She said nothing.
“Penelope?” I prompted, desperate to know what thoughts plagued her.
“You are not marrying him,” she murmured.
I swallowed once. Twice. “No.”
“Why?” The word was laced with a surprisingly stark thread of desperation, squeezing it tight.
“You know why, Penelope.”
She turned her face away so it became wholly consumed by the shadows.
The weight of her silence pressed in around me, but I forced myself to continue. “I have given it a lot of thought, and I think I should leave the palace and serve Laertes. Eurycleia said he needs a slave to assist him at his cottage, and I feel this would be a…suitable opportunity for me. With your permission, of course.”
Penelope tilted her head, just enough for the moonlight to brush a silver finger along the length of her jaw, the rest of her face still obscured.
“You wish to leave?”
No, I ached to tell her.But I must.
I could not trust myself around Penelope, not anymore. Every day, I felt my control slipping, inch by inch. I knew one day it would snap, and I would do something truly foolish, and these poisonous feelings would infect everything beautiful we had built between us.
I needed time away, to clear my mind and purge my heart of this madness.
I needed time away from her, as much as the mere thought of itwounded me.
“I think it is best,” I whispered.
More silence. Its stillness felt sharper this time, cutting the night like glass. It was maddening not being able to see Penelope’s face, not having a glimpse of what she might be thinking. I considered moving closer, but being near Penelope always made me act in ways I regretted.
“What if I say no?”
Her question caught me off guard, my shock quickly followed by a familiar sting of anger.
“Then I would say that is unfair.”
“Unfair?” She huffed an empty laugh. “You speak of abandonment, and you sayIam being unfair?”
“Abandonment?”
“Yes.” She finally turned to me, her face limned in cold, silver rays. “Is that not what you are proposing here? Laertes has deserted the throne, the war may be lost, Odysseus could be dead, and you wish to leavenow?”
She strode toward me as she spoke, every step like flint against stone, threatening to spark a fire between us.
She stopped a few feet away, yet still it felt too close.
“I am trying to find a solution,” I said.
“And I am asking you to find another one.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then help me to.”
How could I? How could I put this madness into words? I was like Icarus and she the sun, her radiance drawing me closer even when I knew how far I had to fall. That was what it felt like to want Penelope—a sweet, assured self-destruction.
“Why now?” she pressed. “I do not understand why we cannot continue as we always have. For ten summers, we have made this work between us—”
