Epilogue
I am dead.
Do not mourn for me. My life was long ago, and it was extraordinary. Besides, there are questions I can now answer. That is a gift of death.
Phile made it to Elysium. So did Iphinone, Aina, and all my women. For the Asphodel Fields are for mortals whose lives had been nothing more than unexceptional, and the Amazons were exceptional. Every one of them.
I am afraid I cannot tell you if Hirtus and Cleon were offered the same gift.
I did not find them there, among the flowers and the streams, but it is possible that they drank from the river Lethe and returned to the land of the living.
Of course, it is also possible that they wander as wraiths, with no sadness or joy.
It is possible, but I have difficulty believing it is true.
Hirtus trained a hero, and Cleon was loved by the first queen of the Amazons.
They deserved a place in the eternal paradise.
And what of my other loves?
Perhaps we should start with my husband Ares.
I do not profess that I ever loved Ares as I loved Cleon, nor as he loved Aphrodite, but not all loves must be great ones.
Not all loves need to be fires that ignite every part of your life.
Some are just small, smoldering embers that keep away the cold of the night and provide safety for you and your loved ones.
They bring you that which you desire and could not have had without them. That was what Ares was for me.
He was there, waiting in Themiscyra after my death, my four daughters at his side.
Damaris was the one who carried me on her horse. Despite the number of dead, she carried no others, and the women did not ask. Althea was injured, and Sotiria had also passed from the land of the living.
I could feel them. See them. Not with my eyes, of course, but with some other part of me. I felt my women’s pain as they wept when Ares silently lifted me. I heard their moans as they dropped to their knees beside my cold, limp body.
“We need to bury her,” Penthesilea said. “We need to bury her now, with Erebus.”
Ares shook his head. “No, there is a decision that must be made first,” he said.
Of course, he knew what he was doing. Had I been buried, coins placed in my mouth, then I would have passed over into the land of the dead before I could see this action.
But by issuing his command, by making the women and my daughters wait, he ensured that I could be there in the only manner possible.
There were no words. No great laments about how he loved me or how I had brought him joy and comfort.
He did not even offer a brief recognition of me as a fighter, a mother, a wife.
Instead, he removed his zoster, held it in his hands, then carried it to Hippolyte.
My firstborn. The new queen of the Amazons.
And as for my last love, the one I held so deeply in my heart for so long and for whom my love and grief were most profound? He and I are forever together, riding across the hills and valleys of Elysium, waiting for the days when my daughters will join us here.