“Forgive…me…”
“It’s all right,” I whispered, desperate for his final moment not to be one of shame or guilt. “There is nothing to forgive.”
I glanced up to see Odysseus watching us, his expression eerily distant, hands trembling at his sides. Next to him, Telemachus looked as if he were fighting back tears. The prince met my gaze, and a memory cut through the chaos of my grief.
“Your child, Melanthius. Your daughter. I never told you her name.”
My brother’s breaths were growing fainter now, but I saw his eyes slightly flare with recognition.
“Your daughter,” I repeated, forcing my voice to steady itself. “Her name is Alcippe, and she serves as the handmaid of Queen Helen. She is a beautiful girl, with curly hair like ours.”
“Alcippe,” he murmured.
“That’s right. She’s your daughter.” My tears splashed onto his ruined face. “Your beautiful little girl. Shelives, Melanthius. Shelives.”
“Alcippe.” Her name escaped him in a final, sighing breath as his eyes slowly dulled, his body growing slack beneath me.
I stared at my brother, scarcely able to comprehend the sight of him, so lifeless in my arms. My brother, who had only ever wanted a better life for his child, yet the world had denied him at every turn, had punished him so cruelly.
I bowed my head, whispering two trembling words as I closed his eyes forever. “Be free.”
Slowly, I looked to Odysseus, and the hatred in my glare seemed to knock him back into his body, throwing the king into motion.
“Do you think I wished for this? Do you think I wished foranyof this?” he was shouting now as he stalked toward me, hands still shaking. “Was I not a benevolent king? Did I not treat you with compassion? All I asked for was your loyalty. Your respect. Still, you chose to defy me.”
A wild cacophony of fury and grief ripped through me as I spat at his feet.
“You willneverhave my respect. You who abandoned your throne, your wife, your child, your home, wasting twenty years feeding your own ego. You who returned to these shores without a single one of your soldiers, men you swore to lead, to protect. You who calls slaughtering innocents ‘justice.’ Where is the glory in that? Where is the honor? You are no hero. You are a disgrace. You are—”
Odysseus lunged for me, rage devouring his features. His fingers caught my hair, wrenching my head back.
“You knownothingof what I have done, what I have suffered.”
“I pray that suffering never ends,” I snarled back. “I pray you never know peace.”
He laughed viciously. “Peace?She abandoned me long ago.”
“I hope you rot—”
“Enough!” His hands were at my throat, and a horrible pressure swelled inside my head, so intense I thought my skull might explodefrom the force of it.
I kicked and thrashed beneath him, trying to gulp down breaths that would not come. Panic shuddered through me, growing hazier with every jerk of my body. I could hear familiar voices screaming my name, but they were frighteningly faint…the world shrinking away…darkness bleeding outward…
And I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t…
I…
Come back to me.
Penelope. Her name was a shimmering thread, tying me to this body, this world.
She would not let me go.
Come back to me.
I wanted to. Oh gods, I wanted to.
