Chapter Text
Kamet didn’t even look at Costis when he was finally led away by one of the king’s attendants. Not that it mattered. In a crowded room as big as the Attolian throne room, Kamet probably couldn’t have picked out his face even if he were at full capacity, and now he was bearing the same dazed expression as everyone struggling to accept the fact that they had been thoroughly outwitted by Attolis Eugenides, sovereign ruler of Attolia.
Costis empathized.
“His Majesty wants Costis to return to the guards’ quarters.”
He looked over his shoulder to see Philologos speaking to one of the guards who had escorted him up from the prisons.
“I’m right here,” he said, irritated, and Philologos looked almost abashed. “I’m not under arrest anymore. I can go where I please without these oafs having a say.”
A vein twitched in Meliton’s forehead. Costis had been unreasonably rude to the guards since his return to Attolia. He was beginning to understand the appeal of being rude to people when he was angry, and he felt a new kinship with Eugenides, although he didn’t know if that would last for very long.
“Wherever His Majesty pleases,” Philologos corrected in a cool voice.
Gods above, he’d forgotten how arrogant the king’s attendants were. Philologos had been one of the best of them, but he was still a baron’s son.
“So.”
“It would please His Majesty for you to take quarters with the Guard again for the time being, until your next assignment is determined.”
“He doesn’t want a report on my previous assignment?” Costis asked.
He glanced at Eugenides, who was listening to a minister drone on about the latest news from the Eddisian border. The king was draped over the throne like always, one hand propping up his chin as he stared blankly at the wall. It was possible he was ignoring the proceedings entirely. If Costis were in his place, he thought with a pang, his mind would be concerned only with his wife. But Costis was not a king, and he had long since learned it was foolish to assume that anything happened without Eugenides noticing it and filing it away for later use.
“Evidently not,” Philologos shrugged, and he melted back through the crowd to stand behind the king.
“There are plenty of rooms available,” Meliton told Costis. “The Guard hasn’t been halved yet, but Their Majesties paid out some veterans early, and released a few more who had professions lined up elsewhere.”
Costis didn’t turn away just yet. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, until Eugenides’ eyes slid away from the wall and made contact with his. His expression was bland. He looked from Costis to the door behind him, and then back to the prattling minister, and Costis released his breath. He had been dismissed.
“Fine,” he said, and he turned away as Meliton began to escort him back through the palace.
He wondered which rooms Kamet was staying in.
***
Costis ended up in a room more or less identical to his old one. He had toyed with the idea of trying to find Aris, but he couldn’t do that without running into dozens of other guards, and he wasn’t in the mood to talk to almost-strangers. He took off his sandals and his belt, and slept.
A messenger woke him just a few hours later, a boy dressed in the clothes of the palace servants.
“What is it?” he asked groggily. The mattress was hardly luxurious, but he found it much more comfortable than the ship’s cot or the hard, rocky ground.
“I couldn’t say, sir,” the boy said nervously. “But you must come.”
Costis frowned.
“Who sent you?”
“In the palace,” the boy said. “It was… the order came from the king’s chambers.”
“From the king?”
“Please sir, I don’t know.”
“If it’s the king, I need to wash and dress,” Costis protested. If it was a true emergency, he probably needn’t bother, but if not, he wouldn’t put it past the king to indulge in a round of ‘mock Costis for every smudge of dirt on his person,’ just for old time’s sake.
“No, sir, they said you won’t need to, they just ask that you come quickly.”
“They?”
“The king’s attendants.”
“Fine,” he relented.
He swapped his dirty tunic for a clean one, though, before he followed the boy out of the Guard’s quarters and through the palace. He wasn’t sure where they were going, at first; certainly they weren’t heading in the direction of either the queen’s chambers or the king’s private room. Costis didn’t understand until the boy waved at a nearby window and disappeared.
The king’s attendants were all clustered around the window. Costis looked around and didn’t see the king. He looked at the window again.
