THE REST CAME easy that night and I wake slowly, dragged back to consciousness by the sun splayed across the coverlets; it is the first night my waking has not felt so stark, like falling only to be plunged into the cold sea. No rocks to scrape my skin from bone or bleed me senseless, only reality and the harshness of all too much sense. Ignorance is a soft wool spared only for my sisters, the sharpness is my burden alone to bear.

When I sit up and see that the couch is remade and as perfect as though it had never been slept on, I breathe a sigh of relief and allow myself to believe, if only for a minute, that last night was all a dream. And then the breeze shifts the thin curtain and shatters the illusion.
He stands on the balcony, stiff and stern as ever, only now a new thought accompanies the strict lines of his face; Leonidas.

"Why are you still here, Deimos? Do you not have some war to wage or villagers to terrorise?"

He laughs though his face is still marred with austerity, the sternness is so deeply ingrained into the lines of his face I do not think he could ever look truly happy. He came into this world tired and ragged, his birth a battle, "It seems as though my toughest wars shall be waged here on home soil."

"What does that mean?" At once I dislike his snarkish tone.

"You." He sighs, "It means that you shall be my toughest battle, Ophelia, you are too much a fighter."

"Would you prefer if I lay pretty and quiet?" I hiss, toyingly so, eyes burning with disdain as I stretch my bare legs out over the coverlets, a wordless tease, a challenge. His eyes follow my movements, lapping up those sacred glances of naked skin like a dying man in a desert, "Would you desire me more if I were to cease this struggle? I could be softer, quieter — perhaps you could order my tongue cut out like those Cretan slave girls the King is said to possess? Would you like me then, Sir Deimos, when I am cut and torn and remade into a woman of your liking?"

"No." Is all he says and I feel myself fall flat. I want a reaction, I want to hurt him like all this has hurt my family, my sisters, me. I want to ball up all this pain and force it down his throat, watch him choke on it, watch him fall at my feet. Why does he refuse to hurt me so? Hurt me so that I may pick up the broken pieces of myself and use them to hurt you back. 
A scream of frustration boils up inside of me, rearing its ugly head to claw at my eyes and throat. It thrashes in my chest, begging to be let loose. But I do not. Restraint is one of the few graces Pala always scolded me for lacking, if only she could see me now. Instead, I stare the soldier in the face, schooling my face into something I deeply pray is unreadable, "As you wish, Sir Deimos."

Pala. I think of her and think of home, that small green island known as Onasis. I wonder if she thinks of us, the three sisters she raised... Maybe she had children of her own once, and so when we were pushed upon her motherhood came naturally. It always seemed that way, with her face always so worn but kind. I wonder if she ever resented being forced to raise three children who were not her own, or did it fill a void.

"What are you thinking of?" Asks Sir Deimos, vying for insight into my mind — to know me, perhaps. And perhaps it is my thoughts of Pala's own softness that have weakened my walls, but I allow him this small piece of me, not nearly weary enough to all that it may entail.
A peace offering of sorts. "My nursemaid — from my home."

"Do you miss her greatly?"

"She was the closest thing I have ever known to a mother, I miss her more than I miss my own father." There's that unspoken whisper of course that my father is not far enough away to be truly missed, lying beneath the palace, locked in chains. As a daughter I know I should feel some sort of guilt or loss at his absence — I know my sisters do — but instead when I think of the man who spilt the seed that gave us life I feel nothing at all. Should I fake grief? Maybe start crying so this man does not think me callus or a monster? Though I have not the will or the effort for playing pretend. Besides, he is a soldier of the Northern King, what little empathy he once possessed would've been long bled into the dust of foreign soils.

He asks, "Do you think of home often?"

"There is not all that much to think of, it is a small island, I do not doubt that little has changed in our absence."

"Even with the absence of your father?"

I hesitate at this, perhaps this is when I say too much — unknowingly give up some information about the island and its politics that leads to Northern greed stamping their feet over my homeland. "My father is no great leader," I say, choosing not to look at the soldier, "My sisters' mother influenced all his decisions, no doubt she's there, whispering in the ear of whoever rules in his stead."

"You do not all share one mother?"

"No," I say blankly as if that much is obvious, though we all share many similar features.

Sir Deimos hides a strange expression, "You and the King may share more in common than you realise."

The implication makes me shift reflexively, desperate enough to change the conversation that I switch to questioning the soldier instead, "Where are you from, not here I suppose?"

"My story is not a particularly interesting one, Ophelia."

"Tell it nonetheless, I enjoy stories," I say but it sounds too much like an order so I add, "If we are to be married we should know these things, don't you agree?"

He sighs, "My mother was taken by sickness when I was a boy and to my knowledge, my father is still playing priest for Apollo."

"I always assumed you were born into this," I gesture vaguely at all that surrounds. Bronze mirrors and endless balconies and living on the apex of the world with jewelled bowels and endless rye. Never knowing what it was like to sleep on an empty stomach, which was a feeling even my sisters and I knew on occasion.

"No." His eyes remain locked, a door begging to be left alone, "It is by the grace of the Spartan King alone that I have been allowed to become this."

"And your father condemns it?" He has that same inflexion as all scorned sons; shame pierced by burning defiance, "You are a priest in your own right, if only to serve another God."

His face darkens. I wonder what horrors he relives as he says, "I am no priest, Ophelia."

"But you serve your King as faithfully as your father serves his, surely there is no shame in that..."

Something closes off, like a door locking itself shut behind his eyes, "You should not speak on the servitude of sons."

"Why not?" I struggle to stifle the laugh for this is all so ridiculous, "Am I not here out of service to my own father? At least you have been allowed the mercy of a choice."

"You call this mercy?" He takes a step closer and my mind races, "This is the greatest sacrifice of all. I have betrayed my own blood for ichor."

"And what would you call my father's actions then? Bartering his own daughters to the Gods for a chance at glory, he is a selfish man — and a coward too. But still, I am here, serving the debts of a faithless man."

"Your father loves you —,"

"Do not attempt to comfort me with lies, Deimos. You forget I know the man, he loves my sisters — yes, but I only remind him of the love he lost."

"He speaks of you often, you know." I hate to think of it, my father leashed beneath these floors, crying out to daughters who most wish he were dead.

"Yes, I am sure he longs for my company." I drawl.

"How could you be so heartless? He is your father after all." Says the soldier, looking unsettled. So he still holds his own father in such high regard despite his distain.

"Because I have been raised heartlessly." The awfulness of it all is not lost on me — a murderer being the one to question my morality. Blood is not bone. It is not strong, it does not protect you, blood is thin and fickle, born from hurt and always flowing the path of least resistance.