Chapter 1

The last child in the sanctum gets pinned to a marble pillar by one of the Empusae and torn open like a ripe fig — and that's when the men finally lose it.

"My king! You swore Daphne was lying! You swore she was just jealous! You told us to hold the mountain and guard you and Lyra through the starfire!"

"I come home and my newborn son doesn't even have a body left!"

Castor goes white as bleached bone.

I look at the blood on the marble and something inside me cracks down the middle.

Last time the Empusae came for the sanctum, my husband — Basileus of this polis, son of Ares — was up on the high temple with his little nymph, lighting a sky full of starfire for her name-day.

I dragged every last one of his men home in time. I saved them with my own voice.

But Lyra threw a fit over missing her rites. She slipped out past the wards alone, and the Empusae tore her apart in the dark.

Castor killed every one of them and sat for a week holding what was left of her shinbone. Didn't speak. Didn't eat.

The day I gave him a son, he hacked off my hands and my feet. Threw me into a pen of starving Empusae.

Watched them eat me down to the bone. Then had the priest-healers stitch me back together.

Again. And again. Until there was nothing left to stitch.

"You did this to her, you jealous bitch. You wanted her dead. So I'm going to make you die slower than she did."

I open my eyes. The Moirai have cut my thread and tied it back.

Same room. Same morning. The Empusae haven't come yet.

The shrieking reaches me through the trees. Far off. Not far enough.

I run. Straight to the altar of the herald's horn. My palms slam down on the bronze before I'm thinking.

"Citizens — all citizens —"

"The Empusae of Tartarus are at the gates. Get inside the sanctum. Now."

Screaming starts up outside before I even finish.

"Move!"

I grab a blade and shove people through the doors, cutting down the two Empusae that lunge in with us. An old man. Three children. A girl carrying her little brother. I push them in by the shoulders.

The bronze gate slams shut. The shrieking on the other side goes muffled.

People drop to the floor sobbing. A woman is whispering Hestia's name over and over. Another one, with a baby in her arms, grabs my wrist hard enough to bruise.

"Daphne — go find Castor — make him bring the men back —"

I close my eyes. There's no soft way to say it.

"Castor is on the high temple. With every man of the Phalanx. He's lighting Lyra's starfire."

The room goes silent. Then it explodes.

"He's what?"

"Starfire rites? Now? He left us here to die for that little —"

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The bronze gate dents inward.

We don't have time.

"Maybe we don't need them to come back."

The thought drops into my head like a coin. I look at Hera. My husband's mother. The old Amazon under the dust.

"The hearthfire. Hestia's hearthfire on the outer wards. We light it, and they burn where they stand."

Her eyes go sharp. She pulls the message-stone from her belt. The line connects.

"What. I'm busy."

He sounds annoyed. Annoyed.

Hera keeps her voice flat. "Castor. The polis is being overrun. The sanctum is breaking. Light the hearthfire on the outer wards. Now."

A pause. Then he laughs.

"Don't be dramatic. The fire's all up here for the starfire — I'm not pulling it for a few hours, you'll ruin Lyra's whole name-day."

A sneer. "Is Daphne next to you? Is she putting you up to this? She's so eaten up over Lyra she's dragging you into her little theater now?"

Hera is shaking head to foot. "You stupid — you don't even know what you've —"

The stone goes cold under her hand.

The room is dead quiet. Someone whispers, "We're finished. We're finished."

I stare at the dented gate.

So I came back for nothing. Nothing changes.

Hera grabs my arm.

"I trained every one of those men myself. There's a goat-path up the back of the temple. I'll go up and order them home. They will not refuse me to my face."