“No.”
“Costis—”
“Shut up, Hilarion. It’s been more than a year and you can’t get him off the roof yourselves? It doesn’t even matter. He’s fine up there.”
“Not with a wineskin in his hand,” Hilarion said, and by the firmness and exasperation in his voice, Costis could tell this had become a well-established rule among the attendants. He wondered how often they needed to remind each other of it.
“How does this palace function without me?” he demanded.
“He gave Sounis a gun while you were gone,” one of the other attendants said cheerfully. “And Sounis shot a Mede ambassador with it.”
Costis stared.
“Did he tell Sounis to do that?”
The attendant gave an elaborate shrug. Costis sighed and looked at the window. He looked back at the pleading attendants, and sighed again, and thought that it was a good thing he hadn’t yet been reinstated in the Guard. This was not an errand he would like to do in a breastplate.
He climbed up on the window sill and stood, poking his head out cautiously. The roof was tilted at an angle that made it impossible to see anyone above, except for the tip of the king’s boot dangling over the edge. The gold dust gleamed in the light of the setting sun.
“Your Majesty,” he called wearily. “Please come down.”
“No.”
“It’s Costis.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.”
“Your Majesty,” he repeated, trying to sound as pitiable as possible. “I am very tired from the very long trip I took on your behalf, and I would like to go to bed, and your attendants won’t let me unless I get the wine from you, at least.”
“So come get the wine.”
Costis sighed again. He reached up to grab the edge of the roof and tugged at the tiles. They seemed firm—and Eugenides had climbed up without issue—but he was wary. The king was smaller, lighter, and had much more practice at climbing up buildings.He glanced down at the palace grounds, which seemed very far away, and thought about going back to bed anyway. Then he looked up at the toe of the little black boot, sticking out against the sky. You will never die of a fall unless the god himself drops you, the king had promised. Costis thought of the well.
He corrected his grip on the roof and pulled himself up, feed scrabbling against the wall for purchase. It was a graceless maneuver, but he was on the roof. Eugenides gave him a little half-grin and held out the wineskin. It was full.
“You knew they would come get me.”
“I would very much like everyone to think that stealing Kamet was an act of spite, and grilling you for a report in the middle of my throne room would give the game away. Have some wine.”
“Your Majesty…” Costis looked at the edge.
“Don’t be rude, Costis.” The king snatched it back and took a large gulp. Costis took a tentative sip. It wasn’t the same vintage as the one the king had brought to his room, a lifetime ago, but it was just as sweet and delicious. Unthinking, he took another sip.
“I fell down a dry well in Zaboar.”
“Did you die?”
“No.”
“You should steal a pair of earrings for Eugenides’s altar,” the king advised him. “That’s what I usually do. There’s a small one, now, next to the Temple of Hephestia. Half the court leaves offerings at it, but most of them are idiots and I doubt the god pays them any mind. A nice pair of earrings should keep you in his favor. Speaking of which.”
He held out his hand, and Costis stared at him for a moment in bewilderment.
“Oh.”
Costis reached up to take off his earring, with its black stone seal. He hadn’t needed to put it back on, once the trading house in Sukir had verified it, but he had been worried it would fall out of his pocket or be filched by dishonest sailors. It took more effort than he expected to actually drop it into the king’s palm; his fingers didn’t want to let it go.
The king put the seal in his pocket and turned back to examine Costis with sharp eyes.
“You’ve gotten thinner.”
“We lost all our coin,” Costis admitted, running a hand over one side of his face. He was suddenly very tired, despite his nap, and he stretched out his legs in a vain attempt to work the stiffness out of his muscles. “Twice. I can’t tell you how many desert rats I’ve eaten over the course of this adventure, My King.”
“Well, don’t expect compensation if you’re going to lose everything I give you,” Eugenides frowned. “When you say lost, do you mean lost, or do you mean the hard-won contents of my treasury are now in the hands of some clever thief or sympathetic Mede beggar?”
