Page 33
“Short for Klemména.”
He stares at me, then at the mule, then back at me, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and reluctant amusement. “You called it Stolen?”
“It was a coin flip between that and Freedom,” I say with a shrug, shifting in the saddle as a dull throb lances through my side. “But I didn’t have any coins, so Klemména seemed more apt.”
“You stole the mule,” he says dryly.
“She was tied up—”
“Most owners do that when they don’t want their mounts to wander.”
“—in a fenced field,” I finish, ignoring the edge of exasperation in his tone.
His eyes narrow, though a glint of humor lights his gaze. He presses his lips into a thin line and faces forward, running a hand through his hair as he mutters something under his breath.
Silence falls between us once more, and the forest seems to darken in its wake.
I keep my gaze fixed on Lyxander as he rides ahead. There’s something about the way he moves, the way he carries himself, that demands attention. He’s a contradiction—steady and unyielding, yet somehow restless, like he’s always bracing for something no one else sees.
Maybe it’s both.
Maybe it’s exactly what I need. A distraction.
If I don’t focus on unraveling the enigma of the man before me, my thoughts will inevitably drift to darker places—places I’ve been desperately avoiding. Keres. Raven. Nyssa. The weight of everything I’ve lost and everything I’m running from presses against my chest, threatening to crush me.
I urge Klem forward until I’m riding alongside him and wrack my mind for a question he might answer.
“Have you named your horse?”
“I hadn’t thought it all that important.”
“Names are always important. They give things meaning, weight,” I say. “I’ve had a lot of names.”
“Because of the Aviary?”
I hum in acknowledgment. “Each one became a part of me. But none of them ever quite fit, not the way the one my mother gave me did. That one is the only one that ever felt like it belonged to me. Like it was mine.”
For a long moment, he says nothing, his gaze fixed ahead. Then, slowly, he looks down at his horse, and his fingers trail along the gelding’s mane.
“Eleftherios. Rios, for short.”
Free.
I glance away, my thoughts snagging on the memory of where I first saw him—caged, bound, and stripped of the very thing he’s named his horse for. The word feels like a thread, unraveling the image of him in that cage, the weight of chains on his wrists, the quiet defiance in his eyes even then.
But he isn’t entirely free yet. Not with Keres’s collar still binding his theïkós.
Guilt slithers up my spine, curling beneath my rib like a coiled serpent. It doesn’t go away this time—it lingers, tightening its grip with every breath.
“How does a tycheroi from Arkhadia end up caged in Eretria?” I ask.
He winces.
“Did I misspeak?” I search his face, but my gaze snags on his mouth, where the sharp canines are kept out of sight like a secret he chooses when to reveal. “Are you a nymphai?”
“No.”
“That’s not quite an answer.”
