Chapter 11
I felt empty as I walked into Penelope’s chamber.
The numbness was so consuming, it took me a moment to realize it was not the same one we had shared as children.
“I was moved from my usual quarters on account of the suitors,” Penelope explained. “I prefer this anyway. That other chamber was unnecessarily large.”
This space was indeed far smaller, comprising only one room.
A bed was positioned in the far corner, stacked with intricately woven blankets.
Opposite was a loom where threads hung suspended like strands of unfinished time.
On a narrow table, a few jugs were arranged in a neat line alongside a bowl for washing.
Everything was impeccably tidy, just as I remembered Penelope’s chamber had always been.
Her eyes followed mine as I surveyed the space, our silence stretching thin.
I pretended not to watch as Penelope removed the scarf from around her head, slipped off her sandals, and padded across the rug to the unlit hearth. A single chair was positioned beside it, draped in a dark animal hide and inlaid with silver detailing.
“Would you like to sit here?” she offered. “I can take a look at your hand.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
Penelope nodded, then stared into the empty hearth as if her gaze alone could summon a fire within it. Silence settled again, sharpening the awkwardness between us. Once, there had not seemed enough time in existence to fit all the words I wanted to share with Penelope.
“You can leave if you wish,” she said. “I am not forcing you to stay.”
Go. Leave and never look back, a voice inside my head urged. Remember who she is. Remember what she did to you. But my body refused to comply, as if my feet were rooted to the spot.
When I looked up, Penelope was watching me again with those eyes of hers that always saw too much.
“Would you like to talk about…what happened?” she asked quietly.
Was she referring to Agamemnon or us?
It did not matter. My answer would still be the same.
“No.”
She did not press further. It was something I had once admired about her, how Penelope never forced truths from another’s lips. Instead, she would let them settle and soften, then gently pry those words out when the time was right.
But I would not let her slip beneath my defenses this time.
You cannot trust her kind, my brother hissed from the past.
So why are you still standing here?
The familiar glug of liquid being poured caught my attention. A moment later, Penelope was handing me a cup.
“What are you doing?”
“Offering you wine,” she said as if it really were that simple.
“Why?”
“Because you look like you need it.”
She waved the dark liquid toward me again, and as I reached out to take it, I realized my hands were trembling. Penelope noticed, too, and I hated the way it made her face soften.
“The wine will help,” she murmured. Then, at my hesitation, she added, “Don’t worry—I did not spit in it.”
My eyes flashed to hers. “W-what?”
A small smile brushed her lips. “I saw you and your friend. Before the suitors’ banquet.”
I said nothing, waiting for the scolding, the judgment. But none came. Instead, Penelope turned and busied herself with lighting the fire.
Unsure what else to do, I decided to drink.
When I treated myself to Castor’s wine, it always tasted like rebellion, danger and excitement and fury all swirled together on my tongue.
There was not the same thrill when it was given to me out of pity.
Instead, Penelope’s wine had a mild tang and seemed substantially more watered down than the stuff the men drank.
Still, I gulped it down eagerly, willing it to drown all thoughts of Agamemnon.
The fire spluttered to life, causing the shadows to scatter away.
Penelope watched the flames for a moment, skin bathed in their amber glow.
I found my eyes tracing the slope of her neck, watching the shadows play in the hollow dip at the base of her throat.
My stomach clenched like a fist, and I quickly diverted my attention to Penelope’s loom.
“It’s a wedding veil,” she said, following my gaze.
“For you?”
“Unfortunately.”
She moved toward it and began toying with a thread, making the hanging weights clack together. The sound summoned visions, unbidden, of lazy, sun-gilded afternoons spent watching Penelope work as we giggled and chattered.
I blinked, forcing those memories back into their graves.
“Why are you dressed as a slave?”
“Let me look at your hand, and I’ll tell you,” Penelope countered, the spark of a challenge warming her voice.
“I already told you, I’m fine.” In truth, my palm was throbbing fiercely, as were my knees from where I had fallen on the broken jug.
Still, the thought of Penelope tending to me made my skin crawl.
“At least sit, will you?”
“Is that a question or a command?”
