The word hangs in the night air like smoke from dying torches.
Father.
Chakias had spoken it with such certainty, such longing, yet Sabio cannot fathom how this scarred general could be anyone's father—least of all to the only man who could bring his drawings to reality, his own brother-in-law.
"Why did you bring Chakias here?" Lycurgus's voice cuts through darkness with a master swordsman's precision.
Sabio blinks, confusion clouding his features like morning mist over still water. "Do you know him, my lord?"Silence stretches between them—long enough for a cat to cross the courtyard, long enough for wind to rattle a loose shutter overhead. Then comes the blow that lands heavier than iron on anvil:"He is my son."
The words shatter something in the night air. Lycurgus, the man of stone who has learned to bend without breaking under impossible loyalty's weight, finally lets his mask fall like autumn leaves surrendering to winter.
When he speaks again, his voice carries the cadence of ancient tragedy—the kind that makes grown men weep into their wine. A servant hurries past in the distance, sandals slapping stone, bearing medicines that smell of bitter herbs and honey. The scent lingers after his passing."The day King Ushien stole the throne," Lycurgus begins, voice heavy with wounds that refuse proper healing, "he was ordered by the Night Avinc to demand that every general, every man of influence, surrender what they loved most—a blood price for continued service."A torch gutters, sending shadows dancing across walls like murdered ghosts. From the stables comes the soft nickering of disturbed horses, hooves scraping stone in restless dreams."It was a command no heart could bear, yet bear it we did.
Victoria's mother was butchered before the open court—dragged screaming to marble steps while her daughter watched, a sacrifice meant to sever the old dynasty's final thread. Three slave-women spent an entire day scrubbing blood from those stones."His voice roughens like grain against millstone. "Kakodaimon, loyal but shattered as a war-horse put to pasture, killed his own children with his own hands. I watched a man die inside his skin while his body continued breathing. The youngest had barely seen seven summers."In the courtyard, a dog barks once—sharp, urgent—then remembers where it dwells and falls silent. From the servants' quarters drifts a woman's lullaby in the old tongue, threading through window slots on night air."But I resisted." The admission bleeds from him. "I smuggled Chakias away in a grain cart, hidden beneath barley sacks like contraband treasure, and placed him in your father's hands while my other children scattered to distant provinces—hunted like rabbits by men who once called me friend."Night wind stirs, carrying jasmine from the queen's garden and less pleasant scents from the city—smoke, refuse, the accumulated breath of too many souls pressed close."For this defiance, I was cast into the deep places where rats gnaw things better left unnamed. They stretched each charge against me like merchants counting copper, testing my resolve without mercy. When Ushien finally remembered his promise of a court seat, he granted it at a price that still haunts my dreams."Lycurgus's scarred hand drifts to his ruined face. "They held me down and drove burning iron through my eye. The smell of my own flesh cooking... I carry it still." His scarred hand trembles against his ruined cheek. "Every mirror shows me what defiance costs."A guard's spear rings against stone in the darkness, the sound echoing twice before fading."
The last morning my family broke fast together..." His voice cracks like dropped pottery. "I can still hear every sound—bronze bowls clattering against wood, the smell of bread my wife had risen before dawn to bake, ordinary joy in sharing the meal. My youngest complained her porridge burned her tongue. My eldest boasted of yesterday's wrestling victory. Such small, precious things."He pauses, and in that silence lives an entire world of loss."Orders came at midday while bread still warmed the table. Guards scattered them like grain cast to wind—some to mountains, some to distant islands, some to unmarked graves. Since that day, I walk half-alive, a grieving father bound to serve the very throne that shattered his heart like pottery beneath chariot wheels."From the palace kitchens comes the faint sound of tomorrow's preparation—bakers kneading dough, water jugs filling at the well, the eternal rhythm of a palace that never truly sleeps.
