Styxx pulled Father back. "Please, Father," he said. "Calm down! The last thing you need is to tax your heart. I don't want to see you die as Estes did."
Acheron lay on the floor once more. His face covered in blood and bruises, had already started to swell.
"Don't," he said, pushing me away. He spat the blood from his mouth to the floor where it landed in a stark red splatter.
"Get out," Father snarled at him. "I don't ever want to see you again."
Acheron laughed at that and cast a look to Styxx. "Rather difficult for that, isn't it?"
Father started for him again, but Styxx put himself between them.
"Guards!" Styxx shouted.
They appeared instantly.
Styxx indicated Acheron with a jerk of his chin. "Put this trash on the street where it belongs."
Acheron pushed himself to his feet. "I don't need their help. I can walk out the door on my own."
"You need clothes and money," I told him.
"He deserves nothing," my father said. "Nothing but our scorn."
Acheron's battered face was completely stoic. "Then I am rich indeed from the abundance of that which you've shown me." At the door, he paused to smirk one last time at our father. "You know, it took me a long time to realize why you hate me so much." His gaze went to Styxx. "But then it's not me you really hate, is it? What you truly despise is how badly you want to fuck your own son."
My father bellowed in anger.
With his head held high, Acheron left the room.
"How could you?" I asked Father. "I told you years ago what Estes was doing with him and you denied it. How can you blame him for this?"
My father snarled at me. "Estes didn't do this. Acheron did it himself. Estes told me of the way he parades himself around. The way he tempts everyone. He's a destroyer just as they said at his birth. He will not rest until he ruins every person he's around."
I was appalled. How could a man renowned for his practical sense be so blind and stupid?
"He's just a confused boy, Father. He needs a family."
As always, Father ignored me.
Disgusted by him and Styxx, I rushed from the room, after Acheron.
I caught up to him as he was leaving the house and pulled him to a stop. The torment and pain in his silver eyes cut through me. There was no pleading from him this time. No asking me why. As with everything else, he merely accepted this as his due.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Does it matter?"
It did to me. But I knew he wouldn't answer.
I pulled my cloak off and wrapped it around his shoulders so that at least his nudity would be covered. I raised the cowl to shield his head and beauty, knowing it would be modest protection from the world around him.
He placed his hands over mine, then lifted my right hand to his bloodied lips and kissed the knuckles.
Without another word, he turned and left.
I stood in the doorway watching him as he walked through the crowded street and realized that he was wrong. He did have dignity. He walked down the street with all the proud bearing of a king.
May 17, 9529 BC
I was in the market square today, shopping with my maid Sera when I saw an exceptionally tall man pass by me. At first I thought it was Styxx, especially when a sudden gust of wind blew the cowl off of his head and I saw his incredibly handsome face.
But as I started to call out to him, I noticed that he wore the scarlet chiton of a prostitute-it was forbidden by law for prostitutes to appear in public wearing anything else and their heads must always be kept covered. If a practicing prostitute was caught mixing with people without that mode of dress to warn "decent" people what they were, they could be executed on sight.
Acheron quickly covered his head again as he moved through the crowd.
He looked much better than he had the last time I'd seen him. His skin was golden and tanned, and he was no longer painfully thin. His chiton covered one shoulder, leaving the other bare. An engraved golden cuff encircled his left biceps over an arm that finally had serious muscle to it.
My word, he was without a doubt the most handsome of men-even if he was my brother. I'd have to be blind not to notice.
Leaving Sera to browse over cloth, I followed after him, so grateful to find him alive and well.
But it broke my heart that he was still selling himself.
He met an attractive older woman at one of the booths who held a ring up to him.
"Does this fit?" she asked.
He handed it back to her. "I don't want a ring, Catera. But I thank you for the thought."
She returned the ring to the vendor, then ran her hand up and down his bare arm in an intimate caress.
A lover's caress.
He didn't react to it at all.
"My precious Acheron," she said with a laugh. "You're so unlike my other employees. You take only what you earn and nothing more and you tip every servant at the stew which is why they're so kind to you. I don't think I'll ever understand you." She took his hand and led him through the booths. "A word of wisdom to you, akribos, you need to learn to accept gifts."