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# Chapter Three
The riders from Trefos came not long after the body of Timoxenos had been reduced to a silver smear.  Kyros crouched over to watch the decomposition, while Asclepogenia chose instead to wander to the orchard in search of apples. The morning sun was high when the horses approached. 

She couldn't tell as they rode past in their leather armor which, if any was her uncle Bolus. She got her answer when one of the riders slowed and turned back after the others had passed. 

“This is a mighty long way away from home to gather apples.” Bolus used his humor to mask his frustration and fear. 

“I came with Kyros. It seemed unsafe for him to go alone.” 

“It was unsafe for either of you to go. What happened here?”

“Over there, we found someone.” She pointed to Kyros who was now stood and looked across the orchard towards the the girl and her uncle. 

Bolus relieved his horse of his considerable weight and walked with it towards the young archer. 

“Alive or dead?”

“Dead now. The village was otherwise empty by the time we arrived.”  She fed the horse one of the small hard apples she had found. 

“Don’t do that, you’ll spoil him.” Bolus scolded in jest. His niece's face seemed unphased by his spirit. Her eyes and their sleepless circles avoided his. “I can take you home now, you don’t have to see anymore.”

“I’ll see this through.” she said, but then added a moment later “Is mother angry?” 

Bolus sighed. “As far as I know she doesn’t know you’ve been gone. She sleeps more and more these days.”

Asclepogenia was glad she need not reply for they were there standing over the silver mess that had once been a man. Only the skull and leathers remained visible over the silver stain.  

“What’s this then?” Bolus looked between the two young faces. 

“Was a Warden about an hour ago.” Kyros said with a sigh. “He told us whoever sacked this place was using some form of Zro right before he died. Zro seemed to multiply with the blood. Suppose they ate the entire village.” 

Asclepogenia had come to the same conclusion as she stood among the apple trees and obsessively replayed all she’d seen. “He also said, they headed West once they were done.”

“That’s a small blessing.” Bolus said. “Asclepogenia, could you find us something to put some of this Zro in? Might be something in the village. 

“Yes, Uncle”. 

“And boy, go fetch us a sack or some bedclothes. We’ve got to take what’s left of ‘im to the Osto Fovea for a proper warriors burials.” He sneered in protest, but said nothing to the older man. 

Kyros and Asclepogenia returned to the ruined town, each going their separate ways in search of the artifacts of life might have survived the fire and prove useful to them now. The riders from Trefos circled by her, paused to stare before recognizing her as one of their own and then continued their wanderings. Asclepogenia eventually found a glass vial among a dozen broken ones. Kyros returned shortly with his arms laden with all manner of fabric.

“Good, good.” Bolus said and knelt in the grass and scraped some of the Zro off the leather. A thimbleful made it into the vial which he wiped clean, corked and handed back to the girl. 

“Take good care of that. It may be our only hope. Kyros, you got her here, can you return her home?” 

“Aye.” Kyros said catching sight of the other Wardens begin to congregate outside the village. Bolus kissed his niece on the forehead and returned to the others riders. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Asclepogenia finally asked in his ear. She was behind him on the horse and clutched his side as Kyros drove the horse down the path with a heavy kick. He grunted, more a vibration that passed between his chest and hers. 

“Your uncle, he treated me like a child.” 

“He does that sometimes.” 

“That’s fine with you. You’re his kin. I’m a warden.” 

“For now….you abandoned your post.” She half-teased. “They’ll probably have you discharged.”

This caused him to bring the agitated mare to a halt. They were past the river’s golden poplars and ash groves. The village was less than an hour's ride, through the dense oak forest.  She had made his mood worse, she could tell as he turned to the side and spat. “I wouldn't be in this mess if weren’t for you.”

“I begged you not to go.”

“That’s not how I remember it.” He said shifting his weight to extricate himself from the girl's grip and slide from the horse. He paced in angry circles. 

“Okay, whatever you say. Just please let’s get home.” 

“I’m not going. You’re right they’ll probably have me discharged. Trefos is no place for me.” 

“Kyros. Stop teasing.”

“You should go.” he narrowed his thick dark brows at the girl on the horse. 

