Someone Had to Do It
The road from Methone back to Sparta was anything but easy.
Forget the carriage sickness—the real problem was that every time I drifted off, I dreamed of killing that Athenian, and my sleep went to pieces.
Close my eyes, and the image was there, vivid as life.
The hand clutching at my spear. The mouth opening as if to say something.
And the feel of it—nothing at all like driving a spear through a straw bundle.
The moment I dozed, I was thrown straight back into that instant, so I ended up riding out the night with my eyes propped open.
"...Ah."
I opened my eyes to the sway of the carriage.
Hoofbeats, wheels grinding over stone, the escort dozing up front.
All of it, exactly as before.
"You don't look well, my lady."
The escort asked, watching me with open concern.
"I'm fine. How many times does that make now?"
I smiled like I meant it, but I didn't feel fine. Like hell I was fine.
Still—I was going home alive. I decided that would be enough, for now.
The trouble was, the closer Sparta came, the louder a different worry grew.
What do I even say to them?
I'd been handling the family's business in Methone when the Athenian army showed up. I'd tried to run and failed. And in the scramble to move people out of the way, I had killed a man.
Brasidas knew about all of it, and that thought funneled down to a single conclusion.
I am getting chewed out within an inch of my life.
So when the house finally came into view, my nerves were as bad as the day I first laid eyes on the Athenian fleet.
The carriage stopped. My mother was standing at the door, and I put on the most unconcerned smile I could manage.
"I'm home."
Her eyes traveled from my face down my neck, my arms, my legs. Then she closed the distance and gripped both my arms in hers.
"Where are you hurt?"
"Nowhere. A few scrapes, though."
As I spoke, I rolled up my sleeve, and a handful of scabbed-over cuts came into view. She checked the other arm as well.
"Your side? Your legs?"
"I'm fine. Good as new."
Only then did the grip of her hands ease, just a little. Inside, I let out a breath of relief to match.
Sooner than I'd expected—
"Inside."
Her voice was low. I'm dead.
"Why did I send you?"
"To check on the family's goods."
"And?"
"Match the ledger against the actual stock, settle any problems that turned up..."
"Did I also tell you to take up a spear and climb the wall?"
I shut my mouth. She wasn't even angry—and that was the terrifying part.
"No."
"Then why did you climb it?"
"Because there weren't enough hands."
"Are you a Methone soldier now? Were you ordered to hold that place?"
"No."
"Then why was it you?"
The words stuck in my throat. She wasn't wrong about any of it—but if she was asking whether I regretted it, then no. Not that either.
"Because nobody else would."
My mother's eyebrow twitched.
"Everyone was in a panic. No water, carts strewn all over the road, the warehouses sitting wide open."
Talking about it brought the memory back, and I closed my eyes.
"Someone had to do it."
"Could you have gotten away?"
She held my gaze for a long moment. No clean answer would come.
If I'd moved a little faster, maybe I could have slipped out—but I'd stayed behind, going over the walls and ordering people around.
"I'm not scolding you for failing to run."
Her voice dropped lower still.
"I'm asking why you didn't run when running was still an option."
"..."
"Arista. Did you want to die?"
I lifted my head and met her eyes.
"No."
"Then why do you treat your life as yours to throw away?"
My voice rose before I could stop it.
"I didn't throw it away. I fought to live."
"You fought?"
Oh. Right. She didn't know that part yet.
I glanced sideways, and the escort turned away from me with remarkable smoothness.
Traitor.
My mother asked, dead serious.
"Did you kill a man? An Athenian?"
My mouth went dry. I didn't want to answer—but I wanted to lie even less.
"...One."
Her hands went still, and the room fell silent.
"How?"
At that question, the spearhead was in my hand again. My fingers curled around it on instinct.
"He tried to run me through. I blocked, and thrust."
"And if you hadn't killed him?"
This time the answer came at once.
"Then I'd be the one lying there."
My mother said nothing.
A moment—just a moment—passed, and then she reached out and touched my cheek.
"Then that's enough."
"What?"
"If it was done to live, then it's enough."
Only then did I understand what she had truly been angry about.
Not the spear. Not the disobedience. It was that I could have died.
The thought made the tip of my nose sting for no reason at all.
But the moment her hand withdrew, the sentimental hour was over.
"That's settled. You missing your chance to run is another matter entirely."
Yeah. Knew it.
And the scolding went on for a long, long while.
Why I'd climbed the walls. Why I hadn't listened to the escort. Who on earth had ever put a sixteen-year-old in charge of Methone.
Every objection doubled my sentence—and twice I pushed back anyway, which only made it longer.
In the end, there was exactly one answer that kept me breathing.
"I was wrong."
"Don't you dare try to slide past me on that."
