Alithea

Chapter X: Shadows in the Library

Alithea could hardly sleep. She had camped out on a beach thousands of times, using the warm sand and ocean sounds as sleep aids, but this time, she was troubled by what Perseus had said. Patricide? How do you kill a god? Perhaps his god-killing skills would help take down a primordial force...right?

At the first light of dawn, Alithea awoke first and walked down to the shoreline. As she buried her toes in the sand where the surf met the shore, she closed her eyes and thought of home, of her father bringing in the nets, of the light glinting on the sea. She ambled over to some rocks and sat down, hugging her arms to shield herself from the cold morning breeze. She missed her father so dearly.

Glancing back at their makeshift campsite, Alithea suddenly realized that Perseus was gone. She scanned the tiny beach and didn't see him.

"Good morning," he grunted from behind her. Alithea yelped and then glared at her companion. It was far too early for surprises.

"Do you have powers of invisibility in addition to setting fires at will?" she hissed. Perseus sat down next to her with a groan and shook his head, bringing his legs up and resting his arms on his knees. Alithea peeked back at the campsite, where Leander was still sleeping peacefully. Then, her stomach growled. "We'll have to go into the city to eat breakfast," she said.

"No."

She turned to look at Perseus, surprised at his answer. "No...?"

He looked at her, his lightning-strike eyes catching the light of the rising sun. "That's not what you want to say, but you are afraid of me, so you fill the air with meaningless drabble."

Alithea was stunned to silence. It was true. How do you kill a god? She was dying to ask. Was it even safe to ask that to a god-killer?

"It wasn't Prometheus," he said softly as if he'd read her mind. "I have my own grievance with him, but an absent semen spiller was hardly any of my worries then."

Alithea flinched at his crassness and hugged herself a little tighter. "Perseus, you don't have to explain yourself."

"I do," he replied. "You have to be able to trust me, and for you to do that, you need to not be afraid of me."

The tenderness in his voice was foreign, and Alithea wondered if this was something that had been beaten out of him in his youth in Lakonia. Even still... "How can I not be afraid of someone who has committed patricide?" She thought of her own father, whom she adored and would die for.

"It was my earthly father," he spat. "After Prometheus fucked my mother and left, she realized she was pregnant. She quickly married my father, a proficient warrior and not much else. Clearly, this didn't deter Prometheus because when I was six, Leander was born. That's when Father started to become violent. First, he began to raise his voice and fight with my mother over small things. Then he began to throw things—pots, cups, food—until he began to throw fists. I could stand it—I had been trained to. But..." Perseus took a deep breath. His eyes had turned red, Alithea noticed, and he was trying very hard to control himself. "One day, when I was eighteen, he raped my mother until she bled. I heard her screams and they curdled my blood. Leander and I were in the other room and I had to tell him everything was fine." His jaw tightened and Alithea could feel uncomfortable heat radiating from him.

"And...what happened?" Alithea dared ask.

Perseus's eyes turned dark. "He only made that mistake once. When she was at the market with Leander, I locked him in the house and set it ablaze."

Alithea's mouth opened into a silent o. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She didn't know if she was more scared of him now, but she knew, at least, he had shared something extremely intimate. It clearly hadn't come easy to the Spartan.