Chapter 15
The celebrations began with a grand procession through the streets of Sparta.
We slaves were not permitted to join these festivities, of course. We were to prepare the feast that awaited the guests when they returned, flush-faced and full of merriment.
My afternoon was spent carrying plates up and down the long tables, doing everything in my power to avoid Agamemnon.
The food smelled divine: roasted wild boar, spiced lamb, salted fish, thick stews wafting notes of garlic and leek.
My stomach gnawed at me as I watched the guests delight in every mouthful.
Tyndareus had clearly wanted to flaunt his wealth; there were even some dishes I had never seen before—long, snakelike fish that glistened on the plate and strange, rubbery creatures with eight wiggling legs.
Throughout the feast, I found my eyes regularly drifting to Penelope.
She sat with the women on the opposite side of the room to the men.
She and Helen had remained covered, as was customary, lifting tiny morsels of food beneath their veils as they spoke in hushed tones.
Meanwhile, the men were as raucous as ever, Menelaus and Odysseus reigning proudly over them—the victors of the day.
It was clear they both relished the attention.
At the end of the feasting, the two brides were brought forward by Tyndareus to their waiting husbands. One at a time, the king unveiled them while the guests roared their approval.
Penelope was the first, and when that thin material rippled away, I saw a flash of fear spark across her face, making my fingers tighten around the plate I carried.
The prince of Ithaca’s grin was as radiant as the torches burning behind him. He took Penelope’s hands, and she managed a smile, but all I could think was how small her palms looked in his.
Then it was Helen’s turn, and the room fell still, breaths held, eyes widening.
An audible gasp swept through the crowd as we beheld the famed princess of Sparta.
She was like sunlight incarnate, shining and radiant, brightening the room with her golden presence.
Helen’s hair was the palest shade I had ever seen, framing two honey-brown eyes that glowed, quietly assessing her new husband.
Menelaus took her hand tentatively, as if afraid she might shatter beneath his large, clumsy fingers.
Helen seemed to like his awkward gentleness, and she smiled, a slow, devastatingly beautiful smile that had her audience erupting into cheers.
After the unveiling, the music began, and tables were pushed aside so people could dance.
I shrank to the shadowy corners of the room, watching the guests as they laughed and twirled and drank.
Their happiness felt so strange to me, sparkling and distant, like stars swirling in the night sky. Unreachable.
Despite Helen’s captivating presence, my eyes followed Penelope.
She was sitting to one side, chatting quietly with her new husband.
But then Odysseus rose and led her into the crowd of blurring bodies.
Penelope smiled as Odysseus began spinning her around the room, faster and faster until I heard her laugh echoing through all the hollow spaces inside me.
As I watched them, a thought nagged at me. What did Penelope want to tell me tomorrow?
And why did it bother me so much that I would never find out?
“Not long now,” Callias whispered as he sidled up to me. “They’re all too drunk to remember their own names.”
“Mm.” I nodded vaguely.
I felt Callias’s eyes on me, then he followed my gaze to Penelope. Her face was flushed, hair a little unruly. I had never seen her so vibrant. She and Odysseus looked gloriously happy, limned by torchlight, glowing like young gods.
“Ah,” Callias murmured. “Eros’s arrow burns so brutally sweet, does it not?”
I flinched, snapping my attention away. “What? No, it’s not… I’m not—”
He chuckled. “I didn’t think he’d be your type.”
I frowned, following Callias’s gaze back to Odysseus.
“The prince of Ithaca isn’t bad-looking, I suppose. He’s got a nice smile on him,” he mused. “They seem to make a decent pair.”
“He looks more like her father,” I muttered.
“Don’t all grooms? I wonder if Penelope is excited for her wedding night or afraid. What do you think?”
“I don’t care,” I said, turning away from the twirling couple.
“Melantho.” Callias touched my wrist, his voice sobering. “There’s still time to change your mind. You don’t have to do this.”
