Chapter 14
As dawn’s rosy fingertips brushed the sky, we were hauled out of bed and set to work.
After three grueling days of preparation, it was finally the gamos, the day of the wedding ceremony.
I was back in the kitchens, surrounded by the familiar faces of my childhood. It was pure chaos prepping the wedding feast, bodies scrambling to and fro, tempers bubbling over like the pots on the fire, all while the king’s attendants barked endless orders.
Just one more day of this life, and then tomorrow…tomorrow. Only the Fates knew what it would bring.
“Melantho?”
I jerked my head upward, nearly slicing my finger instead of the vegetables in front of me.
“W-what?” I blinked, realizing Callias was standing beside me, his brows furrowed. “What did you say?”
“I said, I’ve been put on wine prep.” He gave me a pointed look.
“Oh.” I nodded slowly. “That’s…good.”
It was better than good; it was exactly as our plan had intended. With Callias on wine duty, he could ensure the stock was double its usual strength—triple even. And the drunker our masters were, the easier it would be for us to slip away unnoticed that night.
Callias slunk closer. “Are you all right? You seem…tense.”
“I’m fine.”
He braced a hand on the worktop and leaned into me, the turmoil of the kitchens drowning out his next words. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”
It was a question I had turned over and over in my mind the past few nights. But each time, no matter how frightening my thoughts became, my answer remained the same.
“Yes.”
“But have you really thought this through? Have you considered everything that could go wrong?” Callias pressed, a rare shade of seriousness darkening his voice.
“Because death is hardly the worst outcome. Even if you do manage it, what awaits you in those mountains… I’m only saying this because I care for you—”
“Stop. Just stop it. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Very well,” Callias sighed, pulling away. “You know I will still help you in any way that I can.”
I nodded vaguely, too distracted by those icy claws of fear sinking into me, threatening to shred what little hope I clung to.
I knew Callias thought our plan foolish; he’d said as much when I first asked him to come with us. I had dismissed his doubts then, choosing to see them as cowardice. But now they felt far more real, far harder to ignore.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps this was madness.
“Before I forget, I have something for you. From the princess.”
My mind snapped back to Callias. “The princess?”
“Penelope,” he clarified. “She found me when I was leaving Castor’s chamber this morning. She was looking for you. Asked me to give you this.”
I stared at the sprig in his hand. It had a long green stem with feathered leaves and little white flowers crowded at one end.
“Yarrow,” I murmured, taking it from him.
“She said it would help with your wound.” Callias stared at my bandaged hand, a crease pressing between his brows. “Melantho…you should’ve told me what happened with Agamemnon.”
A bolt of anger shot through me.
“She had no right to tell you,” I snapped. “And I don’t need this.”
“It might help—”
“I don’t need her help. I made that very clear. I don’t need anything from her.”
Callias’s brows rose. “Fine. Just toss it away then.”
“No.”
“No?”
I shouldered past Callias, crumpling the sprig in my fist.
“Melantho?” he called after me as I pushed my way through the crowded kitchen. “Where are you going?”
“To tell her myself.”
***
Fury fueled my every step.
Thankfully, the palace was swarming with busy slaves, so nobody questioned me as I stormed my way to Penelope’s chamber.
“I need to see the princess,” I told the queen’s handmaids hovering outside her door.
Their chatter fell silent as they eyed me suspiciously.
“Why?” one asked.
“A private matter,” I said.
“Princess Penelope isn’t allowing any visitors.”
“She won’t even let us in. Says she doesn’t need our help,” another added sourly.
“Well, I need to see her,” I said, pushing past them.
“You can’t go in there!” a third cried.
The handmaids’ squawks faded as I strode inside, the door swinging firmly shut behind me. I balled the yarrow in my fist as I marched forward, fury coating my tongue with acidic words I was ready to let fly. But when I looked up, I froze.
A goddess stood in Penelope’s chamber, radiant and golden.
She wore the most beautiful gown I had ever seen, a yellow so rich it looked as if it had been woven from pure sunlight.
