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I hoped they suffered. I hoped they regretted the decisions, the thoughtlessness, the bets, jokes, and tricks that they foisted on the human race.
“Hector. I feel strange.” Paris put his hand over his heart. It no longer beat. None of ours did.
But I felt what he did. A change. A hardening. A lacking.
Somewhere, fathoms below, the seal kept sinking. Any moment now, it would finish what the gods had started.
The chains that bound them wouldn’t hold them forever. Even I, weak as I was in comparison, could feel them pulling at me, stretching and flexing against the temporary shackles with which we’d bound them.
“It must happen soon.” The quietest of us, Orestes, stumbled to the edge of the boat. “My power is almost gone.” His dark skin gleamed an unnatural shade. At first, I thought it was the lightning which lit up the sky, but no. There was an emerald tint to everything. “Look.”
It was my turn to edge toward the bow. My legs shook, reminding me of how they had failed me when I’d recognized the small dagger emblazoned with my crest, just out of reach of my son’s wasted hand.
I peered over the edge of the boat. A vibration shivered along the water.
I could almost see it. The seal floating, drifting, toward the gods. It would come to rest on the ocean floor. Maybe it would land on one of the ten thousand ships that had sailed from Sparta to Troy.
“For my family,” Orestes whispered. “A murdered sister, and mother.” His voice caught. “And father.”
The world seemed to hold its breath. The waves stopped crashing. There was no thunder, only silence.
Then Paris spoke. “For Helen, who I loved, and who would have returned to the king who hurt her, if I had let her.”
“I wanted to fight.” The deep voice of Achilles traveled from the spot where he sat, head in hands, on the bow of the ship. “But I didn’t know the cost. So this is for my mother. Who tried to warn me.”
None of us knew what would come. This was either the beginning of a new mortal plain, free from the interference of the changeable gods or the end of it all. The gods would never forgive us, though they’d done the same to their fathers, the Titans, who had done the same to the primordial gods.
“I will never see my twin brother again.” Pollux towered over all of us, even Achilles. The giant of a man stood against the mast, and as physically strong as he was, his voice was a weak thread of sound. “I’m tired of their games. So seal them in, for my twin.”
A gray spray of salt water exploded, drenching us and nearly swamping the boat. And with that, the seal exploded. Our ship lifted into the air along with the sea. For a moment, we hung aloft—the creatures of the deep, the water, the dead.
And as the world attempted to right itself, each shard of the seal, propelled by our power, flew to unknown corners of the world.
I imagined Zeus, the king of gods, trapped, and wondered if he cursed me, or if he saw it as the closing of the circle. An inevitable end.
For my son.I didn’t say the words out loud. Everything I did was because of what had been done to him.
The green light faded. There was no more thunder or lightning. The clouds parted, and the sun came out.
“It’s over.”
The time of the gods and heroes, of wars that lasted decades, was over.
The sun, blazing in the bright blue sky, dried the water on my skin. I let out a breath, but the relief I expected to feel didn’t come.
“What’s next?” Paris dragged his hand down his face. My youngest brother, the golden prince of Troy, stared bleakly at the coast. The shore was dotted with wrecks, and along high cliffs, I could make out the ruins of the once beautiful palace of King Priam. The only thing left there were ghosts.
“I never want to see this place again.” Orestes moved toward the mast, releasing the knots that had bound our sails during the storm. “I say we see where the wind takes us. Now, at least, we know we’re not at the mercy of the gods.” And for the first time since we—the toys of the gods— had all come together, he smiled.
Leo
Too Many Years Later to Count
My mother always told me I had an unremarkable face.“You blend, Leo. If you could just try a little harder, you might be tolerable.”
Tolerable.
My mother was nothing if not brutally honest.