He was wrong. I did have to. I had to get away from this prison. I had to know what freedom tasted like. I had to take control of my life, even if it were only to end it. At least it would be my choice.
And there was power in that, even in defeat.
“I’ve made my decision,” I said.
Without warning, Callias leaned forward and kissed me.
It wasn’t the first time he had done such a thing, for Castor often made us share his bed together, but neither was the kiss romantic.
The tenderness between Callias and I was hard to describe, not driven by desire or passion yet something more intimate than friendship.
“Look at that—I can still make you blush,” Callias murmured with a smile, brushing my cheek. “I’ll miss you, my friend.”
“Take care of yourself,” I said thickly, taking his hand.
“No, no, darling. I make others take care of me.” He grinned fiendishly. “Now go. I’ll make sure everyone’s cups stay full. They’ll be so blind drunk they’ll need days to sleep it off.”
I kissed his hand, unwilling to let go. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Go,” he urged, brushing off my emotion with a wink. “Go taste freedom for the both of us.”
***
Since childhood, I had been taught to be invisible, to shrink myself down to an undetectable size.
I used to loathe it, being forced to relegate myself to the shadows, to the corners of existence. But that night, as I hurried from the palace, I relished slipping through the world unseen.
The darkening skies looked heavy and somber as I made my way to the stables, mottled clouds stretching across them like cracked clay.
Ahead, the mountains stood as silent and eternal as a tomb.
Soon we would be ascending those peaks, facing whatever lurked within them.
We’d all heard the stories, of the wolves and monsters that hunted there.
I had once thought they were mere fiction, meant to quell any who dared to do what we were attempting. But now I was no longer so certain.
“Melanthius?” I whispered as I entered the stables’ farthest pen.
Only silence greeted me, and I felt a sickening panic bleed through my gut.
“Melanthius? Melanthius!”
“Shh. I’m here, I’m here.” My brother’s outline appeared in the darkness.
I smacked his arm. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Don’t talk so loud,” he hissed back. “You sure nobody saw you leave?”
“I’m sure. Everyone’s too drunk to see much at all.”
A tall, skinny boy stepped forward then. He looked a little older than us, with shaggy blond hair falling over his eyes.
“This is Xanthias,” my brother introduced him, then motioned to the small shadow pressed at his side. “And Melitta.”
“I thought there were going to be more of us?” I asked.
Melanthius hesitated. “Some pulled out.”
“Cowards,” Xanthias spat.
“They won’t rat on us, will they?” I asked.
“Nah, they’re cowards but they ain’t no rats,” Xanthias muttered. “Come on. We need to get moving.”
Xanthias and my brother led the horses outside: two giant, dark stallions, the largest I had ever seen. As I went to follow them, a small hand landed on my arm.
“I am happy to finally meet you,” Melitta whispered. I could not place her accent, halting yet sweetly melodic. “Melanthius talks a lot about you.”
Through the darkness, I could only just make out her face—pretty and round, with wide, bright eyes. I noted the way her hand rested protectively over her slightly swollen stomach and was surprised by the sudden rush of emotion clogging my throat.
“Come,” Melitta gently urged. “They’re waiting for us.”
We hurried outside to where my brother and Xanthias were checking over the horses.
“They’re huge,” I murmured.
“I thought about using the old mares the king never rides,” Melanthius said. “But he’s gonna discover we’re gone no matter which beasts we take. So we might as well take the fastest mounts to get us to the mountains, then we go on foot.”
“We’re leaving the horses behind?”
“They can’t handle it up in the mountains,” Xanthias answered me. “Too steep.”
“That’s why we need to move fast,” Melanthius reiterated. “Get as far away as we can before anyone notices we’re gone.”
“Hopefully that won’t be until late morning at the earliest.” I hid my fear behind a shaky grin. “Callias made sure the wine was strong enough to knock out an ox.”
The last dregs of daylight drained away as we made our escape.
Melitta rode with Melanthius, while I was with Xanthias.
The stallions galloped over the dry earth, thundering hooves falling into rhythm with my racing heart.
