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as she felt the muck and slime beneath them. At last she found herself in what looked like an old wine cel ar, with wooden benches arranged against its wal s. And on the benches sat a smal group of hooded figures, huddling together for warmth in the cold, dank air.
    They stood as she entered the room.
    One stepped forward. He was of a muscular build, and might have been a soldier or warrior had he not been born into slavery. His eyes were dark and hard and, like Helen’s, set deeply into his face.
    “Greetings, Lady Julia. I am Simeon. You have already met Helen and Alyce, and these are a few of the others—more of those who have been enslaved by the Wolf and his men.” Julia nodded her head in a brief gesture of greeting, then sat down on the cold bench where Simeon indicated.
    “I am very grateful to you—to al of you,” she said careful y. “Please tel me about yourselves.
    Gaius told me so little in the garden, and I…I want so much to understand.”
    Simeon smiled. “Of course, lady Julia. Let me begin by tel ing you how we came to be slaves.” Julia had already heard something of the story he told, but he explained everything more ful y than Gaius had done, adding in a deep, musical voice details that had been left out. Simeon explained how Marcus, the wise and good ruler of Khemia, had been warned in a dream that his homeland was about to be engulfed in a catastrophe. He ordered boats to be built, enough for al the souls on the island, and the people of Khemia had sailed from certain death to safety. He described their wonder and delight as they found themselves disembarking on a mysterious paradise. Everything seemed to be ready for them—a safe harbor and fields laden with fruit and grain. They lacked nothing. At Marcus’s order the ships were torn apart, the wooden planks used to make the first shelters in their new land.
    Simeon paused. “Soon after their arrival, Marcus declared that there was no need for weapons in this place of peace. Wars between neighboring tribes and peoples were a thing of the past, and so he ordered al the weapons they had brought with them—al the swords and bows and arrows—to be destroyed. Marcus put Thales in change of the destruction of the bows and arrows, and Brutus of the swords. Aedyn would be a place of peace and tranquility.”
    Simeon stopped speaking and closed his eyes.
    Al was silent for a long moment while Julia sat on the edge of her seat. She knew the end of the story, and yet she longed to hear it told again. Final y she was driven to beg, “What happened next?” Simeon’s
    eyes
    opened.
    “Marcus
    was
    assassinated by Xenos, his most trusted lord. Within days he and his men had taken over the island, murdering anyone who stood in their way. You see, the swords had not been destroyed. They had been hidden, ready for this day. Xenos and his two treacherous aides, Thales and Brutus, declared themselves to be the rulers of this island. They gave themselves new names and new titles—you’ve seen this yourself,” said Simeon, nodding to Julia. “The Jackal, the Leopard, and the Wolf: the Lords of Aedyn. Our fathers’ fathers were given a choice: total obedience to the lords or death for them and their children. No mercy would be shown. They had no choice.”
    He put up his hands in a simple gesture of utter despair and hopelessness. Julia shivered.
    “And that’s the way it’s been ever since?” she asked. Simeon nodded.
    “For five hundred years, my lady,” he said. “Five hundred years, until the memory of our good land and our good king has been al but stamped out. We kept it alive. Our parents told us the stories and we told them to our children—told them of Marcus, and the One who sent him the dream. We told them of the prophecy, and of the fair strangers who would come to fulfil it.”
    “But now,” Helen broke in, “we may no longer even tel them our stories.” There was an anger in her voice that seemed foreign to Julia—this was