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And then I knew why Olympias smiled so.

“Alexander will lead the army against Thessaly, won’t he?” I asked.

She didn’t glance at me, only nodded. “And he will rout them.”

I’d sought to curse the Thessalians mere moments ago, but I felt only one thing for them as the army raised swords, banging on their glaring sun shields and cheering their acceptance of my brother.

Pity.

•   •   •

R
egret and relief roiled deep in my belly as I watched Alexander leave our city, a golden lion at the front of a long line of shield bearers and foot companions, all dressed in greaves and leather breastplates, carrying lances and Macedonian
sarissas
, those deadly pikes made of sturdy cornel wood and tipped with iron that could pierce through the strongest cuirass. Their shields were freshly stamped with my brother’s newly claimed symbol: a sixteen-pointed star, one spoke for each of the twelve gods of Olympus and the four seasons, as if Alexander planned to harness all of those mighty powers. Alexander rode his black horse, Bucephalus, an untamed beast whelped in Hephaestus’ fiery forges that he’d broken as a young man and since taught to kneel in full armor, and the crowds threw fragrant jasmine petals into the air and chanted his name. And my golden brother threw back his head and laughed, a glorious sound that made the crowd cheer louder.

“I love Alexander,” Arrhidaeus said next to me, grinning his lopsided grin. He’d lost weight since the night in the courtyard and I’d had to give him my three-legged tortoise to coax a smile out of him, but now the parade distracted him and he clapped his hands. “Everyone else does too.”

I watched as Alexander threw his fist into the air, prompting a deafening cheer. It seemed Arrhidaeus was right; the army cared little for the recent murders and not even Achilles and Heracles could have looked more glorious as they strode into battle. A shudder passed through my bones as I remembered the way those brave heroes had perished. Only the gods knew whether my brother would follow in their footsteps, and I was ashamed to feel myself softening toward him, knowing as I did what horrors he’d sanctioned for his throne.

I longed to leave Aigai, to climb Egypt’s ancient pyramids and gape at Persia’s renowned Ishtar Gate, as Alexander claimed he would on this conquest, yet I could never leave Arrhidaeus. And a girl could never travel with the army, although I’d heard stories that King Darius of Persia kept his entire family with him when campaigning.

Alexander met my gaze and grinned, then beckoned to his newly appointed bodyguard: Hephaestion. My brother riffled in his saddlebags and pressed something into his friend’s hand, winking at me before turning away. Hephaestion guided his horse toward the shaded dais where I sat with the royal family.

“A gift for Thessalonike,” Hephaestion said. His slow smile was the one I’d seen prompt giggles from both the kitchen slaves and the stableboys, but I sensed he was laughing at me as he pressed the bulky package into my hands.

I looked down to see my eldest brother’s dog-eared copy of Homer’s
Song of Ilium
. I wrinkled my nose, prompting a laugh from Hephaestion.

“Surely my brother cannot bear to part with his precious book,” I said, holding the thing like a dead rat. I much preferred
The Odyssey
, with its tales of adventure and exploration.

“Alexander sleeps with that poem. It’s dearer to him than almost anything.” Hephaestion winked at me. “Except me, of course. Your brother bids you keep it safe for him; he shall order Aristotle to send him another copy,” Hephaestion continued. “He wishes you well versed in the accomplishments of the great heroes, for he claims he will one day rival even Achilles.”

“Something about animals would have been more interesting,” I grumbled. Maybe something on snakes or dogs. I’d already read Aristotle’s ideas in the
History of Animals
. I’d taken to heart his suggestion to crack open chicken eggs at regular intervals in order to observe the generation of organs like the lungs and the brain, a practice that had earned me a round scolding from the cook and a lecture about how only uncivilized
barbaroi
would keep fertilized eggs in their kitchens. I wondered if perhaps Aristotle had penned a manual on spear throwing or how to wield a sword, both skills that seemed suddenly practical in this upside-down world I now lived in.

“I had a feeling you’d turn your nose up at Homer, so I brought something else.” Hephaestion laughed again and tweaked my ear, revealing a lumpy burlap bag in his palm. I tore it open greedily, my bruised heart expanding at the honey cakes inside. “And you, little lioness, shall be full-grown when we see you again. Shall you honor Aphrodite with your beauty then or Athena with your wisdom? Perhaps Artemis, lover of animals?”

“All three,” I chirped proudly.

Olympias cleared her throat, bringing me back to reality. “That’s enough, Hephaestion,” she said sternly. “You shall dine on Alexander’s dust if you don’t follow now.”

And thus, Hephaestion bowed to us, kicked his horse in the ribs, and charged off, toward Alexander, Thessaly, and the victories yet to come.

I didn’t know it then, but it would be many years before I’d see Alexander again, at yet another funeral that would set the shears of the three Fates into a deadly flurry once more.

CHAPTER 2

Thebes, Greece

Hephaestion

“Smile, Alexander,” I said, as he reined in his demon-horse Bucephalus amid the city’s death throes. “You craved a good fight since we left Aigai, and today you had it.”

Alexander glowered at Thebes’ stone citadel, looking far older than his twenty years. “Thebes underestimated me. I shall not halt the slaughter until the city’s blood stains Bucephalus’ knees.”

“That’s the last thing Ox-Head needs.” I wrinkled my nose even as Bucephalus snorted at me, baring huge yellow teeth beneath a ridiculous helmet of golden horns that made him look like a misshapen bull.

