Page 185 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Behind him, Troy still smoldered, wind scattering the ash. Ten years of siege. Ten years since he’d seen last Ithaca’s cliffs rising on the horizon. And now, at last, the tide had turned for home.
He had left Ithaca younger, but not a boy. The crown had settled on his brow six years before Troy, and he’d borne its weight without flinching. His father, Laertes, still lived, but age had drawn him into quiet retreat. The affairs of Ithaca—the burden of its people, its wild fields and stony harbors—had become Odysseus’s to command.
Five years into his rule, he had crossed the sea to Sparta for conquest of a gentler kind.
Penelope. Daughter of Icarius, lord of Sparta. Cousin to Helen.
Years earlier, he’d stood at the edge of Sparta’s great hall as a prince, silently observing the storm of Helen’s betrothal. The hall had been a furnace of ambition, filled with gilded gifts and sharpened blades, vows shouted to the rafters.
The air grew thick with the burning scent of hunger—for glory, for her.
Odysseus had watched, unmoved. He’d seen Helen clearly, even then. A radiant beauty, but a flame that burned too bright. Bright enough to blind, to consume.
His gaze had drifted elsewhere.
Penelope had been little more than a child then, no more than twelve. A slip of a girl half-hidden behind a carved pillar, watching with wide, solemn eyes.
But it wasn’t the spectacle she watched most closely. Her gaze had found him.
He’d noticed. Even then.
There had been no understanding in her eyes. Not yet. Only unguarded curiosity, and something gentler still—a shy, tender fascination she’d been too young to name, too innocent to conceal.
No words had passed between them, no acknowledgment. He’d done nothing to encourage the quiet wonder in her gaze. She was far too young. But he remembered.
A handful of years passed. And when the time came, he returned to Sparta without fanfare, but with intent.
By then, Penelope too had drawn suitors. Princes and lords’ sons vied for her hand, eager to align themselves with Spartan blood. A contest calmer than Helen’s, but no less ruthless.
Helen’s beauty had been wildfire—blazing, scorching all who reached for it. But Penelope’s had settled into something altogether different. Deep and calm, like still water. No less capable of drowning a man.
Sons of the Aegean who had once burned for Helen now circled Penelope like moths to a gentler flame.
But it was his name Icarius spoke.
Odysseus.
The young king of harsh, stony Ithaca. A land of salt winds, wild olives, and rugged cliffs.
Around the hall, jaws tightened, shoulders stiffened. Eyes had flicked to him like knives slipping back into sheaths. But Odysseus hadn’t flinched.
He had crossed the sea for this. Endured the long, grinding nights of negotiations behind closed doors for this—for her.
Across the hall, Penelope looked up to find him already watching her. Torchlight danced across her face, kindling the warm color rising in her cheeks.
Marriage contracts were signed in the heavy heat of that relentless summer, binding her to him with ink and obligation. He was older—twelve years her senior, already bearing the weight of his own throne, though notyet tempered by war. She had been untouched by hardship, sheltered beneath her father’s name and raised among gentle female companions.
When he lifted her veil at their betrothal, his world narrowed to the intensity of her hazel eyes. No coy shyness, nor meek surrender. Only a quiet courage that twisted something deep in his chest.
And then he left.
Returned to his island, his kingdom, where she would follow.
Weeks later, he stood on Ithaca’s rough shoreline—feet planted in the surf, arms folded across his chest—watching the ship cut through the waves. There had been no procession with him. No chariot. No musicians or fanfare. Only the sea’s roar and, behind him, a handful of Ithacan elders. Solemn witnesses of a kingdom waiting to receive its queen.
While the ship was still far off, his eyes found her standing at the prow.
Wind tangled in her dark hair, lifting it from her shoulders. Her cloak billowed around her like smoke. The sun hung low on the horizon, setting the sea alight in copper and gold. Even in its brilliance, her eyes were darker than he remembered.
