“She went withhim,” I choked out.
“Penelope did not have a choice,” Hippodamia reminded me. “She did it for us.”
I knew it was true. Penelope had recognized that she could not stop Odysseus with her rage; she could only pacify him as a wife to a husband. She had always known how to play him best. But that had not made it hurt any less to see Penelope embrace the man who had just butchered my brother.
“We must go, my friend,” Skaris said, limping heavily to my side.
I gulped down a panicked breath. “I cannot leave him like this.”
“You must,” she told me, her voice firm yet not unkind. “Your brother has left this place. So must you. It is what he would want.”
I shook my head, even though I knew she was right.
“Someone needs to tell our father,” I said, the words shaky and thin. “He should know. He needs to know.”
“I will tell him,” Telemachus said, standing before us.
Hippodamia brushed my shoulder. “Melantho…”
“I cannot leave her either,” I whispered. The tears had found me now, hot and desperate. “What if he hurts her? What if he—”
“He will not,” Telemachus insisted.
“He is a monster,” I snarled up at him.
“No, he’s not.” His voice trembled, like a child verging on a tantrum. “He is myfather.”
“You saw what he did,” Actoris snapped.
Telemachus lowered his eyes to my brother’s mutilated body, then quickly glanced away.
“Penelope has given us the gift of time,” Hippodamia urged, her cheeks glistening with tears. “We must not waste it.”
“She prepared a ship for us,” Autonoë told Telemachus, her voice surprisingly calm. “At the abandoned harbor. That is where we must go.”
Telemachus blinked. “A ship? But why… How did she—”
“We don’t have time to explain,” Actoris bit out.
“It is time,” Eurynome whispered to me. In that moment, her voice reminded me of my mother’s, so soft with love and concern. “It is time to let him go.”
I held Melanthius a little tighter, willing the warmth of my body to somehow force the life back into his.
I wasn’t ready to lose him. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
But my brother was long gone.
With shaky fingers, I brushed a curl from Melanthius’s closed eyes, then leaned down to kiss his forehead.
“Telemachus.” I glared up at the prince. “Promise me you will bury him. Do not leave his soul to wander. You owe me that.”
The prince nodded, though he could not meet my gaze. “I swear it on the river Styx, Melantho. He will find peace in the afterlife.”
***
The moon-tipped waves danced before us.
A ship was waiting at the abandoned harbor, just as Penelope had said it would be.
