They approached Coron from the north. The land of Samatis that boasted more mountainous terrain than Astagoria spiraled them around a jutting cliff face, guided them through a naturally made arch, and put grunts in the horses’ climb to peak the hill revealing the place of her birth. Orius moved them to the side of the road for a worker with his clattering cart to pass while Rhene gawked. 

The south side of the hill was a gentle slope depositing the lake of a larger river to the west over a rainbow-arched waterfall continuing the river into several splits and smaller pools until the paths recombined into one that wound out of sight. Fields of golden, growing grain stalks rustled as echoing chimes in the wind, their bowing dance the parting of a veil when their group slowly made their way down. Large farmhouses of white brick glittered in the sun with the tight collection of buildings at the bottom the charming heart of the modest village. Rhene raised herself in the saddle to catch sight of the endless emerald of curly grape vines on their stakes. 

“It is a beautiful place. I most certainly wish to paint it when I have the chance,” she gushed. 

“Coron has grown in years past,” Orius explained. “Its wild beauty remains, but a new road cut through the mountains to the south has brought more frequent trade and travel to the area. Other settlements, like Kephi, have blossomed greater with wealth, but I would rather keep Coron closer to what it was than see it become unfamiliar.” 

“Do you know many here still?” 

“Enough. We’re certain to pass known faces before long. Our first proper stop is the house where we’ll meet Anysia.” 

They reached the village then kept on west. Past artisans with their pots, past weavers with their cloths, and past farmers with their crops. A sparkle touched her eye upon noticing a stand laden with crates of small, juicy fruit of red. Rhene habitually didn’t ask and so the tips of her ears matched the fruit when Evelthon, after abruptly disappearing, brought his horse astride them with a hefty pouch of cherries. Rhene sucked and chewed greedily on the delightfully sour treat. Orius shook his head upon her refusal to spit the seed and stem on the ground and otherwise dropped them into the same pouch. 

“The mess will not simply disappear, you know.” 

“I know. However, how am I to litter the walked ground with something half-eaten? I’m sure the birds and critters in the woods would rather have such things.” 

“It’d be faster and easier to rid yourself of the refuse now.” 

“Is ‘faster and easier’ always the best—” 

A muffled, pained cry stole the rest of Rhene’s words. No one else reacted to it, including Orius and Evelthon, even though she knew she did not imagine the sound. Desperately searching, her whole chest vibrated like the manic beating of a bird wing seeing the horrifying edge of violence a few streets down. Blood fled from her extremities to turn her ashen white. 

“What’s wrong?” Evelthon checked, the pace of the horses slowing. 

“There’s a man hitting a woman down there!” Rhene relayed, the squeak of her voice betraying a quickly welling fire of indignance. 

“Yes. That’s a slave and her master. She must have displeased him in some manner,” Orius acknowledged nonchalantly. A kick of his heel swiftly returned their horse to its faster pace and the man and woman out of sight. 

“We need to stop it!” 

“We have no right to stop anything,” Orius sighed impatiently. “How he wishes to treat her is up to him, and it will teach her how to avoid a punishment like that in the future.” 

Rhene’s mouth dropped. Orius’s matter-of-fact tone coiled a powerful urge of disgust in her stomach that almost spurred her to leap off the horse to go help the woman...until she did the slightest shift, bitterly recognized her utter lack of coordination, and accepted that the only thing that stunt would accomplish was a broken leg. 

“We do not treat our slaves like that in Astagoria! It’s barbaric!” 

“Astagoria most certainly treats its slaves like that,” Orius tutted. “It was merely your household that did not.” 

“It’s no way to treat a person!” Rhene clutched her digging fingernails into her knees again, especially when Evelthon, though wearing sympathy, said nothing to challenge her brother. Rhene mumbled, “You keep telling me I have freedom. Perhaps I shall use that freedom to change the treatment of the slaves for the better.” 

Orius immediately barked a disparaging laugh. “What a hypocrite.” 

“What?” 

“You’re a hypocrite.” 

“I am not.” 

“You are.” Orius glanced back at her. Rhene’s pout soured at his dry stare, but it was the patronizing in his look that dared to make her scowl. “Be as mad as you wish. However, think on your words. You care about that woman despite how you have no connection to her, yes?” 

