Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The sea was ink–-black and roiling–-beneath the breathless sky, and not a whisper of wind stirred the sail. The stars blinked cold and far away, and the crescent moon, veiled behind slow-moving clouds, offered no blessing. A deathly stillness held the water as if the world itself was waiting, silent with expectation.

Ajax the Lesser, son of Oileus, stood at the helm of his war-scarred ship, its hull carved by storm and battle, its deck slick with salt, spoils of war, and forgotten prayers. Troy had fallen several months ago, and he and his companions had driven their enemies into the ground. He had defied gods and mortals in these ten long years. He had had Trojan women begging for him while his men pillaged their city. He'd fought off a demon at that temple and had walked away unscathed.

He was untouchable, because Pallas Athena herself had come to his aid. The Mother of Wisdom herself had stood for him and preserved his life.

And now, with Troy in ruins; with his twelve ships nearing the Capharean rocks on the coast of Euboea, home was but weeks away.

However, as much as he had tried to convince himself things were fine, he couldn't shake his unease. The other Kings had wanted to kill him. Some nonsense about the gods being angry with him and taking it out on them. But how could they be angry when he had done their bidding? When he had assisted in wiping Troy off the map?

Around him the wind whistled. It was picking up slowly, and the water sloshed beneath the hull. The ship rocked and Ajax held onto the prow to steady himself.

He looked around, at his men, preparing for bed. They were weary, and so was he. A rumble of thunder sounded in the sky.

A storm was coming. A big one.

—----------------------------------

A distance away, something stirred in the sea. Not the storm, not the wind. A presence.

Unseen by the mortal eye, a figure rose from the water like a shadow given flesh. A being, once mortal, once noble, now something in between. His hair, tangled with salt and moonlight, hung across his shoulders. His eye, once clear and mortal-bright, now shimmered with the cold intensity of the deep. A scar ran down the other eye, down to his jaw; it was milky white with blindness. His cloak dragged in the sea behind him like the veil of a funeral mourner.

He was angry. And around him the waves were reflecting his emotions.

A breath of wind came first, curling over the surface like a whisper too close to the ear. Then came the scent—brine, electric tension, and something ancient that made the hairs on his neck rise. His eye lifted to the sky, where he knew she was watching.

Clouds gathered fast, not rolling in from the distance but swirling into being, born from some deep turbulence. They did not crawl—they bloomed. Dark masses spiraled upward, pressing downward with crushing intent. The sea stirred beneath him, his platform rocking with the first swell.

He did not move.

A low hum thrummed up through the water, not from beneath, but around—like the sea itself was clearing its throat. Whitecaps began to form far off, their frothing edges racing toward him with hungry grace. Then came the first crack—a sound like the sky splitting in two. Lightning speared the water far to the east, and the air became heavy with ozone and salt.

He raised one arm slowly.

The waves responded.

The swells grew, lifting him higher, until his head brushed mist and vapor. The storm danced closer now, thunder answering thunder, and each wave seemed not to crash but to reach, as though drawn by his call. The dozen ships approaching him began to rock. Screams and shouts pierced the air.

A rogue breaker rose before him, larger than the rest, shaped like the open mouth of some leviathan. Still, he did not flinch.

And when the wave fell upon him, it did not crush.

It bowed.

"Selene," he had whispered amidst the raging tempest, beneath her warm silver gaze, "give me purpose."

The Titaness had lent him strength. The sea had offered him power. His father had answered.

The storm had come for him—but not to destroy.

It had come to kneel.

—--------------------------------

Ajax swore as another wave doused him, yelling behind him to his men to get belowdecks. That was when he saw it: a figure walking across the water as though it were solid rock.

"Who goes there?" he called out, hand dropping to the hilt of his blade.

The figure said nothing.

Closer.

A face emerged from the gloom, carved in shadow and grief, and something sharp shot through him, as though one of the bolts of lightning from the sky had seared his skin.

Of course. He should have guessed.

Perseus.

Ajax flinched, then snarled. "You."

"Me," said Perseus softly, and although he was still a bit far, his voice carried across the storm.

"You shouldn't be here," Ajax stepped back. "Athena warned you–"

A laugh, as a wave of water slowly lifted him off the ocean. "Do you really think I care what Athena said? She isn't here to stop me today. She wouldn't dare. Not here. Not where I am strongest."