“Lost,” Costis said firmly. Godekker didn’t count, he told himself, because the money he had given Godekker had come from the knife they had stolen from the slavers. And in any case, that was after they had eaten all the caggi. “First the rierboat caught fire, and Kamet can’t swim, and in the confusion my purse washed away The second time, we were about to be captured by slavers. Kamet thought it would be less dangerous to pass as two escaped slaves, instead of one slave and a foreign soldier. We hid my armor and the coin under some rocks, but didn’t have a chance to go back for it.”
“That is not lost,” Eugenides pointed out. “That is left.”
Costis shrugged.
“Never mind. Drink.” Costis took another swallow of the wine. “Now, from the beginning. Tell me everything.”
The dusk continued to darken as Costis told the king about his arrival in Ianna-Ir. He started to give a description of the city and the palace, but Eugenides waved a hand and said “Kamet can tell me all that. I need to know what happened with you.” So Costis focused instead on the details of the Attolian delegation that Kamet wouldn’t know, how they had been greeted, who had visited them, the bits of information he had gleaned from the servants, slaves, and guards. All the Attolians had been spied upon, of course, and followed, and snickered at, but the Medes didn’t seem to think that any of them posed a real threat to the Empire. Especially not one quiet, stupid guard.
He began to talk about meeting Kamet, and then he paused and frowned at Eugenides.
“You didn’t tell me you were going to lie to Kamet. You didn’t tell me he thought Nahusheresh was dead.”
“I didn’t,” the king agreed guiltlessly. “You wouldn’t have done it.”
“My King, I took an oath,” Costis pressed. “Two or three. I would have done it.”
“Costis, you underestimate sailors’ love for gossip. At least three of them heard you express an interest in committing treason on the Dolphin, and you being my favorite guard, word spread rather quickly. I believe your exact words were I would have let you go.”
Costis flushed.
“I—I meant—I didn’t—” He bit his lip. “If he had killed Nahusheresh… if Nahusheresh had been killed the day we left the capital, you couldn’t have used Kamet for—for whatever it is you have planned. You would have been forced to hand him over to the Medes or give them a justification for an invasion we are not prepared to withstand. You would have given him up.” He squared his chin and looked Eugenides in the eye. “It wasn’t a matter of betraying Attolia. It was about whether Kamet lived or died, and yes, I would have let him go. But that was before I knew it was a lie.”
“Well-reasoned,” the king approved. “But still treason, and a shocking lack of faith in your sovereign. Costis, I am hurt.” He rested his hook on his breast.
“I am deeply sorry, My King.”
“No matter.” Eugenides lay back down on the roof, his head pillowed on his forearm, and closed his eyes. “You couldn’t have lied to him for so long. You’re a wretched liar. Continue.”
Costis continued.
He talked about finding Kamet at the docks, and lying low until dark, and the trip up the river, and losing their purse the first time. The inn and the innkeeper’s suspicions, the caravan and the Namreen. Occasionally Eugenides made a quip at Costis’s expense, but on the whole he was quiet. Costis told him about the lion and their foolishness at Koadester.
“Did he tell you any of the old stories?” the king interrupted. “Immakuk and Ennikar?”
Costis was fervently grateful that Eugenides still had his eyes closed, because he had no doubt that his entire face was flushed darker than the flaming red sky above them. He had forgotten that the errant kitchen boy was the first one to hear Kamet recite the poem in demotic.
“Yes,” he said shortly. The king cracked one eye open, and Costis avoided his gaze. He looked up at the dark clouds.
“They’re very good, aren’t they?”
“He said you weren’t impressed.”
The king flashed a wicked grin.
“He does so like to be impressive, doesn’t he? Not that I know what that’s like.” He paused. “This wine merchant…”
“I never saw him,” Costis said haltingly. “But—there was another stranger, later on, that I thought I recognized.”
