Chapter 50
For three summers, Penelope’s plan succeeded.
For three summers, we were locked in an endless cycle.
Every day, Penelope would work on Laertes’s shroud, playing the dutiful, pious daughter-in-law, and every night, we would gather around the loom and unpick her efforts by the light of the moon.
At the start, there had been a certain giddiness to our scheming.
We were like the gods themselves, toying with the threads of fate, stalling the future with each unraveled pick.
But as time passed, our plan began to feel more like a curse than a blessing, every loosened thread a marker of yet another day forced to endure life in this prison we had once called home.
During the first full turn of the seasons, the suitors had been eager to impress Penelope with their good behavior. But boredom had soon driven away their propriety, and before long, they were back to their usual vulgar ways.
“Keep your arms up, like this,” Skaris instructed.
We were gathered in a disused storeroom, a hidden space we used to teach defense tactics to those who were interested. Though we knew we could not risk harming the suitors, Skaris taught us maneuvers to help evade their drunken, obscene advances.
Recently, the number of those wishing to learn had swelled drastically, most of them young girls.
I sat on the sidelines, my gaze drifting over the crowd as they listened intently to Skaris’s instructions.
One girl caught my eye. I recognized her as one of the children we had rescued from the slave market.
She had been scarcely five summers old when I had taken her hand and led her to the palace, promising safety beneath Penelope’s roof.
She was around sixteen now, and my eyes instantly narrowed to the all-too-familiar pattern of bruises blossoming around her neck and arms.
A sickness slithered into my stomach as I beckoned her over.
“Where did you get those?” I asked.
The girl glanced away, her cheeks reddening.
“You can tell me,” I said as softly as I could. “Which one of the suitors was it?”
Still she said nothing, her eyes fastened to the floor.
I lifted my hand to touch her shoulder, but she flinched so violently I thought she might tear herself in two.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, lowering my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“May I return to the training now?” she mumbled.
I nodded, a horrible weight settling in my chest as she hurried away.
Even here, hidden away as we were, I could still hear the suitors’ booming laughter ricocheting through the palace. I closed my eyes, trying to settle the acidic burn of hatred churning in my gut.
One day, I vowed silently. One day, they will pay.
***
When we returned to Penelope’s quarters, night had fallen.
Hippodamia and Actoris were seated at the loom, yawning as they unpicked threads. We had resorted to working in shifts now.
“How goes the training?” Hippodamia asked as we approached.
“Fine,” I said distractedly. “Have you seen Penelope?”
Hippodamia and Actoris shared a look.
“She went straight to her chamber again. Didn’t say a word,” Actoris muttered, nodding toward Penelope’s closed door.
“She’s been struggling,” Hippodamia murmured. “Ever since Telemachus left.”
“I know.”
Three moon cycles before, Penelope had encouraged Telemachus to travel to Sparta.
She had disguised the trip as a diplomatic venture, a strengthening of alliances and an opportunity for Telemachus to search for news of his father.
In truth, she simply wanted her son as far away as possible from the suitors and their schemes.
But Telemachus’s absence seemed to have only encouraged their plotting. I had often spied Eurymachus whispering in the other men’s ears, those quiet murmurs far more sinister than any of their riotous revelry.
“What are you doing?” Skaris asked as I followed her to our chamber.
I frowned. “Going to bed. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“It looks like you’re going to pretend to sleep in your bed and then sneak out when you think we are all asleep,” Skaris threw back, a gleam of challenge in her eyes.
I stared at her. “W-what do you mean?”
She shook her head. “You just insult our intelligence now, my friend.”
“I…” Excuses withered on my tongue as I caught Hippodamia and Actoris sharing a smirk.
“Did you really think we didn’t know?” Actoris snorted.
“Who else knows?”
“Only us,” Hippodamia said, quick to reassure me. “You hide it well. We just know you better.”
I stared at them, waiting for the judgment, the disgust, the reminder of how foolish Penelope and I were. But all that came was the heavy, comforting weight of Skaris’s hand on my shoulder.
“Go to her,” she said, nodding toward Penelope’s door. “She needs you.”
***
Penelope was awake when I entered her chamber.
She said nothing as I slipped into bed, her silence pressing into the darkness like a scream.
“Can’t sleep again?” I whispered.
Penelope stared at the ceiling, moonlight curving into two small scythes against the whites of her eyes.
“Have you taken your brew?” I prompted.
Penelope had recently created a concoction to aid her sleep, a mixture of poppy milk and other mysterious ingredients. It had started as an occasional solution for restless nights, but these days, she could not sleep without it. Her mind would not let her.
“I did,” she murmured, her voice laced with a tiredness no amount of sleep could ever cure.
“It’ll help soon,” I said with a lightness I did not feel.
Penelope said nothing. With every passing season, she had grown quieter, withdrawn further. The spark that had always burned so fiercely inside her had dimmed to a mere flicker, and I lived in constant fear of the day it would go out completely.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” I whispered. “Please.”
She inhaled, and I could feel how stiff she was, her body a knot of tight muscles I desperately longed to soothe.
“There was another girl with bruises,” she murmured. “Just like the others.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the guilt-stained anger curdle in my veins.
“I saw her too,” I said.
“I tried to make her tell me who did it, but she would not speak a word. She seemed…ashamed.” Her voice caught.
“They are getting worse,” I murmured.
Penelope continued staring into nothingness, her face seeming to cradle every shadow in the room.
“If I were a man, I could have ended this years ago. I could have protected them. I could have protected you.”
“Penelope—”
“Instead, I am cursed to do nothing.” She gripped the sheets, her hands balling into fists. “I am forced to drown in my own uselessness.”
“You are doing your best.”
“It is not enough, Melantho. I am not enough.”
Her voice was eerily empty, as if each word had been hollowed out. It was profoundly disturbing, like waking to find your home stripped bare, the well-known walls now barren and strange.
“Please,” I choked out. “Don’t say that, Penelope.”
“Three summers,” she murmured. “Three summers and nothing has changed. They have only grown worse.”
“What if we think of a new plan? A new way to drive them out?”
She said nothing, and that unnerved me more than any words ever could. The Penelope I knew was forever eager to discuss an idea, always one step ahead of her opponents.
“Penelope?”
“Not tonight,” she whispered.
I nestled in closer and began kissing her neck, soft and slow. I wanted to distract her, to give her a release from the prison of her mind, if only for a few moments. My fingers skimmed over her body, following that beautifully familiar route from collarbone to hip.
Penelope’s hand halted mine. “Please. Don’t.”
I pulled back, trying to ignore the sting of her rejection. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, fingers softening around mine. “I just…need to sleep.”
I nodded numbly. “Yes. Of course. You should rest.”
Penelope turned to face away from me. For a long while, I simply watched her, my eyes tracing those slender shoulders that had carried far too much for far too long.
In the stillness, I replayed her words over and over.
She claimed she was drowning, and it was true—I could see it, could feel it.
With each passing day, she sank further into that ocean, and it terrified me to think of it: that Penelope might drift to a point I could no longer reach.
I would follow her anywhere in this world or beyond—to the very depths of Tartarus itself.
But her mind was the one place I could not venture, and I was so scared of losing her within it.
Even now, this tiny sliver of space between us felt cavernous, for though I could lean over and touch her, I knew I could not reach her.
She was drowning right there beside me, and I could not save her.
But I had to try.
I had to do something.