Collectively, the Argonauts gaped. Jason looked like he was trying to form words but couldn’t get them over his tongue.
“For the love of the gods, put down your weapons,” said Telamon. “She just saved our lives.”
They did as he said.
Danae’s heart was thundering. Heracles had jumped to the wrong conclusion, but he might have just given her a gift.
“He’s right.” She returned the hero’s smile. “My father is Poseidon, Lord of the Sea and Shaker of the Earth.”
There were so many questions, but the lies came easily. By now, Danae was well practised.
“My village shunned my mother after Poseidon impregnated her. My family lived in poverty and we kept to ourselves. But when the villagers discovered I had a gift for prophecy and these unearthly powers, they were afraid, and I was driven away. So, I left my home and became a seer.”
She hoped it would be enough to satisfy them. Jason looked torn. She didn’t blame him.
“Why didn’t you reveal yourself sooner? We are warriors not superstitious peasants.” Jason glanced pointedly at Castor, who looked at his feet. “Why didn’t you intervene with the storm, onthatisland, with the Earthborn? Lives could have been saved.”
Now was hardly the moment to confess she’d started the fire on Lemnos. She bowed her head. “You’re right. My fear of persecution is to blame. I carry the guilt for all those we’ve lost.” That was no lie.
Jason continued to stare at her like she was a cub who had suddenly grown into a lion right in front of him. She could see the pressure building behind his eyes. She wondered if he was going to banish her from theArgo, but then he turned away.
“Heracles.” Jason couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “How in the name of the gods did you survive the Earthborn?”
Heracles grinned at the Argonauts. “I wish I could say it was all down to me. I killed a good few more of those six-armed bastards and managed to scare the rest back to their mountain. The Doliones came round when they saw how many I’d butchered.” He paused, frowning slightly at the lack of enthusiasm his story was rousing. “We stayed with them for a couple of days until, as luck would have it, a merchant ship was passing and—”
“What happened to Hylas?”
Danae couldn’t wait any longer. It was the question she’d been burning and dreading to ask since the hero had appeared over the dunes. She already knew the answer, but she needed to hear it from him.
Heracles’s huge shoulders sank. “The Earthborn took him back to their nest. I couldn’t save him.”
“You left him unburied?”
How dare Heracles stand there, bragging about killing Earthborn, when he’d left Hylas’s ghost to wander the banks of the Styx. He would never find peace, forever separated from the souls of everyone who ever cared for him. He was the last person in the world who deserved that fate.
“How could you?” Tears blurted down her cheeks. “You abandoned him! If you killed so many Earthborn, why couldn’t you—”
“I can’t save everyone.”
“You didn’t try hard enough!”
“Neither did you!”
She flinched. The Argonauts cringed away from the hero. Heracles stared at them, his blue eyes muddled with surprise and confusion.
Furiously, she wiped her face. In that moment she couldn’t bear the sight of him, but she needed to tell him what Jason had revealed somewhere private, where he couldn’t react in front of the crew, or Tiphys’s might not be the only body that needed burying.
“Jason, before the attack we were going ashore to fetch water,” she prompted.
“Yes,” the captain said distractedly. He was still staring at Heracles.
“And Tiphys will need burying.”
Jason’s gaze snapped back to her, then behind him to the stern, as though he’d forgotten they’d lost their navigator.
“Yes,” he said again, then cleared his throat. “Argonauts, clear the deck of these birds. We’ll camp here tonight and replenish our supplies. At dawn we’ll send Tiphys on his way to the Underworld. Then, we sail for Colchis.”
Dolos was waiting with the horses on the shore. As soon as they cleared the shallows, Telamon sprinted over to the healer.
