Authors: Stephanie Thornton
But even that wouldn’t bring back Cynnane.
Perhaps he sensed my weakness, for his free hand darted under my sword arm to scoop the hilt of my weapon and twist my wrist, disarming me in one quick motion. My blade slipped from my sweat-slicked palm and fell to the earth with a dull thud. His foot to my groin sent me flying back, landing so hard that all the air was knocked from my lungs. I lay on the earth, deaf and blind from the pain, unable to move and panicking as I struggled to draw air into my lungs, waiting for the deathblow.
And then my vision cleared and I stopped trying to breathe, for Cynnane lay scarcely an arm’s length from me, her glazed eyes staring into mine as blood poured from the gash at her throat.
I had lost her. My idol, my protector, my sister, gone.
Because
I’d
failed to protect
her
.
My breath returned then in a strangled choke and the world roared with sound again, and I wanted nothing more than for Alcetas to kill me. But I’d take the foul traitor with me.
Through slitted eyes, I saw that a soldier had taken a position between Alcetas and me. Alcetas kept his sword pointed in my direction as he yelled to the men over the clamor of Adea’s screams.
“Cynnane, the foul, conniving bitch from Illyria, sought to make a laughingstock of us by setting her daughter and herself above the regent and even your new
basileus
,” he shouted, waving his sword at Arrhidaeus, huddled on the ground next to Adea. “First a simpleton set above us, and now we’re to be ruled by two women? Alexander would curse us all the way from Elysium to know that we’ve allowed ourselves to be so cowed!”
I didn’t care if he stabbed me and sent me to Hades, not so long as I could drag him to the river Styx with me. I struggled to my knees, my weapon lost, but prepared to fight with my bare hands, until the man between us spoke.
“Killing Cynnane was the act of a traitor.” Cassander’s deep voice bellowed so that it was clear he addressed neither Alcetas nor me, but the thousands of soldiers gathered before us. “You men pledged yourselves to Arrhidaeus and now you’ve witnessed his sister slaughtered before your very eyes. I swear on the twelve Olympians that there shall be no more blood spilled here today.”
But the sound of hundreds of swords being drawn filled the air and I looked up to see the Illyrians’ blades pointed in our direction, whether at Alcetas or the rest of us, I couldn’t tell.
No one moved then, for not even the winds dared to breathe.
“Take King Arrhidaeus to his palace,” Cassander commanded me as he hauled me to my feet. “Now.”
Too late I realized that Cynnane had committed the same act of hubris as our father, shunning a contingent of personal guards who might have protected her today and leaving that critical job to someone woefully unprepared for any real battle.
Me.
Somehow, I pulled Adea from her mother’s body and dragged Arrhidaeus with us. I shoved them before me into the chariot and maneuvered the horses back toward the palace, whipping their flanks as if they might carry us all the way home to Macedon.
I half hoped they would.
• • •
I
’d once boasted to Antipater that I’d ride halfway to Hades before I ever returned to Pella. Today I’d done more than that, visited the rocky depths of the pit of Tartarus and had my still-beating heart ripped from my chest.
Once back in the palace, I’d armed myself with a fresh sword and done my best to comfort Adea and Arrhidaeus as they howled in grief until I’d finally ordered them both dosed with poppy milk. I’d tripled the guards at their doors and windows while they slept, then taken up a position in the courtyard where Alexander’s funeral carriage had been assembled. I stared blindly at his sarcophagus. The priests had embalmed my brother’s body in a mixture of honey and spices, and now he lay entombed in a borrowed golden coffin that bore his armor and famed Trojan shield, all protected beneath a pillared canopy sewn with lustrous pearls and glittering jewels. There were paintings as well, hastily composed to depict Alexander in his prime: laying the first stone of Alexandria-in-Egypt, marching into India with his elephants, and accepting homage from his Macedonians and Persians.
And in the courtyard’s shadows was a second sarcophagus hewn from a single block of Pentelic white marble, engraved with scenes of a lion hunt, Hephaestion’s bones protected within its graceful walls.
I felt as if I too had died but been forbidden the comfort of the bleak Fields of Asphodel and instead sentenced to serve an eternity as a witless shadow in this fresh hell of a world.
