Names flew at Jen, too quick to follow. She couldn’t remember who was the cockatrice and who the peryton and who the eagle. That was all right. She knew from teaching martial arts classes that she’d catch up as she got to know individuals.
Most of her attention was claimed by her surroundings. She tried to take in the worn marble staircases, the long, beautiful halls with mosaic floors and bright mural-decorated walls, and the walks along actual castle walls—complete with towers on one side, and on the other a thousand foot drop—until it really settled in that Nikos lived in an actual castle. Cleo proudly pointed out where solar paneling had been fitted in above walls built over a thousand years ago. Someone with an artistic eye had blended modern conveniences with ancient art and grand design.
Cleo began pointing. This wing belonged to the hetairoi, that wing to the Iatreio, which Jen mentally translated to infirmary, and over there the state rooms, and above those the ‘residence,’ belonging to Nikos’s family, which everyone called the aerie, as it was the highest level in the castle. Lower down were the kitchens and all the support areas.
State rooms, as in rooms of state? Residence, as in royal residence?
As Cleo’s fast explanation piled up the words, Jen finally comprehended that Nikos wasn’t just a teacher, as well as a sort-of EMT—that is, he was both, but he was also . . . well, the word kyrios, she understood now, meant king.
The island was a kingdom, and Nikos was its king.
She tried to wrap her head around that idea as she descended yet another staircase. A king. She wondered if that first, disastrous love of Nikos’s that had made him wary of relationships had wanted a king instead of him.
Jen did not understand that kind of thinking. She wanted him, but without the king? No, it was integral to his being. She would never ask him to give up all this, in order to devote himself exclusively to her.
Sooooo . . . was staying with him going to make her a queen?
She grimaced, shoving the idea away. It was simply too laughable.
She followed Cleo out onto a broad walled plateau that overlooked the switchback road leading up to the castle, and below that, a town spread at the foot of the mountain. From up high, most of what Jen saw of the town were the red and blue tile roofs. The walls of the houses were almost all white. A harbor lay like a horseshoe to one side of the town. A variety of ships floated in the harbor, from old-fashioned sail-driven fishing boats to a huge, sleek super-modern yacht.
“Whose is that?” Jen asked, pointing down at the yacht that reminded her of a high-tech shark.
Bryony had been following them, silent until now. Cleo’s smile vanished as Bryony said, “That belongs to Medusa.”
“Medusa,” Jen repeated. “Who’d name their kid that?”
“Medusa calls herself that,” Bryony said, drawing Jen to the other side of the plateau—which, Jen realized, was actually a training ground. People were rolling out weapons racks, and two carried rolled mats. “She’s a gorgon.”
Jen was going to exclaim, Gorgons are real? But she bit it back, remembering that ten minutes ago, she was aloft on a winged unicorn, flying with cockatrices and griffins, among others. At least Doris and Bird swore zombies were not real, she thought.
Bryony made a spitting motion in the direction of that yacht. “Medusa is a billionaire’s brat of the worst kind.”
“Whatever she wants, she gets,” Mateo said, powerful arms crossing. Jen wondered when he had become a griffin. As a baby? She was afraid to ask—what were good manners in this situation? He turned to Jen and asked in a polite voice, “Would you like to join us?”
Jen had been aching for a run, at the least, for two days. A workout would be heavenly. “I’d love that.”
The others were already stretching. As Cleo and Bryony went to take their places, Bryony at the front and Cleo at the back, Jen took up a position next to Cleo.
Though kung fu was her home style, she’d begun training with her father in Krav Maga, and had practiced with other styles over the years, depending on where she was and what was available. She knew the oldest hand to hand combat style the Greeks had was called Pankration, which the Spartans had developed in ancient times. It was mai
nly a mix of boxing and wrestling moves, though like any martial art, there were variations from teacher to teacher.
Mateo and Bryony led the forms three times through, then they moved to knife forms, and then to sparring. Jen expected to be lagging, but her energy stayed high—as high as it had been years ago. It wasn’t like she’d suddenly turned young. Her body was the same, her hands were those of a woman in her fifties. But becoming a phoenix seemed to have infused her with energy.
Toward the end, a shadow briefly blocked the bright Aegean sun, and Nikos sailed down, folding his wings as he landed at the other end of the training ground. He tossed his head, his horn gleaming in the light, and everyone redoubled their efforts in front of their . . .
King.
Jen huffed a laugh—and then, “Ouch!” A slap on the bicep from her current partner, who had introduced himself as Tassos. Jen blinked, sensing that Tassos, a boy of maybe twenty, wanted her to be serious in front of Kyrios Nikos. Tassos was the manticore, that she remembered, as his head had not changed.
Jen caught a bright flash of amusement from Nikos, like sunlight spangling water, and schooled her face to seriousness as she resumed the scrap. But she couldn’t help the thought, You’re a king! You didn’t tell me you are a king. Could he really hear her from way over there?
I was afraid you’d reject me. I’ve heard how you Americans feel about kings.
She chuckled inside as she dealt out two fast palm hands, a sweep, and she disposed of Tassos. He smacked his hands together and bowed, smiling as he swaggered to the side.
Nikos’s thought came, He’s impressed by you, because you took him seriously enough to defeat him.