Chapter VI
VI
The slaves find Maheer’s body the following morning.
I am in bed, pretending to be asleep, but I know the moment it happens.
There is a series of screams, a rush of running feet.
The strange tickle at the back of my mind, the one that’s making me feel as though I’ve forgotten something important, stayed with me all through the night while I tossed and turned, but I still can’t place its source.
Not that that is the only thing that held sleep at bay.
For hours, I replayed what had happened in Maheer’s bedchamber; for hours, the echoes of his words skittered across my skin like centipedes.
You’re just the age I like them.
Even now, the memory of the prince’s smell makes me want to vomit.
He briefly pinned me against the wall, but the worst moment was when he touched my hair.
I washed it thoroughly after I went back to my room, but his phantom scent still lingers in my nose.
More than once, I thought of going to Stheno, the way I had when I was small, after a nightmare.
I wanted to crawl into her bed and curl against her while she held me close and told me everything would be all right.
In the end, though, I understood that telling my sister would only make everything worse. I stayed in my own bed.
In the distance, someone raises their voice. That someone, I suspect, is my father. I hear pottery shattering, then another roar of fury. Finally, when I can stand it no longer, I dress and make my way to the great hall.
—
A small crowd of slaves is already gathered in the middle of the room, as are my parents and both sisters.
Immediately, I note the first casualty of the morning: A large clay vase depicting a beautiful tangle of black and white flowers now lies scattered in tiny shards on the floor.
My father is standing beside it, palpable rage rolling off his entire body.
My unease coils tighter around me, and I take care to stand as far from him as possible. For several seconds, no one speaks.
“Phorcys.” My mother sounds agitated. She’s massaging her temple vigorously and appears to be only half dressed. Judging by the slightly slurred quality of her words, I suspect she’s still nursing the consequences of the previous night. “What’s going on?” she asks. “What’s happened?”
All eyes in the room fall to my father.
He still seems angry, but when he takes a deep breath, there is resignation in the gesture. He frowns as he addresses my mother. “There has been an incident involving Prince Maheer,” he says grudgingly. “He’s dead.”
Some of the household’s slaves—the ones who found Maheer’s body—already know; the great majority who don’t, gasp.
Members of Prince Maheer’s envoy drop to their knees at once.
They cry out, shoulders trembling as they wail and cover their faces.
Only I am standing close enough to notice that most of them don’t shed a single tear.
My mother’s mouth falls open in a perfect O, Stheno tenses, but I look to Euryale.
My second-oldest sister’s eyes have gone wide. “Dead?” she repeats softly. “But how?”
“I’m not sure,” my father admits. “He was found on the floor of his bedchamber this morning. I believe it was an accident. He may have fallen.”
I recall the sound of Maheer’s screams, the terrible sound his skull made as it met unforgiving carved wood. A clamminess spreads over my skin, and I shiver. Thankfully, no one seems to notice.
“How terrible.” My mother clasps her hands together. “He was so young, so handsome.”
Stheno turns to our sister. “Eury, are you all right?”
At the sound of her name, Euryale starts, then shudders. She hugs herself tight as one fat tear slides down her cheek, then another. Her chin quivers. “Dead,” she repeats. “He’s…dead?” She seems to teeter in place a moment, then she falls to her knees, sobbing.
I wince, feeling as though someone has driven a dagger into my chest and twisted it.
I understand that Euryale is not grieving the death of Maheer.
She’s grieving the life her marriage to him would have promised.
Yesterday, she fantasized about queenship, about a new life beyond this island and my parents’ reach.
For one day, she had hope for something better.
Now she has lost both her betrothed and that hope in one blow.
I know I am responsible for that loss. I am responsible for her pain.
Better than the pain she would have been in if she’d married him, an internal voice argues fiercely. It was for her own good. I cling to that justification with a strangling grip.
“Take Euryale back to her bedchamber and give her a calming drink,” my mother orders her attendants. “I will be there shortly.” Once they have helped Euryale out of the room, she addresses my father. “What does this mean?” she asks quietly. “For us?”
My father shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
I watch, still numb, as he and my mother leave the hall with their heads bent together. The slaves leave shortly after. Only when Stheno and I are alone does she finally turn to me.