I could hear Cynnane’s voice in my mind, barking at me to stop wasting time crying over her death, her earlier words of praise echoing over and over.
I couldn’t ask for a better partner at my side.
But I had failed her and now stood stiff before our brother’s sarcophagus, numb and exhausted, trying to reconcile myself to the fact that she was truly gone.
While I grieved for Alexander and Hephaestion, the brothers I’d lost, it was Cynnane’s death that had truly shattered me.
I reached out to trace a depiction of Alexander as he led his Companions into battle in a nondescript desert. “You may have been brave and beautiful, brother of mine,” I said. “But I hope that Hephaestion and Cynnane are wringing your neck for the mess your death left behind.”
I almost laughed then, for Alexander, Hephaestion, and Cynnane together would be a magnificent and terrifying thing to behold. I hoped that the god Hades had a strong constitution.
Cautious footsteps sounded at the courtyard’s main entrance and I drew my sword to defend myself. But it was only Drypetis, still swathed in the same black raiment she’d worn when she disappeared into the Tower of Silence.
A lifetime ago.
“I heard what happened,” she said, her face drawn as she paused to run a hand along the foot of Hephaestion’s marble coffin. She looked at me with tear-filled eyes. “I’m so sorry, Thessalonike. I’ve come to help you in any way I can.”
“But your sister’s rites . . .” It was difficult to think through the fog of grief enveloping my mind. “I thought they took five days.”
“I left early. Stateira wouldn’t want you to be alone now; she’d understand.” She hesitated, then pulled me into an embrace scented by the temple’s sacred fire, a bold move considering the sword held tight in my hand.
Her simple touch splintered something in me and I dropped the sword, letting it clatter to the tiles. Unable to speak, I’d have fallen to my knees had it not been for Drypetis’ strength. Instead, I sobbed into her shoulder, great, gasping, terrible sobs that threatened to tear me in two. And all the while she stroked my hair until her face was wet with her own tears, both of us cast adrift without our sisters.
• • •
T
he bleak horizon swallowed the sun like a soul welcomed into the afterlife before Cassander arrived at the palace. He lifted his hands, revealing that he’d left his weapons elsewhere. Unarmed, then, to put me at ease.
But I’d never be at ease again. Not until I was home in Macedon, and perhaps not even then.
Drypetis rose, smoothing the front of her black robe as the last light faded from the courtyard. Attendants entered as if on cue, lighting a few scattered oil torches. “I’ll sit with Adea and Arrhidaeus for a bit,” she said.
I nodded. “Thank you. And promise me you’ll think about my request.”
She smiled, a forlorn gesture as she glanced once again at Hephaestion’s sarcophagus. “I will.”
I watched her go, knowing how Atlas felt with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Cassander waited until Drypetis disappeared before he spoke. “You asked her to come to Macedon, didn’t you?”
I glanced sharply at him. “And if I did?”
He shrugged. “There’s nothing left for her here. I’d guess it’s a welcome invitation.”
He sat next to me unbidden and I shifted to put more space between us. I caught a whiff of the lemon used to sweeten his linen, at odds with the crimson stain on his
chiton
, already darkening to brown.
Cynnane’s blood.
How many times could a heart break in one day?
“Where is she?” I whispered, my eyes feeling as if they’d been scoured with sand from this day’s tears. An eternity cursed with the oblivion of Asphodel’s Fields would have been a kindness compared with this all-consuming grief that threatened to lay me low.
“She lies on her shield in the throne room, away from prying eyes,” he answered. “Adea and Arrhidaeus can see her when they’re ready.”
“And Alcetas?”
“Gone,” he said stonily. “The army denounced him today, but refused to act against him. I’ve set Ptolemy and the other generals to find him, but he’d as like fall on his own sword before allowing them to take him.”
Thus denying me the satisfaction of watching him die a slow and painful death.
My hands curled into fists, my grief making me bold. “And was it your father who coerced him into killing Cynnane? Just as he convinced you to poison Alexander?”
I expected Cassander to sputter in anger and deny the accusations, but he only stared at me, his face settling into harsh lines. “What purpose would Alexander’s death have served me?”
“He demoted your father. And he insulted you in his throne room.”
