Chapter 59
I had never seen my brother wield a sword before.
It disturbed me, how menacing the blade looked in his hand.
He stood in the shadowy storage room, a large sack slung over his shoulder, sword held out before him.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I moved to block the doorway beside Skaris.
“Did you really think me so stupid?” he shot back.
“Melanthius—”
“I know Penelope is up to something. Why else would she dismiss all of us?”
“A dismissal you should’ve listened to,” Skaris growled.
“And I saw you all yesterday, stealing the suitors’ weapons. Hiding them away in here,” Melanthius continued, gesturing around himself. “Telemachus is gonna try to kill them, isn’t he? He’s more of a fool than I thought.”
“It’s out of our hands now,” I said as carefully as I could. “We must leave the bloodshed to them, brother.”
“Don’t you see? This is how I’ll prove myself to Eurymachus. I’ll bring him the blade that’ll allow him to slay the prince once and for all.”
“Melanthius—”
“Join me, Mel.” His voice had a manic edge to it. “Together we’ll prove ourselves to Eurymachus. We’ll finally be free.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
His eyes flashed, face darkening. “Then move.”
“I cannot do that either, brother.”
“You’d really do this? You’d stand in the way of my freedom?”
“You will find only death in that hall,” Skaris warned. “Do not be a fool. Listen to your sister.”
Melanthius raised his blade. “Move.”
I shook my head, unshed tears blurring my vision. “I won’t let you go in there.”
Gently, Skaris nudged me aside as she stepped toward my brother. “Drop the weapons.”
“I said move!” He was shouting now, a frantic, desperate roar. “Do as I say!”
My fear was so crippling I could do nothing but watch, utterly frozen, as Skaris inched farther into the storage room.
“Drop the weapons,” she repeated.
“Move, now! I mean it!”
Still, Skaris pushed closer, hands held out placatingly. “Drop them. It will be all right, friend. You have my word.”
Melanthius’s gaze shifted to mine, and I saw the guilt pressing behind his eyes as he let the sack of weapons fall to the floor in a heavy, defeated clatter.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”
It happened so fast. One moment, he was standing before us; the next, his blade was slashing open Skaris’s thigh. A furious howl of pain ripped from her throat as she fell to the ground. I dropped to my knees beside her, placing my hands over the wound as hot blood throbbed between my fingers.
“What did you do?” I screamed at Melanthius.
He blinked, the sword quivering in his hands.
“This is your fault,” he cried. “I didn’t want this. I tried to make you understand. I didn’t—”
“You need to help me stop the bleeding.”
Melanthius shook his head, the strained whites of his eyes glinting in the light, shot through with veins of red.
“Melanthius!” I shouted, but he was already shoving past us, the weapons sack slung over his shoulder as he sprinted toward the banquet hall.
I called his name again, a ravaged, desperate cry, but it was no use. He was already gone.
Skaris gripped my arm. “You must stop him.”
“I can’t leave you like this.”
“This? This is nothing. A scratch.” Her laugh was frayed, sweat dripping down her temples. “You must go.”
“Skaris—”
“You cannot let him arm them.”
“But your leg—”
She grabbed my face. “Telemachus will die, Melantho.”
A sickening clarity shot through me.
“I’ll come back,” I promised as I rose. “Just stay hidden, all right?”
“You waste time! Go, now!”
Turning away from my bleeding friend, I willed my guilt to fuel me as I broke into a sprint.
I darted across the courtyard, careening down the passageway where my brother had just disappeared.
My sandals clattered frantically against stone as I pushed myself faster, faster, my muscles screaming in protest, each breath a blade in my lungs.
Then I heard them. The screams.
The bloodshed had begun.
***
I glimpsed Melanthius just ahead.
He was faster than me, but the sack of weapons had slowed his pace considerably.
More cries lifted, the echo of violence ringing through the passageway, ricocheting off the walls in a hideous cacophony of screams. Somewhere, distantly in my mind, I heard Penelope’s voice—Do not step a single foot inside that hall.
But Skaris was right: If the suitors were armed, it would change everything. Telemachus could die. Odysseus could die. And then what would become of us?
Melanthius was at the door to the banquet hall now. I hurled myself at him, but he shoved me aside with ruthless force.
“Walk away, Melantho.” It sounded more like a plea than a threat.
The tip of his blade was poised against my heart, so I could do nothing but watch as he heaved the latch off the doors and pushed them open.
