“Promise me this won’t change what is between us.”
Something fierce and beautiful flared in her eyes. “Nothing could ever change that.”
“Truly?”
Penelope smiled faintly, her gray eyes glowing a burnished silver in the sunlight. “You are a part of me, Melantho. Always.”
We held each other for a long while, until the water grew cold and the sun had set. Then Penelope guided me out of the bath and began massaging warm olive oil over my skin. She always touched me with such care, as if I were something frighteningly precious.
Once I was covered, Penelope took a small, curved instrument and began scraping the oil off, leaving my body cleansed and glistening.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered into our tender silence. “About Eurymachus’s plan. Will you send word to Telemachus’s ship?”
She was kneeling before me now, still devotedly tending to my skin. “No.”
“No?”
“You were right.” Her eyes met mine, and she rose slowly. “We have spent too long sitting by, doing nothing. I am tired of hiding. Iam tired of living in fear.”
“What do you plan to do?”
Resolution glowed in her eyes, as bright as a blade speared through the heart of a flame. “I plan to end this.”
54
The moon carved her smile into the sky, a gleaming, bone-white slash.
Her rays painted the midnight waves a stark silver, the only splash of color in a starless night. As I stared out from the shore, I could not see where the sky ended and the sea began; it was just an endless expanse yawning before me, eerily calm.
“It’s too quiet,” I murmured.
Penelope stood beside me, limned by the weak flicker of my oil lamp. If she was afraid, she did not show it.
“Are you sure this will work?” Skaris asked, her sword already in her hand.
“I suppose we will find out,” Penelope said evenly.
“That’s comforting,” Actoris muttered. She was standing a little way from me, and I could scarcely make her out in the dim light. Behind her, Hippodamia and Autonoë carried a chest between them.
“Remember what I said,” Penelope murmured to us. “Run at the first sign of danger.”
I nodded, skimming the dagger concealed in my gown for reassurance as I scanned the empty harbor before us. It was the same decrepit spot where I had met my brother years before—hardly the location for a grand royal arrival, but the secluded location promised secrecy. At least that was what Penelope had hoped when she instructed Telemachus to use this harbor upon his return.
The silence was suffocating. Nothing stirred, as if life itself had ceased to exist in this tiny, forgotten corner of the island.
“So do we just…wait for them to arrive?” Hippodamia asked, her voice loud against the stillness.
Penelope shook her head once. “They are already here.”
As if waiting for this cue, figures began to slink forward, peeling themselves from the night like strips of darkness given life. I stiffened, instinctively inching closer to Penelope. In return, her fingers brushed mine, just the lightest grazing of skin, but it was enough to steady my racing heart.
“Well, ain’t this asurprise,” came a voice from the blackness. It was somehow both rough and mellifluous, like swathes of delicate linen ripped across jagged rocks. “We was expectin’ a prince, not a queen.”
The glow from my oil lamp did not quite reach the stranger, so I could only make out his edges—a tall, narrow build, a thick beard, and the undeniable gleam of a blade.
“You know who I am then,” Penelope said, her voice impressively steady.
“O’ course. Everyone knows of Odysseus’s obedient little wife,” the voice purred. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