The wind screeched in my ears, ripping at my hair and clothes with invisible claws.
I buried my face in Xanthias’s bony back, battling the near-constant fear that I was about to fall to my death.
After a time, my legs began to ache, my arms sore from where I had been gripping Xanthias so tightly. When I felt I could last no longer, the horses finally slowed. We were at the base of the mountains now, jagged peaks etched in stark moonlight.
“We’ll go as far as the horses can manage,” Melanthius told us, pushing ahead.
A new kind of terror seized me as we ascended the steep mountain path. Two or three times, our horse stumbled, struggling to find purchase on the loose, rocky terrain. Eventually, the beast refused to move, obstinately ignoring Xanthias’s barked commands.
“Let’s leave them here,” my brother called as he dismounted. “We’ll continue on foot.”
My thighs were on fire, but adrenaline numbed the pain as we broke into a run, scrambling farther up the mountain.
Night had fully fallen now, Nyx’s darkness devouring all detail from the world, turning our surroundings into a shapeless, heavy mass.
I could just make out the trees crowding close, their spindly branches like veins sparking across the moon-dipped sky.
In the distance, a wolf howled. We all pretended we had not heard it.
Xanthias led the way, though I questioned if he truly knew where he was going.
Our aim was to walk until we reached the sea, then we would find a way to pay for safe passage to take us far away from this land.
A few days ago, the vagueness of this plan had been masked by the thrilling glow of possibility.
Now it dawned on me how fragile it truly was.
But there was no turning back now.
We remained silent as we pushed on. The trees grew thin around us and the path ever steeper, stretching out into treacherous expanses of loose stone. My flimsy sandals were utterly useless, and I fell over twice, my feet battered and bruised.
“Wait.” My brother’s voice made me jump. It was the first anyone had spoken in a long while.
I glanced back at him, sweat dripping down my temples. “What is it?”
“Do you hear that?” he whispered. “Listen.”
I frowned. All I could make out was the night chorus of cicadas and my own ragged breaths. But then I heard it. A distant rumbling, like a storm rolling in from the horizon.
“What is that?” Melitta breathed.
“Horses,” Melanthius and I said at the same time.
“We gotta move. Fast,” Xanthias hissed.
Panic sharpened my senses as we raced through the trees, praying we could lose our hunters on the winding mountain trails. But that thunder of hooves was closer now, accompanied by another sound, one that stilled the very blood in my veins.
Barking.
They had hounds on our scent.
A wild fear pounded through me, eclipsing my mind. I could no longer feel my screaming muscles or butchered feet or even hear my own breath sawing out of my chest. All I could focus on, all that mattered, was that darkness ahead and the freedom that lay beyond it.
We just had to keep going.
Just keep going.
A yelp sounded from behind, followed by the clattering of scattered stones. Beside me, I felt Melanthius turn.
“What are you doing?”
My brother ignored me, dashing back toward the figure now slumped on the ground. “Melitta? Are you all right?”
“My ankle,” she gasped.
“Melanthius,” I hissed as loudly as I dared.
“I’m not leaving her. Go. We’ll catch up.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“Go, Melantho!” he cried, the raw, desperate fear in his voice spurring me onward.
Ahead of me, I could just make out Xanthias scrambling through the trees. I focused on following his shadow, pushing my way through the disorienting darkness.
Just keep going.
A growl ripped open the night, followed by Xanthias crying out in pain.
A moment later, an arm shot out from the blackness, locking around my stomach and hauling me off my feet.
I kicked and clawed at my attacker, throwing my head back so that my skull collided with his face.
There was a loud crunching sound as I was dropped to the ground, my forehead bashing against a rock, breath fleeing my lungs.
Something warm dribbled down my face, and I opened my eyes to find the forest spinning around me. With a cry, I began dragging myself forward on my stomach, gasping for air that would not come.
Just.
Keep.
Going.
Someone grabbed my hair as a fist collided with my face, followed swiftly by another.
And then darkness swallowed me whole.