"What will I do with you? I’ll take you to my home, give you food, drink, and shelter. Other than that you are free to do as you like, save you can’t go committing crimes. That is the one thing I won’t allow," Alexandros said. 

If they had all of that, they would never need to steal again. Aea’s smile came back then, forcing down the need to fold her arms, pushing away the instinct to consider her uncles and how they would feel.

“We won’t, I promise. We don’t enjoy taking things from people. It isn’t nice to consider how I would feel if somebody did the same to me. It’s only...well, sometimes you must take what you cannot get from the ground. And my family cannot gain regular employment. My uncle is an escaped slave, one is wanted for stealing him, another wanted for stealing Kaia’s mother, and another for embezzlement. They cannot live in cities, so…” She did not know why she so casually threw the information into the air outside of wanting to defend all of them. They were not evil, just a little broken. In her wish to defend them, though, she put them at risk too. It was a show of trust, in a way. She only prayed Alexandros did not break it. “You won’t tell, will you?”

Not even Asia knew about them, and Aea actually trusted the princess not to tell her brothers. What they did, Aea and her family, it was not right. Her and her kin should have been executed ages ago, it would have been better for society at large to be rid of their menace. But she was selfish in that regard and could not separate her love from objective reality when it came to them. She couldn’t make herself not care enough to see them killed for the good of all. 

Perhaps Aea could get a job and buy enough supplies for them to build a house in the wilderness, and she could send them enough money so they didn’t have to steal or kill any more. She could still take care of them, even if she was not with them. Four old men would not be that expensive to keep fed, surely.

“Oh really? You two weren’t supposed to be a package deal for a rich old man?” Alexandros was smiling, his sarcasm clear in the irony of his words. 

Aea shook her head and smiled. She supposed she’d never thought of it before, but there was no reason they couldn’t be, either. She was good at a lot of things and very useful; she was valued her for her skills and Kaia for her face, so they would make a good package in place of a dowry. Feeling more comfortable now than she had before, she attempted to tease him and form some sort of bridged attachment. If they would be living together, it was best for her to learn how to get along with him now.

“Are you implying that you are old and rich, Alexandros?" She teased. "I don't know that an old man could handle both of us at once. Perhaps a rich one might—you'll need to have plenty of money to replace everything we break, and a large staff to clean up afterwards."

“Your chores?” He was frowning as if he’d never heard the word before. “Just, uh, don’t make too much of a mess, clean up after yourselves, and take care of the animals?”

Animals. How many animals, and what kind? She’d always wanted one, but every time she brought one home as a child, they just ended up eating it. Would they eat these, too? She hoped not; she got attached easily and she always felt miserable having to kill them herself.

“We’re very clean, well, I’m very clean. I was only playing about the mess, I promise. I’ll make sure Kaia is clean, too. That's all the chores, truly? We could get so much done with just cleaning and taking care of the animals.”

She was getting excited now. If she ignored everything else and just concentrated on the idea of this new life, nothing bleak entered her thoughts. It was as unthinkable as a story of far-away land, and her mind could not stop spinning with the bright images of what could be. Would they have neighbors? What were they like? How much could they eat? How many times could they bathe? Could she still play her lyre?

Aea imagined herself in his house, just doing something mundane, and her nerves jittered and jumped with unabashed thrill for doing something mundane in a house at all.

“Yes, I have a horse.”

A horse! She had touched Silas’ horse and had decided they were her favorite animal. It was all Aea could do to stay still and not bounce upon the balls of her feet.

“Um, I don’t think you’ll sleep with Kaia, unless you want to share the bed with both of us. We’ll find you a place to sleep, perhaps in the kitchen? Unless you are comfortable sharing the same bedroom as everyone else.”

Aea shook her head, “I’ve never slept alone before. Maybe, just for a little bit, can I be in the bed? A week at most. I’m very quiet, I don’t snore or talk or anything. And I'll go to bed very late so I'm not...uhm. You know. Interrupting anything. I don't need much sleep at all.”

The thought of sex was never uncomfortable in its mechanics. It was for reproduction, and it was natural. The thought of Kaia having sex with anybody, however, always made her uncomfortable. Gross. She would not sleep in the bed if she thought she could sleep at all without a warm body near her. 

Every single night in every memory was filled with Uncle Dasmo on one side of her, and uncle Gatheron on the other. She would sleep alone if it was necessary, but she didn't know if she could so immediately. If she got homesick, she could sleep with the animals or under a tree.

“You may bring your bird and your goat, yes. What does it cost?” Alexandros said.

She folded her hands and waited on his number, setting assumed figures in her head that were incomplete because she did not know what she would be making. She could make plenty of money, she was sure. She had good bones, good teeth, she never got sick, and her stamina was impressive.

“I can’t charge you until you begin to work. I don’t know if you have anything in mind that you would like to do? We’ll worry about that when it matter, for now, just know that I won’t charge you to stay.”

“Mercenary. Or a soldier.” She blurted. “Or...I don’t know all there is, but I know I would be good at those. Just not a fisherman...fisherwoman? And I would not be good at whoring or farming. It matters now. I'll get a job tomorrow. Asia said she would hire me, too. I can give you money at the end of the week.”

She was a good negotiator, good at killing, organized, strategic, and apparently good at pretending she knew what she was talking about when it suited her. She didn’t like the smell of fish, hated the idea of farming, and did not wish to let strangers look at her let alone touch her, but she would be good with a blade in her hand. She wanted to work for Asia, but she did not know the first thing about retaining...retainering? And she did not want to take advantage of her friend by accepting a job due to nepotism when she had no transferable skills to offer.  

She did not know what she would do, but it would be something. Maybe a musician, even, but they did not get paid much, and she wanted her own money. A lot of it.

And there was still the question of Alexandros and Kaia. What did he mean by what he said? “I don’t understand. You saw her yesterday...and Kaia has not taken any lovers since you. She would not want to have any others when she is married.”

“Yes, I did see her yesterday, but I didn't know that I would see her tonight, that I would have this conversation to know how she felt about me. I expected her to disappear again, as she did when she left my tent in Taengea. I am not an oracle, I can't see the future. I will offer you cousin all that I am and do my best to be everything she needs if she will be with me, but until we are married, betrothed, living together, or some similar arrangement, then I will not change my ways. I can't chain myself to a hope that may disappear in a moment's notice. In any case, there is my slave as well. She won't go away even if I am married.”

Excitement and happiness drained from her body, like a fleeting wind on the hottest of days. In and out, just like that.

“Why do you have a slave?” Her voice quiet, hesitant to ask, not wanting to hear the answer but needing to anyway. 

Enslaving a man was the worst crime a mortal could commit. To kill a man was nothing, for the suffering was brief. It was the way of the world, to eat or be eaten. Slavery was something entirely different—unnatural. The Gods did not have slaves, nor did the trees, the birds, or the wolves. Slavery was chronic suffering, a forced indenture that took away free will and any control a mortal might have over their fate.

Gatheron had been a slave. Arrested first for public slander against the gods and sold to a surgeon. It had scarred and broken him. Aea did not know him before he had been taken, only after, but she sometimes caught they way he stared into the flames with his dead eyes. Robbed of his youth and beauty, he never had a chance for his own family unless he took women regardless of whether they could stand the hideous scarring of his disfigured face, and Gatheron did not do that.

Aea sometimes felt closer to him than her own father. Sometimes pretended he was her father instead of Hektos. The thought of the man who’d hurt her uncle so thoroughly brought a rage in her chest that was quite different from any other anger she knew. It made her want to lash out, to hit something in her frustration and inability to go back in time and change what should have never been.

