Arktos narrowed his eyes at the way Lukos tucked the girl out of sight. The way the captain’s brown eyes went wide, the smile, meant to put him at ease, instead made him suspicious. Whores were whores. They were passed around between the men with no thought to possessiveness or singular use. Aside from that, the more men they took, the more money the girl made.

It was business. And more than that? Lukos was a poor liar.

From his place at the top of the gangway, Arktos watched Lukos’s back as he slipped a protective arm around the courtesan’s shoulders. The woman whirled around, pulling Lukos close into what could only be a kiss. Whores did not kiss without payment but he wasn’t certain about courtesans. A woman of that caliber had never so much as crossed his path and he wondered how even Lukos would know to find one. It wasn’t as though they were standing on the corners.

Arktos moved along the deck, keeping Lukos’s faded red shirt in sight. His squinted eyes narrowed further when the courtesan took his captain’s hand and he didn’t shake her off. Even on the island with Calliphana and Periboea, whores he knew and had been with countless times, Lukos did not show affection - Something he himself had never understood.

Behind him, the first scufflings of men rousing made him look back. Two of the crew members who’d passed out on the stairs were crawling up onto the deck. He would jibe them in a moment. Turning his attention back to the two retreating figures, he watched until they’d passed out of sight into the streets beyond.

“Captain awake?” Cerion asked as he ground the heel of his hand against one eye.

“Awake and gone,” Arktos finally turned away from the railing. “Oy. You. Start scrubbing the top deck. If I can’t lick it by the time you’re done -”

“We ain’t had breakfast yet,” Zaros piped up. He stood just behind Cerion as though that might be enough of a buffer between him and Arktos. Arktos’s own stomach rumbled.

“I’ll get Hedrakles up. You two start with scrubbin’ and if I like it, then you get breakfast.”

Both men shook their heads and turned to retrieve the buckets and brushes stowed at the corner of the mid deck. Beneath their breath, they muttered curses against his person but Arktos didn’t make them mind him in the same way Lukos did. It was too much work to keep people that afraid but he’d yet to meet a captain who was friendly with the crew.

His mind went back to the fight he’d had with Lukos last night. The hurt he’d felt then was just as bad this morning. Of all people, how could Lukos, his captain, and who he’d assumed was also his friend, lie? Repeatedly? Whoever the woman with him was, she was no courtesan.

All of the sudden, his eyes widened. Had Lukos somehow managed to attract the Princess onto the ship? It made sense. The hooded cloak, how protective Lukos had been. The secrecy. After all, whores were not allowed on board and certainly Lukos had never brought a woman aboard for that purpose; he was not one to break his own rules.

“Oh not fair!” he hissed. “Fucking a princess and a noble.” Crossing his massive arms over his chest, he could feel himself getting angrier. How stupid could one man be? If he could keep Whatever-Her-Name-Was then he certainly wouldn’t be able to keep a royal.

“Who’s fucking a princess?” someone called but Arktos glared in the man’s direction. It was enough to shut the eavesdropper up.

“Ain’t nobody fucking a princess,” Arktos sniffed. “‘Cept me.”

“I’d like to see that!” Cerion called from his place on the top deck.

Arktos crossed over to the stairs. He forced out a laugh. “If I fuck a princess, all of you will be watching!” That was the god’s honest truth, too. He wouldn’t be like Lukos. Hiding her away. He’d want everyone to know.

He stumped down the stairs, his anger coming back the second he was out of sight of the men on deck. How dare Lukos not let him at least see Princess Persephone. It wouldn’t have hurt him to let him have just one little look. It was the least the captain could do since he hadn’t let him come to the meeting. Being ‘too recognizable’ and all that rubbish.

Once he hit the bottom of the stairs, he paused at the start of the short hall leading to Lukos’s cabin. His beady eyes lingered on the closed door. After a moment, however, he waved his hand at it with a ‘bah’ and continued into the hold.

It took a moment to adjust but he could just make out the host of hammocks hanging like cocoons in the gloom. Most were burdened with a body but a few hung limp and unused. He moved through the room until he stopped beside a hammock containing a short, plump little man, his mouth wide open in a terrific snore.

“Hey. Wake up.” Arktos poked the cook’s shoulder hard enough for the man to sit straight up with a yelp.

“Don’t do that!” Hedrakles growled.

“We’re hungry,” Arktos turned away but didn’t move fast enough to escape a boot against his shoulder blades. “How’s latrine duty sound?” he asked.

“Bastard,” Hedrakles muttered, laying back in his hammock.

Arktos picked his way around the crates and barrels that were stored in the sleeping area. Marching back up the stairs, he paused again beside Lukos’s hallway. He looked back to see if Hedrakles was coming. He was not. Looking up to the stairs, he found those to be empty too and no one would be sitting, manning the oars to his side.

He took a tentative step forward, toward the stairs and rested his hand on the railing. But he looked back at the door. It only took him five strides to find himself in front of it and ripping it open. The cabin looked the same as it always did, save for the rumpled bedding.