Cassander gave a coarse chuff of laughter, but the sound was flat and empty. “You think I would kill a king because he insulted me? I’m constantly awed by your low opinion of me.”
“So you don’t admit to helping your father kill Alexander?”
“My father’s power is an illusion,” Cassander said, waving an impatient hand. “He’s thrown his support behind Arrhidaeus, but everyone knows that Olympias will fight him. He won’t live to see the end of this power struggle, regardless of his being named regent.”
I scoffed. “Then let me guess what happens next: You take his place and rule as my brother once did.”
Cassander shook his head. “No one could rule as Alexander did. But someone
shall
rule and it won’t be Arrhidaeus or a babe yet to be born.”
“It would have been Cynnane,” I said, clasping the cold edges of my bench. “She’d have made a worthy successor to our brother, an Amazon to follow in his footsteps as she guided Arrhidaeus. But she wasn’t given the chance.”
“The men wish to carry out Cynnane’s plans,” Cassander said slowly. “The Illyrians spoke first, demanding that Arrhidaeus be allowed to marry Adea. The other regiments lent their voices to the order. They were much impressed with Cynnane, and don’t wish for her to have died for nothing.” He reached out as if to touch me, but his hand fell to his side. “Your sister was a rare woman.”
Cassander’s praise made it impossible to swallow over the lump in my throat. “Then they shall marry as soon as can be arranged,” I said, turning my attention to Alexander’s battle paintings so I might regain my composure. I’d always dismissed Cassander as a droning bore, but today, unasked and unbidden, he’d assumed Cynnane’s responsibilities in protecting Adea and Arrhidaeus, perhaps even in protecting me. The realization left me both bewildered and grateful. Now it remained for me to help Adea and to honor Cynnane by seeing her plans to fruition.
“I’m sorry, Thessalonike,” Cassander said. “I truly am.” Then he looked at me with a grim twist to his mouth. “Olympias kept you locked away and Alexander allowed you to do as you pleased, but many in the coming days will view you as a priceless link to Alexander and his empire.”
My skin went cold and I shivered.
“There’s nothing I can do about that,” I said.
“You can marry me.”
I gaped at him, his face shrouded in shadows so I couldn’t read his expression. “I’d have thought that you’d have waited at least until my brother and sister were in their tombs before launching another vile marriage proposal. I can see I was wrong.”
He stood and kicked the base of the granite bench, hard enough I was surprised it didn’t break his toes. “The battle for your brother’s throne has only just begun, Thessalonike,” he said, each word carefully uttered. “You’d sleep better knowing you didn’t face the fight alone.”
“I’m not alone,” I said. “I have Arrhidaeus and Adea. And Drypetis.”
Cassander stared at me a long moment, then spread his arms wide. “Then you have no need of me.”
He stood and backed from my presence, leaving me alone in the courtyard surrounded by the sarcophagi of two dead warriors and the empty vault of sky overhead.
I’d grown weary of death as my constant companion, but it would be still longer before I could shake Hades from my side.
• • •
W
e purified Cynnane with olive oil and dressed her in her armor before placing her in a third sarcophagus to travel home to Macedon, then witnessed her daughter being wed to Arrhidaeus in a simple ceremony in full view of the army. Adea helped guide Arrhidaeus’ hand as he cut the traditional loaf of rye bread and she blushed to offer him a fragrant yellow quince in the manner of Greek brides stretching back to the birth of the gods, while the soldier-spectators threw nuts and dried figs at the solemn couple. I prayed that Cynnane’s shade saw her daughter’s meager smile as Arrhidaeus fed her the sweet fruit, even as I swore I would do everything in my power to see them both safely delivered to their thrones in Macedon.
We were to travel with Ptolemy and his contingent of Egypt-bound troops overland to Tyre and there board ships for a sea journey that I looked forward to as much as I did having a rotten tooth pulled. A good portion of the army had been dispatched to quell a revolt in Cappadocia, the sole area of the Levant not conquered by my brother, leaving only a small contingent to guard Arrhidaeus, Adea, and the rest of the funeral cortege. Drypetis had decided to accompany Hephaestion’s bones to his final resting place in Macedon, but we were still at a disadvantage when another of Alexander’s generals sought to benefit from his death almost two months after our departure from Babylon.