Chapter 28 #2
Hot shame rushed into my cheeks as Penelope watched me fumble for words, her mouth twitching upward. She leaned in again and continued applying the ointment, though I could still see that hint of a smile out of the corner of my eye.
“I just meant to say I’m fine,” I muttered. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I always worry about you, Melantho.”
I turned to look at her, but she caught my face with her free hand.
“Hold still.”
I obliged, trying to ignore how aware I was of her hand cupping my jaw. I swallowed, knowing she would be able to feel the motion beneath her fingertips. In the hazy corners of my mind, I sensed those dreams flickering to life, the ones I had been trying so desperately to ignore.
As if drawn by the heat of my thoughts, Penelope’s eyes drifted to mine, and I was terrified of what truth she might find there, pinned so openly in my gaze. Still, I could not look away.
Our faces were so painfully close now, I could not tell where my blush ended and hers began. Penelope’s eyes dropped to my mouth, and the air pulled taut between us, threatening to snap.
“That should do it,” she said abruptly, pulling away. “The swelling should go down soon enough.”
I nodded, lifting my fingers to probe the place where hers had just been.
For a moment, we were quiet, Penelope’s eyes set on the flames, mine on the shadows.
“Will you tell me how it happened?”
She asked so tenderly, yet still I felt those familiar walls rearing up, luring me into the protection of their cold, dark shelter.
“Don’t do that. Don’t go to that place I cannot reach.”
Her words shook something inside me, and suddenly those imposing walls did not seem so safe anymore but rather…lonely.
“Please,” she whispered, her gaze reaching tentatively for mine.
Perhaps it was because she said “please,” or perhaps a part of me wanted someone to know, wanted her to know. Whatever the reason, I told her. All of it, every ugly, painful thing Melanthius had said and all the horrible truths that had rung between his words.
Penelope listened as she always did, with that preternatural stillness, her entire body focused on absorbing my every word, as if each were a sacred offering worth treasuring.
When I finally finished speaking, the fire had dulled to embers. I stared into the shadows once again, feeling horribly vulnerable beneath her silence, all those fragile parts of me exposed like gaping wounds.
“She was pregnant,” Penelope finally breathed. “Melitta.”
I nodded, still not looking at her.
“It makes sense now. Why you hated me so.”
“I didn’t hate you,” I said into the darkness. “I only thought I did because…because it was easier to hate you than hate myself.”
Penelope was quiet for a long moment before asking, “And what made you realize that?”
“Melanthius,” I admitted. “The things he said about you—I knew they were wrong. I knew he was wrong. He’s so blinded by bitterness…and I…I don’t want to be like that anymore. I don’t want to be like him.”
I waited for the stab of guilt, the ache of betrayal…but none came.
“He’s wrong about you, too, you know,” Penelope murmured. “Melantho…look at me.”
I shook my head, glaring into the ground and feeling a sudden, overwhelming desire for it to swallow me whole.
“Melanthius is wrong about you,” Penelope repeated, firmer now. “You must understand that.”
“He isn’t.”
“Melantho—”
“He isn’t!” The words exploded out of me.
“That’s why I did it. That’s why I took your silver—because Melanthius was right, and I couldn’t stand it.
I couldn’t stand the guilt. I couldn’t stand myself.
I have so much…so much ugliness inside me.
” I pressed a hand to my chest, rubbing the knot perpetually rooted there.
“I can feel it constantly. It eats me alive.”
I sensed Penelope moving closer, the warmth of her body somehow burning hotter than the embers beside us. She placed a finger under my chin, tilting my face to hers.
“This world is ugly, not you,” she whispered. “You are a good person.”
I shook my head, vision blurring.
“You are, Melantho.”
“You’re wrong,” I said thickly.
“I’m not.” Penelope spoke with such unyielding certainty.
“How can you be so sure?”
She arched a brow. “Because I’m never wrong. Have you not realized that yet?”
To my surprise, a rough laugh spilled out of me, but it quickly rolled into a sob, one hewn from my very core. Penelope shifted closer, folding herself around me as I wept.
I had only ever let my mother hold me like this. I had always loathed the idea of being so vulnerable, so exposed. But in Penelope’s arms, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief, like a great weight had been shifted from my soul, cascading out of me in a steady flow of tears.
Penelope’s hand lifted to stroke my hair as my sobs slowly subsided, and I realized I could not remember the last time I had felt like this…felt safe.
“You are a gift to this world, Melantho,” Penelope whispered. “You are a gift to me.”
I pulled back to look at her, tears threatening once again.
“I have been so afraid of hurting people, I allowed myself to forget all the ways I could help them,” she continued. “You made me realize that today. You made me realize the difference I can make here.”
I sniffed. “What kind of difference?”
Penelope smiled, reaching out to wipe my damp cheeks.
“For so long, I have scorned the treatment of slaves, but what have I done about it? Nothing. It’s time I changed that.
” Her face was set with a stoic determination.
“The war has taken much from us, but it has also given us the opportunity to empower those left behind. To build something we can be proud of. I do not wish to squander that gift.”
I considered it: a kingdom ruled by Penelope, guided by her quiet strength, shaped by her unwavering compassion. It almost frightened me—how much I liked the idea, how it made me, for the first time in my life, feel a sense of eagerness for the future rather than impending dread.
“And you?” she asked, a sudden timidity creeping over her. “What will you do?”
I blinked, my eyes hot and swollen. “What do you mean?”
“Will you go with your brother? He leaves tonight, does he not?”
“You’d…let me go?” I felt a strange rush of disappointment.
“I cannot say I believe your brother deserves your companionship after the way he’s treated you, but I stood in the way of your freedom once, Melantho. I will not do it again.” She glanced away, shoulders tensing. “It is your decision.”
I said nothing, and the silence seemed to stretch thin between us, strained by the answer I was not yet ready to give.
“It is late,” Penelope said suddenly, rising to her feet. “I should retire.”
As I watched her walk away, a sudden desperation burst inside me.
“This will be the last time we see each other,” I blurted out. “If I leave tonight.”
Penelope froze, spine stiffening, hands fisting in her gown. Slowly, she turned her face to the side so I could make out the elegant cut of her profile, mouth thin beneath her long, sharp nose. She looked as if she were having to forcibly hold herself in place.
“I know,” she said quietly.
A stillness crept into the room. There was so much I wanted to say, the clamor of words tangling together, forming a thick, burning knot in my throat.
“Good night, Penelope,” was all I managed in the end.
Though her face remained impassive, I swore I heard Penelope’s voice catch as she whispered, “Good night, Melantho.”