The water was pitch-black with darkness, and even on the island itself it was hard to make out exactly where I stood, for many of the torches had been shattered by the child. Yet I could still orient myself, and so I hurried straight toward Petros’s house to put on fresh clothes—since I was naked—and then to search for the others.

  The moment I stepped inside I raced up the stairs and into my room. The house was almost unlit; apparently no one had bothered to keep a fire burning or even the hearth alight, and of course no light came in from outside.

  As I came back down to leave, I heard a sound from the sitting room and turned to see what it was. I could not distinguish much—only a large human figure sprawled across the floor.

  “Who… who’s there?” the voice asked, broken and weary, unmistakably Petros’s, and clearly weeping.

  Though he sounded utterly spent, it was still someone who could help me in my search. His children were in danger, and his prowess in battle surpassed everyone else on this island; he seemed more like a force of nature than man.

  “Petros, it’s me—Leo. Quickly, your children are in danger. We have to go help them. Nothing is over yet.”

  “Leo… is that really you? I can’t believe it. I must be dreaming again—dreaming that I’ll succeed where no one has succeeded in thousands of years. Why won’t you simply let me die and end this torment?”

  “Because I’m not a lie and not a dream. I’m real. If you don’t come with me, your children are in peril—and so am I. You are the strongest man on this island. Make your decision quickly. I can’t wait here any longer trying to convince you to do what is right as a father and as a man.”

  I took the sword they had given me and headed toward the shore, hoping to find some trace of the direction they had gone. But misfortune struck again: I found nothing. I seized a torch and continued along the waterfront toward the pier.

  Still nothing. Even when I reached the pier, not a soul was in sight. What frightened me most was the utter absence of sound. I had no idea how much time had passed, and that terrified me. The fireflies had not yet returned, and from the island came not the slightest noise.

  I began walking among the houses and noticed that the curses had started to roam freely again. I nearly collided with one. It paid me no mind; I managed to react in time, without making another sound or meeting its gaze.

  They moved through the alleys but never touched the torchlight—only circled around it. And there were many curses now—far more than I had seen in all this time. Yet each step they took made no sound, caused no disturbance; they simply pressed against the stones and left no trace behind.

  It made no difference whether a curse was drenched in blood, in water, in anything at all: the droplets that ran from them left not the smallest mark. They did not belong to the island; they should have departed long ago. I did not know whether I ought to speak to them or whether doing so would entangle me once more in the same tragic fate—or an even worse one, than the child had inflicted.

  Yet more than that, I feared the only true solution was not to save them one by one. The only true solution would be to overthrow the usurper king from his throne. The light would take care of everything else.

  I raised the torch high to keep the curses at bay and began to jog—carefully, always watchful—until I heard some sound or saw anything that might lead me to the child.

  Even in the center of the island there was no one—only its shadows, the black of its past, creeping out from its hiding places. I searched and searched, yet nothing appeared before me. I had no idea how much time had passed, though it seemed this darkness had lasted longer than usual. Even the droplets falling from the stag’s antlers no longer struck anywhere, offering neither their familiar sound to break the silence nor their beautiful color.

  I returned to Petros’s house, but he too had left. I knew of nothing else to do but go to Kalli’s cave, and so I decided that.

  As time wore on, the island seemed to grow steadily darker, though whenever I glanced back the same torches burned in their places. Light glowed inside the houses, yet no window opened, no curtain stirred, no figure moved behind them.

  The journey to the cave felt like an ordeal this time—even harder than the first. The absence of light made everything more difficult. I trembled at the fear of falling into the water, of my torch extinguishing, of finding myself once again in the same state as I had been in the forest. I was sweating; my breathing came heavy. Yet I pressed on.

  From the cave the faint flicker of candlelight trembled, but no figure, as on other occasions, was outlined against the rock.

  I stepped inside and let out a breath of relief. No one. The candles burned deep within the cave, not only at the entrance. The two times I had come before, I had stayed near the mouth. But the wolf and Kalli were absent this time, so I took the chance and began to walk among this strange museum of skulls.

  The scene never changed—only rock and skulls set into niches in the walls or upon stone ledges. All strange, all uncanny and terrifying, distorted, governed by no logic in their formation. As though someone had taken random bones from random creatures and joined them without purpose or design.

