Telamon stiffened. ‘Ah.’ He paused. ‘Be that as it may, mine was the hand that threw it.’
‘Is that why you went to Salamis?’
He nodded. ‘A blood crime like fratricide requires cleansing by an anointed king. Luckily, Cychreus of Salamis was happy to do the honours.’ He barked out a laugh that didn’t ease the weight behind his eyes. ‘I was lucky, where Heracles was sent on death-defying labours by Eurystheus, as penance for the death of his family, I was given Cychreus’ blessing to marry his lovely daughter, Periboea.’
‘You have a wife?’ Danae did not know why she found this surprising. Many men left their spouses at home to seek glory in battle and pleasure in strangers’ beds, but Telamon had always struck her as incapable of any serious attachment. Despite the crinkling lines at the corners of his eyes, she’d always thought of him as boyish. But looking at him now, she realized he must be a similar age to Heracles; perhaps a few summers past his thirtieth year.
Telamon gazed out across the bay. He looked the most sombre she’d ever seen him.
‘Oh yes, and a child. We were children ourselves, bothbarely sixteen when we married. To have a wife at that age was one thing, but a baby.’ The sea shimmered in his eyes. ‘I fled a month after my son was born. You see, I have always been a coward.’
‘I would never call you that.’
Telamon smiled ruefully. ‘Fighting’s easy, but taking responsibility for others … that requires real bravery.’
There was a crunch behind them. Danae turned to see Atalanta striding across the beach. She and Telamon rose to their feet.
‘If you two have finished gossiping, shall we get a move on?’
Danae’s mouth twitched into a smile.
They dragged the boat into the shallows and clambered in. Telamon took up the oars and rowed them out of the crescent bay, past the rock where the silver-winged gulls nested, onto the open sea.
Danae gazed back one last time towards Delos, and the tiny mound of rocks just visible on its peak, then down at its smaller twin at the edge of the sea.
‘Goodbye,’ she whispered, the wind stealing the word the moment it left her lips.
Part Three
36. The Fury of Fire
Typhon, the dragon, soared through the crisp air, his emerald scales gleaming in the sunlight. Far below, hazed through layers of cloud, the sparkling sea winked. Goading him.
Freedom ignited the furnace of his lungs. The clouds sizzled over his burning belly, his vast wings churning their misted bodies like a riptide. His limbs still ached from centuries of confinement, but the agony of his grating bones in flight was ecstasy after being cramped in the watery depths of Tartarus.
Typhon thought of the smouldering bones of his captor and felt joy.
The dragon beat his wings and surged higher, up to where the air was thin and frost cold. Never again would he succumb to a body of water. Never again.
The world had sickened since his imprisonment centuries earlier. He had sensed it as he flew through the cavernous space beneath the earth. Even in the deep, so far from Gaia’s skin, he had felt her pain echoing up to the silver stars.
Typhon looked to the west, where the men that called themselves gods had built their palace of stone.
A rumble rippled through his gut. It had been too long since his last meal. If he did not eat soon, he would perish. And perish he must not, for he was the last of his kind. He felt the truth of it in his bones, in the heat of his molten marrow.
He was the last dragon.
Typhon understood now why the Mother doted so on herundeserving children. To give life, to see oneself reflected, even in a shattered mirror, was better than not being able to perceive oneself at all.
He sniffed the air and followed the verdant scent of a forest, diving down below the cloud line. The earth was bathed in gold, the sun ripening before relinquishing its watch to the pale moon.
Then a dash of movement caught his eye. He dipped lower, salivating at the thought of more fresh meat after centuries of mouldering scraps.
Yet he paused before unleashing his flames. He knew that scent. It had been his constant companion during his imprisonment.
Below, lumbering towards the trees, were three giants who, like Typhon, had found their way above ground.
Ravenous as he was, he could not bring himself to feast upon his ancient companions. They were united in suffering at the hands of the gilded men.