Sabio listens, burdened by truth that presses against his chest like burial stones. Yet this knowledge bears its own deadly weight. By morning, he will betray Lycurgus—whisper his weakness to Kakodaimon's ear, a betrayal cutting deeper because it follows so closely after trust shared like wine between friends.The night holds its breath, waiting for dawn to break the fragile bond forged in darkness
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Morning light filtered through painted walls as the court conducted its daily ritual. The Herald of Oaths stood before the assembly, his staff striking stone thrice to call forth order. "Let all who bring petition swear by Zeus the Protector and Athena of Counsel that their words be true," he intoned, whilst petitioners poured libations from a phiale upon the sacred flame. Bronze chalices caught sunbeams as scribes scratched on wax tablets, recording each oath sworn. Courtiers in purple robes whispered behind gold torcs whilst the Royal Cup-Bearer moved between nobles, offering wine from amphorae marked with the king's seal.The sacred flame still flickered upon the altar when the great doors burst asunder with such force they struck the walls like Zeus's own thunderbolt—splintering wood, shattering the holy silence, sending echoes crashing through the chamber like the roar of breaking worlds.
Victoria strode into the hall like war itself, and the court machinery ground to a halt. The Cup-Bearer's amphora slipped from his grip, shattering upon the floor in a spray of wine dark as blood. The young herald gaped. Even the scribes froze, their styluses suspended above tablets.Silence fell like an executioner's blade.She wore ten years of exile like armor forged in bitterness, her eyes burning with the cold fire of dying stars. When she spoke, her voice carried the authority of spilled blood and unpaid debts."Father." The word cut through perfumed air like a blade through silk. "I call upon thee to fulfill thy duty—not as my father, but as the man who stole a throne never thine to keep."The assembly shifted like prey sensing predators. Courtiers measured distances to doorways, calculated loyalties, weighed the cost of backing the wrong royal blood."Thy reign was never legitimate—merely convenient." Victoria's voice hardened, each word a stone cast at glass. "Thou rose not through divine right, but because thy sword cleared every claimant from the path."A goblet crashed in the shadows, echoing like breaking bones."My sister might have ruled with wisdom. My brother with strength. My mother with grace that made even enemies kneel." Her words built like thunder across mountains. "But thy blade erased them all, leaving only thee to step into their blood and call it inheritance."The court held its breath as history pivoted on her words, understanding that kingdoms fall or rise on words spoken in marble halls whilst gods watch from painted ceilings."Thou hast ruled ten years. I return as sole surviving blood of the rightful line, and the throne returneth with me."The silence that followed was the silence of graves opening, of old debts coming due.
Ushien rose like gathering storm clouds, and when he spoke, his voice carried the menace of sharpened steel and burning cities."Thou darest." The words came low and dangerous, a king finding his footing. "This throne was not given—'twas taken. Held. Defended." His voice strengthened with each word. "Greece boweth to strength, not to exiled children who mistake royal blood for royal power."His counselors rumbled agreement—not from love, but from terror of what awaits those who back fallen kings."Hearken well," Ushien continued, his words deliberate as dagger thrusts. "The dog that barketh loudest oft hath the dullest teeth. And as the ancients knew: a crown picked from the gutter shineth no brighter than the mud from whence it came."He paused, letting the proverbs sink like poison into courtly ears."We shall not settle this by sentiment, abominable love and marriages, or claims proved only by tears and righteous anger." Silence stretched taut as a bowstring. "In one month's time, when the moon completeth her cycle, there shall be a Logos. A trial of worth conducted before all Greece—where wisdom and right must prove themselves worthy of the crown that waiteth."Logos. The word fell like a death sentence. Wine cups slipped from trembling fingers. Proud nobles found their throats dry as desert sand."Let all Greece bear witness," Ushien declared, his voice carrying the terrible finality of royal decree, "who truly possesseth the right to rule, the wisdom to command, and the strength to drag this kingdom through whatever darkness the Fates have prepared."A shadow passed over the hall—whether cloud or omen, none could say. In that darkness, faces transformed. Courtiers became conspirators. Allies became enemies. The royal court died, and in its place rose something far more dangerous: an arena where crowns are won with words sharper than swords, and where failure means not merely defeat, but annihilationWhen light returned, the game of thrones had begun in earnest.
..............................…
Six days Darius had walked through mountains that clawed at heaven itself. His ribs showed through skin—fence slats beneath parchment worn transparent. His lips split and bled, weeping salt into wounds that would not close. His feet, raw through sandals worn to memory of leather. He carried naught but rags and wild fruit he dared not eat—berries more likely poison than sustenance.
