Chapter VII
VII
The walk from my bedchamber to the drawing room Athena has commandeered for her interrogations seems to take centuries. When at last I reach its double oak doors, I come to a stop.
There’s no turning back. The voice in my head sounds a lot like Stheno’s. Once you go in there, there’s no turning back.
I’m cold despite the summer afternoon’s sultry heat.
The relentless rain that’s plagued our island for the better part of a week has at last abated, but in the rainfall’s absence, there is an eerie, unnatural quiet.
I take a steadying breath and rub my arms. Never in my life have I been so afraid, and a part of me thinks to return to my room.
Then Theo’s face fills my mind. I’m doing this for him; I have to.
I remember this as I turn one of the doors’ golden handles and step inside.
The drawing room is small and simple. Today its windows have been thrown open to combat the mugginess, so that a light breeze carries in the sweet scent of flowers from the gardens.
In the middle of the room, I find Athena seated on a satin settee I’ve grown accustomed to seeing my mother sprawled across after a night of drinking.
One sandaled foot is tucked beneath her, and her head is bent over a scroll in her lap, so that a lock of her dark red hair brushes her cheek.
Even amid my fear, I cannot help but think there is something otherworldly about her, something so lovely it almost hurts.
I stand by the door, perfectly still, unsure of what to do.
Several seconds pass before she looks up and notices me.
I flinch. Her eyes are an unnatural light gray that reminds me of lightning.
She studies me for a moment, her brow slightly furrowed.
“I recognize you,” the goddess says without preamble. “You’re one of Ceto’s daughters, aren’t you? You look like her.”
I start. Of the three of us, Euryale is the one most often likened to our mother. In all my years, no one has ever said that I look like her. I stare back at Athena a moment, eyes wide, before sense finds me and I remember to bow.
“Y-yes, Your Grace.” Though I can’t be sure, I think I catch the barest quirk in the corner of Athena’s lips as she tilts her head.
“What are you doing here, child? Did your parents send you?”
“N-no.” I realize that this is my very last chance to run, to save myself. I can hear the Stheno-like voice in the back of my mind again, urging me to do just that. Instead, I force myself to say the words I practiced on my walk here. “I’ve come to speak with you about Prince Maheer.”
Athena sets aside the scroll she’s been reading. This time there’s no mistaking it. A small smile touches the goddess’s lips. “You’re curious about it all,” she says. There’s warmth in her voice. “I suppose that’s only natural.”
“I heard that you were questioning slaves,” I say, wishing my voice weren’t so small and tinny compared to hers.
Athena gestures to the scroll. “This is a list of every slave who served Prince Maheer during his stay here. I can’t be sure that one of them was responsible, but there are indicators it’s possible.
I plan to ask each of them to provide a timeline of their whereabouts on the night of Maheer’s death.
Then I’ll cross-reference those timelines to find inconsistencies. There, I’ll find the culprit.”
“It wasn’t a slave who killed Maheer.”
Athena sits up straighter. For the first time since I’ve entered the room, I sense that I have her undivided attention.
“Killed,” she repeats. “How would you know that Maheer was killed?”
“Because I’m the one who killed him.”
Several emotions cross Athena’s face as my words register. Her red brows knit, and a frown pulls at her mouth.
“You?” she says quietly. “Why would you kill him?”
I take a deep breath, and then I speak. I tell the goddess about Maheer’s lion first. I tell her about the slaves with their gruesome wounds and then about Euryale. As I go on, Athena sits back on the settee. By the time I’m finished, her face is a perfect mask.
“How did he die?” she asks. Her voice betrays nothing.
I tell her quickly about my visit to Maheer’s bedchamber and my offer.
But when I reach the end, I stumble. I don’t want to sound small and afraid, but my voice shakes as I repeat what Maheer said about my body and what he asked me to do.
Suddenly, I cannot look the goddess in the eye.
I don’t believe I did anything wrong, but I find that I’m still embarrassed. I stare at the rug.
“The wine blinded him,” I finish quietly. “He couldn’t see, so he tripped, fell, and hit his head. That is how he died.”
The silence between Athena and me stretches for so long that I’m eventually compelled to look up at her. I’m surprised to see that she does not look angry but, rather, intrigued.
“And how did it feel?”
I start. “Feel, Your Grace?”
Athena leans in, a strange new look in her gray eyes. “When you hit Maheer with the goblet, how did it feel?”
I close my eyes and remember the white-hot rage that overcame me as I slammed the goblet into the side of Maheer’s head as hard as I could. I didn’t want to admit it to myself at the time, but I know I felt satisfied, too. For once, I wasn’t helpless.
“Good.” The word leaves me before I can stop it. “It felt…good.”
Athena blinks, and I cannot help but wonder if I’ve answered her question wrong or failed some test I didn’t know I was taking.
She raises her chin slightly, as though in challenge. “I didn’t suspect you in the slightest,” she says. “Had you not come forward, it’s very likely that you would have gotten away with this entirely. I’m left to wonder…why did you?”
My gaze drops to the floor again. “I didn’t want a slave to take the blame.”