Jewels glittered at her wrist and neck, a gold diadem dripping down her forehead, glinting in the light.
Her hair had been cut short, the sheer edges brushing her jaw, leaving the elegant slope of her neck bare.
“Melantho.” Penelope stared at me, my name catching on her lips.
I blinked, forcing myself to focus.
“You…you gave me this,” I said, holding out the sprig of yarrow. The accusation did not come out as I intended. My anger sounded blunted, its edges dulled to a thick lump in my throat.
Penelope regarded the crumpled plant in my hand, brows slightly raised. “I did.”
“Why?”
“For your wound,” she replied simply. But it was never that simple. Not between us.
“Well, I didn’t ask you for it.”
Penelope’s head tilted to the side as she studied me. I hated it when she looked at me like that, as if she were stripping my thoughts bare.
“I don’t need it,” I continued, motioning to her with a petulant wave of my hand. “I don’t need anything from you.”
“Very well.”
Slowly, Penelope approached me. The gold bands on her wrist tinkled as she reached out to take the yarrow. I refused to meet her gaze as I dumped it into her palm, yet I could still smell her, that decadent perfume clogging my nose, full of rich spices I didn’t know the names of.
She retreated, her gown whispering around her feet as if secrets were trapped within its folds. She really did look like a goddess, or the closest thing to divinity I had ever seen. I longed to move closer, to smell that rich, spiced scent again.
“Is that all?” she asked as she set the yarrow down on the far table.
Leave, Melantho, I ordered myself. You’ve done what you came to do. Now go.
“You cut your hair,” I blurted out.
Penelope absently brushed the shorn ends. “It is customary for brides to offer their hair to Artemis on the eve of their wedding. It marks the end of childhood.”
“Oh.”
She stared at me, lips slightly parted as if she wanted to say more. But then she turned away, silently assessing the brooches scattered on the table before her. She picked one up, turning it over in her hands before setting it down for another.
“Why are the handmaids outside?” I heard myself ask.
Penelope turned back to me with a small gold brooch in her hands and began fastening it at her shoulder.
“Are they still upset about that? I already told them I can dress myself. I am not a child.”
I noted the slight tightness in her tone.
“Well, I would be able to, if only I could…”
She trailed off, fumbling with the brooch.
I had watched Penelope’s hands weave threads with such unearthly steadiness, never once faltering. But now she was struggling to fasten a simple clasp.
The realization hit me abruptly—she was nervous.
“Stop, stop. You’re going to break it.” I sighed irritably, then strode toward her. “Give it here.”
Penelope blinked at me, then carefully placed the brooch in my uninjured palm. I could feel her eyes on my face, searching for answers to unspoken questions. I ignored her, focusing instead on securing the brooch at her shoulder, a simple task I had done a thousand times before for Castor.
So why did this feel so different?
When the clasp slotted into place, I finally met her gaze. The seconds passed, thick and heavy, thudding between us like a heartbeat. Then Penelope glanced down at herself.
“This one isn’t right. The other one would be better—”
“Penelope. It’s fine. You look…” I swallowed. “Fine.”
“I look fine?” There was a shade of amusement in her voice. “Well, isn’t Odysseus lucky then.”
“Odysseus will be… He’ll be pleased with you.”
She tried to smile, but the corners flickered and shrank like a dying flame. She began fiddling with the brooch again, her eyes distant.
“Are you all right?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“The celebrations will be wonderful. My uncle has spared no expense. I suppose that is unsurprising though. It is not every day there is a double royal wedding.” Penelope spoke in that empty, performative voice I had heard her use countless times around others. But never with me.
I held her gaze. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She inhaled slowly, then turned back to inspect the brooches once again.
“My whole life has been building up to this moment,” she murmured. “Ever since I can remember, I have known this was what I was destined for. To be married. To be a wife. So I spent my whole life trying to be in control of it, to guide the threads of fate as best I could.”
“And you did. Your plan worked.”