“Interesting, that.”
He waved his hand imperiously, and Costis continued his retelling. Eugenides’s attention seemed to be wandering as the minutes passed by. His interruptions became more frequent, and more than once he asked Costis to repeat something he’d already mentioned. He seemed to be particularly intent on understanding the timeline, asking again how much time Costis had spent in the well, how long he had slept when he was sick, how long it had taken to confirm the seal, and if he knew what Kamet had been doing on all those occasions.
His story petered out when he reached Attolia, and for a while they were both silent.
“Thank you, Costis,” the king said. His voice was more sincere than usual, and Costis’s heart warmed. “I know this is not the kind of work you enjoy, but if I sent someone who liked this kind of assignment, Kamet would be halfway to Brael right now. Or dead.”
“And it was never just a matter of getting him away from Nahuseresh, was it? There is something you want from him,” Costis said shrewdly.
“Yes.”
“But you won’t tell me what it is.”
“Of course I’ll tell you. I want the Mede navy.”
“You think Kamet has the Mede navy?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out later tonight.”
“And after that?”
“I don’t know. I suppose either he’ll stay, or he’ll be halfway to Brael by this time next month.”
“Or—” Costis said, but he couldn’t force the word dead out of his throat. Eugenides fixed him with a serious gaze.
“I will do my very best to prevent that particular outcome.” Costis nodded, and they were quiet again. “How long has it been since you’ve visited your family, Costis?”
“Your Majesty?” he said, caught off guard, and Eugenides raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t been home since I joined the Guard.”
“You’re overdue, then.” The king stood and stretched his arms over his head. “I’ve ordered the stable to have a horse prepared for you, halfway through the morning watch, with supplies and your backpay. Go home. See your family. On the last day of the next month, I’ll expect you back and you can be reattached to the Guard.” He dropped his arms. “Or.”
“Or?”
“If I might make a suggestion… on the last day of the next month, at noon, there is a ship leaving from the docks here in the city. It’s called the Arrow. If you choose to get on it, instead of returning to the Guard, I promise not to hunt you down with swords and guns and dogs. You may continue to draw a salary from the crown, even, although it won’t be extravagant.”
“Why?” Costis asked in a puzzled voice. “Where is the ship going?”
“Roa.”
“And what is in Roa?”
“Goodness, I don’t know.” Eugenides feigned innocence. “It’s possible there will be interesting things to see and do there, in the next few months, but I have no more power to see the future than the next man. The oracle might tell you, if you asked, but I doubt it.”
Costis doubted that the king would tell him, either, not in this kind of mood.
“I will consider it, Your Majesty.”
“It is only a suggestion.”
“Is there a reason you’d like me out of the city first thing in the morning?” Costis asked, changing the subject. At the very least, he didn’t have to give his king the satisfaction of trying to wheedle information out of him.
“Convenience of travel,” he said with a shrug. “Do you have reason to dawdle?”
“My sister was due to be married last fall, Your Majesty. I’d like to get her a wedding present, and there are much better markets here than back home.”
“Of course, take your time. Here.”
He pulled a slim silver coin out of his coat sleeve and flipped it at Costis, who caught it on instinct with a frown.
“I can’t buy a gift with gifted money.”
The king laughed at him.
“Costis, where do you think your salary comes from? Think of that as payment for the caggi, then, and spend something else on your sister. Give your family my regards, assuming they’re not among those subjects still hoping I fall off the palace roof, and may your sister’s hearth always be well-tended.”
Costis got to his feet and bowed, pocketing the coin.
“Thank you, My King.”
Eugenides gave him a small smile, but there was an unfamiliar touch of wistfulness on his face. May your hearth be well-tended was the traditional Eddisian wedding blessing, Costis knew. He had heard it enough on the king’s own wedding day, although mostly when the guards turned it into a joke. Yes, may his hearthfire grow so high it smokes him out of the palace for good… He wondered if the king was thinking of his wedding day, too.