Ajax laughed—a dry, bitter bark. Panic flared through his system. "You couldn't save your city all those months ago, so what? Now you haunt the sea? A drowned rat with a god's favour?"

Perseus stepped up onto the ship. The wood did not groan beneath him. The sea around them raged and the ship tipped to the side. Ajax stumbled, but caught his footing just in time.

"I have spent my entire life fighting fate, all for it to amount to nothing. I have been told I was born to be a weapon. Burnt and beaten and forced into fire so I could come out doing my blacksmith's bidding. I've been chained and betrayed, defiled—my choices ripped away from me. Do you know what kept me standing, through all those years? Faith. Not in any god, not in the bastards you put on pedestals. Not in the favour you think they show you. In myself. In my family." He paused. "My family that you took from me. So many men have tried to kill me, and I don't remember all their names. But you—I remember you, Ajax."

He raised his hand. A wave rose with it—slow, immense, coiling like a serpent waiting to strike.

Ajax drew his blade, trembling. "You think to kill me in the name of Troy? You think I fear the bastard of a sea god?"

"No," Perseus whispered. "You fear nothing, Ajax. You feel nothing. That is why you must die."

He advanced. The ship tilted as if the sea itself bowed away from him.

Ajax lunged, steel flashing. Perseus caught the blade in one hand— it tore through flesh and poured out gold—and the metal screamed. Perseus pushed, and the sword went flying.

Ajax stumbled back, terrified now. The son of Poseidon barely flinched. "Wait—wait, don't—she was a spoil of war! The gods gave her to me! She was a TROJAN!"

Perseus's voice cracked, his hand bleeding onto the soiled deck. "She was a priestess! She was sacred. And you laughed while she begged for mercy. I hear it still—every night."

Ajax turned to run.

The wave struck.

It came not as a crash, but as a crushing weight, like the hand of a god pressing down. Ajax was driven to the deck, then through it, into the depths. Perseus followed him, down, down, down into the dark.

Below the surface, Ajax thrashed, bubbles of rage and panic spiralling from his lips. But the sea obeyed Perseus, and it wrapped around Ajax like iron chains. Perseus placed a hand over the man's heart, and the water filled his lungs. He could hear the screams of his men above as the storm ripped his ships to shreds. The sea thundered in his ears, not as punishment, but as betrayal—his gods, his victories, now deaf to his cries. Ajax thrashed beneath the waves, muscles burning, lungs clawing for air, fury flaring even as the darkness pressed in. This was no just wrath—this was vengeance dressed as honour, wielded by a man with divine blood and a hero's grief.

Ajax had taken what he wanted, as conquerors do. And now, drowned like a dog for it. Panic rose in him, cold and fast, a tide he could not fight. He saw Perseus's eye in the murky waters, not furious, but calm—inhumanly calm—as if the storm itself had already chosen to forget him.

Ajax's eyes bulged. He clawed at Perseus's arm.

"Tell me," Perseus said, voice rumbling through the currents, "do you feel heroic now?"

A long, gurgling gasp escaped Ajax's throat. And then the water spat him out. Ajax let out a cry, a shout, a plea, anything, but then he slammed into another wave. A whirlwind swam around him, lashing his skin, salt tearing at his eyes, ripping him apart. It carried him upwards, and rain pelted his face, the cold shocking his system as much as the drowning had, and he couldn't see, he couldn't speak, he couldn't breathe—

Horror filled him then, because no, gods, no, he was going to die, and he wasn't ready, he was so sorry and if only he could tell him–

A flash of lightning illuminated the ocean as Perseus descended down on him, propelled by another wave. The distinct sound of metal entering flesh reached his ears and Ajax gurgled as Perseus ripped the sword out of his throat. Pain, unbearable pain laced through his entire body. He was on fire, he was being torn to pieces and—

The waves flung him from the whirlpool like he had flung Cassandra's dead body away when he was done with her. Ajax was airborne, dying, crying, choking for the fraction of a second, before he felt an even sharper pain, right through his back, and right through his chest and then—

Nothing.

He went still, impaled on jagged rocks jutting out of the raging sea.

Perseus descended onto the waves, breathing hard.

The ships were gone, broken apart by the same wave that had swallowed their master. The sea was silent once more, and around him, the storm stilled. The sky remained dark.

