I didn’t actually know. “I would assume so.”
“If they bleed, then they can die.” He dismissed the dragons as if they were irrelevant.
We arrived at the barracks and spoke to the officer in charge, who showed the Locrians and Daemonians where they would be sleeping.
Xander rode up then and my heart fluttered at the sight of him. I couldn’t keep the silly grin off my face.
“Did you miss me?” I asked him.
“Always.” He kissed me. “Thrax told me the Thracian contingent arrived this morning and I came over to greet them. That must be them.”
There were a bunch of ridiculously tall men and women, all with yellow or red hair and the same blue tattoos as Thrax, loudly singing and getting into drunken fights, swearing at one another in their native language.
But I was distracted by the sound of a woman yelling. And when I saw who it was, it was like getting punched in the stomach.
Antiope.
“Who is in charge here?” she demanded. She was carrying a sword that I could only assume she had liberated from some guard on her way down to the barracks. This was why Maia had said to send her love. She had known that Antiope was about to wake up.
I ran over to her. “I was just talking about—”
“Where is she?” Antiope demanded. “Where’s Artemisia?”
“She’s coming. She plans to attack Troas.” I quickly filled her in on what she had missed while being in a coma, including Lysimache’s treachery and the false vows she’d made us take. I told Antiope that she was going to get the chance to fight very soon.
This seemed to mollify her. “Who are all these people?”
“Ilionian, Locrian, Thracian, and Daemonian soldiers. All here to fight. Including my former battle master, Demaratus.” I pointed him out to her.
Her eyes narrowed. “I noticed some of your bad habits when you first joined the temple. He and I need to have a word.”
This was not how I wanted this to go. I thought they might like each other if given the chance, but Antiope looked like she wanted to fight somebody.
I hurried after her but my husband was there, pulling me to his side. “What is happening?” he asked me.
“Antiope is going to ...” I didn’t get to finish my sentence because she was already yelling at Demaratus. He kept responding calmly to her while she shouted about his bad training techniques.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but whatever it was, Antiope ordered him to take out his sword. He did so with an amused smile on his face. I had never seen him smile before. It was strange.
She raised her sword and attacked. I put a hand over my mouth because I had seen her fight before, and by the goddess, she was going to cut off his other hand.
But to my shock, Demaratus was holding his own despite the fact that she was goddess-blessed. Antiope looked as surprised as I felt. Perhaps it was because she had just recently woken from a coma? They went back and forth, neither gaining the advantage, and even the drunk Thracians stopped their arguing to watch them. It was like when I’d seen Xander and Thrax fight during a training session. They had been like two immortal gods locked in an eternal battle.
That was exactly what watching Antiope and Demaratus fighting was like. I had known Demaratus was good. I had never realized that he was this good.
Would all the Daemonians fight like him? If they did, this war might be over quickly. Not even the Carians’ red soil could give them the advantage over this level of skill.
Antiope was out of breath, something I’d never seen from her before. She stepped back and then dropped her sword on the ground.
And two seconds later she launched herself at Demaratus and kissed him.
My mouth hung open while the Thracians cheered loudly.
“That is the strangest and fastest courtship I’ve ever seen,” I said.
“Lions mate the same way,” Xander replied. “And isn’t this what you wanted?”
I nodded. I just hadn’t expected it to happen like this. I watched as Demaratus eagerly wrapped his arms around her waist, and then I turned away.