“I know.” Her back was turned to me, so I could only read the tight lines of her shoulders. “I just thought… I don’t know. I suppose I thought if I was in control of the situation, it would make me feel better when the time came.”
“But you don’t?”
Penelope bowed her head for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes unbearably soft.
“I didn’t mean to offend you with the yarrow,” she said. “I thought it would help.”
The sharp change in conversation threw me, and I suddenly felt ashamed for having stormed in there over something as ridiculous as a plant. Today of all days.
But it was never about the yarrow. The truth danced dizzyingly on my lips.
“I shouldn’t have disturbed you,” I said instead.
Penelope turned to face me fully and smiled that quiet, secretive smile of hers. “I’m glad you did all the same.”
“Why?”
She tilted her head, considering her reply. “You always seem to calm me down. Even when we were children. You make my mind…quieter.”
I laughed, the abrupt sound surprising us both. A rush of embarrassment prickled over me, but when I glanced at Penelope, her eyes were gleaming with a brightness I had not seen since that summer we had shared long ago.
Her smile widened. “That is amusing to you?”
“I just don’t believe anyone would ever describe me as a ‘calming’ child. I was so…chaotic.”
“I know.” She chuckled softly. “But I suppose I found calmness in your chaos. It was why I enjoyed your company so much.”
I hated the effect her words had on me, my traitorous heart stumbling over itself.
“I always thought it was out of pity—that you spent time with me.” The thought somehow found its way to my lips, and I instantly regretted how pitiful it sounded aloud.
Penelope’s smile vanished. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I wasn’t your friend, remember?” I knew the question was petty, but a part of me felt compelled to say it, to give voice to this wound I had carried for so long that refused ever to heal.
Penelope said nothing for a long while, and within the depths of her silence, I found myself wishing she were not so infuriatingly impossible to read.
Even as a child, Penelope had expertly worn this mask of hers, keeping her emotions tucked in close to her heart.
Once, I’d believed I had learned how to slip beneath that guise and see the real Penelope, the one whose eyes sparked with mischief and whose cheeks flushed with excitement at a new challenge.
But now I wondered if that had been just another performance.
It was so hard to tell, sometimes, which Penelope was the real one.
Did she even know?
“Do you remember our conversation the night we met, when I walked you back to your quarters?” she asked quietly, eyes fixed on some distant spot.
“Only a little,” I lied.
“You made me laugh. I had not laughed since the night my mother died.”
She let the weight of her confession hang between us. In the stillness, I thought of all the times she had laughed that summer. I had believed myself foolish back then for wondering if Penelope only laughed like that for me. But perhaps it was not such a ridiculous thought after all.
Something twisted inside me, like sun-warmed vines constricting around my heart.
“I lied that day, to my aunt.” She spoke the same way she had cleaned my wounds the night before—so carefully gentle, so desperate not to inflict any further pain.
“You were my friend, Melantho. Perhaps not a friend I deserved but one that I cherished all the same. I only wish I had treated you better.”
We stared at each other, the silence between us like a great, yawning precipice we teetered at the edge of. I felt myself leaning closer.
“Melantho, I must tell you something.”
“What?” I gulped out the word, suddenly breathless.
“I—”
The door burst open then, and the queen’s handmaids swarmed inside like an angry cloud of bees, shattering the moment.
“Mistress, I apologize for the intrusion, but Queen Leda is insisting!”
“The ceremony begins imminently, mistress!”
“We must ensure you are perfect for Master Odysseus, mistress!”
I stared at Penelope’s face, watching that vulnerability recede like waves from a riverbank, leaving the cool stones beneath. It was Penelope the princess staring at me now, her mask firmly back in place.
“Very well,” she said to them before turning back to me. “May we speak tomorrow? Before the gift-giving ceremony.”
I nodded numbly. “Tomorrow.”
“It must be before the gift giving,” Penelope clarified as the handmaids bustled around her, poking and prodding. “I shall see you then. Goodbye, Melantho.”
“Goodbye, Penelope.”