No gods had come. No thunder. Only Selene, parting the clouds above him, lit the water in ghostly silver.

A tear escaped his good eye, and Perseus exhaled, then melted into mist.

—--------------------------------

Selene glanced back when he reappeared in the chariot, relief permeating her features. They had been mid-journey on the search for Aeneas when he had spotted Ajax beneath them, and she had not tried to stop him when he had mist-travelled away.

But she was starting to worry about him, even more than she usually did.

"Are you okay?" She asked, quietly.

Perseus looked back at her, his one eye holding so many emotions and thoughts, she couldn't focus on only one.

He glanced away, unable to meet her eyes. "Ask me tomorrow."

Chapter Text

THE SHIP hit the sand at midday, coming to a sharp stop and jerking its occupants forward. Aeneas glanced up at the sea behind them, eyes crinkling in worry. His hope was fading fast. Hades, he probably had none left.

It had been a year since that fateful night when his home had been brought down in fire and blood. A year since he had been able to get a good night’s sleep.

An entire year since he had seen his brother.

The first few weeks had been easy.

He’d spoken to his mother. She’d told him to go West, and he had followed. She’d told him his destiny would find him there, and he had followed.

But when he had asked about Perseus, she hadn’t wanted to give a straight answer.

All the gods were being evasive.

The most surprising of it all had been Apollo. He’d expected at least a bit of aid, or information—something—anything—from the god who had trained and raised them. But Apollo had been as silent as Poseidon, even though Aeneas had prayed to both, and he knew for a fact that they had both seen him every single day since their ship had gone on the sea a year ago.

He didn’t know if his brother was alive or dead. Granted, Perseus was immortal.

But Perseus had also angered the gods that night and throughout the entirety of the war. Aeneas knew it. His mother had known it. Whatever judgment they had passed on him, they weren’t being forthcoming about it.

He had tried Selene as well. But either she was pretty deaf, or something was blocking his prayers from reaching her.

Not knowing what had happened…it was even worse than the reminder that his city was ashes and dust.

For a year, they had sailed the blue sea.

For a year, they had travelled and searched desperately for the destiny the gods had promised him.

For a year, he’d prayed and hoped that he would wake, and Perseus would rise from the waves, safe, sound, and ready to stand beside Aeneas again and help him rattle the stars.

His faith was dwindling.

He had lost Hector.

He had lost Creusa.

He had lost his city.

The one thing Aeneas had thought would always be constant was Perseus. He wasn’t sure he could deal with losing him, too.

All the son of Aphrodite could do was pray and trust that his brother was stronger than whatever Fate threw at him.

“Father!”

Aeneas glanced down, the sound chasing the murky thoughts from his mind. That voice—

Darting towards him was his son, Ascanius, taller now, a smile spreading on his face. A similar one cut through Aeneas’ beard, and his earlier anxiety was forgotten.

Oh, Ascanius. His pride, his joy.

The one thing he had left.

It warmed his heart to see Ascanius grin, after everything. Even though he had failed his son and his people spectacularly, they still looked up to him. They still followed him.

And that counted for something.

Ascanius stood tall and proud, his hair curlier and longer, holding on to a spear that was twice his height, and dressed in armour that was twice his size.

The occupants of the ship were gathering on the deck, coming up from below to see why Aeneas had made them stop.

Ascanius puffed out his chest and called, “What are your orders, Father?”

Aeneas smiled softly. Every day, Ascanius looked more and more like his mother. He wouldn’t say he wasn’t glad he had at least managed to get his baby boy this far. But it hurt.

As much as he had tried not to dwell on what had happened, it hurt like the legends said Zeus’ master bolt did.

Aeneas looked around at the men, women and children who had come to the deck to hear him speak. He cleared his throat. Sometimes in his cabin, he had to fight so hard not to break down, scream, rage and sob.

Not only because of the loss and the nightmares that plagued him. Not just because the walls of the ship were paper-thin.

But because the lives and survival of all these people—the last of his people—rested on his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if he could do it. Aeneas had never been one to thrive under pressure as a child.

But then, the war had changed him.

The war had changed them all.

Aeneas ruffled his son’s hair. He looked around and cleared his throat. “Alright. Our supplies have been running low these past few days, so we stopped to restock. Some fresh water, fruit, and food. Anything but more fish. I’m sure you all share my sentiment.”

A couple of laughs.

