Because our joined momentum carries us over, and we fall through the door into an endless, starry sky. In my surprise, I let go of Claret’s hands.
The last thing I hear before my death claims me is that wraith, screaming behind us.
My last breath smells like roses.
8. Claret
I lie in lapping waters.
Their gentle movement lifts me like a breath, depositing me on to something soft and squishy. For a second, before my eyes flutter open, I think I’m still in Agamemnon’s bathtub, locked in a subtle dance with his dead body, negotiating our new power dynamic – him dead, me breathing freely for the first time in a decade.
But then my eyes open, and I see the moons.
So many moons, scything a pearly path across the sky.
I blink, thinking my eyes are still adjusting to my new surroundings, but the moons remain, impossible and round, a necklace on a sombre night’s neck. Where am I? As the thread of memory unspools, so do my senses. I smell salt, and I remember running. A briny breeze is dancing on my hair, and I remember dancing through a darkened sky.
Darkened …There was a creature made of shadows and rosewater, whispering sinister nonsense as it chased us. And before that, there was white, and doors, and her. Anassa. The would-be queen without a name who held my hand, convinced me not to slaughter her, all forest eyes and pretty lies … She must have brought us here.
Only, she couldn’t have. It was our hands together that unlocked the door, and then –
A sound like the fiery river of the Underworld, burning and screaming and flowing –
The raven curtain of her hair, glistening in starlight, obscuring her from view as she –
… She fell. We fell. There was no dancing. We were running for our lives and we opened up that door and by the gods, the fall that followed should have ended us. I attempt to move my fingers but they’re buried, stuck in a substance that is cold and wet. I push harder. They come free.
Slowly, testing for any injuries and broken bones that would prevent my moving, I raise them to my face, examining them in that multiplying moonlight. My hands are whole, unbroken. Caked in moist sand. I venture to move my head next, and it complies. On my right, jutting black rocks and shiny pebbles give way to volcanic sand laced with frothy waves, which are currently washing me ashore. Something glitters in my line of sight, just out of reach. My knife. I must have dropped it as we fell. This little blade was supposed to be my one-time accomplice, a sharp tool to cement my rule. I didn’t think it would become such an extension of my will that I’d feel lost without it. Then again, nothing of my previous life could have prepared me for this long, long day. White fogs, and disappearing doors, and falling through the starry sky … And landing in a world that once again is not my own, going by the number of opalescent orbs above.
At least I’m not entirely defenceless. With great effort, I push myself to the side and crawl away from the waters, the black sand soft and strangely warm under my nails. When I’m on solid ground, I push harder, willing my body to resist this sudden urge to rest, to let thewaves claim me once more. To stop fighting. Who am I, if I stop fighting?
I pray I never find out.
Eventually, I hold myself upright once more, although my feet have sunk into this sand way past my ankles, turning every step into a struggle. I make my wobbly way towards my knife, plucking it from a nest of seaweed, shells and pebbles, under a rock. I hold it in both hands, pressing the blunt end of its blade on my chest, the cool steel reassuring on my skin.
I feel unmoored, directionless, further away from Mycenae than before. But if I’m stuck on these black-sanded shores, at least for the night, I’ll need some shelter from the moons’ relentless gaze. I decide to use the vantage point of the rocks in front of me to orient myself. Carefully, I climb on the least sharp-looking boulder, turning my back on the waters to explore the land. No signs of human dwellings anywhere – just jagged rocks, growing more impenetrable the further inland it gets. Higher up, a cliff. Above that, the sky, weaved with peculiar constellations. Gods! Is that …
I squint, craning my neck upward, to better discern the familiar shape amid the stars.
An open door of distant light, its ethereal frame growing fainter by the minute.
The door we fell from …
The realization hits me like a stone: lest I sprout wings and fly, there is no going back the way we came. I fight the urge to fall apart, admit defeat. I am alive, and have my knife – that’s more than most of us can say. I have defeated Agamemnon, survived that realm of ashen shadows. At least here, I can see clearly. And there’s no hint ofroses in the air, that would betray the shadowy creature’s presence. I’m safe for now.
I’ll find a path, even if I have to carve one through these black rocks in the distance.
I turn my gaze once more to the waters, in case there are any ships or lights ahead, pointing to a friendlier shore. The sea is pretty, I suppose, glittering almost silver from the many orbs above, ebbing and flowing in a calming –
Oh.
There is a spot the moonlight doesn’t touch; a spot where screaming darkness blooms. I can barely hear the cries in the distance; I had mistaken it for winds hitting the rocks. Like a poisoned cloud of tar, the wraith hovers above the waves, its ghostly arms outstretched, pushing something under the water’s surface. Something or … someone. Someone struggling to survive.
Anassa.
A strange impetus takes over, numberless needles pinching through my skin, filling me with a fresh determination. I find my way back into the waters as if heeding a siren’s call. The waves are cold enough to keep me alert as I splash on, weaving my way towards that ghastly apparition and the queen I haven’t yet got round to murdering. It soon becomes apparent that I can’t swim holding a knife; it messes with my balance and tilts me to the side with each lap, making me swallow salty, silver foam.
And I can hear the screaming clearly now – there isn’t time to waste.