“Yes,” Rhene agreed emphatically. 

“You acknowledge her as a person and her right to be treated fairly?” 

“Yes.” 

“And the grand goal you’ve abruptly decided upon?” 

“To make sure that she and others like her are treated fairly,” Rhene insisted. 

“Hah!” Orius scoffed another infuriating laugh. “Even when I state it like that, you do not understand.” 

“Then tell me plainly.” 

“You say you care, but you don’t feel that way. Your ‘goal’ is not to truly liberate that woman from her suffering but to liberate yourself from having to witness it. Else you would have said you will eradicate the position of ‘slave’ altogether.” 

“T-That’s—!” Rhene sputtered. 

“You see her as a person but don’t mind that she’s enslaved. It doesn’t matter if she’s bound in shackles as long as those shackles are comfortable enough. If her master hadn’t been hitting her just now, you would have ridden by her happily without a second thought like the many others we pass right now. Where is your concern for them?” 

The vibrating in Rhene’s chest solidified into a constricting, suffocating block sending the tart sting of the cherries’ taste to the bottom of her throat. Rhene couldn’t find another word to say, and Orius straight back made it clear he felt he’d said just enough. Evelthon’s lowered stare flicked between the two of them, but he, too, stayed silent. Only when the buildings spread apart again and the intense flow of bodies scurrying out of the path of their horses decreased did Rhene release the tension in a long, soft exhale. 

“I think you’re right,” she said. 

“I must ask—think?” Orius postured, the condemnation gone from his tone.

“The emotional part of me wishes to refute you still, but the logical part of me accepts what you said. I spoke the first thing that came to me to relieve myself of a horrible feeling without consideration of what I was truly saying. I wonder then...what you will say if I do adjust my goal from your advice and desire the freedom of all slaves.” 

“I would then call you naïve,” the faintest of smiles twitched his lips. “Many do not consider slaves people, and it is how they reprieve themselves of the emotional burden of the subjugation of others. I, like you, do recognize them as people. However, one can call me coldly practical. As much as I agree that their treatment is heartless, I also understand that society cannot function without them. Not as it is built now. A new means of living would have to be crafted, and that is a process compounding throughout generations and lifetimes into centuries. It is a godly undertaking bound to lead to conflict and bloodshed that few mortals could properly lead or maintain. As such, I leave things to be. I accept my own cruelty and have decided it is not my calling. If you find it yours, good luck. You’ll need all that Kelmera can grant.” 

“I...want to do something. That much I know,” Rhene mused softly. 

“You have time,” Evelthon unlocked his voice, injecting what cheer he could. “The best way to figure your desires out is to know yourself. Let’s get you home, then get you to Myrcaea to meet Aetion, and I’m sure everything will fall into place from there.” 

“Wise words,” Orius concurred. “We’re almost there.” 

Ten minutes more split them onto a side path towards a quaint house. Small but with two stories, the standard white brick showed signs of age with splatters of a fresh patch of clay for upkeep. A large front yard of trampled dirt held two wagons, supplies of wood beyond any purpose Rhene knew, and scattered tools. A well to the south provided easy water with a branch of the river two-hundred feet west while trees giving shade and grass luring one for a mid-day nap painted an idyllic scene. 

“If you live in Myrcaea, who lives here now?” 

Rhene’s pondering came free right before an older woman emerged from the open front door. A slight hunch bent her forward, but muscles hardened by labor silently impressed to Rhene that even the elderly of Samatis were lions before her miserable frame of prey. 

“Orius! How wonderful!” the woman, tan chiton loose upon her shoulders, rushed over with arms outstretched. “I thought Lasos was timely with his trip to the market, but I am more glad to see you. Who is this lovely lady behind you? Finally getting married?” 

“I know you would like that, Anysia. However,” Orius grunted helping Rhene dismount after lowering himself down, “this is no woman for me to marry. It has been a long time, but please reacquaint yourself with Hellanike.” 

“Hella...?” Anysia gasped, quivering hands over her mouth. “It is! Last time I saw you, you were nothing more than a dearly chubby babe. Your hair, your eyes, and that face,” Anysia cupped Rhene’s cheeks in her palms with eyes misty, “you’ve finally come back to us.” 

