It was just for the release.
Just for the silence.
Why was it so hot in this place when the early winter’s wind crackled against the windows? Sliding her top back over her shoulders, Thalia fiddled with her baldric, which for some reason was not lying properly against her chest. Her hands shook as she attempted to straighten the leather band, evening out the way her daggers were stacked in small narrow sheaths. A firm hand clutched around her own—warming, steadying, electrifying.
“For the record, Thalia, this does change things for me,” Dimitris said, his voice so low it was as if the air around them was the one to speak. How could a voice sound so marking, so claiming, with such simple words?
Chapter Fifteen
Dimitris
Sleep had evaded Dimitris the entirety of the night, not even the run through the woods after he left the gymnasium, nor the time spent rustling through uneventful correspondence had helped. He took both his lunch and his dinner in his room, giving Thalia time to think about the words he spoke.
It was more than kinship, than respect, or love even—it felt as if his soul had fractured into a million tiny pieces and the only thing that would keep the broken bits together was her. Her smell. Her smile. Her laugh. The way her nose wrinkled when he got too close and said something too snarky. The fire in her eyes when she was determined and even more so when she was angry. It made him want to fall to his knees and thank all the gods that came before himfor the chance to even be in the same room near her. The bond in his heart that had frayed for years weaved itself back together when he had her.
There was only one reasonable explanation for that world-shattering feeling of longing, and it was one many had hoped for him and Marianna. Thalia was his—his Fated in this life and any that were before or would come after.Psychí mou.And Dimitris was merely a release.
Thalia already had apsychí, she did not need him as well. Perhaps this was his penance for rejecting the bond with Mari. A fate he’d doled out so easily whenhiswas not the heart involved, not the one that would be broken by such simple words.
So he lay atop his blankets, not bothering to rustle the neatly made bed when his eyes would not close, mind racing with how to forget the way she’d whimpered his name, how she’d clung to him with such sweet desperation as he took her over the edge.
Eventually, the morning’s rays flickered in through the doors to his chamber’s balcony and the echoing hoots of the owl that nested above his windows silenced. Dimitris would need to compose himself, take an ice bath and clear his head before he faced the seer once more. He would do as he had always done before—watch from a distance, pine over the idea of an equal partner at his side, someone that could challenge him in the best ways possible.
A soft knock echoed against his door and Dimitris couldn’t help but send up a small wish to the Grechi above that it was Thalia. Sliding off the bed and slipping on a pair of trousers discarded on the ground, Dimitris headed for the door. Unfortunately, when he opened it, the seer was not standing before him. Instead, Elias towered in the frame, dressed in his Nexian uniform, the silverthreaded wolf stitched above his heart. In his hands was a rolled piece of parchment with the same marking.
“Could you look any more disappointed to see me?” Elias said, passing over the parchment.
“I thought it might be someone else,” Dimitris muttered, taking the missive and breaking the Nexian seal.
His old friend and closest confidant did not ask any further questions, only raised one of his brows and nodded. Dimitris was grateful that Elias didn’t pry any further because he was not sure how to explain what was happening between Thalia and him. Especially not to a man that had been with the same woman—the love of his life—since they were merely teenagers.
Unfurling the piece of parchment, Dimitris immediately recognized his brother’s choppy scrawl.
Dimitris,
As you have heard by now, we were unsuccessful in preventing the thysiá at Cyther. Fortunately, when the wards fell, our full powers returned and we were able to escape with no lives lost.
Although we are back in Nexos, we have run into complications. I cannot share them through this note for fear that it may fall into the wrong hands, but if you go to the third entry of the second journal I left Cal with, you should be able to decipher it yourself.
There have been some smaller attacks on the western isles our fleet has been able to squash, though the one on Lesathos caused significant damage. It was strange—it was not the markets, nor the brothels that were razed, but the townhomes of the owners. One street in particular was burned to the ground.
I fear that is all I can share with you for now.
Alexander
One street in particular? Had it been retribution for the Lernean Legion he had slaughtered—retribution for their incompetence? Or perhaps, something else was hidden on those streets that the Olympi or those kings wanted.
“Typical Ander,” he huffed, handing the missive back to Elias, “trying to handle everything himself. Was this not the reason he sent us here to begin with? For an army?”
Elias smiled, though it was not bright. “Amalia has gathered the forces in the amphitheater. They expect to hear some updates from your brother.”
“Then I will think of something.” Dimitris always did.
Bellowing voices and shuffling of chairs sounded from the battle chambers. The large space was attached to the back of the barracks by a covered passage that expanded into one of the largest amphitheaters Dimitris had ever seen.
Limestone benches curved around a stage, going at least fifty rows up before leveling off to a walkway, then extending up again. The amphitheater could have easily fit forty thousand soldiers, although it currently housed around four thousand, Dimitris guessed. The crowd was dressed in battle leathers, swords secured to their hips or down their backs. Men and women peppered the stands, chatting amongst themselves, waiting for direction, information. Waiting, it appeared, for him.
Elias shuffled Dimitris up to the stage, depositing him next to the fearsome general, Amalia, before walking a few paces and unraveling a map against the back wall. All of Odessia was marked, even the isles once thought to not exist in this realm, Skiatha, Cyther, Avernia. They were tiny black and orange dots that had been tacked up on some of the smaller isles in the west, as well as along the border of Hespali in the northern continent of Voreia—his aunt’s kingdom, where Chloe and Farah would be right now.
