Chapter 1 - THE CITY BENEATH THE GODDESS
Leandros did not know how long he stood beneath Athena’s shadow.
The bronze owl pendant cut into his palm.
His sister, Myrine, clung to his tunic with both hands.
Below them, Athens burned in pieces.
Not one great fire.
Dozens.
A roof collapsing near the Agora.
A warehouse by the lower road.
Two houses near the pottery quarter.
A line of torches moving through streets where frightened men believed flame could kill sickness before sickness entered their own homes.
From the Acropolis, the city looked almost beautiful.
That was the horror.
The walls remained.
The temples remained.
The Parthenon shone pale beneath the storm-dark sky.
But between sacred stones, people died in gutters.
Myrine whispered, “Mother said the gods could prove it.”
Leandros closed his fist around the owl.
He had no answer.
His mother was either dead, burning, or both.
The thought came without tears.
He hated himself for that.
Then Myrine coughed.
Leandros turned so quickly she flinched.
“Again.”
“What?”
“Cough again.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Do it.”
She stared at him.
Then coughed once.
Dry.
Small.
Nothing came from her mouth.
No blood.
No choking.
Leandros touched her forehead.
Normal.
He exhaled.
Myrine pulled away.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like Mother.”
The words hit harder than any fist.
Leandros looked toward the city below.
“Come.”
“Where?”
He had no idea.
The Acropolis was crowded with people who had climbed seeking protection.
Refugees slept between columns.
Priests shouted prayers.
Sick men lay beneath blankets near the temple walls.
Some families guarded water jars with knives.
Others offered coins to anyone claiming knowledge of herbs, divine signs, or foreign cures.
One old woman sold small clay charms stamped with Apollo’s bow.
A dead child lay beside her.
Nobody seemed to notice.
Leandros moved away from the temple precinct.
If the sickness was spreading through crowds, staying among hundreds of terrified people felt like waiting inside a trap.
A man blocked him.
“Where are you taking the girl?”
Leandros looked at him.
Middle-aged.
Broad.
A scar across his nose.
Citizen armor without the helmet.
Not on duty.
Maybe no one was on duty anymore.
“Away.”
The man looked at Myrine.
“Is she sick?”
“No.”
“Show her neck.”
Leandros’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
The man reached.
Leandros struck his hand away.
Instantly two others turned.
Everyone watched everyone now.
The man’s voice hardened.
“If she’s sick, you endanger us.”
Leandros laughed.
“Us?”
He pointed around.
A feverish woman vomited near the temple steps.
A corpse had been pushed beneath a statue because no one wanted to carry it farther.
Two men fought over a wineskin.
“What exactly am I endangering?”
The man grabbed him.
Leandros drove his shoulder forward.
They crashed into a column base.
Myrine screamed.
A priest shouted for order.
No one listened.
The man punched Leandros in the mouth.
Blood filled his tongue.
Then another hand seized the attacker from behind and threw him back.
A soldier stepped between them.
The same wounded soldier Leandros had seen near the temple earlier.
His left arm was bandaged.
His bronze cuirass was dented.
His face looked gray from exhaustion.
“You want to fight?” the soldier asked the man.
The man stepped back.
The soldier raised his spear.
“Then go outside the walls. Spartans are waiting.”
That ended it.
The man disappeared into the crowd.
Leandros wiped blood from his mouth.
“You.”
The soldier looked at him.
“You asked where Athena was.”
The man gave a tired smile.
“Still waiting.”
Myrine whispered, “What is your name?”
“Damon.”
He crouched carefully because of the wound.
“And yours?”
“Myrine.”
“Good name.”
She pointed to his arm.
“Will you die?”
Leandros closed his eyes.
Children had lost the habit of politeness quickly.
Damon looked at the bandage.
“Not from this.”
Myrine seemed satisfied.
Leandros asked, “Do you know somewhere safe?”
Damon laughed.
“No.”
“Then somewhere less crowded.”
“Maybe.”
He looked toward the western slope.
“There’s an old potter’s workshop below the Areopagus. Family fled two days ago.”
“Plague?”
“Fear.”
“Difference?”
“Sometimes.”
Damon led them down.
The streets near the Acropolis were jammed.
Bodies lay beneath cloaks.
People stepped around them.
One corpse had been stripped naked.
Another still wore a gold ring because no one wanted to touch the hand.
That was new.
Fear finally stronger than greed.
They passed a fountain where fifty people fought for water.
A man filled two jars while his wife held a knife.
Behind them someone collapsed.
Nobody stopped.
Myrine held Leandros tighter.
“Don’t look,” he said.
She looked anyway.
Like him.
Like Elena.
The workshop stood behind a courtyard filled with broken amphorae.
Damon forced the door.
Inside smelled of clay, dust, and old smoke.
No bodies.
No sickness.
No food either.
Still, there was a roof.
Leandros checked every corner.
Myrine sat against the wall.
Damon closed the door.
“You can stay tonight.”
Leandros stared.
“And you?”
“I’m returning to my unit.”
“Why?”
Damon looked surprised by the question.
“Because I’m a soldier.”
“Your unit is fighting citizens.”
“My unit is supposed to guard grain stores.”
“Is it?”
Damon’s expression changed.
“Sometimes.”
Leandros leaned against a workbench.
“My mother died because a mob was burning infected houses.”
Damon said nothing.
“She told us fear was killing Athens.”
Damon removed his helmet and set it down.
“Your mother was right.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“No.”
For a moment neither spoke.
Then Damon reached into his belt pouch and gave Leandros two pieces of barley bread.
Myrine stared at them.
Leandros hesitated.
“Take it.”
“Why?”
“Because you look like you’ll ask stupid questions until morning.”
Leandros almost smiled.
Myrine ate slowly.
Damon watched the door.
