I
They walked him out of the burning archive with a spear point between his shoulder blades.
The corridor was black with smoke. The Spartans moved through it in a tight, silent wedge, and Lysander walked in the middle of them with his wrists bound in front of him. Behind him the roof of the supply room fell in with a long, soft crash, and a wave of heat rolled down the passage after them.
He did not look back.
Odysseus walked beside him, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He did not hurry. He stepped over fallen beams the way a man steps over puddles on his way to market.
They came out into the open air.
The city was not the city Lysander remembered.
The streets below the palace were full of Greeks. They moved in loose companies, carrying torches, pulling down shutters, kicking in doors. Somewhere to the east a roar went up, a thousand voices at once, and it took him a moment to understand that it was not a battle cry. It was cheering.