Callie had been a slave too. She had no idea what happened to Kaia's mother in her servitude, but she had been so beautiful that Aea was afraid to know. 

Slavery, and the people who profited from it, were a different level of evil.

“It’s not what you are imagining, it isn’t like what nearly happened in Megaris," Alexandros said.

Aea did not know she had stepped back from him again until the heat of the torch brought the beginning beads of sweat to her flesh. How did he know about that? Did Kaia tell him that they did more than murder the man? That was private information and Aea's own humiliation to bare. Bad enough Kaia told Alexandros Aea’s name.

Kaia knew Aea still had nightmares, she knew how badly Aea wanted to forget it ever happened. Why would she tell somebody Aea’s secrets? Most of the time, Aea did not get angry at her cousin. Kaia rarely did anything to be angry about, but that was Aea’s secret to keep, not Kaia’s.

She opened her mouth to tell him that nothing happened in Megaris but she’d already committed to being honest and she didn’t like being rude and interrupting people. Instead, she pursed her lips and bit her tongue, her skin heating and a light pink crawling up her chest, her neck, her ears.

“The Jews, my mother’s people, have different customs than are common here. Women are far more like livestock in their culture. Leila, that is her name, is a cousin. Her parents were killed in an accident about eight years ago. Her grandfather decided he was too old to deal with a young woman in the house, so he sold her. My father purchased her, largely because we had been friends as children. Now in this Jewish culture, it is common for a man to have multiple wives, some of which may be slaves, as I said women are treated only marginally better than livestock. By taking her as a slave, to save her from a worse fate with someone who didn’t know her, she has become bound to me, as if we are married. It is a very different culture, a peculiar one, but I am bound by the laws of her people to not sell her to another and to take care of her needs as if she was my wife. I can understand if you and your cousin share an aversion to this, but I can’t part with her, to do so would be a great dishonor to us both and a grave sin against the god of my mother," Alexandros said.

Aea stared at him for a long while, hardly blinking. She took a sharp inhale and when she released it, her nostrils flared. That rage she threw aside earlier was back, dancing in her belly and spreading wide to made room for the thin, silvete fingers that moved up, up, up into her chest and clenched into a fist. Her cheeks were hot now, her irritation at Kaia’s loose lips blown far back into her mind.

“We aren’t in Judea. We’re in Greece,” she said.

Her nostrils flared with every breath she took. That poor fucking woman. That’s the only words Aea could conjure to mind, over and over again. Never knowing that there was freedom if she wanted to take it, staying enclosed in this monster’s cave and spreading her legs because she had to.

Alexandros was a master. Alexandros was a monster. 

He would not have Kaia, and if Aea could help it, he would not have his slave either. Slave—what a sick, horrible word.

She wanted to hit him, break his pretty face in half on the cut of her knuckles. She hadn’t hit anybody in years, but she wanted to hit him now more than she had ever wanted to hit anyone. But she would not. She would not be dragged to the stocks because she could not hold her temper—a white-hot rage she’d never felt before. That poor fucking woman.

Alexandros acted so superior. Called Aea cold. A bitch. Raised poorly. A bad listener. Deceitful and honorless. To think that for just a moment, she’d actually felt as if she’d wronged him for lying to him, to think that she thought he was a better person than her. Aea had been wrong about Alexandros. He was no human. Just a black-hearted creature like her.

No, she would not feel guilty about anything she had done to him, for he had inflicted far more damage than she was capable of. If he did not take steps to protect himself, that was his fault and not her own. She was tired of feeling shame for doing the things she knew were in everybody’s best interest. It would be nice, just once, to not feel like a pariah when trying to do something right. And she might be all the things Alexandros claimed, but at least she did not own somebody. At least she was not that sort of monster.

“You want my honesty, Alexandros, I will give it to you. Because you have earned my trust that you will not beat me in anger, I feel safe in telling you the truth. Thank you for that.”

Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest, her nails biting into her upper arms. She stayed absolutely still beneath the torch, for if she moved, she would become the hypocrite twice over and was not certain she could stop herself from hurting him.

“It has come to my attention that you have so far called me a cold bitch, insulted my family, accused me of being deceitful and without honor. Despite all of it being true, and despite it not actually harming me, I believe it is important to be respectful even in disagreement. I have, thus far, not called you anything at all or raised my voice. I have lied, but I have not insulted you.”

Her nails dug into her flesh, the sharp pain anchoring her to the present and her anger rather than allow her to float away into the never-place where time and feeling didn’t exist, only the cut of the blade and the blood sprayed across her skin.

“In my truth, I will continue to not call you names, I will continue to not raise my voice, and when I am finished—so long as you do not interrupt me—I will stay completely still and let you hit me as much as you like so long as you do not kill me. If you do choose to do that, then when you are finished, I will stay still no longer and you will wish you had not struck me to begin with. These are the boundaries I have for this conversation, and the only ones in which I will give you truth. If you cannot respect my boundaries, then you will have nothing from me, much less my cousin.”

How dare he? How dare he think himself better than anybody. And to think she was going to leave her family to go with this man. She spit on her father's memory by entertaining the idea. She was a bad person, a bad daughter and niece for ever considering it. She should be ashamed of herself, but she had no room for shame right now.

“Your logical fallacies and non-sequiturs have made any defense you could possibly come up with for having a slave both invalid and null. We are not in Judea. Bonded as if you were married, are you joking? How many wives do you need? Will I need to be your slave-wife to have a roof too, or is that exclusive to foreign women who do not realize they can be free women and live under the roof of their male kin? You require ownership over your own fucking cousin for her to have exactly what you are offering me and mine."

Her face was turning red, she could feel it, the tops of her cheeks warming as if sunburnt. "What, if you should free her and let her live under your roof, would she suddenly do something differently? How could you do that to somebody?! That’s her freedom! What should happen if you die, as people tend to do in service? Your ‘benevolence’ would be for naught then, wouldn’t it? Why not marry her? Good enough to service you as a wife, but not good enough to treat her like a human with basic entitlements?!”

She released her hands from her arms and balled her fists, ready to spin around and punish the wall, but then she just crossed her arms again, her chest rising and falling quicker with her breath.

“You talk of being lied to, strung along, you talk of deceit and honor. Was it honorable of you to make my cousin feel more significant than she really is to you? You say the Marikas girl would receive the same treatment as her, so clearly she is not so singular that you would go out of your way to treat Kaia any differently than whatever other women you fuck. What is so different about her that you would marry her, and not the wife you already have? I’m sure you’d like to keep hold of the 'best lover you ever had.' It certainly wouldn’t behoove you to let anyone else have her. Why would I give you anything, why would I honor you, when you have made my cousin feel like a toy? When you treat people as legal property? What if Kaia did not want to fuck you? Would your ‘benevolence’ end at the end of your cock? You tricked her, she heard you and your 'treatment', and I might have hurt her by reasoning your actions because I let you trick me too. You don’t have honor, not for anybody but yourself, and you aren’t without deceit in the slightest. You dishonor my cousin by ever suggesting she have to endure disregard such as that, yet only seem to care about ideals of honor it when it is not shown to you.”

Her voice was rising, though she told him she would not let it. She released her arms a second time, and this time she buried her fingers into the back of her head, holding onto the thickness of her hair to bring more pain, more focus. She was slipping. To one pole was seething, red rage. The other, black nothingness where not a thing she did could shock her until she came back to herself and her conscious functions.

