10

Cassandra rubs my back. A breeze plays around my head.

While I weep, questions pile up, but I can’t stop crying.

At last, I do stop. I sit up and ask the most important one: “Do you know if the band is all right?”

“They will all survive today’s battle, which will end soon. One is bruised but nothing worse. They won’t last long, though.”

They will! We’re superb warriors.

But now I believe her.

“The Greeks are too numerous. You all should leave. Zelke will die tomorrow.”

Tomorrow! I’m their queen. I must take them home.

Or send them. Achilles is still alive.

“What will happen to me if I fight tomorrow?”

“You’ll probably die, but I don’t know. Now that you believe me, I can tell you what I see, and you can do something else. You’ll probably die anyway.”

“Will I kill Achilles first?”

“I doubt it. Paris will kill him.”

“Paris!”

Eurus says, sounding just as surprised, “Paris?”

She laughs. “I suspect a god will guide his arrow.”

My next question comes out angrily: “Why didn’t you save Hector and Pen the way you saved me?” She adored her brother. I loved Pen.

Eurus crouches, his face an inch from mine. His eyes are bulging. “She saved you. Have you thanked her?”

I didn’t! I thank her and apologize. “But why didn’t you save Hector?”

“I couldn’t save either of them. Some god or goddess was there, helping Achilles, keeping him alive. I could tell because of what happened to your arrows.” She’s weeping.

Oh. His shield wasn’t magical. One of their deities was at his side. Unfair either way!

Eurus pats Cassandra’s arm.

“I hope Hector saw your mother. Otherwise, he died thinking no one came to his aid.” She wipes her eyes. “Even if you and I weren’t friends, I’d be grateful to the Amazons forever for what she did.”

Eurus says he’s hungry. He points his chin at Hera’s altar. “Greedy goddess.”

The walnuts have disappeared, though the bowl remains.

Cassandra takes the bowl and we follow him back to his altar. As my guide, he points whenever the path forks toward a clearing and calls out the name of the immortal worshipped there. “In case you don’t know, you’re in the sacred grove.”

When we reach his altar, he and Cassandra sit on it, their feet dangling. They smile at each other. She looks happy.

I stand in front of them and ask her, my heart fluttering, “Are you part goddess? Is he your half brother?” I’ve heard of such beings.

“No.” She swivels her smile to me. “We’re just friends.”

“Just?” He sounds irritated. “Mere friends?”

I murmur, afraid to speak up to contradict a god: “There are no mere friends.” I’ve learned that.

“Correct!” Eurus’s vehemence makes a gust that tilts my hat on my head.

Cassandra blushes and changes the subject. “I’m so glad you’re alive, Rin. I wonder if you’ll see the crows now.”

“There really are crows?” I wave my hand in the air to erase my words. “I’m sure there are crows.”

Eurus says, “We must eat.”

I notice my hunger. But there’s no food.

The gentle wind that has been with us quiets.

Eurus and Cassandra jump off the altar. They watch me, their expressions merry.

I’d seen Hector and Andromache look cheerful together, much as these two do.

Cassandra says, “I don’t approve of theft.” Grinning, she adds, “Don’t tell my mother what’s about to happen, Rin.”

A few minutes pass. My stomach rumbles.

The wind rises. Clusters of grapes soar to us and land on the altar. A walnut whirs by my ear. Ai! I raise my arms to protect my head as the air fills with flying food. Nuts click on the altar.

“Enough?” Eurus asks.

“Yes!” Cassandra says.

The wind dies. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, grapes, figs, dates, and apples are scattered across the altar. Eurus is already biting into an apple. Cassandra lifts a grape to her mouth.

It’s a day of marvels, so I eat, standing between them.

Speaking with her mouth full, Cassandra says, “Several farmers made a forced offering.” She gestures. “He refuses to call it stealing.”

The fruit is sweet, the nuts meaty. No bread. While we eat, the air begins to smell of our meal. Eurus is breathing, and we smell what he ate!

Cassandra laughs. “The first time he came to life for me, I had brought him garlic. I don’t do that anymore.”

I laugh too, glad to be part of their camaraderie. But I have a question: “Do other Trojans see the future?”

“My twin, Helenus.”

The one who visits Helen every day when there’s no fighting, along with Cassandra’s other brother, Deiphobus.

“Apollo didn’t curse his gift, so people believe him. But he often lies, which they believe too. He’ll betray Troy and be one of the causes of its fall.”

“Troy will fall?”

She nods. “And burn.”

I don’t know why I feel sad. They’re city people.

“What will happen to you?”

Her voice is calm. “I’ll be a slave, and then I’ll be murdered.”

I gasp.

She smiles. “Before I’m murdered, I’ll sail on a ship. I’ll like that. Eurus will be the wind.”

His brown cheeks tint red. “I’ll try to keep her from being killed. I won’t desert her.”

She reaches across me to touch his hand. “I doubt he can change my fate, Rin.”

But he’s a god! I ask, “Could you always see the future?”

“No.” Leaning against the altar, she starts a tale that I can barely believe. When she describes Paris’s abandonment because of a prophecy, I blurt, “Your parents tried to kill their baby?” What terrible people! “Why didn’t they leave Troy and take everyone with them? They could have lived the way we do, or they could have built another city.”

Eurus cries, “Ho!”

Cassandra blinks. “They couldn’t have thought of it.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t think of it, either, when I learned about his birth. We all might have been saved.” She’s quiet for a minute, then adds, “Only someone who isn’t a Trojan could see it.”

She tells me that Paris grew up on the mountain where he was abandoned. Then she starts to talk about what happened between getting her cursed gift and now.

I hold up my hand to stop her. The sun is low. “I have to go back to the band. We’ll leave in the morning.” As soon as the words fly out of my mouth, I feel sad.

And cowardly. I swore to be Cassandra’s friend and to be Hector’s comrade-in-arms. Hector is gone, but Cassandra is not. “Please come with us.” We can teach her to be useful.

She jumps on the altar and looms over me. “I am a princess of Troy. Would you desert your band to save yourself?”

“I’d try to save us all.” Which she isn’t doing. On impulse I say, “Spend another night with us. You can tell the band what happened to you.” What if there’s a way to help Troy without going to battle again and making her prophecies come true? “Now that they know the truth, they’ll want to find out.”

She agrees to come, and Eurus invites himself along.

Better, he blows us to them.

Pen would have known what the result of that would be.