“Xander,” I said, leaning forward to touch him. He didn’t hear me and my hand passed through him.
I began to look around the tent to see what I could work with. Where were the keys? I would need those when I found him.
The flap opened and Artemisia walked inside. She had a massive war hammer, which she threw onto a wooden table. The hammer of Arion. I wished desperately that I could stab her where she stood. I even attempted it, but the blade couldn’t make contact.
“King Alexandros, how have you been enjoying your accommodations?” she asked as she sat on a foldable stool.
“The service leaves something to be desired,” he said.
“My men have a lot of aggression they wanted to work out. It seems you were the best option for them to do so.” She crossed her ankles. “Dolion tells me that you and your wife are physically connected. I hope she’s enjoying everything we inflict on you.”
Apparently Dolion didn’t know that Io had severed the physical link. Xander smirked, and I could tell it irritated Artemisia. She had hoped to get a rise out of him. “And the poison? Has that been to your liking?”
“I could do without it.”
“What fun would that be?” she asked with a sneer.
“Poison is cowardly.” I had once said that to him. “If you plan on killing me, you should just be done with it. This is tedious.”
Panic clutched at my throat. He was going to provoke her into ending his life.
“Dolion told me about your special gifts. I need you weakened, and poison is the best way to do that. But I don’t want you to die right away. First, I’m going to enjoy you.”
Fury slithered through my gut. If she laid a hand on him, I was going to cut it off the first chance I got.
He shifted his gaze over to the table. “Is that the eye of the goddess that I see?”
Artemisia had somehow slotted the eye into the top of her war hammer. She seemed startled but quickly recovered. “And what if it is?”
“I know someone who is looking for it. And she’ll take it from you.”
“Your wife?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m not worried about her.”
“You should be. You have no idea how powerful she is or how quickly you’re going to die when she finds you.”
“I’d like to see her try.”
“You will,” he promised.
“I welcome the fight. Things will be very different the next time she and I meet.”
Yes, they would be. Because she wasn’t going to survive the encounter. I would make sure of it.
Xander smiled.
“You don’t believe me?” she demanded. “I am going to kill your wife.”
The smile slid off his face. “If you harm anyone I care about, any of my people, I promise that I will kill you.” He said it in that cold, calm voice that sent shivers down my spine.
It didn’t have the same effect on Artemisia. “King Alexandros, I am going to harm every single one of your people. And I’m going to leave you alive to watch and then kill you last.”
She leaned forward. “Carian ships are on their way. They’re going to arrive the same time that we do. We will hammer Ilion from every sideand destroy it and salt the earth behind us. Then we will cross the ocean and do the same to Locris. No eyes will be left to weep for the dead.”
Artemisia was going to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
I had to stop her.
“What you don’t seem to appreciate, King Alexandros, is how determined we are to destroy you and your people.” She tilted her head to the side, as if taking his measure. “After the Great War, you sent your cowards to Caria. Your weakest men fled there. Your cruelest. Those who did not want pain for themselves but enjoyed inflicting it on others. The ones who would kill men and steal their families. Those wives couldn’t fight back, but they refused to speak to their new husbands. Refused to eat with them. They taught their sons and daughters to hate the Ilionians. To bide our time until we could enact our revenge.”