He wondered if the king was thinking of his wife, and his child, and Costis suddenly felt cold. The sun had finally sunk all the way below the horizon.
The king was walking towards the edge of the roof, ready to go back inside, and Costis knew he would need to say something now, unless he wanted the attendants to overhear. But what could he possibly say? Costis had never been married or had a child, and he had been so young when he lost his mother that he could barely remember her. He couldn’t say anything that would actually help. All he had to offer was his own grief.
And he did feel grief, for all that he hadn’t even known the queen was pregnant until the day before. Everyone knew an heir would eventually be forthcoming, and in the back of his mind, Costis had cherished a secret hope that he would be returned to court and the king’s favor by the time one was born. It would be beyond presumption to assume he would be some sort of protector for the royal heir—but… well, who else would? He had been the one trusted with watching over the king in his sickroom, so why not the heir in his nursery? Chaperoning lessons would be downright easy, if the heir had an ounce of his mother’s self-control to combat his father’s contrariness. And there would be a certain poetic irony in Costis teaching the next king his first exercise in prime.
He had no words to express this, and in any case they felt more arrogant than comforting. The king crouched down and rested his hand on the edge of the roof.
“My King—” Eugenides looked at him, and Costis hesitated and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “May the gods bring you comfort.”
They were the traditional words, trite but earnest. The king’s lips twitched.
“Costis, you of all people know I prefer to avoid attracting their particular attention.”
“I know,” Costis fumbled. “I’m sorry—I only meant—I am sorry.”
He knew he was blushing, and he felt like a fool for bringing it up. An old conversation was playing over and over in his head.
We could both be assassinated, and you could be captain to my heir. Don’t give up hope just because chances are slim…
For the assassination or the heir, Your Majesty?
I didn’t mean it, he wanted to say over and over again, even though the king knew he hadn’t meant it, and that it didn’t matter in the end. So Costis left it at that, at I am sorry, and trusted the candor in his voice to make up for it. He was a fool, but no flatterer and no liar.
The king smiled. It was a sad smile, and for a moment Costis saw the deep pools of grief in his eyes, dark and endless. Just as quickly they were shuttered, a well cover pulled over the top. Eugenides straightened touched his hand to Costis’s cheek.
“Dear Costis,” he said in a fond voice, and the guard resisted the urge to fall to his knees and bow and repeat every oath of loyalty he’d ever sworn. Then Eugenides tilted his head, and the sincerity faded from his voice and his expression, replaced with the usual mockery. “If you come back to this palace at the end of next month, you will truly be the greatest idiot from here to Letnos.”
Costis blinked.
“Yes, My King.”
“Give me back my wine.” He looped the strap of the wineskin around his wrist—it was still mostly full—and crouched by the edge of the roof again. “Don’t fall,” he warned.
And with that, he dropped into the night. Costis stayed for another moment, looking up at the familiar stars, and then followed.
***
Costis went back to the yard and found Aris, along with some of the other squad leaders. They went to a wine shop in the city and spent several hours there, drinking and talking. They all wanted to know about Kamet, who evidently had made quite an impression on the court, but Costis was reluctant. He wanted to brag about Kamet’s cleverness in getting them aboard the Anet’s Dream and out of Koadester and in fooling the slavers. He wanted to share his amusement at the barely-veiled contempt whenever Costis told him about the king—a far cry from the shocked awe that had led him to call Eugenides annux. He wanted to tell Aris, at least, about the story of Immakuk and Ennikar that Kamet has given to him with such eagerness.
But he didn’t know how to talk about those moments when his mind was full of Kamet’s caustic words—one of us is an idiot, and I don’t think it’s me—and the long, cold silence that followed them. He distracted the guards by talking about the more spectacular elements of the journey, and by insulting the Mede. They were content with that.
“Costis!”
