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author-morgan · 4 years

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Kryptic ↟ Deimos

twenty-five- a taste of freedom

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But the great leveler, Death: not even the gods can defend a man, not even one they love, that day when fate takes hold and lays him out at last.

Death submits to no one, not even Dread and Destruction.

They are both weapons of flesh and bone, of warm blood and beating hearts, and they cannot be controlled.

THE ACHE IN her back does not dissipate with the rise of the morning sun. Lesya sits up and the weight across her chest slides down to rest across her thighs. A soft groan of protest leaves Deimos’ lips when she shifts again —stretching the broken skin on her back and arm.

Matted locks of dark brown hair hide his face, but Lesya knows he is at ease. Sleep had always been one of the few times when the horrors of the world faded —especially if they were together. Lesya settles back down next to him and brushes aside the hair in front of his eyes. The stubble on his cheek tickles her lips when she presses them just beneath the scar under his eye.

“You’re still here,” he mumbles —voice still rough with sleep— and she nods. Deimos had expected her to sail on the morning tide as she had in Korinth. He rolls onto his side, dark eyes following the curve of her lips. She’s radiant in the morning light, but he cannot stop himself from focusing on the scab at her temple and the linen dressings covering her middle. Deimos has yet to feel guilty regarding the lives he’d taken and destroyed, but seeing her like this because of him eats away at his heart. Lesya moves closer and trails her fingertips along his chest, around to the long scar on his side, and then the brand at the base of his ribs. “Lesya,” he breathes, catching her wrist when she starts to pull back.

She can see the remorse in his tawny-gold eyes. “Don’t,” she utters, shaking her head, “I’ve had worse than this, you know that.” A clean-cut could not compare to when her back had been torn open or when they took her womb. It would heal with time. Her words aren’t enough to offer solace. “Alexios.” Deimos’ eyes dart up to meet her own at the whisper of his true name and he releases her wrist from the gentle cage of his rough fingers. Lesya leans toward him —can feel his warm breath against her lips and cheek— but rapping on the bedchamber door stays the both of them.

One of Hermippos’ frightened slaves stands trembling on the other side, pointing toward the courtyard and the soldiers who demand to speak with Deimos. He nods, dismissing the messenger, and turns to collect his chiton from the floor. Lesya rises, finishing the last of the buttons on his left shoulder before picking her stained chiton and shrugging it on overhead —neither bother with armor, though when Deimos retrieves his sword, Lesya takes one of her daggers and follows behind him.

Two guardians await in the courtyard, garbed in the dark steel armor of the Cult, though the masked helms are discarded. “Great champion,” one of the guardians says and both dip their head down in genuflection. These had been the cowards to escape his sister’s blade after killing a child in the Odeon of Perikles. Deimos’ stern gaze is enough to make them tremble, but it is the sight of Enyo that makes both of them step back. “Kleon–” one begins, carrying the new leader’s orders, but is cut off when Deimos seizes him by the throat.

“She was a child!” Deimos shouts, tightening his fingers around the guardian’s throat before twisting —tossing him into the altar at the heart of the villa. “Does it bring you pride to have slaughtered a little girl?” Phoibe. Lesya had only briefly encountered the girl in Korinth, but Kassandra always spoke fondly about the orphaned girl on Kephallonia. She looks between Deimos the guardians, feeling her heart sink. She was never meant to die.

The man twists, using the altar as leverage to stand again. “She was sniffing around at Anastasios’,” he defends —better to tie up loose ends rather than have them pop up again at inconvenient times.

Deimos steps forward. “Only cowards kill children,” he hisses, thrusting the blade of the Damoklean sword through the guardian’s chest, punching through armor, flesh, and bone. Lazily, he pulls the sword back and glances over his shoulder —seeing Lesya move toward the second guardian, her dagger clasped tightly in her hand. The guardian crumples, blood leaking onto Hermippos’ white stone floor and the second cult guardian steps back, trembling. Deimos flicks the blood from his sword onto the stone and watches as Lesya closes in —jerking her arm in a tight slash. The guardian’s hands go to his throat to stifle the blood sluicing and gurgling out. He stands for only a few more unsteady moments before collapsing in a heap. Dike, let justice be done.

WATER SLOSHES ONTO the smooth floor of the washroom. Deimos brushes the damp copper hair away from Lesya’s back and shifts in the stone bath, reaching for a linen rag to wash away the old ointment and what dried blood he had missed. Draping the rag over the side of the stub, Deimos seizes her waist, drawing her flush against his chest —a rough hand slips around to her stomach. Lesya hums softly, content and leans her head on his shoulder. He turns his head, lips ghosting over her temple. Moments like this are what they both had missed the most —moments to be vulnerable and tender, to be more than a weapon.

“I need to find Kassandra,” Lesya mutters. I need to find my brother. The longer she remains with him the harder leaving will be, though —the more it will break her mending heart. But she had promised to help Kassandra find her mother and bring about the downfall of the Cult. She cannot do either from Athens, especially in the midst of a plague.

