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breaths. She witnessed at my trial and Iolalus confirmed it. She knows more about the deaths of my children than I do. And that, that I don’t even recall any of the deed, notches what I have done to another level of unforgiveable.
    So, as the cart jostles along driving splinters into my flesh, I know I have brought every piece of mental and physical anguish the gods can muster upon myself.
    From outside the cart I can hear the clipping of centaurs’ hooves. They will be surrounding the cart, guarding their prisoner. People must have already spilled out of the arena to line up along Portaceae’s rutted roads. Despite their near silence in the arena, they now find their voice in shouts, jeers, and pleas.
    “Kill the bastard monster.”
    “How could you?”
    “Set our hero free.”
    I wrench my hands up to cover my ears, but the moment my palms come near my face the feral scent of dried blood hits me. Which of my children’s blood is it? Or have they all mingled?
    Slowly the shouts die down. We will be passing through Portaceae City’s gates and into the surrounding land outside the city walls. Rather than follow the distance to the jail, the people of the city will return to whatever work they had been occupying themselves with before the call to the arena sounded.
    Not long after the cries of the people die away, the cart lurches to a stop. A key clatters in the lock and Iolalus greets me with a reassuring smile. I peel myself out of the box. My shoulders throb from the pressure and the pieces of wood that have embedded themselves into my skin. The humid conditions inside the cart nearly match those outside. Even if the heavy clouds give no more rain, the looming pressure in the air signals an electrical storm is on its way.
    After releasing the other vigiles from their duty for the day, Iolalus leads me into the jail, a small stone building on the outskirts of Portaceae City. The structure had once been the home of Portaceae’s founder, but as Portaceae City, the capital of the polis, grew up closer to the junction of the Illamos and Great Rivers, the house found a new purpose: to keep prisoners outside the city walls.
    Before stepping through the door, I look into the distance. On the horizon stands Hera’s temple silhouetted by the last light of this long day. Also built at the time of Portaceae’s founding, the temple was poorly located and found itself barred from inside the capital’s walls. The temple keeps itself at a distance as if the goddess expects the people of the city to come to her.
    With morbid fascination, I can’t pull my eyes away from the aloof structure. Tomorrow I’ll be taken there to be sent under. They will lock me into a metal coffin that is even smaller than the walled cart, lower me into the stone-lined blood crime vault, seal it off, and leave me there for the turn of one moon. I will face a fear that will be miniscule compared to what my children must have endured. It will be up to the gods to decide my innocence. If I survive, I didn’t do those horrible acts. If I die, then the gods’ justice will have been served. I have no doubt the gods will take me. And, as I now have nothing to live for, I don’t care.
    Iolalus takes me to a cell, a true cell this time with bars, bunk beds, dank smell of wet stone, and faint light coming through a high window. The small quarters would normally pique my fear, but after being in the cart, the cell greets me like a spacious relief. Iolalus slides back the barred gate and I enter. Before I can turn around, the gate rattles and closes with a crash.
    My cousin reaches his hand through the bars. I take it. The calluses on his fingers from pulling the strings of many bows rub against my palm. Instead of shaking it, he just holds my aching hand in his comforting me and making my heart swell with agony and gratitude.
    “I guess our boar hunt is off?” he asks with a weak smile.
    The boar. After weeks of the animal ravaging fields and attacking