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Chrysanthos shoved the scroll back into its rack. “It can stay here with everything else not fit to set foot in the temples of the gods.”
With an effort, Lio bit his tongue. He must let his Trial brothers speak for themselves. Mak’s aura blazed with anger, but he stood back and let Lyros go in for his kill.
Lyros strolled over and patted Chrysanthos on the shoulder. The mage flinched.
“Aithouros was a one-man army in combat, I’ll grant you,” Lyros said, “but Hephaestion really was better at taking the long view. Your Order should have kept him around. Too bad they just couldn’t get past how Hephaestion loved Gladius.”
“A well known detail of history,” Chrysanthos said smoothly.
“Yes, it’s all in the discourses,” Lyros said. “In ancient times, there was a practice within the cult of Anthros of encouraging the closest of bonds between male mages. Hephaestion argued that reducing such partnership to mere brotherhood went against sacred tradition. He and Gladius defended their love to the last.”
Now the mortals’ shocked gazes were directed at the Dexion.
“Gladius the Martyr?” Benedict queried. “The Sword of Anthros? All of Tenebra and Cordium mark his death with a sacred festival every summer.”
“Yes,” Lyros answered. “Didn’t you ever wonder why Gladius so eagerly sacrificed himself in battle after their circle turned on Hephaestion?”
Chrysanthos’s expression was sour. “Gladius’s role in their arrangement in no way shamed him before Anthros. Hephaestion’s proclivities, on the other hand, befitted a handmaiden of Hedon, not an Aithourian mage. He was disciplined as befits an apostate.”
Lyros’s face was too calm. Lio had seen that look all his life. Chrysanthos had no idea how close he was to getting a taste of the Stand’s discipline.
“Perhaps,” said Lyros, “if you had not wasted Hephaestion, your best strategist, the Last War would have gone better for you.”
“Must I remind you that we won the Last War?”
“Your enemy achieved a secure position and built up greater strength than ever before. You call that victory?”
“What triumph is there in retreat?”
“Retreat is fleeing from the enemy. We fled to Sanctuary. If you cannot see our victory, open your eyes.” Lyros crossed the aisle and took Mak’s hand with neither hesitation nor a passing glance at the mortals’ reactions.
This was the image of triumph. This was Orthros, where Lio’s Trial brothers need never hide or defend their love.
“May I compliment you on your strategy, my Grace?” Mak murmured, too low for mortal ears to hear.
Lyros squeezed Mak’s hand. “When the embassy visits the gymnasium, it will be your turn.”
“I’ll just turn the embassy’s education over to you two,” said Lio.
Behind Chrysanthos, Benedict had taken Hephaestion out of the scroll rack again. The knight pored over the text with drawn brows.
Cassia took his arm and looked at the scroll with him. “Benedict, you read Divine, too?”
“There was a time when I was studying for entry into the Temple of Andragathos.”
She cast him a surprised glance. “What do you make of Hephaestion?”
“He is eye-opening.”
THE PHAEDRIC CRIME
Reluctant as Lio wasto interrupt the embassy’s first experience with the library, at last he observed to Kia, “It appears everyone is beginning to take their seats.”
Kia nodded. “I’ll be with you in a moment after I re-shelve what we’ve taken out.”
Cassia and Xandra surrendered a natural encyclopedia, Eudias parted with Kheimerios, and a troubled Benedict ended his introduction to Hephaestion. Lio ushered Cassia and her retinue to the open center of the chamber, where rows of chairs were arranged in two semicircles facing each other.
“The first row on the embassy’s side is reserved for the mages,” Lio explained.