“Anysia is a neighbor who looked after me often. She helped Mater deliver you and tend to you. When Pater and I moved to Myrcaea, we entrusted our house to her and her husband as their own was near collapse,” Orius explained. 

“Lasos tried to go after that horrible man who took you,” Anysia continued, and Rhene realized the better sense it was to not show affection for her father right now. “He can’t move well though after a falling horse snapped his leg. How miraculous it is that Orius managed to recover you! Have you been in Astagoria all this time?” 

“Yes. I-I know it is considerably different than the way citizens here live, but...I was raised with care and treated as one of their own, to the point where I did not know I wasn’t.” 

“Well,” Anysia clicked her tongue, her disdain kept to a careful minimum, “that is the least they could have done. Wouldn’t have hurt to feed you more too—you've got twigs for arms, girl! Kalykso wouldn’t have it, and neither will I. Come, you must be starving.” 

“I actually just—wah!” 

Grabbed by the hand, Rhene’s jerked-to-a-start walking brought her inside the building where, with a swell of anticipation...she saw a house. Sturdy walls held no decorations but a few memorabilia from Lasos’s time in the military or keepsakes from the children they raised. Simple wooden furniture existed in the barest quantity possible to provide space to eat, work, and hold the tools needed for day-to-day life. One corner contained a comfortable enough supply of food starting to be saved for winter. Rhene assumed the bedroom was the upper floor. How strange it was to have so little space. If she knew no different, the lack would surely not exist. Rhene did know though and thus wished for her private bedroom and house with numerous rooms. 

Anysia doted on her like a grandmother. Rhene held a struggling grin at the vast plates of food set before her, and she heard tale after tale of young Orius’s misadventures and embarrassing happenings while otherwise having her infant form being doted on as the sweetest of all babes. Her labor was apparently so fast and devoid of pain that Kalykso was back to simple chores by the end of the day. Rhene tried to ask more of her birth mother, but Anysia visibly struggled with each request. She gave what she can, but Rhene soon stopped asking. 

“Anysia tried and failed to stop Pelagon from killing Mater,” Orius whispered into her ear later on. “He attacked and nearly killed her too. It is difficult for her to talk about Mater due to that. I apologize, for I should have warned you.” 

“It is alright. I understand, and Aetion will have stories. Unless, he, as well, doesn’t...” 

“He’ll love to speak about her.” 

Lasos returned from the market half an hour later. His appearance was opposite his wife’s—dark in hair, eyes, and skin where she was light in all—but his welcoming countenance and exasperation over Rhene’s thin frame was the same. He enjoyed speaking of the town and of the latest gossip. One look at the thick scar splitting his left leg in two also put him on a dramatic recounting of his great success in battle that turned the tide before one slip of the horse balanced out his luck with the cosmos. 

“Who are you again? I just realized you’re here too,” Lasos eyed Evelthon when the broken leg story came to an end. 

“You and your addled mind,” Anysia shook her head. “This is Orius’s companion...uh...” 

“Evelthon, sir,” Evelthon reminded. 

“That’s right!” Lasos slapped the table. “And where are you from?” 

“It’s a little...” 

“Are you anticipating more company?” Orius interjected. Having stood from the lack of chairs, his position allowed him a full view out the door. “There’s a woman running this way.” 

“Hmm, might be Eunice. She’s supposed to be bringing by the money her pater owes us,” Lasos rubbed his bearded chin, straining to bend and see. “Don’t think we scared him so much that she’d need to run tho—” 

Regardless of her reason, the woman ran. Ran right into the house past Orius, who stiffened but let her be. Rhene tensed and straightened her lips when, out of all the bodies before her, the brunette several years older than her collapsed to her knees, burst into tears, and wrapped her arms around Rhene’s waist. 

“Hellanike! It is you! I’m so glad!” the woman sobbed wildly. 

“I-I’m sorry, you are?” Rhene gulped. The woman, however, just buried her face into Rhene’s lap. Lasos stroked his beard harder. 

“Glad she’s overjoyed to see you,” he shrugged, “but she’s no Eunice.”