She took deep breaths and it helped keep her steady and away from polarity despite the lava rising into her mouth threatening to spew between her teeth. When she spoke, her voice quieted to an icy, flat tone. She stared at the sky, counting the stars so that she did not have to imbalance herself by setting eyes on him now.

“You’re right about a few things,” she said, calmer now, “I should not gone through the trouble and brought you out here to begin with, should not have lied to you to get you to calm down. I should have just let you get run through with a sword as you talked your way further into a ditch, then pointed you in the direction of my cousin so that she could scream and bring further attention to you. So excuse me for making the mistake of thinking you a human deserving of a chance to collect yourself before you faced that pit of vipers or my angry cousin again. Next time somebody makes a fool of the people I care for, I’ll simply have to take it to extremes and let them hang themselves on their own follies.”

She brought her chin back down and set him in her sights, a wild animal defending its territory from another. Let him be angry. Let him raise his fist, she was scared of him no more. Her instinct of flight was nowhere present, only the need to snarl and claw at him.

“You’re right about my honor. I have none, and why should I? Do you think I have the benefit of strength, or good blades, or training? Clearly I do not. I have to use what I have at my disposal, but you wouldn’t know about that, would you? You speak of clawing, and biting, and scraping, but when was the last time you had to protect anybody that wasn’t yourself from starvation, or sickness, or a broken heart? Don’t speak to me of honor when you have never put your own to the test. You speak of breaking people, well let me tell you something of it—”

She did not think before she spoke, she just uncorked everything she ever felt from the moment she set foot on this patio and let it rage.

“I’ve been broken, and I’ll never let it happen to anybody else. So if you don’t understand the need to lie, and cheat, and kill to keep Kaia from it, then you clearly would not do the same. If you do not see the need for freedom, then you have never had it taken from you. Or perhaps you do not need to understand, perhaps you never will. You will simply throw money at the problem, or wave your position around to intimidate people. But let us see how you fare a foot shorter, a stone lighter, without any money, or power, or friends, or safety, or food, or shelter, or warmth, and then let us see how highly you think of yourself then. You fancy yourself someone who bites and claws and scrapes, I don’t think you know the meaning. You think a woman wants to be kept as a slave, another chosen freely to be your wife, when all the while, she was there. You think she likes being the person to take your burdens—bound as your wife—and chosen second to somebody you have met twice in your life and bedded once? You think this cousin of yours will raise complaint? No! Because she must hold onto her pride and never let it surface lest she be tossed on her ass with nowhere to turn but whoring. That is survival. Keeping silent when you want nothing more than to scream just so you can eat another day. Do you really not see through the eyes of anybody else but yourself? What is wrong with you?!”

She threw her arms out to her sides and raw, hot wrath grasped her leg and bid her stamp her foot just to get something out, even if it was only half her weight upon the ground. She did not stamp her foot, even when she was a child, and she would not start now. She would not throw a punch. She would not yell. But fuck, she wanted to.

“All you have done is iterate to Kaia and I that love between a man and a woman does not exist in any sort of pure form. I suppose, however, that some sort of love does exist between kin. I certainly love Kaia enough to want her to feel better. A warrior, after all, is not expected to maintain just one lover. Kaia is a warrior, so let us see just how many men take her fancy tonight. Likely she will have her pick of the city. All she has to do is walk by, and they come panting like dogs. Can you say the same? Perhaps she will take one, or perhaps five if she likes—it would be, again, expected of her and I would not want her to disappoint anybody’s expectations by acting differently than what people think she should act like, that would just be inconceivable!”

That poor fucking woman. How could he?! How could Kaia stand touching him?

“I am usually a very reasonable person. But there is one place in which I am unreasonable, and it is where my loved ones are concerned. Kaia could slaughter an entire village, and I would still stand between her and the gallows. Regardless of how you reason it, you have hurt my cousin, and the fact that you own yours tells me just how cruel you are. I do not care why you hurt Kaia, or how you managed to do it, only that you did. I'll not let her near a monster like you. And though that may not mean much to you, I am after all, merely an insignificant, lying bitch, and much worse besides, I can promise that Kaia is far less forgiving than I am, and she was the one who was hurt. She was the one whose mother was a slave. I need not tell you to never come near her again—she will tell you herself. I will only tell you that if you do not respect her boundaries once she has set them, you will find out very quickly how tame and gentle she is in comparison to me. Respect her boundaries, and you will never have to know. In time, I may even be able to convince her to give you a second chance if you care enough about her to try and see your own logical fallacies, or rethink your reasoning, or Gods forbid apologize to her for thinking so lowly of her that she would be with someone who owned his family. And let’s not forget that you may not have a home soon if you continue on this path of blatant self-destructuction. I heard you threaten my friend and her family for trying to defend a nation of people who rely on you to swallow your pride and do what is necessary to protect them, and I never heard you raise a word in their defense. I may be a wicked cunt, but at least I would never put myself over the people I have charge of taking care of, Gods forbid a whole fucking kingdom. If you are the example of a captain, then I think I should make a much better one. Maybe Kaia and I will move away on our own and I’ll just take your job. Or, who knows, maybe a commander. Or maybe even the fucking general. Vangelis will be king one day, and he has to sleep at some point, no doubt there will be an occupational vacancy when he takes the crown.”

Her rage swung to the black place, and Alexandros sharpened. Even from across the patio, she could swear she heard the thump of his beating, red heart and wondered how long it would keep pumping in her hand.

“You’re right about Kaia and I. We could do very well for ourselves here, and we’ll do it without your help. We claw, bite, and scrape every single day, I wonder what we would be capable of with a little bit of opportunity? A lot more successful than you, I should think. So think for a moment, do you want us on your side or against you?” Aea parroted his words back to him, the ones he so vehemently hissed to Asia when Aea had been behind him. Dryly, unironically, emotionless.

She'd already decided he could not be reasoned with. And maybe for the first time in her life, she could not be reasoned with, either. She was not wrong—there were some things that only evil beasts were capable of, and she would tear him open and feed him his innards before she let him hurt anybody again. That slave of his would be freed within days, and Aea didn't care what she would have to do to keep the woman safe and happy and fed, only that she would do what she must do to see the objective complete. 

“Your offer is appreciated but unaccepted. Leave, I am finished with you. Kaia will be at the table soon, no doubt you cannot wait to see her. Unless, of course, you have some more benign insults to batter me with? Go ahead, if you must. You cannot hurt me with the things I already know. Or strike me if you wish, but be quick about it.”

She finished and crossed her arms, not daring to look at the ground, watching him with the burning intensity of someone who dared him to argue. What she expected was for him to walk off in a huff, or take her invitation and hit her, or throw insults at her as she noted.

Instead, when he looked at her, his lips were a flat line of displeasure and all the light was sucked from his eyes—once blue as an afternoon sky, now as sharp as shards of steel. There you are.

Before, he’d been irritated, and she supposed his anger was directed outward and not immediately upon her. Now it was upon her, and she had no doubt that in this moment, he wished her as dead as he wished Panos.

Aea readied for him to cross the distance between them, or hurl an insult. She tightened the muscles of her core with the presupposition he went for the soft spots first and raised her chin to allow him a good shot at her jaw. A promise was a promise.

“You are right, I did want honesty. I'm glad I have it, because now I understand how truly flawed your view of everything is,” Alexandros began.

She did not say he could do anything excluding insult or injury, but there he went anyway. What she did tell him was that any argument he manufactured was already null and void. Now who was the bad listener?

Aea exhaled on a low growl, irritated at his blatant disregard. She could just walk back inside, but a voyeuristic urge to hear what next came from his mouth rooted her to the spot. Her curiosity was abundant in this, too much so. Fatally so, most days.