He was halfway to the stables the next morning when he looked over his shoulder to find Aris jogging towards him, sloppily dressed and yawning.
“You didn’t have to get up,” he protested, but Aris shrugged.
“Forget it. Here.” He fell into step beside Costis and held up a ring. It was copper, carved with three arrows, and Costis accepted it with a lump in his throat. “I saw last night you’d lost yours.”
“I had to pawn it in Sherguz. Thanks, Aris.”
“It’s my old one.” Aris shrugged again, blasé as always in the face of Costis’s unnecessary earnestness. “It’ll turn your finger green. Besides, haven’t you gone heathen on us, anyway?” he teased.
“Only halfway,” Costis said dryly. “The old gods for the king, and the new ones for the queen.”
“Yes, I’ve heard you’ve had a lot of conflicting loyalties lately, famous honor aside. Speaking of which…” Aris looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Your friend isn’t coming to see you off with me?”
“No.” The word felt too short, and Costis tried to lighten his tone. “I mean— I’m sure he has other things to do.” He remembered the hour and hastily added, “In general, I mean, in the palace. Now that we’re here, he needn’t have as much to do with me. It was only when it was just the two of us that…”
He trailed into silence. Aris, bless him, didn’t say anything, and Costis realized that his pitiful attempts to change the topic the night before had not fooled his friend.
They reached the stables, and a towheaded boy leaning against the wall sood straighter.
“One of you is Costis Ostinedes?” he asked around a yawn. Costis nodded, letting it go. “Just a minute.”
The lad disappeared.
“I think he hates me, Aris,” Costis said bleakly.
“Because you stole him?”
“Because I stole him based on a lie. I knew he didn’t like Attolia. He thinks it’s a backwater country and that we’re all barbarians. But I thought he wanted freedom enough to give it a chance. Now it turns out he only left because he was afraid.” He thought of the desert, and Kamet shaking in his arms, his voice high and raspy and hysterical. “They’re evil , Aris,” he said with a viciousness that surprised him. “The way they treat their slaves. I don’t blame him for being afraid, and I don’t blame him for hating me when he realized it was a trick.”
“The king’s trick, not yours,” Aris pointed out. “And he deceived you in return, didn’t he?”
“Does it matter?” Costis asked.
Behind him came the heavy clip clop of the horse’s hooves, and he turned. The stable boy was leading a grey mare laden with full saddlebags. He dropped the reigns in Costis’s hands and retreated, probably to find his breakfast or a bale of hay to nap on. Costis led the horse out into the yard and lingered there for a while. He had missed talking to Aris. And besides, it would be another half-hour before most of the market stalls began to display their wares. In the city, only the Guard, the servants, and the bakers were up at this hour.
“He tried to take the blame,” Aris said. “Half the court heard him tell the king it was his fault and that he had lied to you.”
“Yes…” That was before he knew Nahuseresh was alive, Costis thought to point out, but it was nice to cling to optimism for a second.
“It will work itself out,” Aris said confidently. “You’ll be gone long enough to let his temper cool, if it needs to be cooled. And remember, Costis—you are very stupid, and care much more about honor and ethics and lying than any man ought to. Us lesser mortals don’t worry about that, so much. We care more about our egos, and we like it when people like us.” He had been looking over the horse, making sure the straps of the saddle were pulled tight and patting the mare’s flank, but suddenly he looked up at Costis with sharp eyes. “And you like him very much.”
Costis’s blushing silence was enough answer. He looked at the horse and patted her neck.
“I should be going.”
“Yes.” Aris clapped him on the shoulder. “Give my congratulations to your sister and my regards to your honored father.”
“I will.”
“And write to me every once in a while, won’t you? I don’t trust the king to let you back without sending you on some other blasted mission first, and it would be nice to know you aren’t dead.”
“He did suggest I might be going to Roa,” Costis remembered with a frown. “But he wouldn’t say why.”
“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Until then, safe journey, my friend.”
