three months. I've been searching for my sister for almost half a year now. A week ago I finally discovered that she'd been captured by Myrmeke mercenaries led by a warrior I cannot defeat on my own. Perhaps you have heard of the notorious Achilles." Kratos did not typically care for knowing people.
"How do you know your sister and her husband are still alive?"
"I'm certain her husband was killed. I have an affinity for the dead-one of many gifts from Lord Hades. I felt his spirit leaving this world. And my sister… we're twins you see. My connection to her is stronger than anything on this earth. She's in danger, but she's alive." The only question lingering in his mind was what reward he would receive for helping. Could this be the final task in his quest for atonement? Would the Gods grant him his desire and end his nightmares? Either way, she had saved his life. He owed her a debt.
"Tell me more about this Achilles."
By the next day most of Kratos's strength returned. He deemed it best to leave early in the morning, before monsters and humans stirred awake. As the sun peeked over the horizon, the light provided a clearer appearance of Hades' follower. Her gold eyes lit up, seemingly twinkling in the sunlight. He could see that her black peplos was thin and could faintly see nude skin underneath. Her figure became more prominent. He immediately thought of his dream of the woman standing at the edge of a cliff. The Priestess noticed his ogling, and a playful smirk graced her lips.
"Come Spartan. Troy is quite the distance from here."
"Troy?" the city had been ravaged years before his birth by the preceding king of Sparta, Menelaus. It was no different than Rhodes; a magnificent city reduced to nothing.
"Achilles seems to have set roots there. Considering his involvement, it isn't surprising." after the woman had given everything she knew about the Myrmeke warrior, Kratos found himself conflicted and somewhat angered. During his youth, he was explicitly trained in Spartan conquests, but for his teachers to leave out such a warrior in their history was unnerving. Achilles clearly was the real reason why Sparta could breech Troy's walls, yet he was taught the Great Menelaus had been the true hero who'd taken the city. What other fallacies were imbedded in his education? Or perhaps the Priestess's words were mere legend.
"If this Achilles is famous, why does he spend his days rotting in rubbish?"
The priestess thought to herself for a moment. "I've heard that he lost his mind after his companion, Patroclus, was killed." Kratos crossed his arms; a warrior was met with death and violence everyday. Kratos had been acquainted enough with the smell of blood and gore. He had known some men to go mad from battles, unable to stomach the brutality. But he knew Achilles was not such. Kratos knew better than anyone how it felt to lose what he considered more precious than anything.
"This Patroclus was his lover. No?"
The Priestess shrugged, "Who knows? Frankly, I don't care. I just want my sister."