My mother’s labor had nearly torn her apart, but before she could even hold me, a servant smuggled me from her side. When I opened my eyes, night had already fallen. The grand stone halls of House Theron were gone, replaced by the dense forest at the foot of Mount Olympus. Wind howled through broken crags, and the cries of beasts drew closer. A man with a pockmarked wreck of a face hurled me into a swamp. The impact nearly shattered my fragile bones. “Don’t blame me, child. Blame Lady Seraphine. She’s the one who wants you dead.” Seraphine. I would remember the name. The man scrambled away into the darkness. I was an infant, alone, crying until my throat was raw. The only answer was the howling of wolves, circling ever nearer. Just as I thought my life was over, a pair of worn leather sandals stopped before me. A weathered old man bent down, a tarnished bronze amulet hanging from his neck. He grinned at me. “The gods whispered that I would find her in the mire.” He lifted me, and held me close against the night. He raised me for fifteen years. Now, perched high in the branches of a laurel tree at the cliff’s edge, I looked down at the ruined sanctuary that had been my home.
The carriage slammed into a boulder and burst apart. A nobleman, soaked in blood, tumbled from the wreck. I went to him and checked. No heartbeat. A pity. His belongings were excellent. At his waist hung an engraved seal bearing a noble crest. It would fetch a price. The signet ring on his thumb was even better. I worked it free, then searched his robes and found two coin pouches, a smaller pouch of gold staters, and a thick sheaf of merchant notes. “I’ll take these as payment for your funeral.” “My lady, I am not dead yet.” I nearly dropped the pouch. I steadied myself and checked his pulse and body heat again. Somehow, both had returned. I pressed down on the wounds at his shoulder and below his ribs to slow the bleeding, then took out one of Thales’s healing pellets. “It is expensive. Consider yourself fortunate.” He swallowed it, though wariness flickered in his eyes. Below us, I heard voices—men already combing the forest. No time. I kicked the shattered frame of the carriage over the cliff to make it look like he had gone down with it, and hauled him over my shoulder. “You—” “Shut it,” I said without looking back. “Say anything else and I’ll leave you for the wolves.” At the ruined sanctuary, I kicked the door open and shouted for Thales. He stumbled out from a back room stacked to the ceiling with wine jars, hair wild, and demanded to know why I wasn’t treating the man myself. “He’s a man. The wound’s in an awkward place.” That did it. Thales grabbed a pair of shears and took over, grumbling the whole time that a girl of virtue had no place handling a man’s injuries. That night, the stranger woke to find everything below the waist exposed to the open air. His face burned scarlet. I came in with a bowl of barley porridge, straightened the blanket without a glance. “Don’t flatter yourself. There was nothing worth seeing.” He was so outraged he passed out again. But I had noticed something. Even while unconscious, his hand never loosened from the inside of his belt, pressed tight against one small hidden place. Whatever he had concealed there mattered to him more than his own survival.
“Lyra,” he said, spooning idly at his stew beside the fire, “you carried him back here, and you touched his oath mark. That mark is not meant for just anyone’s hands.” I nearly spat out my soup. “I was looking for gold.” “How did I raise a girl with nothing in her head but money? Don’t you want a husband? Or if not that, a slave?” His name was Cassian. He was badly hurt, so badly that the last trace of divine blood in him had nearly burned away. He could barely manage the simplest tasks on his own. The worst of it was that he was noble to the core. One night, I found him flushed scarlet, both hands twisting in the linen sheets. “What now?” He clenched his jaw. Even the tips of his ears had gone red. “Fetch Thales.” “He’s off drinking. Is it urgent, or just embarrassing?” “…The latter.” I said nothing. Just set the chamber pot beside the bed. I heard the faint sound of water behind me. I turned and walked out. Leaning against the doorframe, I let a slow, wicked smile take hold. A few days later, Thales finally made his move. Cassian was sitting in the low wheeled chair we used to move the wounded into the sun. Thales wandered over with a cup of wine and a look I knew far too well. “How do you find Lyra’s cooking?” Cassian answered with perfect sincerity. “Her skill would honor a temple feast.” “Then would you like to marry her?” Cassian nearly choked on his wine. “Seer, I could repay her with my entire fortune…” “Your entire fortune?” Thales’s eyes lit up at once. “Excellent. It can serve as Lyra’s dowry.” “Thales.” I hurled a head of garlic from the kitchen. It struck him square in the forehead. “Peel that. And if you say one more foolish thing, I’ll sew your mouth shut.” He fumbled to catch it, rubbing his brow and muttering that I grew sharper every day. Once he scurried off, Cassian reached out to stop me. “If you do not wish it, I will not force you.” I was already past him, bow slung across my back. I didn’t break stride. “You owe me three thousand gold staters. If you can’t pay in coin, you’ll pay in kind. With yourself.” He went utterly still.
That morning, Cassian was still sitting in his low chair, lost in thought, when Thales appeared from nowhere and slapped two scrolls of parchment down. They were sealed with the emblem of Hera. At the top of each, names had been inscribed: Lyra Theron and Cassian Kallistrate. “Is this a bridal oath, witnessed at Hera’s altar?” Cassian’s face lost all color. “When did you take my oath-token?” Thales just smiled, said it was nothing, and told him the name had better be real. Otherwise, Cassian would never see the sun again. Cassian took a sharp breath, and in a low voice, admitted it was his. When I returned from gathering herbs and saw those two scrolls, I nearly tore the ruined sanctuary apart. I screamed for Thales to come out, my voice rattling the wooden shutters and sending every bird in the forest scattering into the sky. No one answered. I stormed into his room. The place, usually a sty, had been swept clean and emptied. On his pillow lay a single letter and a stack of merchant notes. The letter contained one word. Leave. I searched the hillside behind the sanctuary. The damp earth held a few bootprints, the soles stamped with the strange impression of a laurel wreath. Thales, what in the name of the gods are you? I seized one of the oath scrolls, ready to rip it to shreds, but Cassian was faster. He snatched it from my grasp. He told me that once an oath has been witnessed by Hera, tearing the parchment changes nothing. Should we ever need to dissolve the bond, we would need these scrolls to do it. I stared at him. “If this bond is ever to be broken, it will be my hand that breaks it.” Cassian was quiet for a moment. Something I could not name flickered in his eyes. But I had understood certain things long before this moment. Being abandoned once in a lifetime is enough. If there was ever to be a next time, I would be the one to decide it. That night, I stood before him with a bag of herbs. I told him to gather his things. We were leaving at dawn. Cassian asked where we were going.
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