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Back The Arrow of Apollo
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. About the Author
  4. Dedication
  5. By the Same Author
  6. Author’s Note
  7. Map
  8. Domus Libris
  9. House of the Wolf
  10. The House of the Wolf
  11. One
  12. Two
  13. Three
  14. Four
  15. Five
  16. Six
  17. Seven
  18. Eight
  19. Nine
  20. Ten
  21. Eleven
  22. Twelve
  23. Thirteen
  24. Fourteen
  25. Fifteen
  26. Sixteen
  27. Seventeen
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Twenty-Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. Thirty-Eight
  49. Timeline of the Trojan Cycle
  50. Further Reading
  51. Acknowledgements
  52. Supporters

She has won … she has won …

Twenty-Three

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Towards Mykenai

THE ACHAEAN MAINLAND

Elissa stood at the stern as the ship nymph cleaved across the Ionian Sea, looking out ahead. She loved the salt spray that blew in her face. Far above in the sky, a bright dot flared, a star falling through the ether to the south, where Africa lay, and Elissa wondered what it might mean, before it vanished. She remembered the meteorite she’d seen in Lavinium, the night Stargazer had arrived. Was it a portent, she wondered? Had it heralded the start of her journey?

‘Have you ever been to Carthage?’ she asked the ship nymph.

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I remember it well. I caught a glimpse of your aunt Dido before she …’ Her sails flushed a little. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bring it up.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Elissa stroked the ship. ‘I didn’t know her. She was a legend when I was little. They sang about her death as if it was some kind of heroic thing … They used to sing about her and Aeneas. Not much, though, about my mother … Did you ever see her?’

‘Anna? I never did. But I do know one thing. She didn’t die for love. She lived for it.’

Love. Elissa had not felt it yet. The feelings that burned in her heart for her mother and father were love, of course. But love for another, for someone who would be with her, share their life with her? None of the traders, or the boys in Lavinium, had stirred her thoughts.

The seagulls flocked around the figurehead, dropping offerings of octopuses and silvery mullets. Ruffler pounced on one and wolfed it down excitedly, whilst Silvius lit a fire.

It wasn’t long before the great dark shape of the Peloponnese rose before them across the clear sea. Ruffler tried and failed to jump up and see, and Elissa lifted him up to show him.

A world she’d only heard of in stories, full of ancient families and blood feuds. The little wolf cub wriggled out of her arms, and she felt exposed. She was relieved when Silvius joined her, but wouldn’t let it show. She had been reminded that his father had been the reason for her aunt’s death, and it caused a shiver of resentment.

‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ She quashed her feelings and turned to face him fully.

He merely smiled at her. The casket containing the Arrowhead had never left Silvius’s neck, and he fingered it now, letting the light catch its chain. Elissa wasn’t sure if she could feel an intention in those movements. What was he thinking?

‘We are skirting the southern edges of the land of the Achaeans,’ boomed the voice of the ship nymph.