Chapter Eighty-Eight
We did not need the effects of alcohol to sing and dance that night.
With a fire sending sparks and the aromatic smoke of herbs into the sky, the women of Themiscyra danced on the soft ground, their weapons clanging out rhythms as they beat them against the ground.
It was the song of war, and it had been blessed by the god of them all.
I tried my best to embrace that feeling. I burned the meat of a newborn fawn in the great god’s name and offered my prayers of thanks with a raised voice so that all could hear my words, Ares included. Not that he needed to hear them to know what I was thinking.
As the stars faded, most of the women had abandoned the idea of sleep. Some were continuing to sing, while others had taken to fighting or riding. Both my mind and body were exhausted, yet I knew this was a night we would never be offered again. The night a god had claimed us.
The flames of the fire had faded to small golden tongues that danced in the sea breeze. I had taken a place beside the warm embers where I was picking the meat from a bone when Althea approached.
She took a place on the ground beside me, and wordlessly I handed her the bone, for it had far more meat on it than I needed. It was only once she had finished her first mouthful that she spoke.
“So are we to build another temple? I do not mean to sound ungrateful, but if that is the case, perhaps you can delegate someone else to manage it, for I would happily never see another brick again.”
I chuckled. “No. We will not build a temple for Ares. That is not what he wants from us.”
Althea arched an eyebrow. “Then what does he want?”
I paused. Althea had seen everything. I had trusted her and her alone to bury my daughter. Not for a moment did I doubt her discretion. But how would Ares respond to me sharing news of his proposal with my women?
I did not wish to anger him if his offer was supposed to remain private, but I did not know how to decide without the perspectives that my friends offered.
Beyond that, he had watched me. He knew me.
He knew that Althea and I were as close as any two sisters could hope to be.
He knew I would tell her. And for that reason, I told her.
“He wishes to make me his wife. For me to bear his children. For us to create an army of the most feared women warriors.”
Her lips parted slightly as she struggled to disguise her shock, and it took a great deal of strength for me not to laugh. A moment passed, and she blew out a long breath, a single whistle on the air. When the noise finally stopped, she broke into a grin.
“Wife of a god. I think it will suit you.”
Her smile was so infectious it could raise the lowest of spirits, yet at that moment, it did not penetrate the fears that blanketed me. Fears that would continue to consume me if I could not find a way through.
“You truly believe so?” I questioned. “I am not special. What if I disappoint him? What if I cannot give him children?”
At this, her smile faltered. “Did you tell him of your past? Of…of…” She hesitated, searching for the right way to express what I had gone through. I did not make her suffer the humiliation of trying.
“He said it would not be the same. That I would carry his daughters. That I would birth warriors.”
At this, Althea frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “Then what is there to dispute? Surely you have no reason to refuse?”
My throat tightened with words I wanted to say. Words I should perhaps have offered Ares himself, for he had been so generous with his own truth. But he knew mine. He knew what I felt without me needing me to voice my heartbreak to the world. Yet in that moment, Althea saw it.
“It is Cleon,” she said. “You love him. That is why you did not accept the proposal?”
I swallowed, hoping to force a sound from my throat.
“I do not know for certain what love is. But I am fond of him. Deeply so. And he wishes to marry me. He said so that night I killed Kakos and again when we took the boys to him. What does it say of me if I would reject a marriage offer from a good man, a man who would ask nothing of me, who wanted me before I was a queen and ruler, and yet accepted the offer of a god?”
Althea wrapped her hands around my own, and their warmth seeped into me as fiercely as that of the fire.
“I cannot answer that for you, Otrera. Only you can. But from what you have said of Cleon, he would understand. He would understand that the strength and protection of your women come first, because that is the way it has always been. Besides, gods do not require fidelity, do they?”
“I believe this one would,” I said. I thought of how Ares had distanced himself from the actions of his father and uncle. I thought too of how he had referred to Aphrodite. He would not want to be made a fool of, the way he and his lover had done to Hephaestus. I would be bound to him for life.
When Althea spoke again, her voice was gentle but firm.
“If I am truthful with you, Otrera, I believe you are asking the wrong person. It is Cleon you need to speak to, not me.”