For a moment, Melanthius and I simply gaped at the nightmarish scene before us.
Bodies were strewn across the floor, arrows protruding from their skulls and throats.
In the center of the room, Odysseus was standing on a table, his bare body drenched in blood as he fired arrow upon arrow into the horde of panicked suitors around him.
Telemachus and Eumaeus fought at his side, slicing down men with the swords they must have smuggled into the hall.
But even unarmed, there were clearly too many suitors.
They swarmed the three of them like a mighty, crashing wave, threatening to drown father, son, and slave in their violent current.
The sound of the doors opening had caught Odysseus’s attention, and he now stared at my brother and me, his eyes narrowing on the sack slung over Melanthius’s shoulder. He then shouted something to Telemachus, though I could not hear his command over the hideous din.
Melanthius’s face was pale as he beheld Odysseus standing before him. He had thought the king long dead. But here he was, looking like some vengeful god in mortal form, enacting his brutal judgment upon the world.
“It’s him,” Melanthius whispered, letting the weapons fall to the floor, blades spilling out of the sack. “It’s really him.”
The suitors had noticed us now, and they surged forward, frantically reaching for the scattered swords. Once they were armed, Odysseus, Telemachus, and Eumaeus would stand no chance.
They would be like lambs to the slaughter.
Across the carnage, my gaze clashed into Telemachus’s.
His face was filled with such panicked confusion, eyes widening as he regarded the weapons at my feet.
I wanted to call out to him, It isn’t what it looks like, but what use were such excuses?
I had failed to protect Telemachus, failed to stop my brother.
And now we would all die because of it.
The prince of Ithaca straightened his spine, readying himself to face his final moments with courage, to fight to the bitter end. He looked so like his mother in that moment—a brave, stoic leader.
But then a noise sounded from behind me, an ominous rumble of thunderous feet, followed by a torrent of masked figures pouring through the doorway, whooping with fierce delight as they shoved Melanthius and me aside.
Penelope’s pirates.
They had come.
I staggered to the sidelines as the pirates collided with the now-armed suitors.
The clash of metal made my very bones quake, yet my body felt shackled to the ground, paralyzed by fear.
Everywhere I looked, blood sprayed in violent arcs of crimson as stomachs and throats were sliced open.
I sensed death’s cold hand brush over me as it reached to pluck the souls of fallen men, and I knew with a gasping lucidity that if I did not move, I would surely join them in the realm below.
I looked to the doorway, which was now completely blocked by clashing bodies. The only way out was to run directly into the fighting.
Come back to me.
It was Penelope’s voice that spurred my feet forward, forcing me into the fray.
The chaos swallowed me in one brutal bite. It was like jumping into a raging sea, having the currents toss me this way and that, spinning me over until the sky and earth bled into one disorienting blur.
It was all so loud: the smashing swords, the roar of attackers, the cries as men fell around me. I wanted to cover my ears, wanted to scream, but all I could do was keep moving toward the doorway, toward safety.
Toward Penelope.
A suitor stumbled into me, blocking my path. He held my gaze for a beat, a brush of recognition filling his eyes before a blade emerged between them. Hot blood sprayed across my face, and I choked on a silent cry as his body crumpled, revealing a grinning pirate behind him.
“You look lost, little mouse,” the pirate chuckled.
I veered sideways, colliding with another body.
The force knocked me to the ground, sending me sprawling across a suitor’s lifeless corpse, his flesh still warm with the life so recently taken from him.
I tried to push myself upright, but a foot landed on my back, then another on my arm, and a third narrowly missed my skull.
Frantically, I began scrambling on my hands and knees, but something caught my gown, tugging me backward.
Turning, I found myself staring into the cruel face of Antinous, an arrow protruding from his neck.
He gripped my gown tighter, his mouth opening as he tried to speak, but only blood escaped his lips.
His eyes were more alive than I had ever seen them, and he looked so much younger, just a boy terrified of dying alone.
I ripped free from his grasp and continued crawling forward.
An upturned table was the only shelter I could find.
I threw myself behind it, gulping down fractured breaths as I watched the pirates and suitors continue their brutal dance of metal and blood.
My heart was a wild, panicked beast in my chest, my body drenched in sweat, every inch humming with a sickeningly fierce adrenaline.
Come back to me.
I had to keep moving.
