Dark of the Moon

chapter 21

I DON'T KNOW what Theseus wants," I said. "The Minos seems satisfied that he's avenged Androgeos, and Theseus could probably leave, if he asked permission. Prokris says he doesn't want to return to Athens, though, where his stepmother will murder him. He told her he doesn't want to go back to that little town he's from, where everybody hates him and nobody believes he's the son of a king." I know how that feels, I thought, remembering Damia's words.

Asterion stared at me gravely. He didn't understand, but he was always so flattered whenever I came to talk with him that he stayed quiet and appeared to consider my words thoughtfully. At those times, I could pretend he was an older brother like those my friends had—when I had had friends—a brother who would tease me and bully me on occasion, to be sure, but who would also listen and give me advice, and even fight my tormentors and defend me against threats. Artemis had followed me down the stairs and into my brother's chamber, and now she sat next to him, her front legs like columns in front of her. Asterion's arm, wrapped around her cream-colored neck, looked darker and harder than ever as his fingers toyed with the honey-colored fringe edging her ears. The dog, too, kept her brown eyes fixed on me, with her usual calm. My brother was gentle with her, and she had no reason to fear him.

"And I don't know what he feels for Prokris." I was uncomfortably aware of a jealous pang. Jealous of whom—Theseus or Prokris? "That's foolish," I told Asterion, and he nodded as though I had said something wise. "She's the wife of the Minos. Theseus would be a madman to become involved with her. And she with him." Artemis moved her ears forward a little at the sound of her master's name and then let them fall back.

"Ah!" said Asterion, seeming to agree, and despite my unease and confusion, I smiled. I pulled a handful of nuts from my pouch, and he grabbed them. He offered one to Artemis, but after she sniffed at it and rejected it, he put it in his mouth, his strong jaws cracking the shell, which he then spat out on the floor. He looked at me inquiringly, which meant he wondered if I was concealing any more treats, though I chose to misinterpret.

"How do I feel about him, you mean?"

My brother chuckled, amused at our conversation game, and I considered the question. "He's ... different. He isn't afraid of me, which is refreshing, but at times he seems almost insolent. Oh, not really insolent," I said hastily, as though my protective big brother would become indignant at this idea. "He doesn't know our ways and sometimes makes mistakes."

Evidently feeling that something was required of him, Asterion grunted.

"I like him." I didn't know if like was exactly the right word. Something about Theseus made me want to touch him, to feel the hard muscle of his shoulder again, to brush my lips against the calluses on his palm. I remembered the pressure of his arm around my waist, supporting me when I nearly fainted after what I had seen, or imagined I had seen, in the orchard outside the palace walls, and I flushed.

Asterion grabbed my hand. This startled me, and I had to force myself not to snatch it away from him, which would have hurt his feelings.

"What is it?" I tried to withdraw my hand, but he grasped it harder and pulled me close to him.

He stared into my eyes, and when I was about to speak, to ask him again what he wanted, he laid a large finger on my lips. "Ahn," he said forcefully. "Ahn, ahn, ahn."

That was his word for no. No what? No talking? Why not? But he removed his hand from my mouth, so that couldn't have been what he meant.

"What is it?" I asked again. "Does something hurt you?" The shaggy head shook a negative. "Are you afraid of something?" He looked away. "Asterion!" He raised his dark eyes to me again, and something in them shook me to my toes. "Brother! What is it?"

For answer, he threw his arms around me and pulled me close. He was trembling.

I stayed with him until he fell asleep, his body nearly crushing me as he relaxed into slumber. I eased his heavy head off my lap and covered him with one of the blankets that became filthy almost as quickly as the servants replaced them. When I reached the doorway, I kicked a small piece of broken pot. I bent to pick it up and glanced back to make sure I hadn't woken him.

My brother lay on his side, his knees drawn up to his chest, in the manner in which dead bodies are laid out for burial. Don't be silly, I told myself as I watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Don't worry about Asterion. No one would dare to harm him.

But as I turned one corner after another and then climbed the stairs, dread followed me as closely as did Artemis, whose breath I felt, warm on my arm, as I stepped into the darkening upstairs world.