The days following Demosthenes's departure were a vacuum. For a man forged for movement and purpose, stillness was a form of rot. Cadmus traded the cold opulence of Pericles for a brothel in the shadows of the Acropolis. Not to seek pleasure, but to surround himself with noise, a fragile barrier against the silence of his own mind.
He did not sleep. He spent the nights chewing almonds, watching the clients' shadows. At dawn, he would climb the Acropolis. At the feet of the great statue of Athena, he would leave barley cake and wine, stolen offerings, waiting for a sign that never came.
From there, he would go to the Lyceum, where he watched the Athenian boys. He saw one of them trip and cry, running to his father. Cadmus scowled. Weakness. But beneath the scorn, he felt a sour pang. His own education had been different: seven years old, bleeding in silence while Helen stitched his skin, his only lesson that pain was just another muscle to be trained.
That day, the dust kicked up by the runners formed a golden veil. Cadmus closed his eyes. And the world dissolved.
Forest. The smell of figs and blood. The sky, black, rippling. The hooting of the owls was the pulse of his own blood.
— Mother, a man!
Shadows. A woman and a girl. Her face was close, her eyes as blue as Roxana's.
— He's hurt. Can we help him? Or should we let him die? — she whispered, and invisible claws dug into Cadmus's chest.
The darkness swallowed him. He woke up choking. The Lyceum was empty. He felt a pull, an invisible rope dragging him back toward the Acropolis. The stairways snaked up beyond the clouds. As he passed through the Propylaea, a curtain of warm water enveloped him. His feet sank into the soft grass of a valley that shouldn't exist. In its center, the Parthenon stood, intact and shining.
From the temple's entrance, a silhouette emerged, cloaked in light. Skin as white as marble, bright eyes flickering like a flame.
— Cadmus — her voice was melody and thunder.
He fell to his knees.
— Stop hunting the wolf's reflection in the water, Spartan — she said. — What it shows you is a lie. Trust what you feel. And go.
Her finger, cold as ice, touched his forehead. A rush of warm air.
Cadmus blinked. He was back at the Lyceum. A boy and his father were playing with wooden swords. The vision had not brought him peace. It had brought him a cold, terrible certainty. A lucid panic. Pericles. Her mission. The conspiracy. Her vulnerability. It was a trap.
He stood, his legs trembling. In his pocket, his hands found the sack of almonds. He took it out and left it on a stone bench. An anchor he no longer needed.
— Roxana — he murmured, the name a direction, a target.
He descended the stairs, not walking, but nearly running, his mind racing, putting the pieces together. The road to Eretria.
He grabbed the arm of the first guard he saw, a beardless recruit.
— The diplomat from Lesbos. When did she leave? — His voice was low and urgent, the urgency of a man who smells smoke.
— W-who?
— Don't make me ask the Polemarch — Cadmus hissed.
— The flower of Lesbos! — the boy stammered. — Yes, she left with the supply caravan… two days ago, maybe.
Two days. An eternity. Cadmus let him go, his hand already reaching for Demosthenes's safe-conduct pass. He would walk if he had to. He was running against an enemy he could not see, but could feel. As he adjusted his satchel, his gaze was drawn to the sky. An eagle spiraled down and snatched a snake from a nearby tree. For an instant, the bird's bright eyes met his. In his mind, the memory of her voice, clear as a bell:
"Even the dead need their rest."
He understood. His debt was not to the dead of his past, but to the living who were fighting now. And he left, leaving Athens behind as the sun dipped into the sea, staining the marble of the Acropolis blood-red.