“I know your experiences are limited by the way that your family has been forced to live. I have called you a bitch, that I freely admit was in anger, and I have apologized for it. The rest were said in jest, whether sarcastic or otherwise. They were not meant to be insults,” he said.

She huffed through her nose and barely held back on an eye-roll. Right. It didn’t matter whether he insulted her, she only wished to hear him admit it and not hide behind ‘jest.’ What she wouldn’t give to see him explode and beat her with every truth he had just to see how angry he got when she shrugged. Like throwing cedar upon a fire, he would roar and then die just as quickly when all of his fuel was eaten by the heat of his fury.

But that would bring eyes to their little corner of Midas. She didn’t want eyes on her, not even if she kicked his ass from here to the tree beyond.

“I do not have a high view of the men who raised the two of you. That would be putting it mildly. I made my offer because I believe that the two of you deserve the chances you weren't given. I made that offer to help you both, but if you wish to reject this kindness, then I cannot stop you," he said.

Good. Kaia had given him something she didn’t give anyone else and he threw it back in her face. Aea hoped it hurt him just as much as it had hurt her cousin.

She and Kaia would do just fine without him, they’d done so thus far. Now, they had ample reason to do better and not just exist day to day. Aea didn’t know how it was done, but Gods help her, she was going to be a fucking general if it killed her. She never thought about what she wanted to do with her life, always assumed it would end upon a noose or a blade before she hit forty.

But Alexandros had highlighted many things to her, and for that she wordlessly thanked him. She’d never considered her capabilities, but she was more than capable of whatever she set eyes on. She would not have to die young if she did not wish it, and she did not wish it, so she wouldn’t.

Alexandros let go of the stone and began to pace, his movements less of a man and more of an irritated lion. The torch light cast him in heavy shadows as he came near, then released him into the awaiting darkness as he stalked away. Over and over again, his pace increased with each pass.

She tracked him with her eyes, the primal energy eeking from him and spilling onto the ground, invisible plumes of animal wrath blowing and flowing across the paved stones. It wrapped her ankles and clawed up her legs, her stomach, her arms, her chest.

Hit me.

“I have no desire to hit you, despite what you have implied for the majority of our conversation. Once again I shall say this, do not compare me to whoever has hit you in the past. I am not them, and my anger will not cause me to harm you,” he said.

Aea ran her tongue over her teeth and pressed her back hard against the wall, holding herself against the fire-warmed stones. Holding back, always holding back, and wanting nothing more than to rush him and make him hurt.

“What if I were to free her? Then nothing would change. She would have all that she wanted, in exchange for the completing the household chores. You should ask yourself, what if I have offered? What if she doesn't wish it?”

Aea’s eyebrows furrowed. Alexandros’ voice grew rapid, unhinging, the intonation jumping and lowering the faster he spoke. But it never rose in volume.

“You are quick to judge a situation over which you have no understanding. I do not keep her bound and shackled to me. I give her everything I have offered to you. She has been with me through some of the darkest times in my life, and I will not have her degraded by someone who doesn't know either of us. Judge me as you like, but leave her out of this. She doesn't deserve to be taken through the mud because of your feelings. She is a better person than either of us could ever hope to be,” he said.

Her heartbeat slowed and she narrowed her eyes, her focus wavering from the sharp edges of the world around her to just the man pacing before her. A better person than them. He included himself. She considered his voice, the way it was breaking from control. And yet, he was controlled, and hard, and unyielding. Defensive, standing upon the cusp of lashing out and yet holding back.

It wouldn't take much to break that control. Too tightly wound within him, the tiniest cut could fray him, and his command over himself would snap. Already, she could see that some strands were sitting as flyaways, bobbing in the wind so thin and wisp-like that they were almost unnoticeable. Almost.

He was freely admitting somebody was better than he was. His arrogance, his need for control over the situation, it had cracked. Aea had struck at his tightly-wrapped shell and he’d cast off that fraction of armor, no longer useful in protecting him. He was admitting to somebody being better than him, and maybe he had always thought that this Leila was better than him, but now he was admitting it to Aea—of all people.

She’d hurt him, somehow, and maybe now he was bearing that wound and calling it a shield. The truth, when one acknowledged it, could not be used against one that accepted it. It could, instead, become its own strength.

Was it Aea’s fervent insistence that Leila would not want to be Alexandros’ second choice that hurt him? Did he realize that he’d be treating her as such? How would he feel if he were somebody’s second choice?

Perhaps he ensured this never came to pass by being so conspicuous. He was like Cassero, if that was indeed the case. Had he been somebody’s second choice before? Perhaps he wanted so badly to be somebody’s first that he could not bare to part with the adoration of his cousin—even if it were faux.

Perhaps that is what hurt him. The idea that his cousin was only faking her adoration because she had to, or that he kept the truth from her because he was frightened that any day, she might find somebody who would make Leila their everything and she would forget all about Alexandros.

‘She has been with me through some of the darkest times in my life,' he’d said. It could be he meant to finish that sentence with, ‘and I do not want the only person who understands me to ever leave.'

Or maybe she was dead wrong. But she’d struck upon something. All she could do was guess.

Gradually, her tension ebbed from her and with each exhale, she released it back into the world. She did not think she would actually hurt him with her words. She did not think she'd said anything harsh against him. It was rather mild considering everything.

But hurting him was what she wanted, was it not? So why didn’t it feel good?

The length of his steps grew longer, his shadow following him thin and narrowing as he stormed closer. He stopped and her eyes snapped to his, her expression settling from a curled lip to a placid mask of apathy, unwilling to let him see her thoughts moving across her face.

“My benevolence ends at the tip of my cock? Then why would I offer you anything? You have not seen my cock, you haven't experienced it. If that is what you were after, then you should have gone about it differently."

His voice was flat now, hard and patronizing in its severity as if she were a stupid child. She knew that voice. Aea had never, and would never look down when someone outside of her family used that tone with her.

Her jaw clicked to the side and she held his gaze. The audacity of his vulgarity incited an urge to twist it off and feed it to her raven. She almost spat it out at him, but held her tongue with the adamant refusal to break her own rules and set a precedent for interruption.

“I have never done anything to intentionally harm your cousin, I would never do anything to harm her. I did not make her out to be a toy. You are right, I would have treated the Marikas girl the same way I treated your cousin. I treat all of my lovers to the same experience. It does not mean that Kaia was not special, that I do not still have feelings for her. You are right, I have seen her only twice, but she has made a lasting impression on me. I did not trick her, and I have not suggest she endure disregard in any kind. Do not twist my words to fit some narrative you are weaving,” he said.

The hurt was gone from his voice, no longer swelling the rhythm and screaming to break through the bindings that held it. This, she knew, he meant—inasmuch as he could see from his eyes. This is how he saw the world, this is how he thought. He really and truly believed this.

And therein lay the issue. Kaia would not agree with him. Aea knew this as surely as she knew her own name. Alexandros was not for her cousin, but not because of anything he did from malice. But because he did things that were wrong and did not understand how they couldn't be right. Aea did not ever think either of them would be able to cooperate and accept the other point of view.

There were some things that her cousin would not be moved on. Stubborn, proud, and aware of her worth, Kaia would not tolerate a love that was not what she wished. Her father and mother had been utterly devoted to one another...so far as Kaia knew. And her father had freed her mother from slavery, not kept her in her servitude. Kaia would expect the same morality of her partner.