Artemis’ tits, but I hated that horse.

“The oceans could turn red with Theban blood and it still wouldn’t be enough,” Alexander said, nudging Bucephalus’ ribs and pushing forward into the city.

I looked to the heavens before I urged my horse to follow, for Alexander had a flair for the dramatic when he didn’t get his way. Thebes had dared revolt against Alexander after Thessaly had so kindly capitulated, quaking in their greaves as they watched Alexander cut steps into the supposedly insurmountable cliff face of Mount Ossa and lead his troops over the top, surrounding the Thessalians and prompting their generous surrender. They’d hailed Alexander as their
basileus
and heralded him as a hero descended from Achilles, which put him in a kinder mood when it came to sparing their people. Alexander had drunk his fill of Thessalian wine and boasted that there would be easy victories all the way down the peninsula.

That was before he ran headlong into Thebes and its Sacred Band, the elite military unit who’d snubbed their noses at him and called him an upstart barbarian. Of course, that same unit’s warriors now lay rotting beneath the uncaring sun.

Not that I was going to mention that to Alexander. The Sacred Band was past saving, but its city still stood.

Thebes was an unwashed whore of a city, but I didn’t care to see the ancient stone
polis
razed as Alexander threatened just because they’d put up a good and honorable fight. This, the City of Seven Gates, had birthed my favorite poet, Pindar, yet I doubted whether I’d have time to sightsee at his former home or seek out his urn of ashes amid the looting and pillaging.

I reined in, waiting as Alexander barked orders at his generals, motioning with succinct gestures where to deploy the cavalry, shield bearers, and foot soldiers to finish securing the city. The sun gleamed off his hair and his golden soldier’s belt, earned when he’d killed his first man in the earlier battle of Thebes with his father. Alexander roared in triumph from Bucephalus’ back, the leopard skin he sat upon gleaming gold and his lion helmet seeming to preen in the sunlight. “Put the city to the sword,” Alexander yelled. “Thebes shall be scourged from the earth today, a warning to those who would declare against me!”

I might have pointed out then that these were
Greeks
, not cowardly Persians or stinking Latins, but being Alexander’s bodyguard meant keeping my mouth shut and perhaps impaling a few Thebans with a
sarissa
to keep them from stabbing him through his cuirass.

I cursed the Thebans under my breath; the stupid bastards should have surrendered when they had the chance and left me to my crates of wine and my copy of Plato’s
Republic
.

The cavalry and foot soldiers moved to the various districts they intended to plunder, black flags of dark smoke unfurling in the city’s western sections and making me shudder at the thought of what treasures the ravenous flames might be destroying. Alexander and I continued through to a newer neighborhood with less graffiti on the walls and fewer stray dogs lurking in the alleys, its wide avenues laden with twisting cypress trees and the polished marble facades of the well-to-do, similar to my father’s home in Macedon. A second of Alexander’s guards joined us: Ptolemy, officially the son of Lagus of Macedon but rumored to be one of Philip’s illegitimate sons, and a man with an appetite for women to rival even that of Zeus.

My sword aimed in front of me, I pushed through the open gates of a particularly graceful estate. An overturned basket of peas lay near the kitchen entrance and my horse sidestepped a dead slave sprawled facedown in a pool of scarlet. My ear picked up something different here, the angry barkings of what might have passed as raving fishwives.

“See what that’s about,” Alexander said with a wince. “Before my ears begin to bleed.”

I gave an exaggerated salute and dismounted, leaving Ptolemy with Alexander as I entered the courtyard.

“Throw her in with him!” a man yelled, standing next to two other mercenaries, thickheaded Thracians from the looks of their discarded crescent shields. The first gestured wildly toward a well situated at the corner of a tidy garden. The
kyria
of the house stood across from him, her lovely face an affectation of calm, yet the delicate matron clutched her ruined
peplos
at her shoulders, and two girls like miniatures of their mother cowered nearby. A trickle of blood from the corner of the mother’s mouth was already growing dark and her pale hair had fallen loose. The largest of the three Thracian brutes finished binding her wrists with a leather thong, then shoved her toward the well while the other two hefted thick paving stones into their arms.

“I don’t recall there being time for any unscheduled swimming, not while there’s an entire city to be sacked,” I said, lowering my sword as I strode into the garden. “It appears some explanation is warranted.”

Six heads swiveled toward me, and I’d swear relief flashed over the woman’s face. “This foul bitch murdered our captain,” the first man said, his eyes widening as he snapped to attention at the lion emblem of Alexander’s bodyguard on my golden helmet. His face was smeared with sweat and pockmarks, and his breath might have killed us all. “We’ve arranged for her to greet Charon the boatman on her way to the river Styx.”

Thracians were famed for being stubborn as mules and slightly less intelligent. A well-trained dog might have found a way to kill their captain and leave the world a better place.

I waved his boast away. “What I don’t understand is how a mere woman murdered one of your bravest commanders,” I said.

The man’s lips turned into a sneer as I removed my helmet and ran a hand through my sweat-matted hair. “You’re Hephaestion, right? Shouldn’t you be off protecting Alexander’s manhood?”

A second Thracian leered at me. “Protecting it by letting Alexander hide it up your arse? We hear he succumbs to your thighs every night.”

The slur wasn’t the worst I’d heard, but it made me want to bash some mercenary heads together. Apparently this one needed to learn that I didn’t take kindly to insults.