The Sixth Life of Medusa

9. Meat is Meat

"... and she gave me some honey cakes her mother made. It was warm and delicious."

Annoyed at Linos' endless talking, Perseus whacked the training dummy with more force than necessary. The wooden sword snapped in half, the front end sailing across the air and piercing the earth a breath from where Linos stood.

Linos yelped and jumped away. "Brother!" He looked from the spot to Perseus' face. "Y-you scared me."

"Did I not tell you watching me train is dangerous? You never listen." Perseus rotated his right arm and grimaced. By the gods, his muscles were sore. Dictys had made him work on the javelin last night. After hammering into the next day, he barely got three horai of sleep.

"I listen," Linos said with a huff. "And that was scary."

Perseus peered at his brother.

Those wide naive eyes. So trusting. And Perseus could sense it, Linos was beginning to show the flawed aspects of their father's personality. Barely eleven and he wouldn't stop singing about Elder Kadmos' youngest daughter—his latest beloved.

Perseus should apologise for almost hurting Linos, but his pride wouldn't let him. And it didn't help that he had been irritable since he got out of bed. He had assumed that the gibberish in the book would do something, perhaps open a path in his mind, make his swordsmanship stronger or even give him some powerful ability. Save for a fleeting understanding he gleaned from the lines of nonsensical runes, he had nothing to show for the three horai he poured in before his training. And where was Antigoni?

"Go home. You only start training when you're eleven. Stop pretending to forget," Perseus said as he strolled to the shade of the only tree in the training ground.

Perseus' body always ached on training day but today felt worse. And the scorching mid-afternoon sun wasn't helping matters.

Tossing what remained of his wooden sword, Perseus dragged an arm across his sweaty brow and retrieved the little book from where it sat on the bench. If he tried again, something may happen.

Leafing through the pages, Perseus followed the lines with his gaze. When a brief understanding came this morning, he almost couldn't believe it. He understood that a certain writing meant 'drain' and that the word was... heavy? That was the only description he could give it, but other than that, his mind remained stubbornly unyielding. Even now, as he stared harder at the runic lines, desperate for another insight, nothing happened.

"But you need me," Linos said, breaking Perseus' attention. "Water?" A bright smile lit his face as he raised a large jug, the water sloshing over the rim and wetting his white tunic.

Unable to help himself, Perseus smiled. "Thanks."

After taking a long drink, he nodded at his side. "Sit, I need to tell you something."

Perhaps, there was a possibility that his words would pierce through the delusional clouds in his brother's head and align things.

Linos eagerly did as he was told. Though only four years separated them, Perseus dwarfed Linos. Helping Dictys at his blacksmith shops for years and the regular training had given Perseus a lean muscular build. Linos, on the other hand, was an image of fragility—thin arms and legs, the face of a puppy.

"What's her name?" Perseus pretended to struggle to recall Linos' latest obsession.

"Glykeria?" Linos offered shyly. "She also likes me. She keeps giving me cakes and telling me tales of the sea. She smells really nice too."

By the gods, the besotted way his eyes sparkled. Perseus would have laughed if it was funny.

"Do you know why father died?"