“I won’t leave without you. Stop being…” she paused and watched him draw his bow. The word silly had hung in her mouth but now evaporated leaving behind a sick taste of fear. 

“Get.” 

Dizzy with confusion and fear Asclepogenia adjusted herself into the saddle and urged the horse into motion. 
She turned her head to see him cock his bow in her direction. “He has the worst temper.” she murmured to herself once he was out of sight around the curve in the path. “Perhaps the walk back will do him good.”

Kyros was not seen from again. She expected to see his scowling sour face in the streets that evening after his walk from where she’d left him, arrow pointed at her  in anger. She thought perhaps she’d see him the next day, but there was no sign of him, even when she was called before the elders Kyros seemed to have stuck to his word.  

There were questions for her that day and she bore them alone, with the vial of Zro held tightly in her hand she reported everything that had happened including how Kyros abandoned her on the path home. 

“I was only teasing him. I didn’t really think he’d be punished. You wouldn't have done that?” she asked, for the first time during the questioning losing her composure and letting the tears she had been holding back cloud her vision. 

“No, Kyros didn’t do anything wrong, but neither was he wise to go off alone without reporting in.” said the captain of Wardens.

“The boy was headstrong and never did want to follow the rules.” said another, after removing her helmet before the elders. “He was reckless and he craved a fight.” she said. 

Asclepogenia did not like the unspoken “So it’s better that he is gone” that she could sense at the end of that sentence, for as much as Kyros had tormented her , he was her friend. 

“He is still one of our own.” Said the crone closest to the fire. “Captain, send some of your wardens to look for him. Watchers too. He may have intended for this to be a temporary expression of his youthful will…” she paused to gather a laboured breath that sounded to Asclepogenia as dry as dust “with every intent to return to us, he may have come into some trouble. There are invaders about after all...” 

“Yes, Ma’am.” said the captain who saluted and left the tent. Asclepogenia feeling heavy with sadness had turned her gaze to her lap, and turned the small vial over in her hands.

Her teacher Onatas, rose from his bench among the other elders and approached his pupil. He whispered to her and she handed over the vial, which he held aloft. It appeared luminous orange a reflection of the central fire burning in the brazier. 

“This silver Zro, is a forbidden permutation of the Holy Substance. As you’ve heard from Asclepogenia’s account it can consume and multiply when introduced to blood. The poor lad who succumb to it lived long enough to relay the message that someone was animating it! A remarkable and terrible thought … which leads me to conclude that this sample should be sent to the capital at once. Perhaps the Augers in Thira can divine who created it. From their investigations we might come to know who unleashed it upon our unfortunate neighbours and what purpose they have behind their actions. 

“But who can we trust with a journey of such lengths?” asked one of his cohort.

“The very woman who found it.” Onatas announced, returning the vial to her hands and clasping them shut. “She should go, she can tell her story unadulterated to the Augers, which might assist in their research. Besides, Asclepogenia has learnt nearly everything she can from me. It’s time she began her training in at the hands of the masters in Thira.”

Asclepogenia was glad Onatas held her hands together because they began to tremble. His suggestion made her head throb. The flames radiant heat on her face amplified the effect as the thought sunk in. Thira was the fount of marvels and the crowning point of the entire Theran civilization. Few, save the traveling merchant caravans had been. Her Uncle Bolus trained there as a boy and learned the ways of the magic. She suspected all the elders had been as well before they became to aged to make the trip. She had heard descriptions of the slender towers rising into the sky, but barely understood. In her imagination it was a city carved of ice and crystal and flowing water that grew into being rather than was constructed by Theran hands. 

“What do you think of that?” asked the crone. Onatas let go of her hands and Asclepogneia cradled the Zro, her ticket to the fantastical realm that received at the question from the old woman. 

“It would be an honour and a great responsibility.” 

“The next caravan is due to arrive any day now. We should make preparations so you can travel with them. It will take several weeks to travel the rest of the trade route but you’ll get to the capital before the first snow.” Onatas told her. 

She thanked the elders for their audience and stumbled out into the light of day. Thira and a trip of some weeks, to meet the augurs and be trained beyond what Onatas knew. It overwhelmed her and she gripped the tentpole as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. 

Then her face paled as a seed of dread was planted amongst her joy. She exclaimed “What will Mother think?!”