Aea knew Agolois had been utterly devoted to Callie, it was plain for anybody with eyes, but she did not see Callie reciprocating. Not in the way she avoided Agolois unless he initiated contact.

Regardless on how either Aea or her cousin perceived the relationship, Kaia expected that utter devotion. In exchange, she would give it back.

Alexandros could not give that to her. And though his version of it might be good enough from his own point of view, his attempt at good enough would not, in fact, be good enough for Kaia. Not to Aea.

“I don't know what it means to fight, to claw, to bite, and to scrape? Don't act as if you know me. You know so little of me and this world that it is pathetic. I would have pity for you, if you were not so vitriolic to me. Why don't you tell me of the time you took up a sword to defend your home? When you were eight years old and your father was away fighting so that he could provide for the people in his camp. Tell me what it was like when you stabbed that soldier, when the hot blood covered your face, when the woman he was attacking screamed, when he looked at you and he wasn't even old enough to grow a beard. Why don't you tell me what happened afterward? When the Lieutenant started for your mother, when you stood between them with that sword held in both hands, when...” Alexandros’ voice hitched.

There. That was the injury. Aea funneled all of her concentration onto him, attempting to avoid the vision of her father’s head rolling from his shoulders. Seeing it anyway.

No, she could not tell him what it had been like to pick up a sword and stand between death and the person who raised her, because she hadn’t. She’d hidden in a bush and hushed herself by stuffing her arm between her teeth, not moving, even when she saw the ravenous pack of men descend upon him. She could have done anything, and it might have given her father a fighting chance. But she didn’t. She let him die and did not move until the men had gone.

Her hands shook at her sides and she focused upon Alexandros with everything she had, her eyes burning but her refusal to shed a tear burning hotter. Maybe Alexandros was better than her after all. Even if he kept a slave, at least he tried to do the right thing.

Wrong. She’d been wrong, somewhere. She didn’t know where, didn’t have the time to puzzle it out. It was nothing to kill a man—eat or be eaten. Slicing open a scar so it might bleed again was another matter entirely. This was so confusing. She didn’t like it. Aea wanted him to stop talking. Why couldn’t he just hit her so she could do more than just stand there? 

“You can't, because you weren't there. You can't because that wasn't you. You can't, because you don't know me. You can't, because you don't know what I've lived through. You don't know what it is to be broken like I do. You have no right to condemn me. Don't lecture me. You think I came from wealth? That I throw money at my problems? No, I don't have that luxury. My swords have earned me everything I have. My blades are what got me here, and my blades will take me higher. What of your friend? What of her brother? Look at this stonework, who do you think laid it? Who do you think performs most of the tasks of keeping their household running? I'll give you a hint. They own them. Most of them probably for generations. I would wager they aren't as kind to theirs, that they have no freedoms. Do not think they are so perfect because you are friends with Asia too. Just because she is on your side, do not think there isn't a dark underbelly to the Kotas family.”

She did frown then, her eyes growing hard. Liar. His lips spread over his teeth in a sharp, mean smile and her mood was making her dizzy with how quickly it was swinging from anger, to morose, back to anger. He was lying, she could tell by the wicked smirk on his lips. He was just trying to hurt her because he liked it.

But what if he wasn’t lying? It would be easy enough to go inside and look, so he wouldn’t lie about something she could disprove so quickly, and he’d been mostly truthful thus far. But what if that didn’t matter? What if he was just trying to hurt her for the brief moment of amusement it gave him?

Slowly, her frown dropped away in place of pinched eyebrows.

Aea could not be controlled with mind games, she knew her own mind too well to fall for tricks of words and attempts at weaving a different reality. Emotionally, she was not so strong. She knew this, didn’t like it, protected herself by never letting anything penetrate past the wall of her logic.

But when something did wheedle past such a thick construct, she felt it keenly.

Aea did not love many people, but she loved hard, she loved fast, and she loved without conditions and without care at how much it hurt. Aea was not injured by many things, her pain tolerance too high and her self-awareness too thick, but when she was hurt, it was agony and she would do anything to make it go away.

Alexandros could have said anything against her, and it would have fallen on deaf ears because anything he could hurt her with, she already knew. He could have flung most anything at her and she would have been fine, but not that. Because Aea did not know, and actions meant so much more than words.

Forcing her to look at an evil action that someone she might have loved in time and seeing it as truth...it couldn’t be true. Asia was good. Her family was good. They weren’t anything like Aea and her family. They were better.

He was fucking lying.

Aea ground her teeth and scowled at him through the hood of her lashes, heat swallowing her cheeks. Fucking liar.

“If she and her brother had come to my defense, then I would not have said that to her. If she and her brother had come to my defense, there would have been no threat against our kingdom. If that old man wishes to threaten all of Colchis, to break the peace, then I will lead my men to Athenia and shove my spear up his pampered ass. Don't act like you know what is best. You have no clue what the world is really like. You haven't seen enough of it,” Alexandros said.

Well he certainly didn't know best. And if neither of them could decide on the 'best' course, then who was the one who did? Surely whoever it was could claim betterment over both of them.

“I suppose it is for the best that you find my offer unacceptable, because it has been rescinded. I was offering you the opportunity to see what you could become. Giving you the chance your family never could. Helping you to be everything you wanted to be. Instead, you had to lecture me. You decided to speak about things that you had no knowledge of, to declare facts that were falsehoods. You know far less than you think you do, Aea. Perhaps someday you will come to realize what you threw away in your arrogance. I only hope that when you do, it is not too late. I could be made to reconsider, if the appropriate apologies were made. Do you wish to respond? Or is that all you wanted to speak about?”

She didn’t answer him, though finally, she did look away. Her eyes ran back and forth across the ground with her thoughts, her lip stung by the blades of her teeth. She was not arrogant. Aea was many things, went by many names, but never that. Nobody had ever accused her of arrogance or pride, and if it were a true thing than she would know.

She released her lip to speak and then stopped when her tongue rolled upon the scathing name she'd picked for him. Her tongue pressed to her teeth, she clenched her jaw tight. What if he wasn’t lying? Why would the Kotas have slaves? Why wouldn’t Asia say anything?

A swallow, hard and thick past the lump in her throat. A deep breath through her open mouth. She wanted to hit him. She wanted him to hit her. Everything was so much easier when it was just a question of who could bleed the least.

He kept saying he wouldn't. She didn't want him to at first, thinking his rage like that of her father's. His mood swung so fast it brought an animal instinct roaring to life that yanked her learned biased to the forefront of her actions. But then Alexandros did something her father would have never done and the likeness dissolved. Before, she was glad. Now, she was not.

If he hit her first, then she would not be breaking her promise to Asia. Surely he wanted to. Aea was merely offering him compensation for listening quietly as she said her piece. Surely he would hit a man if offered the same thing, why not her?

Aea was a female, but she was no woman or girl, not in the way real women or girls were. She had the correct parts, but there was nothing about her that was soft, gentle, fragile, or kind. And if there was, then she could not very well call herself equal to any man if she wanted to be taken seriously. Now she wanted to insist he hit her on principal. 

She did not feel good for insulting his sensibilities. But then he tried to hurt her by bringing Asia into this. And if Aea let him, if she considered for just a moment that he might be right, that she could find proof, then it would hurt too much.

And then her father would have been right. Letting anybody close outside of the family would always end in either gore or heartbreak. Aea didn't want him to be right. She didn't want to consider the possibility that Alexandros could be right about the Kotas.