Late summer snow fell at night, burying hope beneath frozen silence that pressed like grave earth. Scorching rock burned by day, peeling flesh from bone with the patience of time itself. He walked because stopping meant death—not the swift mercy of blade through throat, but the slow death overseers reserved for runaways. They always found their property. Always. And when they found thee, they made examples that would haunt men's dreams for generations. Burned the families who sheltered thee. Gutted the children who fed thee scraps. Hung what remained at crossroads so others would know: freedom was a lie whispered by the desperate, and mercy was a crime paid for in screaming that never quite ended, even after throats went silent.
At sunset, he stumbled into a valley where a merchant's house stood warm with lantern light. The scent of roasted meat and bread drifted on evening air—the first promise of kindness in six days of walking death.
He should have kept walking. He knew this with the certainty of prey that has learned predator's patterns. But a starving man hath no principles, only a stomach that commands louder than wisdom ever could.
He knocked. The door opened."Please." His voice scraped stone on stone, grinding like millwheel without grain. "Water."Heracleon the merchant opened the door, and his face shifted—concern warring with caution. His eyes flicked to the children behind him, then back to the wreckage at his threshold. For a long moment he stood there, hand tight on door frame, calculating danger against conscience, weighing one family's safety against another man's death."Papa?" The youngest boy's voice came soft from within, innocent as dawn before slaughter.
The merchant exhaled slowly through his nose. His hand loosened on the door frame. "Come inside. We cannot leave a man to die on our threshold." His voice carried the weight of a decision already made, however reluctantly. "Myra."His wife appeared at the doorway, flour still dusting her hands like ash from tomorrow's pyre. She looked at Darius, then at her husband. Something passed between them—an entire argument in a single glance, a whole future written in the space between breaths. Then she turned without word and brought water.Two children watched from shadows—a boy and a girl who would not see another sunrise. Darius drank like a dying man, water spilling down his chin, then tore at bread with hands that shook so violently he could barely hold it. He ate like he was devouring the throats of every man who had put him in chains."Whence hast thou come?" Heracleon asked, his voice gentle as spring rain that promises growth but brings flood."The mountains. Six days.""Alone?" Myra knelt and spread salve on his cracked feet—the last gentle thing anyone in this house would do. "What dost thou flee?"Chains that still circled his ankles in dreams. His brother's face, gray with stone dust, receding into tunnel darkness—if he still lived. Probably he did not. Men rarely survived their first year in the silver mines. Overseers who tracked escaped slaves across mountains, across years, across any distance necessary to prove that freedom was illusion. Men who would burn this house to ash, who would gut these children like fish at market, simply to send a message to any other fool who thought mercy mattered more than obedience.
He said: "Trouble."Heracleon nodded, reading in that single word volumes Darius would not speak. "Thou shalt stay the night. We have room."That night, beneath borrowed blankets that would burn by dawn, Darius slept. The youngest boy—perhaps eight summers old, perhaps seven—left a wooden horse beside his mat. The child smiled at him, gap-toothed and innocent, and Darius felt something crack inside his chest that had naught to do with hunger. That night, beneath borrowed blankets, Darius slept the sleep of the exhausted. He woke once to find the youngest boy standing beside his mat, holding a wooden horse carved with careful hands. The child set it down gently, smiled with gap-toothed innocence, then padded back to his own bed.
Darius stared at the small gift in the darkness, feeling something shift inside his chest that had naught to do with hunger or pain. He closed his eyes.Hours passed. The house settled into the deep quiet of midnight when even mice hold their breath.The merchant's scream split the night like blade through silk.
Hooves thundered. Not the thunder of storms—this was the sound of iron-shod death driven by men who had forgotten they were human. Doors exploded inward—oak and iron meaningless against axes wielded by arms that did not tire, would not stop."Myra! Get them out!" Heracleon's voice cracked with terror that tasted of copper and ash.Blades caught firelight as raiders flooded through the house, their faces twisted with something beyond cruelty—the empty joy of men who had learned to love destruction as other men love wine.The merchant seized a fire poker. His hands shook. He had never held weapon before, had never needed to, and now 'twas too late to learn. He swung at the first shadow that came for him—a wild, desperate arc that struck naught but air.The raider laughed. "This one hath never even killed a pig.""Papa!" The girl's scream cut through chaos like prophecy speaking doom.His wife grabbed the children, pulling them toward the back door even as she knew—must have known—there would be more raiders there, that the house was surrounded, that every exit was trap. "Run, my loves, run—" Her voice broke. "Look not back—"But mothers do not stop trying, even when hope hath died screaming."Please," Myra begged, turning to face raiders closing in. "Please, they art children—""So?"Iron bit flesh. The wet sound of meat yielding to metal, of bodies learning they are merely vessels that break."No—no—NO!" Heracleon's howl of anguish lasted only a moment before it was cut short. The particular silence when breath stops and the body learns it is meat after all, naught more.
