AN: If it were up to me, I'd stay home all day from work and write. That way my fics would get more love than this one has gotten. If anyone is still reading this, I commend you for your dedication ;)

Danen felt as though he couldn't breathe, as though he couldn't take one more step.

"Where are we going?" he gasped, dilirious, sweating from the effort of walking even with assistance from Achilles. He felt weak, feverish and not entirely able to interpret his surroundings or the reason for navigating this narrow winding limestone corridor beneath the palace.

Searing pain from the gaping wound across his back washed his mind clean of all thoughts but one: the memory of his daughter. Dane could hardly remember where he was or the identity of the man half-carrying him, and yet the image of his dead child wrapped in bloody rags remained firmly planted in his mind's eye.

Achilles held a torch to light their way, his back bent so Danen could sling an arm across his shoulders. It seemed like an eternity before he answered the question.

"We are leaving the palace," his father replied evenly.

Danen struggled with each breath. His head throbbed, and the pain in his back would've set him on his knees if he'd been walking alone, but Achilles wouldn't let him stop.

"I can't keep going," Dane panted. "Please, leave me here."

The closeness of the tunnel magnified Dane's ragged breathing and the sounds of flickering torchlight and the scraping of their shoes against the sandy floor while they inched slowly forward. The darkness yielded ahead of the their light only to sweep back in immediately behind them.

Achilles had taken Dane back to his rooms after their fight and let him rest fitfully on a cot until darkness took a firm hold over Pthia. Then, inexplicably, Achilles had ordered him to rise and begin this mysterious and arduous journey down hidden passageways Dane never even knew existed within the palace.

"Why are you doing this to me?" Danen asked, hardly able to hold up his head. His chin kept dropping toward his chest. With each step a whip of fire cracked across his backside.

"Believe it or not," Achilles said. "I do know my sons. And I know if I don't take you from this place, Pyrrhus will have you murdered in your sleep."

Danen had no grounds to doubt the truth of his father's words. Unfortunately his older brother wasn't a fool. Years ago he knew Danen's honor would force him to flee Pthia. But no power on earth would stop Danen from slaying the man who'd loosened feral dogs on his family. The honor he'd held so dear as a boy carried no weight against his desire for vengence as a man.

If nothing else, Pyrrhus understood the ugly base desires of men.

"It was unwise for you to come here," Achilles said after a time. It was the first words the older man had uttered unprompted since Dane's defeat in the arena.

Dane's mouth firmed. He still hadn't recovered from the shock of seeing his father, or finally being claimed as a son of Achilles, but that didn't entirely dissolve the hate that had festered in his heart since he'd discovered his sire's true identity, a hate that flared fresh when Achilles decided to serve as Pyrrhus's proxy in battle.

He couldn't manage the words, but Achilles did know him. The hard expression on his face, the anger burning in his dark eyes. If Achilles had stepped aside and let Danen kill his brother, none of this would've happened.

"The time for killing him was years ago, when he first came to Pthia," Achilles informed him. "When you still held the loyalty of the men and they thought you strong. When you ran, you gave up the opportunity to end this fued swiftly. If I had let you kill him, you still would've perished. You wouldn't know which of the men belonged to you, and which were plotting your demise."

"It's worth dying for," Dane whispered. He'd thought on this a great deal. Wouldn't it be better to give up his life in this effort than to return to Leda with nothing to offer her but the news of avenging their daughter's death? They would still have to run the rest of their lives. Perhaps his sacrifice would free them. Without him, Leda, Cybel and Patrocles were no threat to his half brother, or any of his followers left alive after Dane finished with him.

The torch began to die down, sputtering. Achilles stopped, lowering Dane to the ground and kneeling beside him, tending to the torch so it wouldn't go out.

"Throwing your life away won't bring back your child," the golden-haired warrior said while he worked.

Dane laid down on his side, doing his best to breathe through the pain. Slowly, he moved up onto his elbow, holding up his two powerful hands. They were the hands of a blacksmith and a fighter with well-muscled palms and calloused fingers. "I would throw my life away for the chance to hold my living daughter for a single moment. You threw your life away for glory, Ilios. My daughter was my glory."

Achilles said no more. He finished with the torch, and then hauled Dane back onto his feet. Together, the two men continued down the narrow hall one step at a time.

Achilles never said where they were going.

A woman with graying dark hair opened the cottage door. She took one look at Dane and motioned them inside.

