Hades Daughter by Sara Douglass Page A

to the devastated island of Crete. There he searched out the remains of his former body—the body that Theseus had murdered with Ariadne’s aid—and cut from its skull the two great curved horns. These Asterion had then worked, with the skills both of power and of craftsmanship, into the twisted-horn handle that now adorned the blade of the knife.
    In the months and years ahead this knife was going to be his friend and his ally, his voice, and the weapon that he would use against Herron’s daughter-heir Genvissa and this man she had picked as her partner in the Game.
    Weak? No, Asterion was stronger than ever.
    His smile died, and his eyes glittered.
    Brutus stood for a very long time watching the moonlight play out over the crescent of sleepers and the waters wash in gently, gently, gently to the sand.
    Troy. He was to rebuild Troy.
    He could feel the excitement deep in his belly, as powerful an urge as the sexual longing Artemis had roused in him, and he lifted his arms and placed his hands on each of the golden bands that encircled his biceps.
    Troy. Home regained.
    It was ninety-eight years since Troy had fallen to trickery and betrayal; ninety-eight years since the Trojans who survived that betrayal had first wandered homeless about the lands of the Mediterranean. Ninety-eight years during which thousands had died, more thousands had been enslaved, and others, like himself and his comrades, had journeyed purposeless,fighting as mercenaries when asked, sometimes fighting when not asked for the sheer relief of it, sometimes settling for a season or two to aid some tiny community sow and harvest crops, always constantly searching.
    Now, the searching might not be completely done with, but the waiting was over. Brutus was to regain his heritage: Troy.
    He took a deep breath, tipped back his head, and opened his arms to the moonlight in silent exultation.
    The next moment he was crouching in the sand, eyes moving warily about the beach, as a shout of sheer terror swept over the sleepers.
    Men rolled out of their blankets, hands grabbing at weapons, and Brutus, vulnerable in his nakedness, ran to where his sword lay.
    But by the time he had reached his tangled blanket, both he and the other men were relaxing. The shout had come from one of the sleeping men.
    A dream, no doubt.
    There were a few murmured words and a snort of laughter, then men lay back down to their sleep once more, but Brutus could see which sleeper it was who had shouted in dream terror, and his shoulders were again tense.
    Membricus, tutor, friend, one-time lover and, Brutus knew only too well, a powerful seer.
    “Membricus,” Brutus said, kneeling where his friend sat wide-eyed, “what have you seen?”
    Membricus, a lean, older man with wide, thick lips, even but yellowing teeth, and a shock of grey curls twisting around the sides of his balding pate, turned to look at Brutus. His grey eyes, normally cool and distant, now had retreated to the colour and warmth of ice.
    “The Game has begun,” he said, low and hoarse.
    “The Game is dead,” Brutus said, perhaps too sharply. “It died with Ariadne’s betrayal.”
    Membricus shook his head, then looked at where his hands clutched into his blanket. Brutus could see that their fingers trembled. “The Game has only been waiting. Now it has woken.”
    “It was a dream, Membricus. A dream.”
    Membricus raised his eyes to Brutus and they were once again clear and part of this world. “The Game is stirring,” he said, then he sighed, turned away from Brutus, and rolled himself back into his bedding.
    The Game is stirring? Brutus slowly stood, staring at Membricus’ form.
    Power, the goddess had offered him. His heritage.
    Again Brutus’ hands strayed to the golden bands about his biceps. “Of course,” he whispered, and shuddered at the thought of the degree of power that would be his if the Game was indeed stirring.
    A thousand years, she had teased him.
    And perhaps that was no tease at