His wife screamed once—a sound that would have torn the heavens if the heavens cared. They did not."Mama! MAMA!" The girl's voice, shrill with terror that would end soon.The children ran. The raiders followed. "Little rabbits," one called, amused. "Let us see how fast they hop."What happened next is recorded nowhere because none survived to record it, and some horrors are better left to imagination than witness.
Flames devoured everything: furniture, grain stores, wedding linens, children's toys, letters from distant relatives, bread rising in the oven for a morning that would never come. The wooden horse burned. Everything burned. Smoke rose black against the stars, and if the stars wept, none saw it.
Darius ran. Smoke scorched his lungs. Behind him—screams, then worse than screams: whimpering, pleading, begging, the sounds humans make when they learn that death is patient but not kind. Then silence fell, and silence in such moments is not peace but erasure—the sound of lives deleted from the world as if they had never been.
Arrows cut the air beside his head. Close enough to smell the pitch on their points. Guards chased him—not guards, hunters. Manhunters whose wages depended on his capture, whose reputations demanded his return in chains or in pieces.He stopped at the forest's edge. Behind him, the house burned—a funeral pyre for people whose only crime was kindness. He knew—knew with certainty of a man who hath seen mercy murdered—that none inside still drew breath.The arrow took him before he could move. Bronze bit deep into his shoulder—not clean wound of blade but grinding wrongness of metal between bones. White fire bloomed through his chest. The ground tilted. He crashed through underbrush, tumbled down slope, and then cold water shocked air from his lungs.The current pulled him under. Down into darkness that felt almost merciful. The last thing he heard was the sound of his own blood drumming in his ears, slowing, slowing, stopping—But not quite.
When consciousness returned, it arrived with the mildly apologetic air of an uninvited guest who nevertheless intends to stay for supper.
He lay upon fresh straw in a room so determinedly cozy it bordered on suspicious. Low fire crackled with what could only be described as theatrical enthusiasm. Healing herbs hung about in fragrant profusion: comfrey, willow bark, and something else that smelled of spring meadows and made pain reconsider its life choices. Through the scent of medicine ran another thread: bread baking with the sort of cheerful industriousness that suggested it had places to be and people to nourish.
Beside the fire sat an old man whose face had clearly weathered seventy years of extremely interesting circumstances. His eyes, though clouded with age that should have rendered him decorative at best, held the bright attention of someone perpetually listening to a cosmic joke nobody else could quite hear."Thou art awake," the old man observed with pleasant matter-of-factness. "Good. I feared thou might sleep overlonvg and miss the interesting bits."The words hung in the air with the strong implication that interesting bits was something of an understatement."Where am I?" Darius struggled upright. The room spun once—a lazy, good-natured sort of spin, as if showing off—then settled with smug satisfaction."In a house where certain rules apply that do not apply elsewhere." The old man stirred something in a clay pot with the air of someone conducting a small but important orchestra. "Shepherds pulled thee from the river. Half-drowned, they said, though I suspect that is being generous to the half that was not drowned." He paused, studying Darius with those peculiarly bright eyes. "They brought thee here because some things refuse to die when they should, and the gods apparently find that sort of persistence entertaining."Through a narrow window, dawn performed its daily miracle of making the world look like perhaps everything might turn out reasonably well after all. Birds sang the complicated gossip of morning—mostly complaints about territorial disputes and romantic entanglements, if one knew how to translate.The old man ladled something into a wooden bowl. "Drink. A fever comes—I can see it lurking in thy eyes like a cat planning mischief. This shall spare thee the worst of it." He handed over the bowl with the confidence of someone who has successfully fought fevers before and expects to win this round too. "Pain teaches, certainly, but there is no particular wisdom in suffering what can be prevented."Darius drank. It tasted of honey and starlight and the sort of wild magic that has long since forgotten it was supposed to be difficult. "Who art thou?""A man who helps when he can, which is more often than one might expect and less often than one might hope." The old man settled back on his stool with the satisfied air of someone who has found the perfect sitting position. "I saw thee pulled from the river looking quite dramatically deceased, and thought to myself, 'Well, this simply will not do.' So here we are."A pot clanged in the