Chapter I #2
“Don’t cry,” Stheno whispers fiercely. “She doesn’t deserve your tears.” She squeezes one of Euryale’s hands hard. I clasp the other, but more gently. Stheno begins to hum a nameless tune, and I join her. We hum together until Euryale calms.
I don’t remember how old I was when I realized I was different from my sisters, that their blood was golden while mine ran red; that the threads of their lives, and my parents’ lives, would extend for all eternity while mine would eventually be cut.
It is a quiet but unavoidable truth, one that has always set me apart from the rest of my family.
In these moments, though, I know my sisters and I are still bound together—by the confines of our home, by the expectations of our ambitious father, by the shared fear of our erratic mother.
“I will marry,” Euryale vows. There’s a new steel in her dark brown eyes. “And then I will leave this island forever.”
I tense. I cannot fault Euryale for wanting to leave home.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted the same thing.
I’ve yearned to leave our island and see the world I know only from the odd trinkets that occasionally wash up on our shores.
But alongside that yearning is a very real fear.
I am the youngest, and I worry that, someday, my sisters will leave me behind.
My gaze wanders past our veranda to the jagged coast below, then to the calm, boundless sea that betrays nothing of the lands and life I know must exist beyond it. I close my eyes and swear a quiet oath.
Someday, I will leave this island, too.
I squeeze Euryale’s hand a little tighter, and I’m glad when none of us speak again.
Eventually, my sisters go inside, but I stay out on the chaise awhile, hugging my knees to my chest. I breathe in the smell of wet sand, listen to the endless roar of the waves below.
It’s beautiful, peaceful, and maddeningly familiar. A sigh escapes me unbidden.
“Honestly, Meddy,” says a low, teasing voice behind me. “Maps and scrolls?”
Despite myself, I allow a smile to tug at my lips. I don’t have to turn around to know the owner of that particular voice, but I do anyway. The young male slave from before—the one who’d been sweeping—now stands a few feet away, wearing a wry smile of his own.
I shrug. “It was worth asking.”
Theo snorts and settles beside me. He pulls a small block of wood and a carving knife from his tunic’s pocket and begins to whittle away.
At once, a calm washes over me like a wave, and the remnants of my earlier anger dissipate.
That’s the effect Theo usually has on me.
He always smells of the garden where we first met when we were small—earthy, slightly floral.
We became friends years before, when I accidentally cut my finger on a rose prickle and he valiantly tore a strip from his own tunic to bandage the wound.
He’s grown taller since that fateful day in the garden, but little else about him has changed.
His black hair is still a mass of short, tight curls; his skin is still as dark as mine; and he still manages to hold a light about his person, as though he’s stolen some piece of the sun and locked it deep in his chest. We lean into each other as he works, shoulder to shoulder, and for a moment we’re content that way.
“Are you ready for tomorrow night?” he asks.
I sit up, the spell broken. “I’m ready for my mother to stop talking about it, if that’s what you mean.”
Theo’s brow furrows the way it always does when he’s thinking. He stops whittling. “She mentioned suitors might come,” he says. “Do you think any of them will actually make offers of marriage?”
I pause, and an uneasiness nestles inside my rib cage. “I can’t be sure,” I admit, “but even if one did, I doubt I’d be the one asked.”
“What makes you say that?” I’m touched by the defensiveness in my friend’s voice.
“Stheno and Euryale are immortal,” I say patiently.
“I’m not. Any suitor in his right mind would pick one of them before me.
” The words aren’t as hard to say aloud as they used to be.
Seventeen years has given me ample time to come to grips with some truths.
I understand that, for gods, marriage is a tool.
In the eyes of most, my mortality would ensure only a brief political alliance.
“Then those suitors are fools.” Theo grins. “It would be good, though, if one of them brought some new maps for us to look at.”
I smile. There is an endless number of things I admire about Theo, but I know that what binds us most tightly are the things we share—mortality, a constant awareness of the passing of time, and a desire to leave this island and see more.
I resettle against him, resting my head on his shoulder. He continues his work on the small block of wood, and I find there’s something peaceful about the slow, constant rhythm of the work.
“One day, we’ll leave this island,” I whisper. “We’ll build our boat and gather our supplies, and then we’ll leave, together.” It is an unlikely dream, impossible even, but the words are still sweet said aloud.
“Together,” Theo echoes softly. “You and I will go, together.”
In the silence, I try to memorize every detail of this moment—the soft crash of the waves below, the sun-kissed warmth of Theo’s skin on mine. Today, all is well.
Tomorrow, the gods descend.