Free Athenian Steel (Book I of the The Hellennium) by P. K. Lentz Page B

handle of her palmed knife,
Thalassia proceeded up the deserted route Demosthenes had chosen
for her sake.
    “Why Sicily?” he asked as they got underway,
recalling the prophecy of inglorious death Thalassia had earlier
thrown so casually at him across the table.
    “Does it matter?  It's more than ten
years away.”  Her watchful, wintry eyes flashed a
conspiratorial look.  “A lot could happen before then... if
the right alliance were made.  This war could be over in,
let's say, two years?”
    “Alliance?” he asked with interest.
 “With what city?”
    “No city,” she said.  “You and me.
 Us.  We win the war for Athens.”
    The path increased in grade, and Thalassia
began to get ahead of him, her fine, high-laced sandals crunching
an unflagging rhythm on the dry road.  On either side of them
stood a series of decrepit buildings which were among those
abandoned earlier in the summer, when thousands of frightened
Messenians had chosen to flee the city rather than risk suffering
reprisals when the Spartans—as was inevitable in their
minds—returned.
    “Ally with  you ?” Demosthenes
said scornfully.  “I do not even know what you are.”
    Thalassia looked over her shoulder at him
and smiled.  “I'm a good luck charm,” she said. 
    When again she faced the road ahead, she
halted suddenly.  Twenty paces in front of them stood a woman.
 She wore a gray traveling  chlamys , its hood
thrown back to reveal long, golden hair tied in a single braid
which fell over one shoulder.  At her waist, their hilts
peeking out from behind the cloak, hung not one but two sheathed
short swords.
    An unwomanly word passed Thalassia's lips as
Demosthenes drew up beside her.
    “Fuck.”

I. PYLOS \ 11. Fury
    “Who is she?” Demosthenes asked.  He
put hand to sword, strange as such action felt when facing a
female.  He could not recall ever having seen a woman bear a
sword; it was a sight he surely would recall.
    “ Eden ,” Thalassia said loudly.
 It was less an answer to his question than a chill greeting
directed at the other.
    The woman returned a short, harsh string of
syllables in a foreign tongue.  Her tone was less cold, but
the ghost of a smile which touched her lips more than compensated.
 She spoke a few more fluid, non-Greek words, then glanced at
Demosthenes.  Her smile reappeared, and she continued in an
accented Attic similar to Thalassia's, “—or perhaps we should
converse in Greek for the benefit of your new friend.  No
doubt you have told him many lies.  Perhaps he will learn
something.”
    She turned her eyes upon Demosthenes.
 If Thalassia's eyes were the color of a winter sky, this
newcomer's were that of summer: a rich indigo that seemed deeper
still for being set in a pale, aristocratic face.
    “For instance, do you know, Athenian, that
you presently stand beside one of the universe's most vile
traitors?”  Eden's gaze swept back to Thalassia, and
Demosthenes was glad for it, for this woman's look had frozen the
breath in his chest.  “For reasons beyond me,” she continued,
“and beyond all who ever knew her, Geneva was forgiven.  Yet
the moment she resumed her place of trust—”
    “Get out of our way, Eden,” Thalassia said
evenly.
    “Why did you do it?” Eden said, and she
addressed Thalassia again by the same harsh, alien word she had
first spoken on their meeting.  It was a word that seemed
subtly to sting Thalassia, if Demosthenes judged correctly.  
“Explain to me why you brought us here, to this shit layer nowhere
near our objective and  blew up our fucking ship in the
atmosphere! ”   By the time Eden finished, she was speaking
through clenched teeth that were as white as frost.  “ Tell
me why! ” 
    “Get out of our way,” Thalassia
repeated.
    Eden chuckled, coldly.  “Or what?
 You know I am superior to you.  I will not let you pass.
 Nadir exists on this earth.  Lyka has gone there.
 Her beacon is active—as yours was until two