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‘Why? Why do you feel it is so important?’
She looked at his hand and let her gaze linger over the rest of him. Tall. Shoulders the same width of Stephanos’s. But he tried to see her and not just the reflection of his power from the fear in her eyes.
She shook her head. ‘It is...how I must be,’ she said. ‘How I have always been. At least for a long time.’ She crossed her arms over herself.
‘The ship?’
‘That was the second time I knew I could die at a man’s hands.’
The memories she kept in her thoughts always, of the island, and that day of violence, flashed in her mind. ‘One day when I was young, I heard shrieks. But I thought it was happy noise. I wasn’t close enough and I wanted to see what was happening. I ran to the people and saw them crying, but I could not go on.’ There had been more than tears. There had been wailing—begging the heavens to reverse time and bring her uncle back to life.
‘I could not see my uncle breathing his last,’ Bellona explained. ‘I could not believe that it was real. This time the truth felt like a dream. I could see and hear but I could not...feel. You cannot undo something like that. You wish for the moments to go back just the smallest time, but they will not. You long to know it didn’t happen, but it did.’
She remembered stopping, and sitting, wrapping her arms around her knees. She could hear the words, and see the people, but they blocked her view of her uncle. More screams. Louder this time.
‘So much noise,’ she continued. ‘Then Stephanos was walking away. Swaggering, away from everyone. Towards me. On the trail, he stopped and watched me. He was not even a true man yet, but he was tall even then. As big as the men. His eyes were evil. “Your uncle is dead,” he said. “I killed the man who stabbed him.” He laughed. Blood was on his face and where his knife was tucked in his sash. “I could kill everyone on this island and no one could stop me. Even you, little one. I could cut your throat.”’
She’d watched him and felt no fear. But she had known he was thinking of death as a prize—someone else’s life a bounty. A proof of power.
‘He laughed. He threw back his head and raised his fists into the air. Like a rooster crowing to greet the morning. He was not sad my uncle died. He was happy for my uncle’s death because he could kill the murderer in front of everyone. He didn’t care about justice. He cared that other people feared him.’
‘Not all men are evil.’
‘Stephanos was. And only one evil man can cause so much pain. And he liked it. Years ago, Melina was to marry him. She had no choice. He had decided to wed. He was going to marry one of us and he didn’t care which one. Melos was too small to escape him. Melina sailed away to bring us funds to help, but when she didn’t return, he noticed Thessa and would not stop watching her. She agreed to marry him to stop him looking in my direction. But then the ship came and we escaped. I still have dreams about it. About all of it.’
‘Anyone could have nightmares after seeing such things.’
‘I see too much in my dreams.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Again. I see a man’s face with nothing in his spirit but death. The happiness of having power over others.’
‘You cannot be feeling true danger from me. You cannot.’ He pushed himself up. ‘I could not hurt you. I could not.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you could. But there is something in your thoughts you are not saying.’ Something she couldn’t decipher. ‘When you meet my eyes, I see... I am unsettled. If you are in the room, I know where you stand. I cannot think of anyone else when you are near.’
He shook his head from side to side. ‘That is just a... Something that happens between a man and a woman. It means little.’
‘I cannot think it means nothing.’
‘Not everything a person feels or thinks is to be spoken of. That is why thoughts reside in the head. Some things are to be kept silent. No one tells another person all the things inside.’
‘My sisters and I, we did.’
‘Perhaps women do. Men do not.’
‘So they do not think of important things that need to be told?’ She moved so she could see the light flickering on his face.
He closed his eyes. ‘A man doesn’t need to prattle on.’
‘It is not prattle,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it is, though.’ She shrugged. ‘But perhaps it is not good. Your mother talks so much of death and hurting. And now you are injured. If you do not get well, your mother will never forgive me.’
