Chapter 4 - Saea

Truthfully, there had been whispers flying around The Obnoxious Pegasus long before sweet ambrosia had met sweaty brows.

As a satyr, my hearing was keen. Over the last few months, I’ve taken to listening to conversations around me. Those sneaky sods at the tables near the hearth by the fire (minor functionaries of the great Houses mostly) liked to think no one could hear them plot and gossip over drinks, but I heard it all. And recently, it all revolved around one topic.

“Ares.” 

“The west wing…” Had burst from a round-faced merchant to his drinking buddy, a scribe looking like he hadn’t washed his hands in weeks. “…Lord Eugenius had two guards whipped for losing a ledger. Whipped! For bookkeeping.” 

The scribe scoffed. “He’s turning into a paranoid wreck. He doesn’t sleep anymore because he thinks his enemies are stabbing him in his sleep. They say he’s interrogating servants about their families.”

My ears had perked, and I had slowed down my polishing on a freshly cleaned mug. I was all ears. This was Hypatos’ House. This was where he had spent his days coming home smelling like murder waiting to happen.

“It’s the boy.” The merchant had continued. He leaned in conspiratorially and nodded toward the empty table closest to us. “The prophecy has him on edge. Everyone knows Androkles is the Destroyer.” He paused and gestured at the sky for emphasis. “How would you like it if your own son were prophesied to destroy everything you worked your whole life to build?”

“He may be the Destroyer or he may not,” the scribe huffed. “But the boy doesn’t ease my mind at all. I saw him at the practice yard last Thursday. He fights like a snake.” He made a quick whipping motion with his hands. “No smirk, no joking around like other kids his age. Just focused on killing. Supposedly, he’s already fighting men twice his age.”

My stomach dropped into that familiar pit of doom. I listened intently because now I had finally put two and two together with Hypatos. The whispers hadn’t been tavern small talk. It had been his atmosphere, slowly killing him.

I’d seen the evidence nightly. Nights he spent at Lord Ares’ estate were the nights he drank himself into oblivion, slurring curses and forgetting his shoes. He’d sit at the bar, shoulders so tense that ambrosia couldn’t relax him, and barely speak at all.

I’d begun to fear House Ares was breaking him. Fighting was honest. You could see your enemy coming and defend yourself. This was silent, hidden knives in your back. He wasn’t used to that. He was a steward to a CHILD who was being trained to kill. One whose lord was going mad. 

Understandably, he needed alcohol to numb the facts. I had put down the mug and made fists under the bar. More than ever, I was scared of him. I wasn’t just seeing a friend drink his problems away. I was watching him get pulled under.

After a long shift, with the last patrons stumbling out into the pre-dawn mist, I finally left The Obnoxious Pegasus. The cool air had been a welcome relief from the cloying warmth of the tavern. 

I hadn’t headed toward the comfortable room above it; that had been Boreas’s generosity, but it hadn’t been mine. My home had been a modest tent pitched on a patch of overlooked land just outside the bustling market district.

It had been a lonely existence, caught between two worlds. The Olympians, with their marble houses and divine blood, had seen demihumans like me as little more than clever animals—useful for serving drinks or playing music but never to be taken seriously. 

My own kind, the other satyrs who passed through on their endless wanderings, had viewed my attachment to this stone city with a mixture of pity and contempt. They had seen my settled life as a cage, a betrayal of our wild, free-spirited nature. They hadn’t been entirely wrong.

Inside my tent, I had lit a small oil lamp, its flickering light illuminating the simple space: a bedroll, a small chest for my few belongings, and a stack of letters tied with a leather cord. I had pulled one out, the parchment worn soft from frequent readings. It had been from my brother, Lyron, who had been exploring the northern mountains.

‘Dearest Saea,’ it had read, ‘the snow here paints the peaks in shades of rose and gold at dawn. I saw a frost giant yesterday! Can you imagine? We miss you. The herd speaks of you often. When will you leave that stone prison and rejoin the world? The forests are calling your name.’

I had traced the words with my finger, a familiar ache blooming in my chest. I once had dreamed of wandering the world freely, just like him. I used to plan my escape, mapping routes to distant shores and forgotten ruins in my head. 

But slowly, insidiously, I had stopped wanting to leave. I had become attached to the familiar rhythms of the tavern, the predictable flow of the seasons in the city... and to the familiar, brooding presence of a one-armed Spartan.

