Kryptic ↟ Deimos

five: six arils

THE PAIN SUBSIDES to a dull throbbing and Enyo forces herself to sit upright. Deimos enters the room —his chiton hanging around his hips— with two plates of food and as if remembering she'd not eaten in days, her stomach grumbles. She dunks the brown bread into a cup of wine before taking a large bite. "You're not training?" She asks, mouth full and wine dribbling down her chin.

Deimos shakes his head, cutting into a fig —handing her half of it. She tosses the slice into her mouth, relishing in the honey-berry sweetness. He glances at her and the blood seeping through the white linen wrap. She's a mess. "You can barely move, Enyo," he says, quietly. He doesn't like seeing her like this. Enyo is strong —a demigoddess among mortals.

Her face twists. "I'm not your burden," she hisses, heart starting to pound. "This is was my doing," Enyo grits out, her voice tight and cracking as though she's trying to convince herself she deserved this fate. "My failure," she mutters. But it wasn't. Nisos knew what he'd done, and he'd acted on the orders the Cult. She was never meant to succeed.

Lykaon comes to the villa after several days, examining Enyo's wounds for himself. She'd escaped the risk of infection so long as the mending scabs were kept clean. He leaves a new batch of ointment —gods know she and Deimos will need it at some point.

When Deimos returns from the training grounds, he finds Enyo sprawled out in a wooden tub —bliss wrote on her face as a young serving girl massages her scalp with sweet oils. He leans against the doorway, not saying a word or making a sound. It'd been ages since he'd last seen her smile at anything other than death.

Crickets sing in the cool night air. Somewhere off in the woods of the high valley bears are grumbling and boars forage. Instead of settling in for the evening, Enyo and Deimos had gone to Kirrha before sunset. There were always so many people in the harbor and on the streets that they could walk without fear of being recognized. They looked like any other pilgrim who'd come to see the Oracle of Delphi.

Enyo stops by a merchant stall and purchases a pouch filled with beads of gold and pearl as she recalls listening to an old storyteller in Lalaia. He spoke of the gods and distant lands. The old white-haired man told them of a group to the east, where men never cut their hair and use beads and bells to signify their victories in combat. By looking alone one would be able to tell the fiercest warriors. It had given Enyo a budding idea.

Deimos comes away from a farmer's stand with a pomegranate. He cuts through the thick rind and cracks the fruit open revealing the red arils within. Dark red juice drips from his fingers like blood when he extends the pomegranate toward Enyo. "You're not trying to trick me are you?" She asks, lips curling into a faint smile. Persephone had eaten seven arils and was doomed to stay in the underworld with Hades for part of the year after he'd tricked the goddess of spring.

"I'm flattered you hold me to such high a regard as Hades," he remarks, tone borderline on teasing. Enyo rolls her eyes, snatching the piece of pomegranate from his hand.

Maybe it's because she's still healing, but Deimos lets her do as she pleases with his hair when they return to the villa after sundown. His dark brown locks are shorn at his shoulders —half pulled away and tied up from his face in a small bun. He sets a sword across his laps and drags a whetstone down the edge of the blade. Silence falls between them except for the shring of stone on metal.

Enyo threads the first bead over a lock of his hair and secures it in place with a loop. We marched into Messenia and secured the region for the Cult. The war factory of Hellas. One bead soon becomes six. Deimos picks up one of the golden ornaments hanging on a lock of half-matted hair and rolls it between his fingers. "Each bead is one of our victories," she explains, chin resting on his shoulder.