A Temporary Release
The world felt different.
I went to the one place that belonged to no one, the ancient, crumbling hero-shrine on the outskirts of the city, open to the sky and the stars.
Theron was already there, pacing before the weathered stone. He turned as I approached, his face a battlefield of anxiety and hope.
"Lysander? What's happened? Are you—"
"He knows," I said, the words rushing out. "He knows it's over. And Theron... he's not the monster we thought."
I told him everything. The realization of our plan and setting him up. His confession about Alexandrios. The tear he shed. The misguided love for my brother that had fueled all the brutality. I spoke of Brasidas not as a captor, but as a man trying to save me from becoming a lost soul like himself.
"He's going to release me," I finished, my voice trembling with the sheer, dizzying force of the hope. "I saw it in his eyes. It's over."
The tension in Theron's frame shattered. He didn't move for a heartbeat, then he crossed the distance between us in two long strides. His hands came up to cradle my face, his thumbs stroking my cheeks as if I were a dream he was afraid to break.
"By the gods," he breathed, his eyes searching mine, shining with a disbelieving joy. "You did it. You reached him."
"It was his own heart that reached him," I whispered. "He just needed to remember it was there."
"We will build a life here in Sparta now," he murmured, his lips against my hair. "Not in hiding any longer, but beside me, as my eromenos, and as my partner. No one will question us. We can exist in public, together.”
It was true. Everything we had originally planned could now happen, if Brasidas truly did release me, then Theron could claim me as his eromenos at last. I turned my head to kiss him, a slow, tender seal upon his promise. "And we will remember him," I said softly. "Brasidas. We will remember that he loved enough to let go."
I was free.
Theron didn’t wait. Nor did the council. The space Brasidas had occupied in the world was now a void, he had been humiliated and in grace, and had released me to uphold my honour for someone else to hone in his place, and all of Sparta watched to see what would fill it.
The day had come for Theron to finally claim me. He stood, and the room didn’t fall silently gradually, but it stopped altogether, as if a single breath had been collectively held. Theron did not look at me. He addressed the room, his voice the clear, commanding baritone of a born leader, but his words were for me.
"For too long," he began, his gaze sweeping the assembled Spartiates, "we have confused the breaking of a spirit with the building of strength. We have prized the unyielding rock and dismissed the river that can carve canyons."
My heart hammered against my ribs. He wasn’t wooing me with a courtship; he was declaring himself a strategist.
He turned, and his eyes, fierce and proud, found mine across the fire.
"Lysander, son of Myron, your mind is not a flaw. It is Sparta's next great weapon. Your courage is not in your muscle, but in your refusal to be broken. I would be honored," he said, the words ringing in the sacred silence, "to stand as your erastes. Not to change you, but to champion you. To give your strategy a shield, and your spirit the honor it deserves."
It was a revolution disguised as a proposal. He was not asking for a student. He was asking for a partner.
The silence held for a moment longer, then broke into a wave of murmured assent, of approval. It was not just acceptance; it was a correction. Theron had reframed my entire existence from a liability into an asset, and in doing so, had claimed me before everyone.
I stepped forward. I did not kneel. I met his gaze and gave a single, solemn nod.
"The honor would be mine," I said, my voice steady, carrying to the back of the room.
And in that public space, surrounded by the most formidable men in Greece, I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated admiration for him. Not just as a lover, but as a strategist, a politician, a man who had just moved the world to make a place for me in it.
When we made it to his quarters all the pretenses and aching fell away. The door shut, and the world of politics and performance vanished. We were just two men, two lovers, alone, standing in a pool of lamplight.
He didn't speak. He simply looked at me, his eyes soft, tracing my face as if reading a poem he thought he'd lost.
"It is done," he whispered, the words heavy with the weight of our long war.
I reached out and my fingers found the clasp of his cloak. I undid it, letting the heavy wool fall to the floor. My hands moved to the pins of his tunic, my movements slow, deliberate, reclaiming a right that had been stolen from us.
"You were magnificent," I breathed, my palms flattening against the warm, solid plane of his chest. "You did not just claim me. You remade me in their eyes."
He captured my hands, bringing my knuckles to his lips. "I only spoke the truth they were too blind to see."
His kiss was not desperate or furious. It was slow, deep, and filled with a radiant, unshakable certainty like the sun rising in the morning. We sank to our knees in the middle of the stone floor, our hands relearning each other's bodies as erastes and eronmenos, like this was a new beginning.
This time, our undressing was not frantic or desperate. It was a ceremony. Each piece of clothing that fell was a layer of the past being shed. When we were finally bare before each other, it was not with the hunger of stolen moments, but with the profound peace of a homecoming. His mouth traced the paths Brasidas's hands had marked, but now his touch was delicate and light, making a promise to always admire me.
He laid me down on the softness of the rug, and his body covered mine, not with conquest, but with completion. His mouth found mine in a kiss that was infinitely tender, a silent vow. When he entered me, it was with a profound, perfect slowness that felt like a vow for all the days to come. This felt like the first time, because he was now truly mine. There was no fear any longer. Only the shared, pounding rhythm of our hearts, the meeting of our eyes in the starlight, the feeling of our souls stretching out towards a horizon we could finally see.
We came together in perfect unison, our souls latching together as our bodies climaxed as one. Breaths lilted, hands clutched, and our bodies fused together in a panting confirmation. We were one.
He collapsed on me naked, our bodies glistening from our activities, remaining entangled, legs entwined, facing each other. His hand was on my hip, his thumb stroking my skin in a lazy, absent rhythm.
"Tell me a strategy," I murmured, my head pillowed on his arm.
He smiled, a true, unguarded smile that lit his whole face. And he began to speak, not of war, but of a future. Of reforms, of training, of a Sparta that could be stronger, smarter. He laid out his vision for our city, and for us within it, his mind and mine weaving together as seamlessly as our bodies had.
I listened, tracing the line of his jaw, my heart so full it ached. This was the union I had fought for. Not just of bodies, but of purpose. He was my erastes, my protector, my partner. And in the quiet intimacy of that room, with the weight of the world finally lifted, I knew we had not just won our freedom.
He wanted to build a kingdom of our own.
But as I rested my head on his solid arm, I could not help but let my mind wander to the reality outside of our chambers. Sparta may allow us this union, but we were still lovers in secret. Did he really think that we would be able to alter Sparta for good? To be allowed to be free to love as we were? Or, as I closed my eyes listening to his racing heart, would we still have to fight to be accepted in Sparta?
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