He glanced around and tilted his head to the side in consideration. “Ganymede, Sergestus, with me. We’ll go ahead and do some scouting. The rest of you are to stay on the ship. We’re on unfamiliar ground. If we need more help or more arms, one of us will double back and get more men.”

Ganymede was one of Priam’s sons. He’d just seen fifteen summers a week ago and was eager to prove himself useful. Aeneas had and would always have, a soft spot for anyone from Hector and Creusa’s family. His family.

He was glad that at least some part of them would live on through Ganymede.

“I want to accompany you, Father.’ Ascanius pounded his spear into the wood. “I know how to use this now. You know I can.”

It was true.

His son was even more skilled with weapons than Aeneas had been at the start of his training. And he knew he wouldn’t always be there to protect Ascanius. He would have to learn eventually, one way or another.

But on this unfamiliar Island…

When so many things could go wrong, when so many things had been going wrong for an entire year…Aeneas exhaled and sank to his knees, so he was eye level with Ascanius.

“I have a very important job for you, son,” he said. He knew that it was hypocritical to keep Ascanius on the ship while he went along with Ganymede, who wasn’t much older. He knew that Ascanius wasn’t a boy anymore. Not after everything he had seen that evening at Troy. Not after a year of voyaging lost at sea. It was getting harder for him to buy all the nonsense excuses Aeneas kept giving to keep him out of danger.

Ascanius leaned forward eagerly.

“I need you to take charge of the ship,” Aeneas glanced around.

“Everyone here is depending on you. If we don’t make it back, you’re in charge here. If we need to defend ourselves or run into any trouble, you can lead our people and protect them.” Aeneas turned and glanced at his ailing father, who was leaning on the mast. “I need the strongest man amongst us to look out for our people, Ascanius. Can you do that for me?”

Ascanius looked indignant, like he wanted to argue. But then something crossed his face and his son puffed his chest out with determination. “You can count on me.”

Aeneas smiled and rose. He ruffled his son’s hair and then motioned to Ganymede and Sergestus to start making preparations. As Aeneas moved to join them, he passed Achates, who had been standing by the side of the ship overlooking the sea, arms folded. Aeneas nodded to him, then motioned to Ascanius, “Keep an eye on him for me, would you?”

Achates nodded somberly. In the past year, he had become one of Aeneas’s closest friends--his second-in-command, and the one person he trusted to protect Ascanius with his life. If someone had told him that would be so ten years ago, Aeneas would have called them insane.

“You know what to do in case we don’t return by sundown, right?”

“I do,” Achates nodded. “Doesn’t make it any easier, though.”

“We’ll be fine,” Aeneas waved him aside, and said, wryly, “Big destiny ahead of us and all that.”

He knew it wasn’t the time to joke. But that was the only thing that brought a little light to their bleak existence.

Achates cracked a smile and patted him on the shoulder, then moved away. Aeneas let out a breath.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t spend his entire day worrying about Perseus or the gods.

His son was what mattered.

His people were what mattered.

And there was work to be done.

XMX

AS THEY walked back to the ship with sacks full of fruits, game, and food from the forest surrounding the beach, Aeneas was once again lost in thought.

His people were tired.

He was tired.

The gods hadn’t given him any sort of roadmap. Not even a physical one. And they’d been a bit busy trying to escape certain death back in Troy—there had been no time to pluck one from the Admiral’s quarters. Just a vague ‘go west’ and ‘go to Hesperia,’ a city he had never been to before, mind you, or heard of before the night Troy had fallen.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, and it was getting so hard to explain to his people that they had to keep going when he didn’t know where they had to keep going to.

Aeneas hated that he didn’t have answers to both his questions and theirs.

It didn’t help that he didn’t know where they were. They had explored as much of the island as they could with the daylight they had left. If there was a city, they hadn’t found it.

It appeared the island was uninhabited.

But that was too good to be true. And after the horse that had destroyed his home, Aeneas would never take anything at face value again.

“My Lord,” Sergestus interrupted his train of thought. “Any idea where we go after this?”

There it was. The question he had been dreading. The question that so many of the survivors had been asking themselves. They knew how to navigate. They just didn’t know where they were navigating to. They didn’t trust the ‘destiny’ the gods had promised them. Not after those same gods had abandoned them to the barbarity of the Achaeans a year back.