  I walked on for what felt like a long while—I do not know how long—until I reached the end of the cave. There, in a central niche in the wall, I saw the skull of a great feline—not distorted, not terrifying. Above the niche was painted the image of a lion fighting five other lions, while behind it people fled, running to escape, and among them a pregnant woman with silver hair. I noticed her because she ran in a different direction from the rest.

  A candle burned above the skull’s crown. I stretched out my hands and touched the lion’s head. Tears came to my eyes without reason or cause. Then a firefly passed my right ear and settled upon the skull, as though lying down upon it. And then more fireflies settled upon the other skulls, and around them luminous bodies began to form, taking once more their human shapes.

  They could not speak, only gesture with their hands. Some embraced one another; others greeted each other warmly; some knelt and gazed upward toward the cave’s ceiling as though weeping.

  But the figure before me—the feline one—beckoned me closer to show me something on the wall, in the painted scene. It illuminated the mural with its own light, extended a finger, and began to point. It indicated the lion being torn apart by the others—that was itself. Then it continued along the wall, tracing with its finger.

  There it showed me eight women, each holding a sword whose hilts bore the heads of the family beasts, and whose scabbards were the color of each family. Then it continued and pointed to the pregnant woman running alone; she held two swords—one with the lion’s head, one with the dragon’s.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  It turned back to me and embraced me. I felt an overwhelming joy and tried to embrace it in return, but I could feel nothing at all. Then the other luminous figures began to approach and bow before its hand. Yet once more it pointed to the swords and gestured for me to leave.

  As I slowly withdrew, I watched the glowing forms behind me continue to greet one another while their light steadily faded. Some reached out toward me and caressed me. By the time I reached the cave’s mouth they had vanished, and I left with a small sorrow as I put the place behind me.

  The moment I set foot outside, I remembered why I had come down here. This time, though, anxiety did not seize me, uncertainty did not shake me. I walked with swift, calm, certain steps—without fear of stumbling or falling.

  The fireflies had returned and once again lit the lake and the island. When I stepped back onto the road with the houses in view, I saw people had come out and were shouting about something. I drew near and learned they were calling everyone to gather in the central square because the family heads had surrounded Kalli—and a child in her arms. Petros and Stas were protecting her, while the others had turned their weapons upon them.

  When I arrived I pushed through the crowd and saw them. Kalli knelt on the ground, cradling the child; Stas had arrows lodged in his body—one in his left arm, another in his right leg; Petros fought on without his left arm, bleeding heavily.

  The other council members were calling on him to abandon the fight and surrender the child, yet with every breath he seemed less man than beast. Though this time I use the comparison only to describe the sight—for he still retained human form—nonetheless his bearing terrified everyone.

  His brother lay on the ground with a broken nose, refusing to rise. Most likely Petros had given it to him, for it would not help him face the others. The two elders stood at the rear, blocking any escape and because they no longer had the strength or speed to fight Petros as equals.

  Rigas held his bow trained on the child in Kalli’s arms—something Stas shielded. I counted seven more arrows on the ground, which made Stas’s skill with the sword seem astonishing when one considered the distance and reaction time needed to deflect them—especially since Rigas, young as he was, possessed the finest natural talent for archery among the family heads.

  Thus Petros was facing four others, and that could not last much longer. I stepped forward, drew my sword and scabbard from my belt, raised it in both hands, and began to walk while speaking:

  “I will not harm you. I will lay my sword on the ground and surrender myself to the council. No tricks, nothing else. Only let Petros and his family receive help from a physician.”

  The moment the council members saw me they froze in terror, staring at me wide-eyed. Slowly I lowered the sword to the ground and took several steps away from it.

  “Ghost… curse…” cried the blue-robed elder.

  “You—you were dead. We all saw you. Your body disintegrated. This cannot be—this cannot be,” said the purple-clad leader, the Voufalos.

  “Send Petros and Stas to a physician at once—that takes precedence,” I said. “I am your prisoner now. Do with me what you will. I beg you—I will answer every question you have, if I can and if I know the answers.”

  But they showed no sign of listening.

  The crowd around us understood nothing of what was happening; they merely watched in bewilderment. I tried to approach Kalli and the child, who looked utterly terrified. It seemed Kalli had managed to draw it out from whatever hiding place the island had offered it and was suppressing its powers as best she could.

  In his panic, Sindy seized his double-headed axe and charged me with a roar. He halted at a safe distance, twisted his body to the right, gripped the axe in both hands, and clenched his teeth as though he meant to pour every ounce of his strength into a single blow.