“Lesya,” Deimos breathes, nuzzling her neck. “Stay,” he echoes what she had asked of him on Keos. One day. The Cult has no need of him for now. Perikles is dead and Kleon rules Athens —just as they wanted. For the first time since he had helped her escape, they could be with one another

She turns —water lapping at the tub’s smooth sides— and cups his face in her hands. “I can’t, Alexios.” It pains her to say it, but the timing isn’t right. One day we’ll be together.

“I know,” he says, voice soft. “Where do you need to go?”

“Naxos,” she answers —thumb running across the scar on his cheek. “Come with me,” Lesya pleads, they could make this journey together. Deimos catches her wrist and pulls it to his lips, pressing a slow kiss to the center of her palm. She sighs when he leans forward, brushing his lips against hers. The sigh turns into a soft gasp when he rises from the tepid water —carrying her to the bedchamber.

Deimos kneels behind her on the mattress, fingers following the deep scars on her back. He recalls the day it happened and the rage he’d felt finding her lying in a pool of bloody water in the Phokis’ villa. The scars are soon covered as he winds a fresh strip of linen around her middle. “We can leave now,” he tells her. Lesya nods, reaching for the indigo chiton laying before her —a replacement for her bloody and threadbare one.

They move quietly through the streets —passing wains filled with the dead waiting to be carted outside of the city walls and small piles of bodies that have been set alight. Scores of Athenians have joined the ranks of the dead in a single night. The gods have forsaken Athens.

As she and Deimos near the port, Lesya can feel her heart sink as she thinks of her brother. He’d been wroth, and aggrieved by the death of Kalanthe and learning his own sister had murdered their father. Lesya is certain the Ippalkimon would have departed to return to Keos, but she spots the gilded siren figurehead crowned with winter stars. Tundareos paces the deck —he’d done so since he returned to the ship at the edge of dark and saw the Adrestia departing without his sister. Kassandra told him she could not be found, and she could not tarry when her mother’s life was in danger.

Deimos presses his hand against the curve of her back —she looks up at him, laurel eyes glassy with unshed tears. “Wait here,” Lesya tells him and he nods, watching as she moves up the gangplank nigh fading into the mist. Several of the deckhands pause their routines as she steps onto the trireme, a veil covers her head, but they know who the copper hair belongs to. Whispers sweep over the deck and Tryphena stops her captain, motioning toward Lesya.

Tundareos turns on heel, marching towards his sister, and stops before her. Lesya lowers her gaze, unable to meet his as she murmurs his name. The silence seems to drag on for an eternity and the longer it lasts the further her heart sinks. Without saying anything, he surges forward and engulfs her in his arms. He had been scared of losing her too. “You’re okay,” he breathes —relieved— stepping back and resting both his hands on her shoulders, “I was so worried.” Tundareos frowns when he notices the linen bandage wrapped around her upper arm. “I’m sorry,” he chokes, the guilt in his gut coming back, “I should have never spoken to you like that. You’re my sister and I love you.”

Lesya smiles, covering one of his hands with her own. “There’s someone you need to meet,” she says, swallowing the lump in her throat. Tundareos nods, feeling that he already knows who it will be. Nigh everyone aboard the Ippalkimon trembles with fear upon Deimos’ arrival. Even pirates heard tales of the violent exploits of Deimos and Enyo —only fools would not fear a demigod. He stops behind Lesya, looking her brother in the eye. “Deimos,” her lips kink when she says his name, and Tundareos sees how they look at one another —fools in love, willing to do anything for each other, “this is my brother, Tundareos.”

Her brother nods in greeting and Deimos reciprocates the gesture, never having been one for words. Tryphena calls Lesya over to discuss their heading as the Adrestia had left port in haste. Both Tundareos and Deimos take a moment to size one another up, they are roughly the same height, though Deimos is broader. Tundareos clasps onto his arm in camaraderie, but steps closer to the Cult’s champion —his friendly demeanor fading. “Demigod or not,” he hisses in a hushed voice, “if you hurt her, I will kill you.” Deimos says nothing, glancing to where Lesya stands, almost smiling and then Tundareos knows —he loves her.

Guided by the light of the moon and stars, the Ippalkimon pulls away from port for Naxos. If the sea favors the voyage, it should take no longer than three days to reach the Kyklades. Deimos settles next to Lesya at the stern of the ship —neither of them had ever become accustomed to sailing— but the waves slowly rocking the ship isn’t unpleasant. She turns into him, draping her legs over his, and leans her head against his chest. Deimos locks his arms around her waist and sighs at the taste of freedom for them both. One day we’ll be more than weapons, we’ll be Lesya and Alexios, he thinks, hiding his smile in her cooper hair.

@wallsarecrumbling @novastale @fjor-ok-skadi @fucking-dip-shit @elizabethroestone @maximalblaze

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