kitchen beyond with the cheerful violence of breakfast threatening to become real. A woman's voice rose in song—something about morning bread and honey and the optimistic assumption that today would not involve any burning buildings or excessive screaming."This land hath grown troubled of late," the old man continued, his tone shifting to something approximating seriousness, though not quite committing. "Raiders burning towns, collecting suffering like some people collect interesting rocks. They believe someone still holds what Chakias the great builder left behind when he rather inconsiderately died. Knowledge, perhaps. Or power. Or simply the location of a treasure that may or may not exist but makes for excellent motivation to commit atrocities. Men kill for what they believe is hidden almost as eagerly as they kill for what they can see, and with significantly more creativity about it."Darius stiffened, the pleasant fog of herbs and warmth dispersing somewhat. "Art thou in danger? If they come here—"The old man laughed—a sound full of genuine amusement and surprising confidence. "They cannot come here, dear boy. This house stands under protection greater than they dare challenge." His eyes gleamed with certainty that seemed entirely unearned and yet somehow convincing. "Let them rage in the valleys below and burn whatever they like. This threshold they shall not cross. I have it on excellent authority."He stood, joints creaking like old timber that knows its business, and stretched with the deliberate care of someone who has weathered seventy winters in mountains that do not suffer fools. "Rest while thou canst. Heal what needs healing. When thou art ready, we shall discuss what comes next, which promises to be at least moderately exciting and possibly inadvisable.""Why?"The word stopped him mid-stride. The old man's hand, reaching for the door, froze in the air like a theatrical gesture that had suddenly become quite real.
Darius pushed himself upright despite the fire that lanced through his shoulder—less metaphorical fire now, more actual burning pain, but still present nonetheless. His voice came hoarse but steady. "Why help me? What dost thou need from me?"The silence stretched between them like a bowstring drawn taut. Outside, the morning birds had fallen conspicuously quiet. Even the kitchen sounds had ceased, as if the entire house was holding its breath to see what would happen next.The old man turned—slowly, as men turn when they carry weight of years and sorrows and decisions that have cost more than gold.
His weathered face, which moments before had held gentle humor, now showed something else entirely. Something ancient and unyielding as the mountains themselves, but also profoundly, terribly sad.
He returned to his stool and sat with the careful deliberation of a magistrate taking his seat before pronouncing judgment that will change lives."I have earned respect in these mountains," he began, each word measured and weighed like gold on merchant's scales. "Forty years I have lived among these people. Delivered their children into the world. Healed their sick. Buried their dead with proper ceremony and genuine grief. They trust me as they trust the seasons to turn and the sun to rise." His hands, gnarled as olive roots that have drunk deep of stony soil, folded in his lap. "But respect—" his voice hardened just slightly "—respect cannot turn aside bronze blades. Cannot stop houses from burning. Cannot bring back the dead, however much one might wish otherwise."He looked directly at Darius now, and there was something in those clouded eyes that was no longer quite so cheerful."The raiders who slaughter families in the night—they art called the Sheeps." The old man's jaw tightened in a way that suggested he had opinions on this matter and they were not charitable. "They art a clan as old as these hills and twice as unpleasant. Once, they were merchants—respectable, wealthy, the sort of people who donate to temples and expect gods to remember them fondly. But greed soured them, twisted them into something that wears the shape of men but has quite thoroughly forgotten what it means to be human, if indeed they ever knew." "They believe my family—the Gives—hides a treasure of incalculable worth. This belief has become their holy scripture, their justification for behavior that would make demons uncomfortable."He stood, walking to the narrow window with steps that seemed heavier now, as if memory had weight that pressed down on old bones. Dawn light painted his profile in shades of copper and shadow and profound weariness."Two years past, they came to our village. Not as raiders—not yet. They came with scrolls and proclamations and the sort of official bearing that makes villainy seem respectable. They demanded we surrender what we did not possess. When we could not give them phantoms and shadows, they..." His voice caught, just for a moment, like cloth snagging on a nail. "They made an ultimatum that was no ultimatum at all, merely cruelty dressed in the language of choice. Surrender the treasure