Shit. Harder than the Athenian army.
Only after that long dressing-down did my mother finally move on.
"The goods I sent you for? Did you collect what we were short?"
"All of it."
She took the ledger, paged through it, and nodded.
"That, you did well."
I found myself smiling.
"Then, now—"
"It's not over."
The smile died.
A few days later, Father and Telekles came home.
I hurried out to the courtyard, then stopped short at the sight of the two of them.
Telekles's face had gone a little thin, and Father's cloak was caked with road dust.
But they had walked in through the gate under their own power, arms and legs whole. Only after confirming that did the knot in my chest finally come loose.
"You made it back alive."
I murmured it, and Telekles snorted.
"And who exactly are you telling that to?"
"The man on his first campaign."
"And you were quietly minding the house, were you?"
I couldn't bring myself to answer. I hurried inside instead, and though I heard him calling my name behind me, I never did.
The two of them couldn't stay long that day. Father washed and changed his clothes, then left with Telekles.
The communal mess, most likely.
In the end, the four of us were in one place again only well after night had fallen.
Fortunately, my mother and I had still been awake when Father and Telekles returned.
Before the whole household went to sleep, the four of us sat together beneath the lamplight. Strange, how rarely we all sat in one room, even as a family.
Telekles spoke first.
"The Athenians never came out. Not till the very end."
"Then you barely got a fight in."
"You think war is only about killing people?"
The jab found its mark, and I busied myself with my water cup. Father watched me a moment, then spoke.
"Arista. Was there any trouble in Methone?"
Ominous. Watching my mother sip her water without a flicker, I caught it—Father was deliberately not saying something.
I arranged my face into maximum normalcy.
"A little."
"A little."
"The Athenian fleet did show up, but they left right away."
Telekles's face hardened.
"The Athenian army came to Methone?"
"Yeah."
"And you're only telling me this now?"
"I was going to."
The moment Telekles opened his mouth to say more, Father cut in.
"That's quite different from the account I heard."
"...And who did you hear it from?"
"Brasidas."
That man. He really did tell them.
Telekles looked back and forth between Father and me.
"Why would Brasidas be speaking of Arista?"
"It seems your little sister made quite an impression down there."
With the topic swinging back to me, I made to slip out of my seat.
"I'm tired, so if I could just turn in—"
"Sit."
At a single word from Father, I sat back down.
"I hear you had water made ready. And the grain moved."
"That was ours to begin with."
"And you cleared the road in front of the gate."
"The townspeople helped with that."
Father let the pause stretch.
"And you killed an Athenian."
The words dropped into the room, and silence followed. Every trace of expression drained from Telekles's face.
"One man."
"You? Seriously?"
I lifted my head and looked at Telekles.
"You know a way to kill someone 'for pretend'?"
Telekles, who would normally have snapped right back, said nothing this time.
"Are you okay?"
To be honest, that was the question I hated most.
In the end, I sat with it a while, then answered honestly.
"I've been sleeping badly."
With that, Telekles's mouth closed for good, and Father took up the thread again.
"Were you afraid?"
"Yes."
No hesitation.
"You stayed, even wanting to run."
"I missed my moment to run, that's all."
Father nodded, slow and deliberate.
"That answer will do."
Hard to say whether that counted as praise. Either way, I found myself nodding along to his next words.
"Killing one man does not make you a warrior."
"I know."
"Do you truly?"
If he'd asked me that before Methone, it would have stung.
Not this time.
"I do now."
Father asked nothing more of me. Instead, he turned to Telekles.
"You're the one who's been teaching her the spear."
Telekles's face froze on the spot.
"That's..."
I glanced over at Telekles with a sly little smile. Finally, I wasn't the only one dying here.
"She begged me."
"Begged or not, the one who taught her was you."
Telekles bowed his head without a word. Father studied him for a moment, then said the last thing I expected.
"Keep teaching her."
Telekles and I looked up at the exact same instant.
"What?"
"But don't misunderstand."
Father's gaze swung to me.
"I don't mean for you to become a warrior."
"I know."
"Still less that you are to go hunting for fights."
I quietly shut my mouth.
"And it seems danger does not always step aside just because you would rather avoid it."
Father paused briefly.
"Teach her, at the very least, so that the spear she carries is never the reason she dies."
The words settled into a long silence, until Telekles was the first to sigh.
"So I'm the one who gets worked to death, then."
"Then just teach me well."
"She's climbing this fast already?"
The same old exchange, but somehow it pulled laughter out of me.
When I first fell into this world, I hadn't even been allowed to touch a shield, and after that I'd learned the spear in hiding.
I still wasn't a warrior, and I still couldn't march off to war. But one thing had changed, beyond any doubt.
Now, I no longer had to hide the spear.