So instead, she wouldn't let him. Instead, she would focus upon the thing she'd been angry about to begin with. Then maybe he would stop talking and just leave like she'd told him to do before. Or better yet, give her an excuse to let out the fury whining to be loosed upon him so that she did not have to feel such vexing and conflicting swings from extreme to neutral. 

"I am sorry.” Aea brought her eyes up and set them on him. “It was not my intention to injure your sensibilities. I am sorry about your home, and your mother, I did not mean to make you think of that, or speak of it.”

That was the truth. She did not mean to. When she was speaking, she gave no thought to how it might hurt him, all she cared about was letting her anger out, striking at him mindlessly in any way that she could because that was the only way she knew how to protect anything at all. Whether blades or bare hands, or words, apparently. She put Kaia behind them and ripped at anything that came near, throwing Leila in with her cousin because she needed Aea as well. “I am sorry for imposing my ethics on you. That is never right."

Aea looked up at Alexandros and kept the black expanse of nothing held strong in the forefront of her mind. Kaia’s face materialized in it, imprinting upon it. When next she spoke, her voice was quiet, her thoughts guarded and the wall of her mind solidified so that nothing could slip through it. “I’m apologizing, not for your forgiveness, your pity, or your charity, because I do not need any of it. I’m apologizing because it hurts me to hurt others in spirit. So keep your absolution for yourself. The only thing that matters is that I forgive myself, and I do.”

She held his eyes in hers, demanding his attention and care to her words. When she spoke, her voice was as flat and unyielding as it could possibly be given the circumstances. If she let herself, she would shatter and cut him with every shard she was constructed from.

“I may not be able to change the system, but I can choose to keep hold of the few morals I have. I've said your argument is both null and void, and yet you still seem set on defending your actions. I cannot see how anybody would wish to be a slave when there is no reason they cannot be free. But please, enlighten me. Have you offered, and did your cousin refuse?"

“But you did. Without thought and without care you twisted that knife. I have enough pain just living with what happened, and now you have the audacity to speak of her casually as you apologize and then say that you do not need my forgiveness? Well, you will not have it. You have no right to speak of her in any way!”

What did he want from her? To get on her knees and beg forgiveness, after what he’d said about Panos’ words to him? She would never. If he could not accept her sincerity, then that was his decision. She was not looking for acceptance, did not need it, and furthermore, did not want it. Now he was simply getting himself coiled like a cobra.

It was no matter; she forgave herself for her carelessness. She would not make that mistake with another person again. Mistakes happened, people got hurt, and as long as she acknowledged how wrong she was, as long as she was sincere in her regret, and as long as it did not happen again, Aea forgave her actions.

She crossed her arms and waited on him to finish running out of fuel. Surely it would be soon, for she was done with allowing him to have any power by which to feed his temper. The ire burning behind his eyes was blindingly hot, she could see just how much the memory had pained him.

Likely he’d attempted to push it from his head, likely any mention of it was making it resurface. She was regretful of the part she’d played in that, but the only thing that would cauterize a reawakened wound was outward focus and memory rejection, being held and allowed to weep, or screaming and hitting without care.

And unless he wanted to fight her, which she would very much rather, she could do nothing for him. But she would not make the first strike—she’d promised Asia, and she had better control over herself than some mindless beast.

“You didn't ever deserve anything that I offered you. I don't know why I expected you to be like your cousin, but I see now how wrong I was.”

Her arms slackened, every muscle in her body sagging against her frame. And just as quickly, they snapped taut.

You didn't ever deserve anything. I don't know why I expected you to be like your cousin.

She was not Kaia. Had never been near that. She’d been reminded of that every day since she could hold a memory. Not smart like Kaia. Not kind like Kaia. Not a woman like Kaia. Not good like Kaia. Not lovely like Kaia. Not worth a goat like Kaia. Not brave like Kaia. Not useful like Kaia.  

The blade had always been there, buried deep in her chest. Alexandros had just found the handle and twisted. So cruel. So ironic and purposeful.     

Good job, Kaia. That's a lovely song, Kaia. Such pretty hair, Kaia. So swift, Kaia. So smart. I love you, Kaia. You shall make a fine wife one day, Kaia. 

Kaia, skinny as a rail and seven years old, standing beside her. A man they did not know on his knees before them, his throat bared and his head torn back, anchored by the fist in his hair. Hektos, holding the knife out. Go on, take it. Kaia, grabbing the knife and drawing a red line on his throat. The crimson bubbling down his front. The applause that followed. The body dropping to the ground. The blood on Aea's toes. Good job, Kaia. So brave, so strong.

Her own voice, tiny, insistent. I can do it too, Papa. And those eyes, hard as flint and black as pitch. That voice, hard as stone and full of disappointment. Apparently not.

Her father’s voice, her uncles’ voices, ghostly whispers across the cook fire, haunting the back of her head like poltergeists. Reminding her just how far behind she was, as if Kaia was standing close to the horizon, and no matter how hard Aea pumped her legs, she only moved inches with each passing season. And there was Kaia, glancing over her shoulder every once in a while to see if she’d yet to catch up, disappointed when she hadn’t.

You didn't ever deserve anything. I don't know why I expected you to be like your cousin.

Her lip wobbled. She knew that she wasn't her cousin. She just hoped...she’d hoped that nobody else would notice. But Alexandros had seen it. How many others had seen and laughed at her for it? 

No. He was not just blowing air and words made of nothing. He was telling her—he saw her. And she realized, that is what she’d wanted. For someone to just look at her and tell her that she was the thing she wanted to be.

Instead, he was telling her exactly what she had never wanted to hear from the lips of a stranger who should not be able to so easily see her for what she was—nothing. That's why she was named Aea. It meant nothing, was honored after nobody. Her father had not even thought long upon what to name her, just conjured the first thing that came to mind and dubbed her thusly.

Never enough. Not for her family, not for the world. Superfluous. Her father had not even wanted her, he just took her because her mother—whoever she was—had asked. There was no grand adventure waiting for her. No great love. No family of her own. Nothing but blood and never-ending service to people who did not want her to begin with, hoping that one day she would have fought enough for them to see that she was right there, all the while, just waiting for them to see her. Waiting to become something more than translucent air. Not understanding what she had to do to be enough except to try and be Kaia. And then failing regardless, over and over again.

She wasn't capable of being her cousin. And behind those words—you are nothing like her—carried with it two decades of every truth she'd ever been told about herself. And it hurt. It wormed past the wall of logic and reason and struck like lightning at the very axis of her existence because it was true. Cursed and blighted and imperfect from the womb. Aea would give her soul to be like her cousin. To be enough. To just be able to fall in love, to make friends, to laugh, to not care, to be held, to trust somebody—to finally just feel something other than this, whatever this was.    

And though she knew she would never reach that impossible thing, she kept trying all the same. She did not know how else to function, how else to exist.

And somehow, Alexandros had seen what she'd been trying to fool herself into thinking. Saw it enough to find that blade and drive it deeper. Which meant that everyone else had as well.

Her attempts at looking like a human, acting as if she belonged, were nothing more than amusements to entertain those who were more than she was. She could not ignore the truth that tore at her the most when this stranger spit it upon her. She was not like Kaia, and never would be.

Aea’s lip wobbled for what felt like the tenth time within the past twenty minutes. Holding back. What is there to cry about? Don’t you fucking dare.

Her face was hot again, her ears burning, but not in anger. A drop squeezed past her eyelashes and splashed the corner of her eye and she froze. Don’t you fucking dare.