“Thanks, Aris.” They clasped forearms. “I missed you while I was gone,” Costis confessed. “I am sorry I couldn’t stay longer—but I will write more this time. I promise.”
He had not kept up a rigorous correspondence while in Mede; the thought of a foreign government reading all of his mail had stymied his pen, even though he knew, logically, that all of the mail in the Attolian court was probably read by Relius’s legions of spies. That was different. As he swung into the saddle, he wondered, with amusement, if the other delegates of the Attolian embassy had felt the same, and if that had contributed to their reputation for illiteracy.
After one last wave to Aris, Costis rode out of the palace grounds. He went down to the docks, where a discerning buyer could find a good bargain in the shadow of the trading ships without venturing to the expensive shops along the market row. The streets were crowded with sailors and merchants, so he dismounted and led the horse by the reins. He bought a raisin roll and two sweet oranges from a baker, and ate them leaning against a wall, watching the rising sun sparkle on the harbor and the merchants setting out their wares.
The saddlebags were well-stocked, and the only things Costis really needed to buy was a wedding gift for Thalia and Achaeus, which he deliberated over for some time. It had been several months since their wedding, so they surely had all the essentials by now, but he couldn’t think of a luxury that would be easy to transport by horseback. He finally settled on matching cloaks made of a soft emerald-green fabric embroidered with golden vines and little white birds, and matching bronze fibula pins. He was careful to pay for them with money from the purse in his saddlebags, although privately Costis had to admit that he wouldn’t have purchased such fine cloth without the security of the king’s silver in his pocket. At the last moment, he remembered the king’s advice and purchased a bracelet for the other Eugenides, too. It was simple brass, cheap, but it was embossed with a water motif, and he thought thatif the god was anything like the king, he would appreciate the humor.
He rode the horse up to the acropolis, home of the massive temple to Hephestia and a smaller altar to her half-brother. There were a number of altars to the old gods outside the main temple, clustered around their queen. Each had a table for offerings, on which sat a two-foot replica of the temple. Eugenies’s was the most well-visited, by far. The table was crammed with offerings: coins, wilted flowers, lumps of incense-scented ash. Costis wondered how many had actually left their offerings out of piety, and how many had simply hoped that they were being watched by someone who counted, someone who might pass on to the king names of those honoring his patron. There was no one around now.
Costis dropped the mare’s reins and approached the altar, turning the bracelet over in his hands. He rubbed his thumb against the bumps of the waves, remembering the swoop of terror in his gut when he fell over the lip of the well, and his dazed amazement when he realized that he was alive and uninjured. He closed his eyes.
It had been dark in the well, even when the sun was high, and how much more so when the night came again. He had pressed himself against the stone walls and tried to quell his panic. The king had promised he wouldn’t die of a fall, hadn’t he? And if one fell, and the fall caused him to die of thirst, didn’t that count as dying of a fall? He didn’t think he had done anything to earn the ire of Eugenides, not so soon after he had sworn an oath to him.
The afternoon sun had turned the sky golden when he finally remembered another token decorated with waves, and the quiet words of the priest at Ne Malia. Remember Immakuk. Ennikar had been trapped in the underworld, too, but his friend had not left him there. Immakuk had returned and rescued him. Kamet would come back, he repeated again and again, an incantation, an invocation to keep panic and madness at bay. Darkness fell, the moon rose, and Kamet returned.
Costis opened his eyes and fixed them on the carving of the god’s name on the pediment.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “I know I am a poor thief, but thank you for keeping a close eye.” He bowed and placed the bracelet on the offering table. He was about to step back when, on impulse, took the king’s silver out of his pocket and placed it in the center of the bracelet. There were one or two pairs of earrings on the altar, but he wasn’t sure if the king had time to pay much devotion to his god. And in any case, one could never be too careful.
Then, just as the streets below were truly beginning to bustle with activity, Costis set off for home.