Penelope’s face tightened, but she did not rise to my resentment. Instead, she murmured a soft, “Please.”
I stalked across the room and collapsed into the chair. I did not know why I was acting like a sulking child. It was as if my leftover fear and anger had curdled with my exhaustion and now seeped out of me in clumps of bitter petulance.
Penelope did not seem to mind my behavior, and I found her calmness irritating. How did she always have such a firm rein on her emotions?
“You should bathe the cut,” she said, setting a bowl of water down beside me and offering a fresh cloth. “Your knees too.”
I said nothing as I took the rag from her, ignoring the tremor in my fingers as I dipped it into the water. I waited until Penelope walked away before I pressed the rag against my palm, stifling a hiss of pain. The shard had cut me deep when I twisted it into Agamemnon’s leg.
Still, it had been worth it.
“Do you really think he won’t tell anyone what I did?” I asked without looking at her.
“I think Agamemnon’s delicate ego will keep him quiet,” she replied from across the room. “At least until Helen’s hand has been secured by his brother.”
“What about after?”
Penelope’s back was turned to me as she murmured, “I cannot say.”
A cold, clammy panic crept over me as I dabbed at the wound. A moment later, Penelope appeared at my side and began refilling my empty cup.
“Don’t.” I clenched the word between my teeth.
She paused. “Why?”
“Because that’s not the way this works.”
Carefully, she set the jug down before moving to retrieve the three-legged stool from beside her loom.
“And what is ‘this’?” Penelope asked as she placed the stool opposite me and perched herself on it.
“This.” I motioned between us with the rag, now stained with my blood. “I serve you. So just stop…twisting it, will you?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line. “But I don’t want you to serve me.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Because you’re injured.”
“I can look after myself.”
“I never said you could not.”
“I don’t need your pity.”
“I’m not giving it.”
“Then stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you pity me.” The words came out in a heated rush, sharper than I’d intended.
Still, Penelope did not even flinch, just folded her hands neatly in her lap and watched me with that infuriating patience of hers.
“I do not pity you, Melantho,” she said, firmer this time.
I ignored her. She had always been too good at lying.
She is not my friend.
I began dabbing the dozens of little angry cuts mottled across my skin. My frustration made me careless, and a stab of pain lanced through my kneecaps.
“Hades’s helm,” I swore and leaned back in the chair.
“What is it?” Penelope asked, voice pinched with something almost like concern.
“I think…there’s some shards still in there,” I replied through gritted teeth.
“May I take a look?”
I wanted to say no, leave me alone, but exhaustion skulked between my bones, draining the fight from my body. I dropped the rag into the bowl and turned my face to the fire.
Penelope moved toward me, picking up the rag and rinsing it in the water.
She then took the bowl and knelt in front of me.
My eyes drifted away from the hearth, stomach knotting at the sight of the princess on her knees before me.
Her gaze flickered up to mine as if sensing my thoughts, preempting my refusal. But I said nothing.
Taking my silence as compliance, Penelope turned her attention back to my knees.
“There are definitely still shards in there,” she murmured. “You must get them out. May I try?”
“Fine,” I grunted, downing the wine she had refilled. “Just get it over with.”
She paused momentarily, drawing in a breath. Her fingers then traced up my right leg, closing gently around my calf. Her touch made everything go still, as if every flame in Sparta had whispered out all at once.
I swallowed the sudden dryness in my mouth as Penelope guided my leg toward her and gently set my foot in her lap.
Her fingers remained laced around my calf as her other hand began to gently pry out the shards embedded in my skin.
She was so incredibly gentle, touching me with a care that made a strange lump knot in my throat.
I watched her as she worked, studying the way concentration etched itself into those features of hers, every detail accentuated by the flickering light of the fire. She was still the most striking thing I had ever seen.
She glanced up then, catching my gaze before I could look away, pinning it between us, raw and open. The air in the room suddenly felt too thin, the fire too hot, my pulse too fast, the stillness between us too delicate.
“Is this all right?” she whispered.
I nodded, cheeks burning as I turned my face away. I focused on the fire once again, willing myself to cling to the hatred inside me, to keep holding that shield close.
She abandoned you.