Come back to me.
I had to keep moving.
Rolling onto the balls of my feet, I readied myself to make anotherdesperate dash for the door. But then I saw him, just beyond my hiding spot, skimming the fringes of the battle as he desperately searched the bodies of fallen suitors. Melanthius.
I was not the only one who had noticed him.
Eumaeus was pointing his sword in Melanthius’s direction while Odysseus drew back his bow, setting my brother in his sights.
“Melanthius!” I screamed, hurling myself at him.
We tumbled sideways as Odysseus’s arrow sliced across the floor, mere inches from my brother’s head.
“Run!” I shouted, tugging Melanthius to his feet.
“But the suitors—”
“They have already lost! Look at them!”
All the color drained from my brother’s face as he regarded the massacre around us and the man reigning over it—the bloody, vengeful king of Ithaca. Fear sank its teeth into Melanthius, and he stared at me with helpless eyes.
“He’s going to kill me,” he whispered.
The bodies still on their feet were thinning out now, finally clearing our escape path. I grabbed Melanthius’s hand, hauling him across the banquet hall and through the open doors.
“Who were those men?” Melanthius gasped as we sprinted down the hallway. “Are they Odysseus’s men?”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
As we came to a fork in the passageway, Melanthius drew to a sudden stop.
“Take the right,” he said. “I’ll go left.”
“What?”
“He’s going to kill me, Melantho. If you stay with me, he’ll kill you too.”
Before I could argue, Melanthius’s head snapped up, eyes widening.
“Eurymachus!” he cried out, rushing down the passageway to where a figure was half slumped against the wall.
Eurymachus was clutching his throat with both hands, blood spilling down his chest, dripping in a thick trail behind him. With difficulty, he turned, eyes widening as he regarded us. It was then that I saw the extent of his injury—an arrow had punctured his throat, the broken end protruding from the wound.
He tried to speak, but all that escaped him was a wet choking sound.
“What can I do? Tell me what to do.” I hated the desperation in Melanthius’s voice.
Eurymachus lowered his bulging eyes to the sword in my brother’s hands. Melanthius followed his gaze.
“I need this,” he said tightly. “And you can’t wield it, not like that.”
Without warning, Eurymachus slammed himself into Melanthius, knocking him against the wall with surprising force given his dire state. My brother flailed backward, head cracking against stone, sword tumbling free from his grasp.
Eurymachus lunged for the weapon but slipped on his own blood, landing heavily on his knees.
“I was helping you!” Melanthius shouted at him, blood now spilling from a wound on his head. I heard a sob swell in his throat as he repeated, “I was helping you.”
Eurymachus gulped down wet, labored breaths. He then used the last of his energy to spit blood at my brother’s feet. He could only manage to gargle out a single word: “Slave.”
