After Chapter 22
Mycenae was never warm.
Even in summer, with cicadas screaming in the olive groves and stones hot enough to scald your feet, the palace felt cold.
Clytemnestra stood on the ramparts.
She was nineteen.
She wore the heavy crimson robes of a princess playing queen.
Her mother had locked herself away months ago, muttering about swans and gods, lost in whatever madness had taken over her.
Five years, she thought, picking at the rough stone of the battlement until her fingernail cracked and bled. It has been five years. Five years of pretending.
Five years since the ships sailed away.
Five years since she stood in the Great Hall and sold her own heart for fifty warships.
She didn’t look at the sea anymore.
All that blue was just a reminder of the distance—of the silence.
Of how far away he was.
How alone.
Spies didn't come cheap, but she paid.
The reports were always the same, vague.
Prince Helenos is alive.
Prince Helenos is in the Spartan palace.
Prince Helenos is... quiet.
Still, she’d memorized those words.
Read them until the ink smudged under her thumb, until she could recite them in her sleep—in her nightmares.
She rubbed the amulet hidden beneath her tunic, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger like she always did.
A piece of charred bone bound in silver.
The deal.
She remembered the night she’d made it.
She’d been fourteen, weeping in the temple of Hera.
She'd screamed until her throat bled.
Begged until the priests dragged her out, terrified by the Oracle’s whisper that her brother was destined to die young: consumed by the very love that sought to protect him.
“Please save him,” Clytemnestra had begged. “I’ll do anything.”
“... let's make a deal.”
She’d taken it.
But she had forgotten what it was.
Forget it. She thought It doesn't matter
But his eyes... the looks on his face came back at her.
I did it to save you, she whispered to the wind, her throat tight and burning. Hate me. Please, hate me. As long as you never forgive me, I haven't lost you.
"My Lady?"
She flinched. She hadn't heard him approach. A guard stood behind her. Clytemnestra didn't turn around.
"Speak."
"A ship, My Lady. With Spartan styles."
Clytemnestra’s heart stopped.
One ship.
Just one.
"Bring them to the courtyard," she said.
Her voice was steady, but she had to clench her hands to stop them shaking beneath her robes.
***
The courtyard was silent.
They looked tired, dust coating their armor.
They didn't bring gold.
They didn't bring a treaty.
They brought a cart.
On the cart was a long, wooden box.
Plain.
Unadorned.
Clytemnestra walked down the steps, one hand trailing the wall for balance.
She forced herself to breathe.
Her sandals on the marble echoed.
She stopped in front of the captain.
He wouldn't meet her eyes.
"Where is the Queen of Sparta?" she asked.
"Dead," the captain said. "The palace fell. A coup."
"And the Prince?" she asked.
The captain looked down.
He gestured to the box.
"He tried to run. But he fell into a river... and drowned"
Clytemnestra didn't hear the rest.
The world narrowed down to that box.
She stepped forward.
The guards tried to intervene, but she shoved them hard enough that one stumbled.
Her hands gripped the lid.
The wood was rough, splintering under her nails as she pried.
She shoved the lid aside. It fell to the stones with a heavy, hollow clatter.
There was a smell.
Rot.
Dried blood and old herbs used to preserve meat.
She gagged, swallowed it down.
Clytemnestra looked down.
Helenos. He was fifteen. He’d grown—his shoulders were broader than she remembered.
She’d missed it.
She’d missed everything.
His face was a ruin.
One side was crushed.
His skin was gray, waxy, and cold.
There were missed spots of grime behind his ear; no one had cared enough to clean him properly.
But she knew him.
She knew the shape of his hands, now still and pale, folded over his chest.
And she saw the wound.
A puncture in his thigh.
Deep.
Ragged.
The spear.
Clytemnestra didn't scream.
She couldn't.
The air had turned to glass in her lungs.
She reached out, shaking so badly she had to grab her own wrist to steady it as her hand hovered over his face.
"No."
"No, no, no, no, no," she whispered.
This wasn't the deal.
She’d done everything right.
She’d pushed him away.
She’d looked past him in that Great Hall, his hand outstretched, his eyes confused and hurt, even when he'd reached for her. She had shown him only cold eyes so he’d live.
“If you hate him... he might live.”
Might. The Goddess had lied. Or maybe... maybe she hadn't hated him enough.
Maybe, deep down, she’d still loved him.
She still kept his room exactly as he left it, breathing in the fading scent of him. She still folded his tunic under her pillow some nights.
Pathetic.
Weak.
And that stupid, selfish hope had killed him.
"You said..." Her voice cracked, broke completely. She grabbed the edge of the coffin, splinters driving deeper into her palms. "You said he’d be safe!"
She wasn't talking to the Spartans. She was talking to the sky.
"I gave you everything! I gave you my soul! What more did you want from me?"
She fell to her knees. The stone bit into her skin. She reached into the box and grabbed his cold, stiff hand. The fingers curled slightly inward. He’d always had small hands.
"Helenos," she sobbed. She began shaking his shoulder harder, harder, like she used to when he'd sleep too late. "Wake up. Please. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to send you away. I never hated you. I never stopped loving you. Please don't leave me."
She pressed his hand to her cheek. It was so cold it burned.
"I love you," she whispered. The words felt wrong, too late. Five years too long. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Come back. Please come back."
Thunder rumbled overhead. The sky darkened. Somewhere, she knew, a goddess was laughing.
He was gone. And she'd sent him away.
She looked at the Spartans. She saw their pity.
Rage.
It solidified in her chest. Not the hot kind. The cold kind. The kind that hollows you out and fills the empty space with something sharp and unforgiving.
“You sent him away.”
Clytemnestra looked up.
Her face was smeared with dust and whatever oils they'd used on him.
“He cried,” the captain said in a monotone voice.
He paused. “Screamed for you, actually. Called your name over and over. When he left Mycenae. But you didn’t look at him. You looked anywhere but at him.”
“Shut up,” she hissed.
“He thought you hated him,” the captain added, smiling, not like a human... but a monster. “Died thinking he wasn't worth loving.”
Clytemnestra stood up, her knees cracking. She was crying, but something else was happening to her face.
She didn't care.
There was nothing left.
"Get out," she hissed.
The captain stepped back. "My Lady, we brought him as a cour—"
"GET OUT!" Clytemnestra screamed. She grabbed the dagger from her belt—the one with the bone handle.
She threw it.
She didn't watch it strike. S
he didn't watch him fall.
She turned back to the box, her hands shaking now, no control left. She tried to... tried to... tried to fix him.
She leaned over her brother’s broken body, her lips trembling against dead skin.
Her fingers were clumsy, catching on the matted blood as she tried to make him look like he was just sleeping, like he'd wake up if she just tried hard enough.
"I will make them pay for taking you from me," she promised, her voice hoarse from screaming. "I will make the whole world pay."
She kissed his cold forehead.
"I'm sorry I let you go. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I failed you," she whispered. "Next time... I won't let go. Even if the Gods themselves come for you. I will never let you go."
Tears fell onto his dead face, and she wiped at them with her sleeve, trying to clean him properly.
***
Behind, the captain slowly rose to his feet.
The morning sunlight slightly glints off his face.
They were ordinary.
Too ordinary.
***
Well, sorry about the hiatus yesterday...
I didn't really feel well back then.
Thank you for reading and have a nice day!
+ I want to read more angst... so b a d... Well,
I'm going to sleep now!!!
Love you!
