Page 34 of Elysium

THE DOOR SLAMMED SHUT BEHIND THEM, kings and queens standing in the flickering candlelight.

The silence that surrounded them was suffocating. No one spoke, no one moved. Penelope was desperate to reach out to Odysseus, to feel his skin underneath hers, but she refrained. This was not the time, not the place.

Helen stood at the window, shoulders squared, her back to them. She was the picture of poise, except where her hands met the stone, trembling.

The Spartan king poured himself a glass of wine, staring into nothingness. Not looking at his queen, not meeting anyone’s gaze.

He let this happen.

Penelope inhaled sharply as she realized it. He did not care what his wife had been doing, what she had attempted. Not because he wanted it to happen — but because he didn’t care enough about her to put a stop to it.

Noticing it in time with his wife, Odysseus let out a dry, humorless laugh. “By the gods,” he said, his voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

“You,” Menelaus finally spoke, pointing a finger at the Ithacan King. “Not a word.”

“Not a word?” Odysseus snorted. “Forgive me, old friend, but that seems to be the problem, doesn’t it?”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Ithacan?” Menelaus’ voice was low, lethal. “You’ve humiliated me in my own halls, in front of my own people. You’ve humiliated the daughter of Zeus.”

“Your people?” Odysseus asked, sounding astonished as he did. “They’re her people, brother.”

“You bastard,” The Spartan King took a few steps towards him, fingers clenching at his glass.

“How long?” Odysseus questioned, nodding towards where Helen stood. “How long have you let your wife feel alone in her own palace?”

Penelope flinched under the weight of his words. A shudder ran up her spine as she waited for a response, eyes flicking between the men.

Menelaus’ eyes narrowed, setting his glass down on the table. He radiated anger, glowering at his companion.

Penelope stepped forward, squaring her shoulders before speaking. “Did you want him to stop you?” Her question was directed at her cousin, voice calm, steady.

For the first time this evening, perhaps in years, Helen looked at her. Actually looked at her. Not like the wounded widow, not like the woman who waited, but as her flesh and blood. Something flickered across her face, too quick for Penelope to register. Was it shame? Regret?

And then Helen smiled. “No.” It wasn’t a cruel smile, it wasn’t triumphant. It was broken.

Penelope’s stomach twisted, heart lurching into her throat.

“And you, cousin?” She tilts her head, eyes drilling holes through Penelope’s soul. “Would you have stopped him if he was not yours?”

Her words gave Penelope pause. Would she have? Were it not Odysseus under her cousin’s touch, would she have intervened?

Helen’s reality came crashing down around her, head swimming as she considered the alternative. This wasn’t about Odysseus, or even Menelaus. It was about Helen, about the paths the gods had set her on.

“Then why,” Menelaus started, turning to his wife. “Do you look at me now like I’ve betrayed you?”

Helen stared at the man that had once claimed her, the man she called husband, and laughed.

It was not a pretty sound. It was short, sharp.

“Would you have burned the world for me?” She challenged, stepping closer to where he stood.

Penelope’s eyes flicked over to where her husband stood, desperate for him, to find solace in his closeness.

Helen’s words hung in the air, electrifying the space that surrounded them. “Didn’t I do just that, wife?” Was the Spartan’s response, venom in every word.

“I didn’t want to take him from you, Penelope“ Helen said suddenly. For a moment, the indomitable Helen of Sparta broke, her face falling as she looked at her cousin. She swallowed hard, voice breaking. “You don’t know what she promised me.”

“What do you mean ‘she promised’ you?” Odysseus was the first to respond, taking a protective step towards Penelope, as though he could shield her from the oncoming hurt. “Who?”

“Persephone.” Penelope responded, shaking her head. Odysseus turned on her, gently grasping her shoulders. His eyes searched her for a moment, bewildered.