that does not exist, or watch every gray-beard of the Gives die screaming in ways that would educate even experienced torturers."Darius felt ice spread through his veins, creeping like winter frost on window glass."We had no treasure to give, you understand. None. Not a single cursed coin or ancient relic or map to buried gold. So they offered us a different trade, because cruel men are nothing if not creative about their cruelty." The old man's voice had gone flat, emotionless—the tone of a man recounting facts too painful for feeling, too terrible for tears. "Our young men. Every able-bodied son, grandson, nephew who could swing an axe or pull a plow. They would be taken as slaves—sold to the great houses in the capital where they grind men to dust in quarries and silver mines. In exchange, the Sheeps would spare the old, the women, the children. For now. Until they decided otherwise."His hand pressed against the window frame, knuckles white as bone breaking through skin."My son was among them. Strong as an ox and clever as a fox. He could read—did I mention that? I taught him myself, which was considered quite progressive and possibly frivolous, but I thought knowledge was worth something. Apparently I was wrong about that, or at least wrong about what it was worth." The old man's throat worked like he was swallowing something jagged. "They chained them like animals being taken to slaughter. Marched them down these very mountain roads whilst their mothers screamed and fathers stood helpless and useless. I watched my boy walk away, his head held high because he knew his sacrifice had purchased his mother's life. His sister's life. Mine. And there was nothing—nothing—I could do but watch and remember and hate myself for living."
The room had grown so quiet Darius could hear his own heartbeat counting seconds like a funeral drum."But there was another," the old man continued, turning from the window with eyes that had gone distant with memory. "
Chakias. My daughter's husband. A great builder, a keeper of ancient texts, a man who understood languages that even the priests have forgotten or never knew. The sort of scholar who could spend hours debating the proper angle of an arch or the meaning of symbols carved by peoples long dead." His eyes gleamed in the half-light. "Before they all moved to Greece, he escaped with his family to a village close to these provinces—close as close can be described, though its name remains unknown to most. The Sheeps believed he possessed knowledge of where some great treasure lay hidden—gold from the old kingdoms, perhaps, or relics of power from the time before the gods decided mortals were more entertaining than dangerous."The old man's voice dropped lower, heavy with recent grief. "Just days ago, we heard he was kidnapped by an unknown force. We know not where he is, nor what condition he endures. The whole world knows only this: he is with the closest piece of the puzzle, whatever that may mean."The old man returned to his stool, settling like a boulder finding its place after an avalanche."Since that day, the Sheeps have become rabid dogs that need putting down but nobody quite knows how. They tear through every settlement, every family that ever gave Chakias shelter or sold him bread or smiled at him in passing. They burn and question and kill, searching for what they believe he hid before his inconvenient death." He leaned forward, and now his voice carried weight of absolute seriousness. "I tell thee all this because I need thee to find that treasure."Darius recoiled as if struck by invisible hand. "Thou art mad as a March hare. I am no treasure hunter. I am a—"
"A fugitive slave who owes me his life?" The old man's voice cut like a blade that has been sharpened with great care and questionable intent. "Yes. I know what thou art. I see the marks on thy wrists where the shackles rubbed bone-deep. I smell the silver dust still clinging to thy hair from whatever cursed mine thou escaped. Thou art desperate, hunted, with nowhere to run and no one to turn to who will not sell thee back to those who own thy flesh if not thy spirit."He stood again, and now he seemed taller somehow, harder—a man who had survived horrors that would have broken lesser souls and come out the other side decidedly unimpressed with the universe's sense of fairness."I do not claim to see greatness in thee, boy. I am not that optimistic. I see a tool that fortune has delivered to my door, possibly as compensation for various previous disappointments. But hear me well—" his voice dropped to something terrible in its quiet intensity "—I knew Chakias better than any man alive. He was my son by marriage, my student before that. I taught him to read the old scripts when he was barely past his tenth year and still believed the world was fundamentally fair. I walked with him through every hidden valley in these mountains, every cave, every ancient ruin where shepherds fear to tread. If he hid something, I know how his mind worked, how he thought, what would appeal to his sense of poetry and drama."