She shouldn't have tried to begin with. There was no point. Even now, she’d been forgotten inside. Nobody would come for her, nobody would wonder where she'd left. Here and gone like a ghost. She tried to be something she was not—not just the lie of her identity, but of what she thought herself to be. Pretended for the sake of her ego. Still too human, too vulnerable to any identity at all, did not even really know what she was to begin with.

You didn't ever deserve anything. I don't know why I expected you to be like your cousin.

The pit of her stomach yawned wide and swallowed any ounce of fire bleeding into her veins. Every angry and spiteful thought she’d ever had was quenched and forgotten. Alexandros became sharp again, the crevice of his clavicle, such a tender spot to leave so open. The contour of his cheekbone, such an easy place to invade and sever his jaw.

She spoke, her words muted to her ears as if someone were speaking behind her, around her, but never through her. Calm. So calm. Holding back the hunger for somebody else to feel greater pain than she. Because she wanted to be good. Because she thought she could be.

“I may not be able to change the system, but I can choose to keep hold of the few morals I have. I've said your argument is both null and void, and yet you still seem set on defending your actions. I cannot see how anybody would wish to be a slave when there is no reason they cannot be free. But please, enlighten me. Have you offered, and did your cousin refuse?”

Because Kaia would not hurt somebody.

“This is not mine to tell freely; I know you do not care for me or what I have to say, but, for the sake of the one who is not here, I ask you not to share this with anyone, save Kaia if you must. Is that agreeable?”

She nodded. Empty. Absently. Only a puppet on a string. She did not even hear his words.

“Very well. I have asked in the past. When we were both young, it was not long after she was brought to me. I offered to free her, to marry her. I did not ask my father before hand, but I did not care what he thought about the matter. She refused."

Kaia would never snap. And if she did, it was in defense, never in wrath. Because she was good. She did not like hurting people unless she had to.

"She said, 'I am happy the way things are, I don't want to be any more than your slave and your lover.
I need it to be this way for my needs to be satisfied.' I can not say that I am unwilling in our partnership. I do enjoy the dynamic that she craves. It is for our sexual gratification that we leave things this way. I have not asked again since then. She has never suggested anything but satisfaction at her place. If she wished for things to change, all she need do is ask, and she is aware of that fact. I can not just abandon her when I do marry someone.”

But Aea was not Kaia. Could never be.

“You think my arguments null and void because she is owned by me, very well. I cannot argue with your mores, but you should reconsider based on the desires of the one that is owned.”

Let go.

She cracked. And when the first fracture worked its way into her throat, she swallowed it back.

Let go.

Another crack.

Let go.

She exploded. Aea launched away from the wall, closing the distance between she and he as swiftly as her legs could take her. He liked to humiliate people, well she would make him understand what humiliation was. He liked control, she would take it away. He liked people to be afraid, she would make him fear her. He expected her to be like her cousin, she wouldn’t be.

Because she was Aea, and Aea did not give subordination to men who did not deserve her consideration. Aea did not use words to tell the truth, had never done so, was tired of pretending she did. Her actions were a different matter entirely. In this, she did not lie.

Her expression was twisted on a wordless snarl and she felt the water tracking heavily down her face, one turgid tear tearing down her cheek after another, but she was empty of all thought and sensation save for the smell of the torches and the increasing volume of the singing cicadas convalescing about her like hissing, rattling snakes.

Right leg back, left leg acting as dominant to rest her right preference. She grabbed his shoulder with her right hand, fingers squeezing hard upon the muscle. When she brought her left knee up, it was on a cross-anchor. And if he caught it before his balls shot into his stomach, she would lift herself and wrap her dominant leg around him like a vice before she took him to the ground and held him there.

Kaia had taken this man into her bed and now he thought he had a right to her. Aea would just have to remind him that he wasn't man enough to protect himself, much less Kaia.

You didn't ever deserve anything. I don't know why I expected you to be like your cousin.

I don’t know why I expected you to remember that I was Aea.

“Aea! What is this madness? Why are you attacking me?”

She considered unhinging her knee and swinging up. She’d hit something, at least. Aea considered jabbing him in the throat, then breaking his nose upon her face if he blocked that and crossed his guard.

But no. Let him think he had a chance. He attempted to bend reality to his whims as if she would fall for it. She’d let him think she had been convinced the first time, she supposed, so it stood to reason he would think it would work a second time. Aea would not let him play the victim.

Poke an animal enough, and it was bound to bite. He thought he could batter her with words, slither into her memories, yank them out, and not feel the consequences? No. She would not allow him to get away without experiencing something of his own creation.

He gripped her knee and when his hand went to her stomach, she tightened her core and stepped backwards with the momentum of the shove, staggering into a swift recover. She didn’t counter.

Alexandros took three steps back like a cornered beast, bewildered and confused. Good. She liked holding him in suspended terror, it made her swirling thoughts bleed away in favor of enjoyment. Made this like a game again, and not like a last-ditch effort to scare him away so that he never dared attempt to hurt her again.

His right foot landed on an odd count. Like a blade that spun in the air, even and odd steps dictated which end one should throw from—handle or blade, right or left. He landed with his right foot back, which meant right dominance. His weaker side would jab quickly from his left and the right side would come in with a punishing blow, carrying heavy momentum from a far swing.

“We don’t have to do this! There is no reason to! I don’t want to harm you, so please, stop!”

Why was it that people always assumed they were the ones that would harm her? It would be amusing if it weren't irritating. Alexandros had been talking about shoving spears up asses and swords in soldiers. Now he wanted to calm down? It was too late. He wanted a reaction, she was giving him one. And now he thought he could withhold something from her? That was not how this worked.

Aea wrapped her fingers about the leather braid circling her head and yanked it off, snapping it until she had two ends of the thick chord in both her hands. She rounded him, watching his balled fists. She wanted him angry, cocky, and swinging.

“I'm done talking, Alexandros. Come, you have a challenger, and honor dictates you answer it. This is how we settle things in Colchis, or didn’t you know? Don't be troubled—I won't kill you," her tone was flat and icy, unmistakable in its severity.

Aea swiped at her cheeks absently, her voice still but a distant echo to her own ears. She stopped pacing around him and halted merely a fist’s swing away. Daring him. He was built solidly like Vangelis, and not that much older than Aea. Tight spaces would be detrimental to him, as would bending. He could very well be quick and hardy, but he would have to be significantly fast to land a hit upon her without a grapple.

And she bet his honor wouldn’t let him use tooth or claw.

Well, since she had none, what did she care for ridiculous expectations? What she cared about was making him feel just as naked and worthless as she felt, and she did not mind if she had to break her own face upon the stone if it ensured he felt as small as she.

He wanted to hurt her, well, he did. She would not waste her breath on words, for they were as fleeting and meaningless as air. Words were intangible, words were nothing against the temporal metallic of blood and the salt of sweat.

She wiped her eyes again, her leather braid balled into her fist. Her tears mixed with the black gel Asia had applied to her eyes like warpaint across her skin, but she was unconcerned about looking like anything, did not even consider that she might go back inside.

In her head, she drew her grids in the sand—alpha, beta, gamma.

Without warning, Aea darted for him and feinted high before darting low, plowing into his stomach with her left elbow. If he doubled over, she could catch him round the throat with her chord and twist it until he fell to his knees.

If he blocked with his left and swung with his right as she assumed, she would land a much faster punch under his chin while under his guard. Either that, or she would snatch his wrist and crank his arms from his torso so that she could take a bite of whatever she could reach. If she got her teeth in him, she wasn't letting go.

Aea was smaller, and inside of his guard, it was exactly like a dagger facing a sword. Once the smaller blade got past a much larger one, it took the more substantial of the two seconds longer to recover and parry. Plenty of time to make a deciding blow.