Menelaus let out a cruel laugh. “Ever under the god’s scrutiny, aren’t you, King?” Odysseus didn’t turn, didn’t even acknowledge the other man. “And yet you still can’t keep your hands off of the woman you just swore yourself to before all of Sparta.”

Helen’s voice cut through the tension in the room, “gods forbid a man love his wife, Menelaus.” Her words dripped with disdain, nose turned up as she spoke.

“She promised me love, husband. Freedom from this wretched arrangement, someone to look at me even half the way the Ithacan does his wife.” She spat.

Odysseus did not release Penelope. His eyes did not leave hers. A storm was crashing around “them, and all she could see was him.

“It’s easy for someone simple to fit into a role for a silver tongued king, Helen.” Menelaus jeered, looking down his nose towards where the Ithacan king and queen stood.

He was trying to get a rise out of Odysseus, trying to provoke him to anger.

He succeeded.

Odysseus spun quickly, closing the distance between Menelaus and himself. Grabbing a handful of his tunic, he shoved him backwards. “Don’t,” was all he said, the single word laced with hostility.

Penelope’s stomach twisted in disgust. Her cousin, her own flesh and blood, had played along with the gods. Had thrown herself into their games, into Odysseus’s path, and for what?

“You wanted him to look at you that way?" Her voice came out sharp, cutting. "You wanted to see if it could be you instead?"

Helen’s jaw clenched, but she did not deny it.

Penelope’s fists twitched at her sides. “You should have known better,” she bit out. “The gods are using you.”

Helen lifted her chin. “And if you were in my place? Would you not have taken the chance to have that kind of love?”

“No.” Penelope did not hesitate. “Why would I yearn for something I already have?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers, steadying herself, drawing in a breath. As she did, the past crept up on her. Memories of this room… This place.

She faltered for a moment, remembering a lifetime ago when a different Spartan King tried to tell her who she was.

And how an Ithacan King encouraged her, not to fall in line with her father’s expectations, but to cull them. To be her.

“We did not come here for politics. We did not come here to be played against each other. Odysseus and I came here for guidance, and instead-” her voice sharpened, eyes darting between her cousin and the Spartan king, “we have let the gods turn us against our own family.”

Menelaus laughed bitterly. “Oh, Helen. You think that’s love?” He snuffed Penelope out completely, returning to his mockery. “You think devotion makes a man strong?”

His eyes cut to Odysseus. Even as he stood in the man’s grasp, he ridiculed him. “You’ve made yourself weak for her.”

“Don’t,” Odysseus warned, voice low. His jaw was clenched so tight, Penelope was afraid he might shatter.

Menelaus sneered, “All that cunning, all that cleverness, wasted on a woman’s tether-”

Odysseus’ fist connected with the king’s face before he could finish his sentence. The Spartan king staggered, clutching at his face as blood poured from his nose.

“This is what they wanted, Odysseus,” she stepped closer to him, holding her hand outwards to where he stood. “We have enough enemies without making war with our own blood.”

He exhaled, rolling his shoulders back, shaking off the weight of anger. Taking her hand, he closed the distance between them once more, curling a bloodied finger around her chin. “Then we stop playing their game, wife.”

Penelope’s pulse hammered as Odysseus’s fingers twitched against her chin. His voice dropped so only she could hear.

"We leave. Now."

She should have agreed, should have stepped away gracefully. But she didn’t. She grabbed him, fisting his tunic in both hands, she pulled him to her.

Coming together with the intensity of a storm, she abandoned everything she had learned in these very halls.

And in the middle of political fallout, she kissed him.

Fiercely. Defiantly.

When they pulled apart, he was already leading her toward the doors, fingers woven tightly together, heart pounding.

As Penelope turned, Helen took a step forward. “Pen, wait-”

But she did not stop. She did not look back. Even if it meant they might lose their connection to the gods. Even though it could be the last time she and Helen were face to face.

She had spent her whole life looking back.

“If you see Persephone,” Odysseus threw over his shoulder, voice dripping venom, “tell her she lost.”