Aeneas sighed. Sergestus had been one of his Dardanians. He hated feeling inadequate in front of all these people who looked up to him for direction. It felt like he was Atlas, holding up the weight of the sky, being pressed down into the ground with each excruciating second that passed.

“I’m working on it.”

Ganymede huffed under his load. His blond locks framed his face perfectly, and those piercing eyes that looked so much like Creusa’s and Hector’s met the demigod’s. His heart ached for his wife.

“Maybe it’s time to consider that the gods don’t actually have a plan for us?” He shrugged under the sack. “I mean, this island seems good. It’s fruitful. It’s full of game. We can do more than just survive here, Aeneas. We can live.”

Aeneas considered it.

Ganymede was right.

And if he was being honest, Aeneas wanted to believe him. He was so tired of running. His life was moving by too fast for him to keep up with, and he just wanted to slow down.

He just wanted to stop.

“We’ll make a decision back on the ship.” Because as much as he was in charge here, he wasn’t alone. Whatever decision he made would affect them, and that meant their voices had to be heard.

As they walked, Aeneas closed his eyes and sent a silent prayer to his mother. Aphrodite, if you ever had a direction for me, now would be the time to point me in it.

His eyelids fluttered, and the curly-haired man looked to the sky. Selene, if you can hear me, bring me my brother.

He knew their survival was his cross to carry—his load to bear. But they were Perseus’ people too.

“Alright,” Ganymede beamed. “I—”

He was cut off by a loud shriek, and Aeneas stiffened, dropping the sack he had been holding and reaching immediately for his sword at his side. Beside him, Sergestus gasped, swore and dove out of the way all in a matter of seconds.

A rush of wind, a brush of feathers.

Everything happened too fast for it to properly register in Aeneas’ mind.

One second, Ganymede was in the middle of saying something, blond hair waving in the wind. The next second, a giant balding eagle was swooping down at them from the sky and snatching him off the ground, barely giving the boy any time to scream.

His sack lay forgotten at Aeneas’ feet, and the son of Aphrodite watched, mouth agape and eyes wide as a bird made away with one of Aeneas’ last living relatives.

“Ganymede!” The words fell from his lips in disbelief, in panic, in astonishment—as if his mind couldn’t decide what exactly he should be feeling at that moment.

“Ganymede!” Aeneas’ voice came out raw and hoarse.

Aeneas ran his single hand through his hair.

Sergestus sat in shock, staring at the sky as well.

All those months, keeping every single member of his crew alive, every survivor standing—and once again, just like that, Ganymede was gone.

An eagle had snatched Aeneas’ brother-in-law—barely a man—from them, and there was not a single thing he could do about it.

He couldn’t even be sure if it was just a normal bird. But that eagle had been too large to be normal. Aeneas didn’t even want to consider what it meant for Ganymede if what he was thinking was true.

For what felt like the millionth time in his life, Aeneas sank to his knees and put his head in his hands.

The tears didn’t come this time.

He had gotten too used to losing people.

XMX – 6 MONTHS LATER

AENEAS SMILED at the waves in the distance, and at the city they had just finished constructing.

Six months ago, they had beached with cracked ships and cracked hearts, salt on their skin and in their lungs, the ghosts of Troy clinging to their cloaks. Now—stone by stone, log by log—they had carved a new beginning from the wilderness.

Aeneas stood on the rocky hill, looking over the large fields as dusk bled into the horizon. Beside him, Ascanius gripped his hand, eyes bright. Behind them, old Anchises leaned against Achates, coughing in the wind, his shoulders bowed from age and burden.

Six months of labour and loss had gone into this place.

Aeneas had named it Aeneadae, though he spoke the name like a borrowed garment. The name hadn’t come from a place of pride, no. It was a sign to Olympus—to remind the gods that he still lived, and that he had chosen to defy their orders to go West.

He had chosen to stop running and just be.

Behind them, Troy lay in ashes. Before them, an unknown future.

But one they were willing to brave anyway.

The local tribes they had found after the Ganymede incident kept to themselves, mostly. They were tall men with blue-dyed cloaks and tattoos of falcons running across their bodies.

The Trojans called them the natives. Their city, Enneahodoi, lay inland, wrapped in a ring of standing stones and wolf-skin standards, and protected by nine gates, which explained why he hadn’t found it the first time round. It was too well hidden.