The shame of it had burned hot in my cheeks. I had been a satyr, a creature of the wild, yet I had allowed myself to become rooted to this place, to a man who had barely known my name until a week ago. 

It had been a foolish, hopeless attachment, and I had felt its weight every time I returned to my solitary tent, the silence a stark reminder of everything I had given up for a love that might never be mine.

Two weeks later, Hypatos had arrived at the tavern late, long after the dinner crowd had thinned. 

The moment he pushed through the door, I knew it had been a particularly bad day. A storm cloud of pure fury clung to him, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. He had slammed himself onto his usual stool, the force of it rattling the bar.

“The usual,” he had bit out, not looking at me.

I poured the ambrosia, my movements deliberate and calm. Instead of moving away, I picked up a rag and began wiping down the section of bar near him, a slow, methodical circle. 

“Rough day at the office?” I had asked, my voice light.

He let out a harsh, bitter laugh that was more of a grunt. “Office. Right. Spent the day watching Eugenius preen like a peacock while his ten-year-old heir dissected battle strategies I helped design. Then I was informed that my input was no longer needed. I was just a steward, a relic.”

I kept my eyes on my work, sensing a crack in his usual wall of silence. “A relic with more scars than most living soldiers.”

His hand tightened around his mug. “Scars from a fight I couldn’t win. From a battle that cost me my arm and my place. Decades of service, and they discarded me because I was no longer whole. Because I was... broken.”

The word had hung in the air between us, raw and vulnerable. 

I stopped wiping the bar and finally looked at him, really looked at him. I saw the pain, the frustration, the deep-seated feeling of worthlessness. And I refused to pity him. Pity was a poison, and he had been drinking enough of that already.

“Surviving a chimera sounds more impressive than dying to one,” I had said bluntly, turning to grab a clean glass from the shelf behind me.

I felt his gaze on me, sharp and surprised. When I turned back, he was staring, his anger momentarily forgotten, replaced by a look of stunned disbelief. No one had ever said that to him. Not in four years. 

They saw the missing arm, the demotion, the drinking. They saw a failure. But I saw a man who had faced a monster and walked away.

The comment had affected him deeply. He didn’t say anything, but his entire posture changed. The rigid tension in his shoulders eased, just a fraction. For the first time, someone had framed his survival as strength instead of weakness, and the simple, unvarnished truth of it hit him harder than any sympathy ever could. 

He had looked down at his mug, then back at me, and in his eyes, I saw a flicker of something I hadn’t seen before: a grudging, fragile respect.

As Hypatos had left, a few coins clinking onto the bar, a younger server, a nymph with spring-green eyes, had sidled up next to me to wipe down the section he had vacated. 

“You were going to spend the rest of your life pining after that one, weren’t you?” Elara had asked, her voice a teasing lilt. “A Spartan old enough to be your father, no less. Ambitious, Saea.”

I had forced a laugh, flicking my rag at her playfully. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s just good for tips.” The words had felt like ash in my mouth, a flimsy shield against a truth that had become impossible to ignore.

But internally, her comment had unsettled me, striking a chord that vibrated with a painful resonance. 

Old enough to be your father.

The phrase had echoed in my mind as I finished my closing duties, my movements feeling stiff and automatic. For the first time, I had fully confronted how impossible this attachment truly was. It hadn’t just been a fleeting crush I could outgrow. It had been a deep, rooted thing, and it had been a poison vine wrapped around my heart.

Not only had he been Olympian nobility-adjacent through House Ares, a world so far removed from my own that it might as well have been on another plane of existence, but he had been emotionally bound to another woman. 

I had seen it with my own eyes. The way his entire being softened at the mere mention of Lady Arete. He hadn’t just been in love with her. She had been woven into the fabric of his soul. I had been a momentary comfort, a pleasant distraction. She was his anchor.

Later, in the solitude of my tent, the weight of it had pressed down on me. I had been a satyr, a creature meant for forests and freedom, yet I had pinned all my hopes on a man who belonged to another, a man broken by a life I could never truly understand. 

I had promised myself, right then and there, that I would stop hoping for something more. I would enjoy our brief conversations, serve him his drinks, and, slowly and carefully, begin to untether my heart from his. It had been a sensible promise, a necessary one for my own survival. 

But even as I had made it, I found myself staring out the open flap of my tent, watching the direction he had disappeared into the night, a dangerous attachment refusing to be reasoned away.