"Then why—"
"Because I am seventy years old and these legs barely carry me to the village and back without complaining!" The words cracked like thunder over distant mountains. "Because the Sheeps have spread my description to every mercenary and cutthroat from here to the coast with promises of gold for my head! Because the moment I set foot beyond this valley, they will descend like wolves on a lamb and tear me apart slowly to see if screaming jogs my memory!" His chest heaved with emotion that had been building for two years. "I have the mind that solves riddles. I have the knowledge that reads signs ancient peoples left carved in stone. What I lack is youth, strength, working knees, and the ability to move unseen through a land that hunts my blood with professional enthusiasm!"He moved closer, each step deliberate and heavy with meaning."Thou shalt be my hands and my feet, boy. I shall be thy mind and thy map and thy guide through puzzles that would confuse wiser men. Together, we find what Chakias hid—and when we do, the Sheeps will have no more reason to burn villages and slaughter innocents searching for shadows that may not even exist." His eyes bored into Darius like drills seeking stone. "And perhaps—just perhaps—if the treasure proves real and valuable enough, we can purchase the freedom of those young men they sold. My son. Thy brother, if he yet lives in whatever hell they sent thee from, which I sincerely hope he does because this whole plan works better with happy endings and I could use one of those."The world seemed to tilt on some invisible axis."My... brother?"
"Thou dost mutter his name in thy fever dreams like a prayer to gods who stopped listening." The old man's voice softened, just slightly, like iron wrapped in velvet. "Thou art not as mysterious as thou thinkest, boy. Pain speaks truths that men try to hide, and fever speaks them louder."Darius felt something break loose in his chest—hope and terror and desperate, furious need all tangled together like yarn that cats have been at."And if I refuse?"
The old man moved to the door and opened it with the casual ease of someone revealing an obvious truth. Dawn light flooded in, along with the sound of birds and the distant bleating of sheep in high pastures that knew nothing of human misery. The world outside looked achingly beautiful. Peaceful. A complete and utter lie, but a very pretty one."Then thou art free as air to walk through that door with my blessing and genuine hope that things work out well for thee." He smiled, and it was not unkind exactly, but it was not kind either—more the expression of someone explaining why two plus two equals four even if you would prefer it equaled something more convenient. "The raiders hunting thee will find thy trail within a day, possibly two if thou art clever and the weather cooperates. Perhaps three if thou art very lucky indeed. Thy freedom will last exactly as long as thy luck holds, and luck, I have found through extensive and unfortunate experience, is a finite resource for men with thy particular history."
He stepped aside, gesturing to the open door like a lord granting dismissal to a servant who has the afternoon off."Or thou canst help me end this rather tedious cycle of blood and burning that has been quite tiresome for everyone involved except possibly the Sheeps who seem to enjoy it. I shall see thee protected, fed, sheltered, and guided with my admittedly imperfect wisdom until this matter is settled one way or another. The choice is entirely thine to make. Choose now, because I have bread cooling that needs eating and this dramatic moment cannot last forever."Darius stared at the open door. At the beautiful morning beyond it, all golden light and bird song. At freedom that would kill him before sunset painted the sky pretty colors.Then he looked back at the old man—this strange, sharp, sad old man who had saved him, trapped him, offered him purpose and prison in the same breath with the casualness of someone offering tea."What is this treasure?" His voice came out barely above a whisper, like he was afraid speaking louder might make the whole situation more real than he could handle.The old man's smile widened, but his eyes remained sad as winter streams that remember summer."
That, my young fugitive friend, is precisely what we must discover together." The old man closed the door with finality, shutting out the morning light. "But if the Sheeps fear it enough to commit atrocities across three provinces..." His eyes glinted in the dimness. "Then it is either worth more than kingdoms—or dangerous enough to topple them."He moved toward the interior of the house. "Rest now. Heal thyself. In three days, when thou canst walk without bleeding, we begin." He paused at the threshold. "And boy? Do not think of running. The world beyond my door will show thee no mercy."
Then he was gone.The wooden horse was ash. The family was ash. Everything kindness touched turned to ash.But Darius remained alive—though whether that was blessing or curse, he could no longer say.He touched his shoulder, felt the clean stitches, and understood with perfect clarity that he had escaped one form of bondage only to enter another.
Outside, the morning sun climbed higher, indifferent.Inside, Darius closed his eyes and tried not to think of his brother's face, or the mines, or the merchant's children screaming.Tried. And failed.Tomorrow, the hunt would begin.Today, he could only wait—a fugitive who had fled the chains of Greece only to find himself bound by different shackles to a stranger whose true nature remained hidden as the treasure they would seek.