Several seconds pass before Athena speaks again. “You knew that you’d likely be punished,” she murmurs. “You knew that you risked the wrath of Ares and, by extension, my father? And you came forward anyway?”
“I did.” I’m still staring at my feet.
“I find that rather admirable.”
My head snaps up.
“My nephew was handsome.” She wrinkles her nose as though she’s smelled something sour. “He was also spoiled and boorish, like his father.”
I gape. Never before have I heard one Olympian openly speak ill of another.
Athena goes on. “If what you say is true, Maheer’s death truly was an accident. You are not guilty of murder.”
I remain silent.
Athena leans forward again, and this time I get the sense she’s appraising me in some way. “How old are you, girl?”
“Seventeen.”
She purses her lips. “There is something about you.” She cocks her head, her gray eyes narrowed. “You are different in some way, but I cannot say how.”
I am grateful for my dark brown skin just then. It hides the blood rushing to my cheeks. Now, more than any other time in my life perhaps, I want to hide the truth. I know there is no point. “I am mortal, Your Grace. That is what you see.”
There is a long pause.
“Your father did not tell me he had mortal children.” Athena’s tone has softened.
“My two older sisters are immortal.” I force the words, though each one costs me something. “I am the only one of us three who is not. No one knows why.”
“And the other children?”
I frown, confused. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Something seems to register in Athena’s eyes, because she waves a dismissive hand and goes on.
“Your father would punish you, if he learned what you did,” she says. “Yet you risked his ire in defense of your sister. You risked my ire by confessing what you did, yet you confessed anyway.” Athena’s expression turns curious. “What do you do in your spare time, child?”
I know my mother would expect me to answer with a list of suitable womanly pastimes—music, dance, and so on—but intuition tells me there is no point in lying, not to Athena. I stammer a moment before the words come to me: “I read.”
There’s no mistaking it. Athena looks amused now. “What do you read?”
“Whatever I can, but I enjoy history and philosophy most, also epics.”
She squints. “You live on an island. Your parents aren’t permitted to leave. How could you possibly possess scrolls?”
“Sometimes, ships wreck,” I explain. “Things wash up on our shores—maps, trinkets, trunks full of scrolls. I’ve collected whatever I could for as long as I can remember.
” I pause, then add, “I don’t get scrolls as often as I’d like, and sometimes they’re too wet to be any good, but I still have a few. ”
“How fascinating,” Athena says. “And how many languages can you read in?”
“Four.”
This garners the goddess’s attention. Her brows rise. “What did you say?”
“We speak Greek on the island, sometimes Meroitic, but I can read in Latin and Arabic, too,” I reply. “I’ve learned bits and pieces of a few others, but I’m less than proficient.”
“Were you taught by a tutor?”
“My sisters and some of the slaves helped a little, at first.” I fidget. “But mostly I have had to teach myself so that I could read my scrolls. They are not all written in the same languages, you see. There are some I still can’t read at all.”
Yet another silence hangs heavy between the goddess and me, a silence long enough to make me nervous again.
Finally, she speaks. “I’d like to discuss something with you, girl,” she says. “Something serious.”
I brace myself. I’ve known since I decided to come to her that even if Athena was impressed with me, there would have to be a punishment for what I’d done.
I begin to think of the very worst punishments I’ve heard of Olympians doling out.
For stealing fire from Mount Olympus and gifting it to mortals, Zeus infamously condemned the Titan Prometheus to be chained to a mountain and disemboweled by an eagle for all eternity.
I clutch at my own abdomen as Athena opens her mouth.
“Each year, new priestesses are inducted into my temple at Athens,” she says.
“To become priestesses, they must undergo rigorous training as acolytes, as well as pass a series of prerequisite tests to prove their suitability. Only young women of high intelligence and ethical standards are invited to participate.” She inclines her head. “Young women, I believe, like you.”
These are not the words I expected. “Me?”
“You are young, educated, and your valor impresses me.” Something flashes in the goddess’s eyes. “As I see it, these attributes would be ideal for a priestess of my temple.”
For a moment, I forget how to breathe. I can barely believe the words I’ve just heard.
“You mean…” My voice trembles. “You mean for me to go to Athens?”
“I appreciate that it is not close,” Athena says. “I will arrange transportation, and speak to my high priestess.”
Athens is a city I know of from my readings, one I’ve heard my parents talk about, but it is not one I ever believed I would see in person.
My mind starts to race. All my life, for as long as I can remember, I have wished for only one thing: to see the world beyond my island.
Now Athena has handed me that wish on a golden platter.
“What is your answer, child?” Athena asks. “Will you come to Athens?”
“Yes.” It takes great effort to maintain a facade of calm. “I would be honored.”
“I will speak with your father,” she says. “Provided he grants his consent, you will report to Athens in a fortnight.”
I can do nothing more than nod.
“My final question.” Athena cocks her head. “What are you called, girl?”
“Medusa.”
“Medusa.” She repeats my name, and I stand taller. “Spend these next two weeks preparing, and be sure to find time for rest.” The goddess smiles. “I will see you in Athens.”