Why must I stop?
Why did someone as cruel and horrible as Leda get to decide our fates?
Why did she have to chooseher?
Why, why,why?
I shook my head furiously, still reaching for my mother. Then my father was there again, his arms clamping around my waist like shackles of flesh and bone. I kicked and screamed as he dragged me away, my throat so raw I thought I might start spitting blood.
“I will not ask you to control her again, Dolios,” Leda warned.
My father’s hand covered my mouth, his voice tight and panicked in my ear. “Please, Melantho. Please stop. I beg you.”
In that moment, I hated him. I hated him so deeply that I felt the burn of it scorch against my heart, leaving a permanent, irrevocable mark there.
Before us, the cart rumbled to life, and I finally fell still. I could see the fear in my mother’s eyes now as the slaves around her wept. Still, she forced a smile.
“Be brave, my heart,” she called to me. “It will be all right, I promise. Everything will be all right.”
Those were the last words my mother ever said to me, and they were a lie.
8
My grief had no beginning or end.
I could not grasp its edges, could not comprehend its shape.
So it swallowed me whole.
Still, the traitorous world carried on, and I was expected to do the same. For slaves were not permitted to mourn. There was no space for our pain.
Time lost meaning, as did everything else. I floated through my existence, the days bleeding together, seasons passing like a phantom breeze.
When I turned fourteen, I was plucked from the kitchens to serve upstairs in the palace’s entertaining quarters. Apparently, I “did not have a face for kitchen work.” Once, this would have made me feel proud. Now, I struggled to feel much at all, other than the dull rage that lingered beneath my skin, beating like a cold, withered heart.
My new duties were simple enough. I was to be a living shadow, attentive yet invisible, waiting for the lazy swish of a hand summoning me to refill a cup or plate. It was monotonous, hollow work, but at least it kept me away from the kitchens where my mother’s absence lingered in every corner, memories of her embedded like jagged shards.
Mercifully, I saw little of Queen Leda, and Princess Clytemnestra had already been sent off to marry the king of Mycenae. Princess Helenwas kept shut away like some precious piece of treasure, so I was left to serve the princes, Castor and Polydeuces, and the myriad noble guests constantly plaguing the palace. Men with greasy smiles and roaming hands. Often, when they pinched my backside or grabbed my breasts, I fantasized about tossing their wine in their arrogant faces, then slapping them for good measure. But even just the thought of such insolence made the scars on my back ache viciously. So I learned to swallow my rage, hating them in silence while they ground my existence down to barked commands.
“Here, slave.”
“More, slave.”
“Quick, slave.”
“Now, slave.”
And I silently obeyed, as compliant as wet, lifeless clay, forever molding myself to the will of others.
“You have to play into it, darling,” a serving boy told me one day.
His name was Callias, which meant “beautiful.” Our masters would often label us like this, using simple physical descriptors devoid of individuality. Though this name certainly suited the boy, for he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Deep umber skin, earthy eyes with elegantly aquiline features.
“You do know what I mean, don’t you?” he prompted, leaning closer to me with a conspiratorial wink.
I debated ignoring him, as I did whenever any of the other slaves tried talking to me. And yet something about Callias tugged at those wilted threads of curiosity. I think it was because he did not look like any slave I had ever known. It was in the way he carried himself, with an air of something I hadn’t known our kind could possess—pride.
“No,” I said flatly. “I don’t.”
