Free Ward of the Philosopher by D. P. Prior

PROLOGUE

    Graecia, World of Urddynoor, Time of the Ancients

    E umelia checked on the the baby again. She knew from the snuffling, little Aris was fine tucked up in his furs, but she still had to look.  
    With her husband, Vassilis, not yet back from the Plains of Fire, her nerves were frayed. The army had been victorious, but still the stragglers were coming home. Every time the hoplites went out, she was a tortured mess until Vassilis walked through the door and seated himself by the hearth. Without either of them needing to utter a word, she would tend his wounds and pour him wine. Any other man might have stopped off at a tavern to get drunk and boast of bloody deeds on the battlefield, but not her Vassilis. He’d learned his manners and his morals at the Academy. His duty was to his family first, and the city-state next. Anything that got in the way of either was dross and vanity, to his way of thinking.
    Aris stirred when she pulled his covers up, but he was soon lightly snoring once more. Eumelia turned down the oil lamp, leaving the alcove that served as the baby’s bedroom wreathed in flickering shadows from the hearth fire. With a will, she took herself across the hut’s single room and straightened the bed she and Vassilis shared for the umpteenth time. After the stress of battle, the last thing he needed was to return to an untidy house.
    She moved from the bed to the hearth, threw on another log. Filling Vassilis’ goblet with watered wine from a jug, she set it on the low table by his chair. The act of doing so made it easier to believe he was coming home. She entertained the thought of taking a sip to calm herself, but Vassilis would taste it on her lips and accuse her of intemperance. Once he was deep in his cups, he’d encourage her to do the same, and then they’d fall upon the bed until he’d spent himself, so long as the baby didn’t wake up.
    Green light flashed through the lone window, and she crossed the room to see what it was. Outside, the dusking sky was an unbroken sheet of gray. In front of the house, the top of the olive tree swayed in the gathering breeze. Eumelia was about to close the shutters, when she noticed a pooling of the darkness beside the trunk. The window misted from where she pressed her face to the glass.  
    There was a figure beneath the tree.  
    A man.  
    It had to be Vassilis, but why was he just standing there?  
    With a sudden rush of dread, she realized he must be injured.
    She ripped open the door and ran to him. Within ten paces, she slowed and came to a halt. It wasn’t her husband. This man was older. Much older. Vassilis had developed a widow’s peak these past few years, but the old man was bald and bearded. He wore a toga in the style of the philosophers at the Academy. Green light limned his frame. It flared briefly then guttered and died.
    He licked his lips as he met her gaze. Eumelia took a step back. His eyes were smoldering embers. He advanced, and she threw an arm across her face.
    “Calm, Eumelia,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”
    His voice… It could have been her father speaking, only he’d been dead more than ten years.
    She lowered her arm and looked again. The fire fled his eyes, to be replaced by icy blue. They were Vassilis’ eyes, and the nose, the cheekbones. But she knew her husband’s father Demetrius, and there had been no mention of Vassilis having an uncle.
    “Who are you?” Eumelia asked. Frost-formed ants skittered across her skin.
    “A ghost,” he said, brushing past her and gliding toward the house.
    Eumelia stood staring at the olive tree for a long moment, but then she remembered the baby, and charged back through the front door.
    “Get out!” she screamed, but the words lodged in her throat.
    The old man crossed to the alcove and leaned over the sleeping child.
    Eumelia tore across the room and flung herself at him. With a deftness that belied his age, he swayed aside and clamped an arm around her neck. With