His breath quickly evened out and stirred the hair along my forehead. I felt his heartbeat beneath my hand and tried to remind myself that I had promised Io not to do this.
Her request should have meant more to me. She was my adelphia sister and I loved her, and I had given her my word to try not to hurt her brother. I thought of Quynh saying what Io had done was unfair, that it should be up to me and Xander to choose what we wanted.
The problem was that I didn’t usually think of Io when I was with him. Keeping my oaths was important to me. I did want to keep my word to her, but I couldn’t hang on to it. The only thing driving me where he was concerned was the vow.
If it were not for that ...
I sighed. I shouldn’t let myself get caught up in what might have been, because those things never would be.
Since I couldn’t keep away from Xander, at the very least I could test out Io’s theory that I had two aspects.
“Dea Nyctipolus,” I said. “Let me see what I need to see.”
“Have a seat, stupid girl.” Demaratus sat on a crumbling stone fence. We were staring at an open field covered in broken weapons and dead bodies. Carts and trees had burned, leaving a haze of smoke behind. The air reeked of blood and decay.
“What happened here?” I asked.
“War.” He lifted his wineskin to his mouth and took a long drink. He offered it to me but I remembered all too well that Daemonian wine tasted like vinegar and shook my head.
“When you talked about battles, this isn’t what I pictured. You made it sound glorious and exciting. This is just death. Destruction. Loss.”
“That’s all war is. Two great flames racing toward one another, consuming everything in their path until all that’s left is a curse of ashes.”
“Then why do it?”
“Do you know the secret of happiness?” he asked. He must have been drunk. It was the only reason he would speak this much.
“Terrible wine?”
He shook his head. “The secret of happiness is freedom. And the secret of freedom is courage. We fight to stop those who would take our freedom and our lives from us.”
“War is coming for me,” I said. I explained to him what was happening, what I was up against, the prophecy. He took it all in and didn’t ask any questions or interject. “Erisa, the former queen, is telling everyone that nothing is happening. The council won’t prepare for a possible invasion.”
“Truth is usually the first casualty of war,” he observed.
“I’m not sure I can do any of this. Be the savior. Why me? I’m not a hero.”
“You can be. Heroes aren’t braver than anyone else. They’re just braver for a few minutes longer.”
“The odds against me are overwhelming. I don’t think I’m going to survive this,” I confessed.
“It’s from the greatest dangers that the greatest glories are won.”
“You are waxing very poetic,” I said.
He held up his wineskin as an explanation.
I smiled. “You know, I don’t hear you as often in my head as I used to.”
Demaratus frowned. “Why were you hearing me in your head in the first place?”
“I don’t know. You’re the person always questioning me and helping me figure things out. Like when we trained together.”
“Stupid girl, I’m not in your head.”
“You are now. This is my dream.”
“Maybe you’re in my head,” he countered.
