Telegonus stepped forward to meet them. He stood broad and bright with sun. Arcturos heeled, panting at his side. His father’s bow was strung and hanging from his shoulder.
“I am Telegonus of Aiaia,” he cried out, “son of a great hero, and a greater goddess. Welcome, for you have been led here by gray-eyed Athena herself.”
The sailors dropped to their knees. I would not be able to bear it, I thought. I would seize him, hold him to me. But I only embraced him a final time, pressing hard as if to set him into my skin. Then I watched him take his place among them, stand upon the prow, outlined against the sky. The light darted silver from the waves. I lifted my hand in blessing and gave my son to the world.
In the days that followed, Penelope and Telemachus treated me as if I were Egyptian glass. They spoke softly and walked on light feet past my chair. Penelope offered me the place at the loom. Telemachus kept my cup filled. The fire was always freshly stoked. All of it slid away. They were kind, but they were nothing to me. The syrups in my pantry had been my companions longer. I went to my herbs, but they seemed to shrivel in my fingers. The air felt naked without my spell. Gods might come and go as they wished now. They might do anything. I had no power to stop them.
The days grew warmer. The sky softened, opening over us like the ripe flesh of a fruit. The spear still leaned in my room. I went to it, took off the sheath to breathe over its pale, envenomed ridges, but what I wanted from it, I could not say. I rubbed at my chest as if it were bread I kneaded. Telemachus said, “Are you well?”
“Of course I am well. What could be wrong with me? Immortals do not take sick.”
I went to the beach. I walked carefully, as if I held an infant in my arms. The sun beat upon the horizon. It beat everywhere, upon my back and arms and face. I wore no shawl. I would not burn. I never did.
My island lay around me. My herbs, my house, my animals. And so it would go, I thought, on and on, forever the same. It did not matter if Penelope and Telemachus were kind. It did not matter even if they stayed for their whole lives, if she were the friend I had yearned for and he were something else, it would only be a blink. They would wither, and I would burn their bodies and watch my memories of them yellow and fade as everything faded in the endless wash of centuries, even Daedalus, even the blood-spatter of the Minotaur, even Scylla’s appetites. Even Telegonus. Sixty, seventy years, a mortal might have. Then he would leave for the underworld, where I could never go, for gods are the opposite of death. I tried to imagine those dusky hills and gray meadows, the shades moving slow and white among them. Some walked hand in hand with those they had loved in life; some waited, secure that one day their beloved would come. And for those who had not loved, whose lives had been filled with pain and horror, there was the black river Lethe, where one might drink and forget. Some consolation.
For me, there was nothing. I would go on through the countless millennia, while everyone I met ran through my fingers and I was left with only those who were like me. The Olympians and Titans. My sister and brothers. My father.
I felt something in me then. It was like the old, early days of my spells, when the path would open, sudden and clear before my feet. All those years I had wrestled and fought, yet there was a part of me that had stood still, just as my sister said. I seemed to hear that pale creature in his black depths.
Then, child, make another.
I did nothing to prepare. If I was not ready now, when would I be? I did not even walk up to the peak. He could come here, upon my yellow sands, and face me where I stood.
“Father,” I said, into the air, “I would speak with you.”
Chapter Twenty-five
HELIOS WAS NOT A god to be summoned, but I was the wayward daughter who had won Trygon’s tail. Gods love novelty, as I have said. They are curious as cats.
He stepped from the air. He was wearing his crown, and its rays turned my beach to gold. The purple of his clothes was rich as deep-pooled blood. Hundreds of years and not a thread had changed. He was still that same image that had been seared upon me from my birth.
“I am come,” he said. His voice rolled like heat from a bonfire.
“I seek an end to my exile,” I said.
“There is none. You are punished for eternity.”
“I ask you to go to Zeus and speak on my behalf. Tell him you would take it as a favor to release me.”
His face was more incredulous than angry. “Why would I do such a thing?”
There were many answers I might have given. Because I have been your bargaining piece all along. Because you would have seen those men and known what they were and still you let them land on my island. Because after, when I was a broken thing, you did not come.
“Because I am your daughter and would be free.”
He did not even pause. “Disobedient as ever, and over-bold. Calling me here for foolishness and nothing.”
I looked at his face, blazing with its righteous power. The Great Watchman of the Sky. The Savior, he is called. All-Seeing, Bringer of Light, Delight of Men. I had given him his chance. It was more than he had ever given me.
“Do you remember,” I said, “when Prometheus was whipped in your hall?”
His eyes narrowed. “Of course.”
“I stayed behind, when all the rest of you left. I brought him comfort, and we spoke together.”
His gaze burned into mine. “You would not have dared.”
“If you doubt me, you may ask Prometheus himself. Or Aeëtes. Though if you get any truth from him it is a miracle.”
My skin had begun to ache at his heat; my eyes watered.
“If you did such a thing, it is deepest treason. You are more owed to exile than ever. You deserve greater punishment still, all I can give you. You have exposed us to Zeus’ wrath for some foolish whim.”
“Yes,” I said. “And if you do not see my exile ended, I will expose you again. I will tell Zeus what I did.”
His face contracted. For the first time in my life, I had truly shocked him. “You would not. Zeus will destroy you.”
“Perhaps he will,” I said. “But I think he will listen first. And you are the one he will truly blame, for you should have kept better check on your daughter. Of course, I will tell him other things as well. All those tiptoeing treasons I heard you whisper with my uncles. I think Zeus would be glad to know how deep the Titan mutiny goes, don’t you?”
“You dare to threaten me?”
These gods, I thought. They always say the same thing.
“I do.”
My father’s skin flared blinding bright. His voice seared at my bones. “You would start a war.”
“I hope so. For I will see you torn down, Father, before I will be jailed for your convenience any longer.”
His rage was so hot the air bent and wavered around him. “I can end you with a thought.”
It was my oldest fear, that white annihilation. I felt it shiver through me. But enough. At last, enough.
“You can,” I said. “But you have always been cautious, Father. You know I have stood against Athena. I have walked in the blackest deeps. You cannot guess what spells I have cast, what poisons I have gathered to protect myself against you, how your power may rebound upon your head. Who knows what is in me? Will you find out?”
The words hung in the air. His eyes were discs of ignited gold, but I did not look away.
“If I do this thing,” he said, “it is the last I will ever do for you. Do not come begging again.”