Gordon Doherty - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Official Novelization

On rolled the endless march of time, the masked visions taunting her. One day, the vision of Deimos appeared, alone at the cell gate. She pretended not to notice him for a time, before springing up, thrusting her “lance” at his chest.

He did not vanish.

“Sister,” he said.

The word echoed through the jail like a drumbeat.

She struggled to balance, still in that mock battle pose. It was the first word she had been offered in so long. He wore his white robes, but—for once—no armor.

“I have struggled to understand what you were trying to do back in Sphakteria,” he said.

“The last thing I remember,” she replied, her own voice sounding strange after so long without speaking, “was trying to save you.”

“The last thing I remember is your spear knocking me unconscious,” he replied instantly. “It wouldn’t be the first time you have cast me away to die.”

“So that’s what the Cult told you?”

“That’s what I know .”

Kassandra laughed coldly. “So what now? Have you come to open my throat?”

“I could, anytime I want. Right now, even,” he rumbled.

She felt a deep resignation, a will for him to do as he threatened. But then she noticed him looking back over his shoulder, an edginess in his eyes, as if checking that nobody else was in the jail with him.

“But before that”—he raised a hand and clasped one of the gate bars, then pressed his face to a gap—“tell me what you know.”

“I thought the Cultists told you everything. Sounds like you’re on their side, but they’re not on yours. You know that’s why they keep me here, don’t you? As a spare.”

Deimos’s mouth flashed in a rictus and he shook the gate by the bars, causing it to clank. “You think I’m replaceable? Just a puppet? The Cult are nothing without me.”

“Did they tell you that too?” she asked calmly.

Deimos’s eyes flicked this way and that. “Do not goad me, Sister. Perhaps I should kill you right now—to spoil your theory, to show that you are nothing.”

“Then open the gate, come, do it,” she said, her heart gathering pace as she wondered if her legs had the spring they might need to make a break for it.

Deimos’s anger ebbed. “First, you will tell me your twisted version of the truth. Why was I abandoned that night on the mountain?”

Kassandra’s plans of escape faltered then. All she had wanted since that night was the chance to explain. Her thoughts began to gallop like a herd of Thessalian steeds, but she drew on invisible reins, slowing them, taking a breath, remembering her discussions with Sokrates. The best way to win a debate was to gently guide an opponent to the conclusion, using simple questions and plain reasoning like oars. She knelt on the cell floor, gesturing for Deimos to do the same on the other side of the gate.

“What do you remember of it?” she said. “I don’t mean the memories the artifact has shown you. What do you remember of it?”

Deimos slid down the gate to sit as well, one hand wringing his hair. “Mother, Father… you. Watching, all of you, as an old man lifted me.”

“An old man?”

His brow furrowed. “An… ephor.”

“Aye, it was.”

“Why? I was not lame or ill, was I?”

“No. But you were kissed by the poisonous lips of the Oracle.”

Deimos’s eyes searched the ether.

“And you know who feeds the Oracle her words.”

He nodded slowly, silently, staring into space. “A baby with a fate so terrible it was thrown off a cliff. What kind of prophecy would lead to that?”

“The Oracle said you were going to bring about Sparta’s downfall if you lived. Waiting for the outcome was too big a risk. When you survived, the Cult took you for themselves. They molded you into a champion… a weapon.”

“I made myself,” he growled, his eyes rolling up to stare at her like an angered hound.

“Into what? Is this what you wanted to be?”

“The Cult think me a God . They worship me!”

“Do they?” said Kassandra glibly.

Deimos rose again, chest rising and falling. He began to pace before the cell gate. “ Malákas! ” he cursed. “And your bones are made of gold, are they? Ha! They threw off the wrong child! No… I was saved that night, shorn from you and my wretched family.”

“Do you remember the last time you saw me that night?” she said.

Deimos slowed. “I remember… a look. A final look.”

“Aye, it was when I rushed for the edge of the mountain. When I tried to save you, to catch you.” Her head lolled as a sob tried to grow in her chest. “I failed. I killed an ephor instead. I was thrown from the mountain too as punishment. My life ended up there also.”

“The tragic hero,” he growled, swiping a hand but unable to look her in the eye.

“Nobody is to blame but the Cult, Deimos. Even Father—duty-bound and blinded by his Spartan pride—was their victim that night. It took me more than twenty years to understand his quandary that night. Had he not done what the Oracle demanded, we would all have been disgraced.”

“Disgraced?” Deimos raged. “And that would have been worse than the position we find ourselves in now?”

“Mother went after you too,” Kassandra pleaded.

Deimos halted. “What?”

“She went down into the bone pit to find you. And she did find you.”

Deimos stared at her.

“She fled Sparta and took you to a healer. But that healer was Chrysis the Cultist, who lied to Mother, told her you had died.” She wrapped both hands around the cell bars. “Don’t you see? You’re being used. You wouldn’t be here with me if you thought they were telling you the whole truth.” She gestured to the jail’s exterior door. “This is what the Cult do. They harness power while it is useful. They have done it with you. They have done the same with Athens. They once did the same with Sparta, planting their number among the ephors and even the kings. When a person or even a state ceases to be useful, they will be cast off, destroyed.”

“Kleon has the power in Athens now. He will not be letting go. And he would not be so foolish as to underestimate my part in bringing him that prize.” He grabbed the bars like Kassandra, his nose touching hers. “The Cult will never control me,” he seethed. “I’m winning this war for them.”

Kassandra stared into his eyes. “At what cost… Alexios?”

Deimos trembled. “Whatever it takes,” he whispered. “Is that not your very mantra, Misthios?”

Both beheld each other for an age.

The groan of the exterior door snapped both from the moment.

Kleon strode in and looked Kassandra up and down as if she were a scrap of dog meat. Deimos backed away from the bars as if caught in some criminal act.

“We’ve been searching for you, Deimos,” Kleon snapped. “Interesting that I should find you… here.”

“I came to… It’s nothing.” He shook his head, not meeting Kleon’s sharp look.

“You came to kill her?” he guessed, arching an eyebrow. “That was not your action to take, boy . Leave. Now!” He snapped his fingers, pointing at the door.

“I am not your puppet,” Deimos rumbled, looking Kleon in the eye, “and you are not my master.”

Kleon held Deimos’s gaze. An oily smile rose on his face. “Of course, Champion,” he said, his tone softening. “I merely worry for your well-being.”

Deimos shrugged. “Do whatever you want with her,” he hissed, turning to leave. As he did so, he met Kassandra’s eye one last time before swinging away, leaving the jail.

Kleon beheld her now, hands clasped over his belt like a fat man who has just enjoyed a double helping of food. She noticed the cloying scent of sweet wax wafting from his carefully groomed red locks and pointed beard, and that he wore one of Perikles’s robes.