Kryptic ↟ Deimos

one: the first trial

BRONZE DROPLETS OF venom hang from the fangs of a great serpent coiled around stalactites and stalagmites in the Cave of Gaia. Its scales glinting gold in the dim light of the braziers. Beneath the Python's open mouth is a golden pyramid, pulsating with light. It draws Lesya toward it like a moth to a flame. Elpenor explains it is a powerful artifact of ancient origin —only those descended from or gifted by the gods can use it effectively. The last person to be gifted a vision from the pyramid had been Pythagoras.

The antechamber Elpenor leads her to has burning sconces lined around the smoothed walls —the flickering flames cast light on five children of a similar age all wearing the same grey exomis. Standing above them is a woman with greying hair and a wrinkled face, her jowls already beginning to sag. She extends a spindly hand in the direction of her newest daughter, bidding her step forward. Elpenor presses his hand to her back, urging Lesya forward. The woman's smile is something haunting —a cage of teeth that reminds the girl of a smiling shark. "Come and meet your brothers and sisters."

I already have brothers, Lesya bites her tongue as she looks at the three boys and two girls staring at her. They're all bigger and leaner than she is —each of them has a hungry glint in their nigh-hollow eyes. Leysa glances over her shoulder, but Elpenor is already gone. Her frightened gaze returns to the crone and her children. The woman motions to those standing before her and rattles off their names. "This is Deimos, Polyas, Kyberniskos, Elena, and Syntyche."

Chrysis steps in front of Lesya and takes hold of her chin, turning her thin face toward the light —scrutinizing her high cheekbones and the dusting of freckles. The girl has the face of a priestess or a hetaera, not a warrior. "And what is your name?" It's both a simple question and a test.

"Enyo," Lesya responds, remembering what Elpenor had told her.

Lesya sits away from the fire as the other children laugh and speak of battles —their own victories. She curls into herself, neglecting the small plate of food at her feet, despite how her belly groans and rumbles and silently begins to weep. This is not where she belongs. She was meant to continue her womanly lessons under Kalanthe —weaving, sewing, playing the lyre, and even pottery. From between her fingers, she can see the others looking at her and knows now their laughter is directed toward her.

Someone sits next to her, weary Lesya raises her head and finds the largest and meanest looking of the boys at her side. Deimos, Chrysis named him. His dark brown hair is shorn just above his ears —his face a solemn mask as he doesn't share in the other's amusement. "Don't let Chrysis see you crying," Deimos mutters. Tears are a mark of weakness, and weakness cannot thrive in this place.

Her hair —a mix of chestnut and copper— clings to her damp cheeks. "I want to go home," she tells the boy. His other brothers and sisters were much younger when Chrysis took them under her care —it was easy for a child of two or three to forget their names and family, but she has already endured eight hard summers. Forgetting will not come easy, if it comes at all. Deimos looks over her —thin arms and legs with knobby knees and unsettling eyes the shade of a fresh laurel wreath.

Giving in to the pitiful cries of her stomach, Lesya reaches for the plate of food —fresh nectarines, olives, brown flatbread, and two clumps of roasted red meat. "Here," Deimos says, offering her his ration of roast meat. "You need it more than I do."

"AGAIN," A HARSH voice barks. Alektor circles the two girls, hands behind his back and disappointment on his scrunched-up face. He is an ostracized Spartan who now serves the Cult of Kosmos —instructing Chrysis' children in matters of combat and war. Alektor is a cruel man and enforces that every bruise, bloody nose, cut, and broken bone is a lesson —weakness leaving the body. Enyo rolls onto her back and looks up at Syntyche through a swollen eye, the other obscured by blood trickling down from a gash at her hairline. She kicks her legs up and out, springing to her feet.