They spoke a harsh tongue that Aeneas and his people had difficulty understanding, but they hadn’t tried to kill the Trojans yet, and that was enough. Their king, Polymestor, had welcomed Aeneas on the first moon, offering wine and land on the coast. But the natives never smiled, and their priests never blinked. They watched Aeneas’ people with the stillness of men waiting for winter to kill.

Aeneas knew it would take some time to warm up to their new neighbours.

The last stones were set that morning. The walls stood. The roofs held. Aeneas had ordered a sacrifice at the gates to bless the city, to ask for protection from the gods who had watched Troy burn. As much as he didn’t care for them anymore, his people did, and everything he did was for his people. He’d always been pious. But with everything Olympus had put his family and his city through…

Now, Aeneas stood with his hand in Ascanius’, watching the sacrificial bull be led to the gate of the city they had built. Behind him, Anchises wheezed, wrapped in furs despite the heat. Briseis stood among the others—Achates, Misenus, Antenor’s sons—a dagger at her belt and her lips tight with disquiet.

"Why today?" she asked Aeneas softly, coming up next to him. He could sense her displeasure. Briseis was one of the few who had insisted they keep moving.

“Because we must believe,” he answered. “Because if we don’t believe, we don’t have hope. And hope is what keeps the people going. Without it, we build on sand.”

The altar was plain—fresh stone, smoothed by hand, and white as bone. Aeneas moved forward from the crowd of people, and down the small hill. He took the blade, kissed its hilt, and knelt to the ground. The bull snorted, sensing something was wrong.

Aeneas lifted it over the beast’s neck.

Mother, he thought. I need your guidance. Olympus, bless our city. Light our path. The curly-haired man exhaled. This was it. He brought his sword down.

But before the blade could fall, he paused.

Something was amiss.

The earth here was softer on his knee than he remembered. Aeneas could feel the wetness. The wrongness.

Maybe it was a nudge from his mother. Maybe it was his own attentiveness.

He reached down, dropping the blade and brushing away the topsoil.

A root showed through. Coiled. Black-veined. A root. Weird. Right beside the altar.

Aeneas pulled it.

And the ground screamed.

A gurgle. A spasm. A wretched, twisted sound so loud, a collective wince and gasp swept the entire crowd. Aeneas stumbled away. A hiss of blood sprayed across the altar like spilt wine. The root pulsed. The bull skittered and pulled against its constraints.

The wound in the earth wept red.

Ascanius stumbled back into Briseis, his voice caught in his throat.

“Sergestus—get the priests,” Aeneas ordered, staggering to his feet.

But the ground moaned again.

And then it spoke.

“Do not build here, son of Troy. This land drinks the dead.”

The voice rose from the soil itself. The gathered Trojans stepped back in horror as the roots shifted, unwinding like tendons from a corpse. A shape emerged—half-spirit, half-flesh. A boy’s face. Pale. Hands reaching, then retreating. Eyes wide with the memory of dark things.

Aeneas dropped to his knees. The name came immediately as recognition hit him.

“…Polydorus?”

Achates took a step forward, whispering, “Gods deliver us.” He darted down the hill.

Aeneas shook his head in wonder, horror and amazement, as memories assaulted him. Polydorus. The youngest son of Priam. Sent away at the start of the war, with gold, to one of their allies. He should be reaching manhood by now.

How was the boy dead? His horror was great, his confusion greater.

The boy’s ghost curled like smoke over the roots.

“I came with gold.” The ghost agreed, as if reading his mind. “The Thracian king welcomed me… then slit my throat while I slept. He took the riches. He sowed me into the soil. The vines drank me. The land remembers, Aeneas.”

Aeneas staggered back, bile in his throat. The realization settled over them like dusk.

“This… this land is Thrace.” Achates said aloud.

The ghost nodded. “You walk the fields of Thrace. The nine-gated city you see belongs to Polymestor. He wears a crown bought with my blood.”

Aeneas turned, rage choking his grief.

He was a fool.

He was such a big fool.

How had he not made the connection? How had he not thought of it? Polydorus had been sent away at a time when Aeneas and his companions had been focused on the war and defending their city. He hadn’t taken note of where the child had been taken to, or who had been given care of him. Just that his brother-in-law was safe.

Polymestor hadn’t mentioned that the Island they’d built their city on was Thrace, and Aeneas was a fool for not asking.

