“They have manipulated you,” Odysseus spat, lowering his sword. “Eurycleia has told me all I need to know.”
Rage scorched my insides, but it was quickly chased by a rush of fear as Odysseus forced my hands behind my back. Beside me, I held the eyes of Autonoë, tears streaming down her scarred cheeks.
“It’ll be all right,” she whispered to me.
We both knew it was a lie.
“Get the rope. Bind her hands like the others,” Odysseus ordered.
“Father—”
“Are you my son, or are you a coward? Bind her.”
Telemachus stared at Odysseus: the man he had idolized his entire life, the legend he so desperately wished to live up to, the father he had always longed to impress. Then he turned to look at us: the women who had raised him, who were always by his side, who had loved him since he had been just a babe in his mother’s arms.
The prince of Ithaca swallowed, then picked up the rope and walked toward me. He could not meet my gaze as he began binding my wrists.
“Go and get your mother,” I breathed. “She will stop this.”
He glanced at me, his eyes like two gaping wounds, glistening and raw.
“This is all I can do,” he murmured before turning away.
Helplessly, I looked to where Autonoë and Hippodamia quietlywept. To Eurynome holding her head proudly despite her shivering body. To bloody and bruised Actoris furiously trying to rip herself free from her bindings. To Skaris, who seemed a little woozy with blood loss, Eumaeus’s blade angled at her throat.
“You know this is wrong,” I shouted at Eumaeus.
“Do not speak to me of wrong,” he retorted, his voice lit with purpose, blazing like a funeral pyre.“You betrayed our queen, our prince, our king. You betrayed all of Ithaca. This is the justice my master calls for, the gods call for, and I shall abide by it.”
“Do you see?Thatis what it means to be a true servant of this household. Loyalty above all else,” Odysseus declared. “Now the gods shall see you answer for your crimes.”
“Penelope would not want this!” My words sounded hoarse, roughened by the noose biting at my throat.
The king of Ithaca turned slowly, then stalked toward me. He stopped inches away from my face, and beneath the pale gaze of the moon, I noticed how bruised his eyes were, the skin puffy and drooping, as if he had not slept in days. Longer perhaps.
The blood on his face had started to dry, gathering in the deep creases bracketing his features, emphasizing every groove. He looked so old, his face beaten down to a gnarled husk of the man I had once known.
Thiswas Ithaca’s beloved king, whom they had waited two decades for. Their salvation.
But I saw no salvation in his eyes, only death.
“What did you say?” he asked, his voice lethally soft.
I leaned as far forward as the rope would allow.
“Penelope would not want this,” I repeated.
As I held his glare, I realized there was more than just death written in those sharp eyes of his. Something else lurked there, too, something dangerously delicate. He reminded me of a cornered beast—lost and frantic, perhaps even afraid.
Odysseus mirrored my movement, leaning in so close our lipswere almost touching.
“And what would you know of what my wife wants?”
So many retorts danced on my tongue, begging to be flung into his bloodied face. But I bit the truth back, grinding it between my teeth.
“Ask her yourself,” I said. “Bring her here. See what she thinks of yourjustice.”
“You have put my wife through enough. You will not trouble her a moment more.”