Rolling onto the balls of my feet, I readied myself to make another desperate dash for the door. But then I saw him, just beyond my hiding spot, skimming the fringes of the battle as he desperately searched the bodies of fallen suitors. Melanthius.
I was not the only one who had noticed him.
Eumaeus was pointing his sword in Melanthius’s direction while Odysseus drew back his bow, setting my brother in his sights.
“Melanthius!” I screamed, hurling myself at him.
We tumbled sideways as Odysseus’s arrow sliced across the floor, mere inches from my brother’s head.
“Run!” I shouted, tugging Melanthius to his feet.
“But the suitors—”
“They have already lost! Look at them!”
All the color drained from my brother’s face as he regarded the massacre around us and the man reigning over it—the bloody, vengeful king of Ithaca. Fear sank its teeth into Melanthius, and he stared at me with helpless eyes.
“He’s going to kill me,” he whispered.
The bodies still on their feet were thinning out now, finally clearing our escape path. I grabbed Melanthius’s hand, hauling him across the banquet hall and through the open doors.
“Who were those men?” Melanthius gasped as we sprinted down the hallway. “Are they Odysseus’s men?”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
As we came to a fork in the passageway, Melanthius drew to a sudden stop.
“Take the right,” he said. “I’ll go left.”
“What?”
“He’s going to kill me, Melantho. If you stay with me, he’ll kill you too.”
Before I could argue, Melanthius’s head snapped up, eyes widening.
“Eurymachus!” he cried out, rushing down the passageway to where a figure was half slumped against the wall.
Eurymachus was clutching his throat with both hands, blood spilling down his chest, dripping in a thick trail behind him.
With difficulty, he turned, eyes widening as he regarded us.
It was then that I saw the extent of his injury—an arrow had punctured his throat, the broken end protruding from the wound.
He tried to speak, but all that escaped him was a wet choking sound.
“What can I do? Tell me what to do.” I hated the desperation in Melanthius’s voice.
Eurymachus lowered his bulging eyes to the sword in my brother’s hands. Melanthius followed his gaze.
“I need this,” he said tightly. “And you can’t wield it, not like that.”
Without warning, Eurymachus slammed himself into Melanthius, knocking him against the wall with surprising force given his dire state. My brother flailed backward, head cracking against stone, sword tumbling free from his grasp.
Eurymachus lunged for the weapon but slipped on his own blood, landing heavily on his knees.
“I was helping you!” Melanthius shouted at him, blood now spilling from a wound on his head. I heard a sob swell in his throat as he repeated, “I was helping you.”
Eurymachus gulped down wet, labored breaths. He then used the last of his energy to spit blood at my brother’s feet. He could only manage to gargle out a single word: “Slave.”
I strode toward Eurymachus, every single thought lost to the blinding wave of fury crashing over me.
The pathetic man did not even have the strength to stand, and I savored the sight of him kneeling before me, struggling for breath.
Eurymachus’s eyes lifted to mine, and I saw such boundless hatred rotting within them.
I planted my foot on his chest and kicked him to the ground.
“Melantho—”
I ignored my brother’s gasp as I bent down and closed my hand around the arrow jutting out from Eurymachus’s throat. He tried to stop me, but the fight had leaked from his body along with his lifeblood.
“Look at me,” I commanded. “I want you to know that this will be the last face you see in this world. The face of a woman. The face of a slave.”
With that, I ripped the arrow free.
Hot blood spurted over me as Eurymachus spasmed on the floor, his eyes locked on mine as he gulped for air that would not come.
As I watched him die, I felt nothing, just the residue of that blinding rage simmering in my veins.
Once his body was still, I turned to my brother. Before either of us could think what to say, footsteps sounded down the hall, and I turned to see Eumaeus sprinting toward us, determination hardening his features into something cold and unrecognizable.
“Melanthius, we must go. Now,” I hissed.
But my brother would not move. He remained slumped against the wall, such abject defeat weighing on him as he stared at Eurymachus’s lifeless body.
“Melanthius! We have to go!”
But it was too late. Eumaeus was already beside us, blade poised at my brother’s throat.
“You must face your king and answer for your crimes,” he commanded. “Both of you.”
“Not her,” Melanthius murmured. “Take me, but let her go. She had no part in this.”
“The king will be the judge of that,” Eumaeus snapped, forcing him to his feet. “He will decide all our fates.”