“You had something to do with this,” she murmurs.
I whirl around to face her. “What? What do you—?”
“Don’t lie.” Stheno waves me off with an impatient hand.
“I saw the look on your face when Father said Maheer was dead. You weren’t surprised at all.
You’ve been fidgeting from the moment you entered the hall.
” I can’t decide if she looks more annoyed or concerned.
“And you’re my little sister. I know you, and I know when you’re hiding something. ”
I hang my head in defeat, recognizing a battle lost. Stheno crosses her arms.
“Speak.”
“I-it was an accident,” I stammer. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I only intended to bribe him.”
One of Stheno’s brows arches. “I’m afraid you’ve missed that mark rather spectacularly.”
“You were right.” The words tumble from me. “He was cruel, Stheno. He hurt Euryale. He would have hurt her again, so I went to his chamber late last night—”
“You did what?” Stheno’s eyes flash.
“I tried to pay him to rescind his offer of marriage,” I continue quickly. “He refused, and then…”
“And then?” Stheno presses.
I recount the rest quickly. By the time I finish, Stheno is scowling.
“Did he hurt you?” she asks quietly. “Tell me the truth.”
I pause. Maheer did not physically harm me—I stopped him before he could—but I think of the moment I was pressed between him and the wall.
The stink of him, the words he said, and the way he looked at me are still burned fresh into my memory.
I didn’t know exactly what Prince Maheer wanted to do with me, but whatever it was, he didn’t manage it. I hold on to that.
He didn’t actually hurt you, I remind myself. You’re all right. No need to make her worry any more than she already is.
“No.” I hold my sister’s gaze. “He didn’t hurt me. I escaped before he could.”
Stheno studies me for a long moment, then nods. “I’m glad he’s dead,” she says simply. “By all accounts, he was a drunken, lecherous brute.” She points at me. “But this was sloppily done. You should have come to me.”
“Stheno.” I can’t keep the trembling from my voice. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, truly. I never intended—”
“Whatever you intended doesn’t matter now,” she says gravely. “A demigod is dead. You must repeat what you’ve just told me to no one, do you understand? Gods have been incited to violence and retribution for far less.”
The knot of fear in my stomach tightens. Tears well in my eyes. “Stheno, what do we do now?”
“We do the only thing we can,” my sister says solemnly. “We wait.”
Following Prince Maheer’s death, a gloom like I have never known falls over our island. The summer storm that threatened before finally breaks, and with it come iron-gray skies and air thick with humidity. Every time a bolt of lightning knifes across the sky, I find myself thinking of Zeus.
I wake the following morning to find that my usual white tunics have all been replaced with black ones, and I learn that we are all now expected to join Euryale in a period of mourning for her would-be husband.
Prince Maheer’s envoy takes his body and boards their ship to return home a few days later, despite the inauspicious weather.
I’m not surprised when I hear one of the island’s slaves whisper that they did not take the lion with them, emphatically insisting that it had been a gift.
Admittedly, I’m glad to see the envoy go—the image of Maheer’s bloodied corpse has haunted more than one of my dreams—but the general atmosphere does not return to normal after their departure.
The torrential rains worsen, and if anything, the island’s tension seems only to heighten.
No one will say it aloud, but everyone is waiting for something—a different kind of storm we cannot see on the horizon, but one whose approach we sense in the very air we breathe.
The days slow to a crawl as I wait. More than once, I think to find Theo, but for the second time in recent memory, I’m hesitant to confide in my best friend.
Stheno’s warning has stayed fresh in my mind, and I know it’s an apt one.
I cannot risk telling my friend anything that could implicate him in what’s happened.
I ultimately make the painful decision to avoid him.
In the seven days after Maheer’s death, anxiety runs rampant across the island.
Our halls grow quiet as wariness is replaced by short tempers and agitation.
My father shatters more pottery and rips tapestries from the wall in random fits of rage.
My mother snaps at the slaves, who in turn snap at each other.
It is as though we all sense that whatever doom is pending, it is drawing perilously close.
Perhaps that is why no one is truly surprised when, on the eighth day, a male slave comes crashing into the great hall wide-eyed and panting while we are eating breakfast.