“Beginning here.” Hondros pointed at Alexander. “What is a sphinx’s weakness?”
“Knowledge. She will kill herself if you answer all of her riddles correctly.”
A curt nod was his only praise for a job well done. “Cirillo, how would you identify the true form of an empousa?”
“By looking at it. Empousas are demons that take the form of beautiful women to lure foolish men to their deaths. They don’t adopt these forms for women.” Sirena tossed him a wink. “That’s why you army boys can’t ride without us. You need the girls to protect you.”
That got a laugh out of the class and nothing from Hondros. He continued on, asking each student a question from the reading.
Hondros paused after Theron. Looking from the clipboard to me, the clipboard, then back to me. It was ridiculous to think my absence from his class would go unnoticed. The answer of if he knew why I was gone for a week was revealed in his growing frown.
“Galanis.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Captain,” he barked.
“Yes, Captain.”
“How do you kill a kampe?”
I scanned the depths of my knowledge, searching for one mention of a kampe from the many nights Iris read to us to take our minds off the dreary monotony of every day.
It turned up its answer. “I don’t know what a kampe is, Captain.”
A muscle ticced in his jaw. “Then, it’s fortunate you’ll learn what they are in the process of writing me a two-scroll essay. Same goes for the rest of you.”
Groans tensed me in my seat. “Useless fuck! You can’t read either?”
“Enough,” Captain sliced in. “Next question, Galanis.”
What? Me again?
“How do the offspring of the Calydonian boar differ from their forefather? Why does this trait make them harder to kill?”
I felt it coming before I opened my mouth. “I know of the monster boars, but I didn’t know they were different from the first.”
“Idiot!”
“Everyone knows this!”
“Captain, give the useless the essays, not us.”
“It does not work like that,” Hondros replied. “In battle, the failure of one brings the ruin of many. The death of Galen Teresi should have taught you that.”
I sank in my seat, cheeks burning with shame. A glance at Alexander made me jerk. He was finally looking at me, and the expression on his face was more terrible to behold than Drakos.
Blood-shot eyes, washed-out skin, and eight tiny marks on his forehead like he’d get from clutching his face. This wasn’t the unruffled, swaggering bastard I met on the road. I finally did to him as he did to me.
I broke him.
“You are responsible for each other now as you will be when you march side by side. Galanis had trouble reading. I’m certain you’re all now motivated to help her learn what she must know before she enters my class again.”
I could feel the hostility like a restricting band across my throat. I wanted to believe he wasn’t inciting them to do what it sounded like, but this man didn’t look naïve to me.
“Galanis,” he continued.
I stifled my groan.