"Come in, lay him down before he falls down."

Achilles helped Danen over to a low cot taking up one entire wall of the small dwelling. It felt like they'd travelled a hundred miles, but this cottage probably sat less than two miles from the palace, just out of sight down the coast, hidden by the high bluffs.

Laying on his stomach, Dane watched the woman approach with a wooden bowl half full of warm water taken from a boiling pot over the fireplace and a clean cloth. She took a seat next to him on the cot, setting down the bowl on a low table so she could begin to remove his soiled bandages.

Danen couldn't remember a time in his life he'd felt so thirsty, but after the exhertion of the journey he couldn't manage a whisper to ask for water. His breath hissed through his teeth whille she gently pulled the bandages away from his wounds.

"How came you upon this one, Achilles?" the woman asked, walking a fine line between cheerfulness and scolding. "Another of your precious young warriors vying to challenge your skill?"

Achilles sat on a chair by the fire, stoking it to a high roar. Pushing the logs around with an iron poker, Achilles kept his thoughts to himself.

Danen tried to focus his mind away from his pain, but in the end it was easier to just wallow in it. The nature of the wound, stretched across his back, made it impossible to move without inspiring irritation.

"This is deep," the woman said, taking a moment to examine the task set before her. "It will need to be closed when it is clean."

Dane knew what that meant, and he had to work to control his breathing and his panic.

Having his back washed felt like throwing water on a grease fire, spreading the flames instead of quelling them. Dane gritted his teeth, his fingertips digging into the thin straw mattress.

When the wound was clean, Achilles used leather thongs to tie Danen's wrists and ankles securely to the legs of the cot and then he knelt on Dane's neck to keep him still while the woman applied a glowing-hot iron to his backside.

Danen didn't yell or cry out. He screamed. Even with a leather strap to bite down on, cutting into the corners of his mouth, he screamed through gritted teeth. Tears streamed down his cheeks and his bindings bit into flesh when he flailed against them. Each touch of the iron hit him like a lightning strike, sparking his nerve endings and causing him to thrash involuntarily. The acrid smell of his own burning flesh assaulted his senses.

Did this suffering bring him anywhere close to the trial Leda endured in her long, fruitless hours of labor?

Even after the iron came to rest by the fire, tears and whimpers that hadn't escaped him since very early in childhood continued to slip out in spite of his best efforts to remain silent and stoic. When it was over he came back to himself in small parts. The woman was cleaning the blood from his hair and his bindings at wrist and ankle had been removed. In the distance, he became aware of the soft conversation floating over his head.

"Seems you're growing these warriors bigger every year. I feel sorry for the poor woman who birthed this giant," she chuckled, soft and low.

Seated on a low chair, Achilles mused over her words, one hand over his mouth. "So it is an old wive's tale that a mother seperated from her child at birth may know him forever. I remember well the night you bore that giant, Canace. Interesting that you do not recognize him as your own."

The fingers moving through his hair paused for just a moment before continuing, a bit more hesitant than before.

"I always wondered," she opined. "Did you name our son, or did you leave that to your mother as well, Achilles?"

His father didn't rise to the barb. "I chose his name. I chose many things for him, most he was unaware of."

She nodded thoughtfully. "And what sort of man is he?"

"Stronger than Hephaestus and more honorable than any man I've ever known. He would rather break his back as a free man than have all the riches in Greece. He would rather plant a field than do battle on one. His wife can attest that his vow is his bond, and once given he looks neither to the right nor to the left. He is devoted to her, and to her alone. Just a few short months ago she was beaten and nearly killed; the child she carried was stillborn and his grief over this event nearly led him to a bloody end."

Tears continued to course down Danen's cheeks, silent now. The fire on backside had died down, but he still felt like a ship smashed against the cliffs of Pthia, the crashing waves inundating him over and over again, leaving no hope of ever casting off the rocks and sailing happily in calm seas again.

Achilles pressed on, as though unaware Danen could hear him. Using the same iron he'd used to tend the fire earlier, he drew on the dirt floor of the hut. "I would guess that he has great experience with being relied upon, but absolutely no knowlege of being wanted. For many years he believed himself a peseant bastard rejected by his father."

"And what will you do with him, now that he knows both his sire and his dam?"

"Now," Achilles said. "Now that he has given himself over to the sword, I believe I will train him. The time has come for the second son of Achilles to make his name at war."