The table beside the bed held coins and their nautical map. It was unrolled, as usual and the corners held down with various random trinkets that Lukos kept. His gaze was not on the table, however. It was not on the still open window or on the drawers built into the wall. It was on the floor beside the bed.

Arktos frowned and bent down, his fingers scraping against the floorboards as his hand closed around something unsettlingly familiar. His expression darkened and he rose, tucking the thing into the waistband of his trousers before leaving the room.




He knew it was a mistake to let her kiss him and yet he didn’t stop her. When she’d interlaced her fingers with his, he hadn’t pulled away. Instead, they walked through the streets, an odd pair, talking of nothing important and not bothering to check if anyone was staring. As with most cities, no one really bothered with them. They were odd but not interesting.

To the casual eye, he was clearly a sailor and she? Who knew what she was trying to hide but who cared? The passersby had enough of their own lives to fill without bothering too much with someone else’s. In this way, they passed through the lower levels, unhurried and unharassed.

When they passed through the market, he began to sense that it would be better to drop their hands. He walked with her further, watching the buildings grow and the gardens become more beautiful with each passing house. They walked until she turned to stop him. Now that they were in a nicer area, they did not fawn and paw at each other like they’d done at the ship.

Lukos crossed his arms, letting her maintain the appropriate distance. They weren’t as far as her house and it was probably for the best. He watched her progress up the street until she turned, continuing her journey ever upward, leaving him behind.

“Not for long,” he said to himself. He looked over the buildings with a more critical eye than before. Perhaps, if Persephone was true to her word, he would have one of these. As he walked back down, a tall, slender girl and her handmaiden stopped abruptly at their front gate. The way the girl’s eyes raked him up and down made him look down at himself.

His shirt, pants, and boots cried out peasant. All his chitons were back on the island. He would have to wear something halfway decent to appear before senators and he had nothing at present. Glaring at the girl and her made as he passed, he smirked when they shrank back and dashed back into the house. Some people were too easy.

He arrived back at the ship to find it a hive of activity. Men were finishing up breakfast and beginning their duties. The confusion inside him had abated somewhat and was almost gone with his normal routines asserting themselves when Arktos called to him from below.

“Captain. I need to show you something.”

“In a minute,” Lukos was half way to where Hedrakles sat doling out bread when Arktos called out again.

“It’s important.”

Groaning in frustration, Lukos turned on his heel and strode across the deck and down the stairs. Arktos stood at the bottom, waiting. “This better be important, you big ox. I’m starving.”

“I need to speak with you privately,” Arktos’s booming voice was unusually low. Lukos gestured toward his cabin and followed his first mate inside, shutting the door behind them.

“What is it- Hey!” he jumped back as a silver blur flew at his feet. His back collided with the door and just in front of where he had been, a dagger was embedded in the floorboard.

“You know what that is!” Arktos shouted. The whole ship could hear but to their credit, the men up above didn’t stop their work to listen.

Lukos said nothing. He clenched his jaw and watched Arktos begin to pace. “Were you going to tell me?” Arktos demanded.

“Not yet.”

“How’d she get here?” Arktos glared at him and Lukos had the stray thought that this must be what it was like to argue with one’s father.

“Through the window.”

“Oh fuck you,” Arktos growled. “When did you go get her?”

“I’m serious,” Lukos laughed, unable to take the bear seriously when his face crumpled in that expression that revealed how hurt he was. It was the man’s weakness. He was too sensitive. “She came in through the window.”

“And you didn’t just….stab her in the chest?” Arktos sat down on the bed, his face blotchy and red.

“Obviously not.”

“You fucked her, didn’t you? Dammit, Lukos! Is she at least coming back? Or are you her little bit of fun whenever she’s too bored with her perfect life?”

“Her name is Thalia,” he said slowly, bending down to wrench the dagger out of the floorboards. It left a nasty gash in the wood. “And you’re just mad that you were wrong. She does want me. And I’m going to the senate. And yes. She will be coming back.”

Arktos stared at him for a full fifteen seconds. Lukos looked over the blade and sat down on the end of the bed. It groaned under their combined weight. After a moment, the bigger man shifted and said a soft ‘hey’ to get Lukos’s attention. Just as Lukos turned, Arktos rammed his fist into his chest.

Lukos coughed, gasping, unable to breathe for a minute. Arktos rose from the bed and placed his massive hand on Lukos’s shoulder. “Good for you,” the big man said. “But I swear by Poseidon’s trident that unless I get to fuck her too? She doesn’t betray us again or I’ll kill her.”

“That’s fair,” Lukos gasped, patting the bear’s hand.

“You want me to bring you breakfast?” Arktos asked as he pulled open the door.

“No, I’m coming up,” Lukos rubbed his chest, wincing. He gripped the dagger in his hand and walked up to Arktos, slamming the butt of the dagger into the base of the man’s neck, dropping him like a stone. “And don’t hit me,” he said coldly, stepping over an unconscious Arktos as he made his way out into the corridor in search of some food.