“Do not go to the lower market.”
“Why?”
“They’re saying poisoned wells again.”
Leandros remembered the docks.
“Foreigners?”
“Foreigners. slaves. metics. anyone people already disliked.”
“Who started it?”
Damon shrugged.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
The soldier looked at him.
“Then find out.”
He left before dark.
That sentence stayed.
Find out.
As if truth still had weight.
As if knowing who began a lie could stop it.
Leandros slept poorly.
Myrine slept against his shoulder.
Near midnight, shouting woke him.
Not from the street.
From the neighboring building.
A woman screamed.
Then a man.
Then silence.
Leandros held Myrine’s mouth gently so she would not cry out.
Footsteps entered the courtyard.
Several people.
A voice whispered,
“Search everything.”
Thieves.
Or soldiers.
Or citizens who had learned the difference no longer mattered.
The workshop door rattled.
Leandros found a clay-cutting knife.
Small.
Barely a weapon.
Myrine crawled behind a kiln.
The door opened.
A torch entered first.
Then a young man.
Maybe twenty.
Thin.
Hungry.
He saw Leandros.
Both froze.
The stranger held a short sword.
Leandros held the knife.
For one long moment they measured each other.
Then a second voice called from outside,
“Anything?”
The young man looked toward the kiln.
He had seen Myrine.
Leandros knew.
The stranger looked back at him.
Then shouted,
“Empty!”
Footsteps moved away.
The young man lowered his sword.
Leandros did not.
“Why?”
The stranger whispered,
“Because my sister is ten.”
Then he left.
Leandros stood motionless.
Myrine crawled out.
“Was he bad?”
Leandros looked at the door.
“I don’t know.”
That answer seemed to describe Athens better than anything else.
Morning brought worse news.
Damon returned.
His armor was covered in soot.
“Get up.”
Leandros stood instantly.
“What?”
“The lower district is closing.”
“By who?”
“Council order.”
“Why?”
“Too many sick.”
Myrine asked, “Closing how?”
Damon looked at her.
He did not want to say.
Leandros understood.
Barricades.
Quarantine.
Maybe fire.
“Where do we go?”
Damon said, “Piraeus.”
Leandros laughed.
“The docks are where the riots started.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
“Because ships still come.”
“From where?”
“Islands. sometimes.”
“Are they taking people out?”
“No.”
“So why Piraeus?”
Damon leaned closer.
“Because a physician there is studying the sickness.”
Leandros stared.
“The last doctor I saw was beaten to death.”
“This one has guards.”
“That makes him wiser?”
“Alive.”
Myrine finished the last bread.
Damon continued.
“He believes the sickness is not poison.”
“Then what?”
“He says he doesn’t know.”
Leandros trusted that more than any priest.
Damon looked at him.
“His name is Nikias.”
“Why should we care?”
“Because he wants people who have lived in houses with the sick but remain healthy.”
Leandros went still.
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“Myrine too.”
“Yes.”
Damon looked toward the door.
“You may have been exposed.”
Leandros felt fear enter slowly.
Not dramatic.
Cold.
“What does Nikias want?”
“To watch.”
Myrine frowned.
“Watch us?”
“For signs.”
Leandros hated the idea.
Damon added,
“And he has food.”
That decided more than science.
They left the workshop.
The road toward the Long Walls was packed.
Refugees from rural Attica crowded between Athens and Piraeus.
Farmers whose land Spartans had burned.
Citizens from infected districts.
Sailors.
Slaves.
Children.
Animals.
The walls meant safety from enemy spears.
They also trapped everyone in one long corridor of heat, waste, and disease.
Leandros smelled sickness before seeing it.
Vomit.
Smoke.
Urine.
Rot.
People lay against the wall foundations.
Some still alive.
A woman begged for water.
Myrine stopped.
Leandros did too.
Damon said, “We cannot help everyone.”
Thomas—no, Leandros—heard his mother inside him.
Fear is killing Athens.
He gave the woman half their water.
Damon sighed.
But did not stop him.
They walked on.
Near the midpoint of the Long Walls, a crowd blocked the road.
Men were shouting.
At the center stood three Phoenician merchants.
Bound.
Someone had painted black marks across their faces.
A citizen screamed,
“They brought the sickness from Egypt!”
Another shouted,
“Kill them!”
Damon cursed.
Soldiers stood nearby.
Doing nothing.
Leandros recognized one of the merchants.
The dying man from the market had worn the same trading insignia.
Not proof.
Nothing was proof anymore.
A priest raised a knife.
The crowd roared.
Myrine covered her ears.
Leandros whispered,
“Who benefits?”
Damon looked at him.
“What?”
Leandros remembered no Luc in this story; the phrase wasn't given by user. Need not mention. But can originate from his mother's lesson? Actually we should avoid cross-story contamination. Let's continue cleanly:
“Who gets their warehouses?”
Damon stared.
“What?”
“If they die.”
The soldier understood.
He looked toward a group of Athenian grain dealers at the edge of the crowd.
Watching.
Waiting.
One smiled.
Damon’s face hardened.
“Stay here.”
He pushed into the mob.
Leandros grabbed him.
“You’ll be killed.”
“Maybe.”
“Then what?”
Damon looked toward the bound merchants.
“Then at least I’ll know where Athena was.”
He shoved forward.
Leandros stood with Myrine.
Every instinct told him to keep walking.
Piraeus.
Food.
A physician.
Safety.
Then one of the bound merchants looked at him.
Not pleading.
Just exhausted.
Leandros looked at his mother’s owl.
He hated her for leaving him with a symbol that made cowardice feel visible.
He handed Myrine to an old woman beside the wall.
“Hold her.”
Myrine screamed, “Leandros!”
He stepped into the crowd.
May you like
Not because he believed the gods were watching.
Because he was.