She left her neck open for him to squeeze, and if he did, she would have plenty of opportunity to come close to his shoulders and cast her braid round his throat. Wound about his neck, her rope could cut off his oxygen and his blood flow.

She was well practiced at being held underwater. Aea bet she could hold onto her air much longer than he could. Alexandros could at least count himself lucky that she would not kill him, not purposefully nor accidentally. Only amateurs who had no business in fighting made such clumsy mistakes. All she wanted was to break him a little.

“If this is what you want, then I will fight you Aea. My honor demands I meet this challenge, even if you have armed yourself and I am left unarmed.”

She almost rolled her eyes again. It was a nice try to weaken her chances, but she did not care for his opinion. He’d already said she was without honor, so he should not be surprised. No matter what she did, how much she trained, she would never be as physically strong as a man. Arming herself with a rope of leather was simply a means of evening her strength.

If she could not match him in strength, as was usually the case with men, she would use something that was just as strong as muscle.

She feinted high, cut low, and the air groaned from Alexandros’ chest. And then his knee was in her belly, her spine cracking under the force of his fists. Her muscles thummed, aching from the impacts to both sides. She’d taken far worse.

Already doubled over on his knee, she loped her arm beneath it, her fist still clenching the rope, and bore the burn of fists as she’d always bore them—with an empty expression and levied patience.

Aea shot to her feet and yanked his bent knee with her, adrenaline fueling the muscles shifting just beneath her flesh to yank his knee as high as she could. If he fell, it was all a matter of gaining a mount and hooking his chin to her shoulder and cranking it aside before forcing his opposing arm against her jaw to grip him into a submission hold.

With her other arm, she readied her midsection with the assumption that he would try to kick off from it, ready to drop his knee and slam her fist into his groin if need be.

He kept kicking his leg down in her grip like a stallion refusing a shoe, grabbing at the hem of her dress and pulling it. The single fibula that held the fabric to her shoulder strained against the insistence of his movement and she had no choice but to move with him, halting his foot from gaining traction upon the ground with the sheer force of her muscles.

Her nerves incised with each jerking movement, his leg as a mallet struggling to pound upon a forehead as he hopped back, taking her with him lest her clothing snap.

She would yield before she fought in her fucking smallclothes. No. Not yield. Never yield. She’d just take that dove-white cloak from him and wear it. Given his penchant for arrogance, he would not like that at all. It would be like a hound pissing on another’s hound’s tree.

It wouldn’t be her fault if he could not keep his property as his own. Perhaps he would learn not to worry about keeping pretty things, because thieves like her were always bound to snatch them away.

Aea nearly dropped her guard to swing at his groin but her eyes lit upon their destination and she bit back on a smile, instead letting him hang himself upon his blind panic. The two of them crossed the short space between the light of the torches and the darkness beyond, her muscles stretching and screaming for her to let go, her breath coming in quicker, her heart slugging hard against her chest.

Pain was only fleeing weakness, and so she wouldn’t let go. She would endure tonight and be absolutely battered and unable to move on the morrow, but she would be stronger for it when her body healed.

Further and further they moved in a mad, macabre dance. He, leading them while she followed him further and further into a mistake of his own making.

The railing was one hop and only a few steps away. She snapped her eyes to his and held them, distracted him with the human instinct to look when looked upon, his blue irises almost black in the darkness. Aea wanted to see how he fared without the roaring light of the flames. 

Dropping the guard on her free hand, her own lashed out like the strike of a viper and she snapped his white cloak from his shoulders, its clasp snapping and clattering on the paved stones. The white cloak fluttered down just as quickly.

She bent her knees and soaked his weight into her joints, lifted, and pulled her fist back to swing up with the propellant of her knees and the force of her body. Her knuckles slammed into the bottom of his arm. The backs of his legs hit the stone railing. He broke from her, his body tipped, his leg flipped. And then he was gone. 

A thump sounded from below and Aea wasted no time in swinging upon the stone railing in a crouch, locking her eyes upon his larger form in the darkness. She pushed off the high point and flew at him like an arrow, fully intending to pin him to the ground.

As Alexadros got closer and closer, she stretched her arms out to him. She didn’t know what she would hit or grab, but it would be something. Then, she was upon him and grasping for his shoulders, but then her air was forced from her, her stomach jumping into her throat, and she flew.

The grass raced past her vision, the ground getting closer with each moment of a moment. So did the stone bench. Aea's arms pinwheeled on instinct before they snapped to her head, folding and protecting the precious treasure of her functioning mind.

The slab of grey disappeared behind the flesh of her forearm and she fell to the ground. Her arm scraped against the stone and an acute burn sliced along her skin, bringing her down to the earth. Quickly, she rolled onto her back and stuffed her leather braid into her strophion. She bolted to her feet, sucking in a lungful of air.

And then she smiled. Not at anything in particular, but the energy in her stomach, her anger, had been bottled and uncorked and then given to the winds. Who cared what Alexandros thought? Who cared what anybody thought? Who cared that she was not enough? Not her, not now. Sometimes, she wished moments like these could last for all her life.

Alexandros was on his feet, the space between them vast. “What is the point of all this? Have you not had enough? Must we fight until one of us drops? We are expected back inside you know. Your cousin and your friend will be quite miffed if we both return bloodied.”

She stared at him for a long moment, biting back on her smile but unable to quench it for long. Laugher, loud and unabashed bubbled past her lips. She didn’t know why he was so funny to her, but he was. When her amusement tapered off, she spoke past hiccups of errant giggles, at the cusp of laughing again.

“My friend? Not yours any longer? My cousin, not your lover? I accept your generous offer and keep them both for myself.”

She couldn’t help but laugh again, as if he'd told a rather funny joke. The second was easier to quell than the first. “Do you truly think either of them will be miffed at me? What for? I think you are trying to get me to want to stop because you don’t want me to kick your ass. You’ll have to do much better than that.”

Aea walked toward him, blowing a loose strand of hair from her face, “Why would I ever want to stop? I feel much better already, don’t you? I can barely remember what I was so angry about.”

She got close to him and then rushed him again, lashing out and grasping the crux of his elbow with one hand and the back of his neck with the other, yanking his head to her shoulder. Her hands wrapped the crook of his elbow, anchoring it tight to her chest so he couldn’t throw it. Her fingers dug like talons at the back of his ear and she turned her elbow in, levering his chin and locking his head into the force of her arm.

Aea kept her lower body far back from his and lowered her own head to his shoulder, crossing her leg and raising it to the back of his knee, locking her foot there. The blood swelled from her wound and dropped onto him. Little rivulets like gentle droplets of rain.

“I could roll and crack your arm on the ground,” she huffed, chest rising and falling with exertion and a smile fueled by kinetic energy spread across her lips. “You could punch me in the face. I could go all night—I never tire. And you’ll find my pain tolerance particularly annoying. We could end this now, and I’ll let you leave without staining that pretty outfit of yours—”

Adrenaline pumped through her heart and into her limbs, making her jittery and filling her stomach full of flying creatures. She’d always liked that. Like standing high above the sea and looking into the waters below, knowing that at any second, just one decision could be the end. Knowing that if she jumped just right, she might miss the rocks and live.

“But first we will come to a few understandings that clearly you will not accept in words. There is not a person alive I will grovel for. There is not a person alive I will let speak to me like that. I am not your subordinate, I am not your daughter, and I am not your slave. I don't have to endure your cruelty if I do not wish it, and I do not wish it, so I will not. Do you understand?”