The king slid off his horse, secured it, and flopped down into the shade provided by the olive trees that lined the dusty trail they'd been following. He was still wearing the disgruntled expression he'd had more or less since he'd gotten on the horse.

Costis dismounted more carefully and looked around to make sure they were as alone as they appeared. A shadowed silhouette made him tense before he realized it was just an ivy covered statue. Moving closer, he saw there was an even more ivy covered altar set before it. A shrine, then, one likely abandoned since the early days of the war.

The ivy was too heavy to guess who the shrine was to, but they needed all the help they could get. Costis tore off the vines as best he could. A huge swathe was pulled away from the face.

His breath caught. "Eugenides."

"Hmm?"

"Not you," Costis said hurriedly. Although . . . He tilted his head. "Is it?"

"I'm supposed to be the cryptic one," his king complained, rolling to his feet and coming over. He came to a rather abrupt halt. "Ah. I see. There's a certain . . . resemblance."

"They must have used you as a model," Costis said, a bit uneasily. It had been odd enough to know intellectually that they were history; it was worse to see it set in stone.

The king looked even more disturbed. "I suppose someone took advantage of the shared name." He grimaced. "Do you think he'd be more offended by my presumption if I left it or by the destruction if I did something about it?"

Costis was rather startled to be asked. "You'd know better than me." He looked sidewise at the king. "Does he still . . . " It was hard to contemplate in the bright light of day.

"Tell me to stop whining and go to bed?" the king supplied. "Mostly in dreams, so far. I think I lived my whole life over again that way. The others have seen less. I'm hoping the hook will bring back the rest." He gestured toward his pack, still on the horse, and Costis was abruptly struck by the fact that the king had two hands now. It probably shouldn't have taken him this long to do so.

"We could just leave it," Costis suggested, nodding at the shrine. "It's stood this long."

The king looked doubtful. "We're about to climb the mountain. On horseback. That's a lot of opportunities to fall."

"Are you sure he'll care?" Costis asked doubtfully. The king had never been particularly reverent before. Faithful, yes. Reverent, no.

The king grimaced. "It's possible my last fall is making me paranoid," he admitted.

Costis wondered just how tactless it would be to ask how exactly that had happened. Whatever it had been, it had been after Costis's own death.

His chest ached at the memory.

"You could promise to build another statue if you survive the war," Costis suggested in an effort to banish the memory.

The king's eyes sharpened. "That's a thought." He turned his attention fully to the shrine and said, as seriously as if he saw his patron standing there in front of him, "I never sought this. If we survive the war, we'll return and raise a better statue in tribute."

"We?"

"You're the one who found it," the king pointed out. "You're not getting out of this that easily." He sighed. "I think that's the best we can do for now."

"Onward?" Costis asked.

The king looked sourly at his horse. "Onward," he agreed grimly. "We're getting close now." He edge closer to his mount. "You know, before the war, there were rumors of some sort of horseless carriage being made on the continent." He sounded incredibly wistful.

Costis wasn't sure what was so impressive about that. "What animal does it use instead?"

"Absolutely none. It's mechanically driven. Like a watch, I'd imagine."

Costis was skeptical.

The king looked amused at his skepticism. "After everything you've seen, that's what you balk at?"

Everything odd he'd seen had always been somehow connected to his king, who sometimes seemed to only have one foot planted in the world of mortal men. If his king had said that he had a horseless carriage and they'd be making their escape on it, Costis would have believed him. The continent was anotther story entirely.

But he could hardly tell the king that, so he just said stubbornly. "I've seen all of those things. If I see a horseless carriage, I'll believe in that too." He eyed the way the king still hadn't gotten on his horse. "And unless you have one in your pocket, we still have to ride."

The king scowled at his horse. "Your days are numbered," he warned it. "The age of the horse is about to end."

"I'd rather end the age of the Mede," Costis said as he approached his own horse.

"The first," the king assured him, still eyeing his horse. "Then the beasts."