  He swung the axe around, and I braced myself for a second death within the same day. The first had been excruciatingly painful, and I had no idea whether the second would lead me to the same fate—whether I would regain a body to complete my mission—but the thought did not trouble me greatly. The very taste of death I had already sampled pleased me more than life itself ever had. What truly frightened me was the thought that the stag might return and tell me I had not been sufficient to fulfill my task, that it would refuse me and never let me touch it again.

  That single thought terrified me, yet I did not know what I could do to avoid it. The axe drew near my body—and then came the sudden clash of metal against metal.

  Where the axe would have struck me, a sword now stood embedded, its hilt crowned with a silver dragon—exactly as in the mural deep within the cave. Perched upon the blade was Eftis—not the beggar Eftis, but the Eftis I had first met in my own house: the one in the suit, clean-shaven and youthful.

  He smiled at Sindy.

  “Greetings, inhabitants. How have you been? I hope you missed me, because I have missed you terribly,” he said.

  Sindy stared at him in confusion. His gaze darted between the sword and Eftis, and with every passing second realization dawned more clearly on his face. And not only on his—the rest of the council members watched in astonishment as they grasped that one of the ten knights—the only one never branded a traitor—was now shielding the hunted descendant of the lion.

  “I don’t wish to spoil your celebration,” Eftis continued, “but I’m afraid you cannot kill Leo for two reasons. The first is that I brought him into this world, and I intend to use him to drive every last one of you off my island. My mother granted you a favor out of respect, and I honor that favor—but I have grown weary of you ruining the place I inherited from her. This island belonged to the dragon family even before the rebellion; it continues to belong to it and will always belong to it—even if every one of you must die to make that so. So—do you wish to test my patience? Because if you do, I am more than ready to play.”

  “You mean to say you brought him here?” the blue-robed elder demanded. “Have you no respect for the fate your mother endured, for the fate all these people have suffered for so many years?”

  “No, none at all—just as my mother had none. The past does not interest me, any more than it interested her. She bore me and raised me to look after myself, and that is precisely what I do. But you, old man—do you never think that your children and your children’s children will die here upon this island and never see the sun? I have seen it on the other side, and I can tell you with certainty that it is magnificent. So I ask you: why do you insist on keeping everyone trapped on this island when something utterly paradoxical has occurred? He passed through the forest without my aid; the stag helped him; and now he has returned from the dead. Do you truly believe he came back from death by his own power alone? Not to mention that he is the first to have calmed one of the curses—something even I have never managed.”

  The elders remained visibly furious, rooted in place. Sindy looked at them with irritation, while the others appeared confused, as did the rest of the island’s inhabitants.

  “Bring a physician quickly—my brother will die!” Loupos shouted.

  The orange-, yellow-, and purple-robed leaders hurried to aid Petros and Stas. The fight had ended. They lowered their weapons and swiftly lifted Petros and his son to carry them to some healer. Once they had departed, Eftis stepped down from his sword and went on:

  “The second reason is that council members are forbidden to fight one another to the death—and as far as I know, the only descendant of the lion on the island at this moment is Leo. I myself am counted a descendant of the dragon, not the lion.”

  “He has not yet completed his training; he is not a member of the council,” answered the white-robed elder.

  “You forget that exceptions to the rules may be made in the absence of alternatives—just as in Rigas’s case—rules that are always subject first to an active knight, and then to the council in his absence.”

  Their anger swelled still greater; the elders’ teeth ground audibly; Sindy gazed on in disappointment and fury; Rigas seemed lost, uncertain what was happening. In the center of the square Kalli looked on with visible relief, and the child—now calm and no longer weeping—peeked timidly from between her arms, its red cheeks visible as it cautiously checked that all was well.

  “And to celebrate this great day,” Eftis declared, spreading his arms toward the crowd with a smile, “I call—for the first time in the history of the island since the other knights betrayed us—a full assembly of the council.” He opened his arms wider. “Because a new day will dawn—someday, we hope.”

  After a short while ten chairs were placed in a circle in the center of the square, and the ten of us took our seats. The inhabitants stood behind us and watched. The family heads had set their weapons aside, and Eftis—the only one still armed within the circle—rose and announced:

  “This is a historic moment, but truthfully—which of you do you think are ready to understand it? I call upon the youngest member of the council to introduce himself, and so—once again—the discussion may begin on how we will finally escape the repeating spiral in which we have been trapped for so many years.”