And the pain. Constant and paralyzing.
Consciousness came and went in faint waves that lapped against my mind. Every time I felt sleep beckon, I prayed Penelope would be there waiting for me when I woke. She would make it all better. She always did. But it was only ever my mother at my bedside, her face creased with worry, tears in her eyes. She would press her fingers to my forehead, my temples, skating a familiar route over my skin.
“I’m here,” she would whisper. “My heart, I’m here.”
I do not know exactly when the fever found me, but I knew the hideous chill rattling through my bones, shivering over my sweat-soaked skin. Reality floated, untethered, bleeding into my dreams, my nightmares. I saw Clytemnestra standing over my bed, the whip in her hands, her face cut with a cruel smile. I felt Penelope beside me, feeding me honeyed figs, her hand resting in mine. I wanted to talk to her, but the words were always liquid in my mouth.
Everything will be all right, Penelope told me again and again untilher voice began to slip into my mother’s soft lilt.
“Penelope?”
“Shh, my heart, shh.” My mother’s voice soothed me back to the edges of my dreams.
“The king requires an update on her condition.” Another voice came from the pulsing darkness.
The king.Tyndareus was worried about me. He wanted to make sure I was all right.
He cared about me.
“She needs a doctor.” My mother again.
“You know they will not send for one. Not for us.” There was a pause. “If she’s not back on her feet soon, the king warned he would need to make…decisions.”
“He would sell her? Like this?”
“He is considering.”
“Acte, she’s in this state because of them.”
It was quiet for a long moment. “I will pray to Asclepius for her.”
“She doesn’t need your prayers. She needs medicine.”
“She will—”
“She will die.”
I wanted to stay and hear the rest of the conversation, but familiar cool currents tugged me away, pulling me down and down into Morpheus’s distant realm.
***
My mother wept when I finally woke.
We were in the corner of our sleeping quarters, and it was strange seeing the room so empty, daylight spilling through the open door. I was lying on my stomach, the ground unusually soft.
“People have been very kind,” my mother said as I stared at the blankets stacked beneath me. “We’ve all been worried about you.”
I tried to sit up, but a slice of pain shot down my back.
“Careful! Try not to move. You still need to rest.”
I glanced around, my eyes catching on a crumpled heap of linen beside me.
My gown.
“I didn’t know what to do with it,” my mother murmured as I reached for the torn, bloodied material.
“Where is Penelope?” I whispered hoarsely.