“I trusted him.”

“Trust is for the living,” the ghost whispered. “I am neither. After what happened to our home, one would think you would be smarter, son of Venus.”

A silence settled over them. Not even the wind dared speak. Aeneas’s mind barely registered the name Polydorus had used—of his mother.

The Dardanian king looked to Anchises, who simply closed his eyes and bowed his head in dread. His father’s grief called out to him.

Then he looked toward the misted horizon. Toward where the gods had promised a future. Towards where his mother had promised more than survival.

Aeneas clenched his fists and stood straighter.

“We burn this altar. We leave this cursed land. Aeneadae will not be born on bones.”

He turned to his people, raising his blood-slicked hand.

“Prepare the ships. We sail at dawn. The gods have spoken through the grave. Troy’s children will not build a second Ilium upon a brother’s corpse. We carry Troy’s flame, not its ash.” His voice was cold and sharp. His heart was crying out for the injustice his people had been put through.

His chest ached because he knew that this was Olympus’ answer to his defiance. If west was where they asked him to go, then west was where he had to go. His own selfish desires didn’t matter. What he thought of the gods didn’t matter. They had promised the continuity of Troy, and he was a fool for not believing them. He was a fool for fighting against that. Ganymede’s kidnapping on this land should have been his first ill omen.

Briseis was the first to nod. Then Achates. Then all of them.

The city stood behind them—walls finished, their first breath of hope now poisoned.

They did not look back as they packed. Somewhere in this large, large world was his brother and the promise of a future. And somewhere in the wind, was the laughter of gods who watched, always, and answered only when it hurt most.

XMX

THAT NIGHT, Aeneas stood at the prow of the ship, watching Enneahodoi’s fires flicker inland—Thracians dancing to drums above a field fed with gold and blood. Every night, he did this. Because it was the only thing that kept him sane.

The son of Anchises bowed his head.

As the moon glowed above, and the sea grew silent once more, Aeneas cast a glance toward the distant horizon, toward the west.

“Brother… I know you can’t die. So why do I feel as if I’ve buried you a thousand times?”

Aeneas’ hand tightened on the cold wood, cloak pulled around him, salt on his lips—but he did not weep.

Not yet.

“I saw the roofs fall. I saw the walls explode. I saw the flame take them all…But not you. You do not die. You can’t. The gods made you that way.”

A pause. His fingers dug into the wood.

“But you bleed. You suffer. You endure things no man should.”

The wind brushed past him like a voice trying to speak but forgetting the words.

“You should have come by now. We’ve wandered for a year and six months. Built a city, named it after myself—like a fool. And now we burn it, because the ground itself rejects us. The land drinks Trojan blood like it remembers every name we’ve lost.”

His voice broke for a breath, but he forced it to be steady. He was trying to be strong. But he just needed to know if Perseus was fine.

“If you are somewhere still fighting, I beg you—send a sign. If you are bound, I will come for you. If you are free… and you’ve chosen to turn away, then say it. I know that’s impossible. But I would understand. I would understand if you’re tired of all this. Speak it, Perseus. Curse me if you have to. But let me hear your voice again, brother.”

The sea roared quietly beneath.

Aeneas closed his eyes.

“You were always the flame they feared. But you loved as fiercely as you fought. You carried Hector and I. You carried Troy. Do you remember?”

A smile touched the edge of his mouth. Faint. Broken. Because he did.

His voice softened to a whisper.

“Come back, Perseus.”

A gust of wind brushed his face. Cold. And distant. But familiar.

Aeneas opened his eyes.

No figure stood before him. No omen. No sign.

Only the stars.

Only the sea.

And silence.

But Aeneas rose anyway.

Because even silence from Perseus…it was not the same as absence.

XMX

THE next Island they landed on was a month later. Aeneas descended from the gangplank, clenching his jaw as he looked around, in search of any hint as to what island they had docked on.

Ascanius came bounding down behind him, a hand on the bronze sword at his side. Behind him was Achates, who had to jog to keep up with the little kid’s large leaps.

They came to a stop next to Aeneas, faces pensive, eyes anxious. Aeneas knew what they were all thinking—his son, his friend and the people on the ship. They didn’t need a repeat of Thrace. They were all broken and dispirited from the fact that they had had to abandon a city they’d spent the better part of six months constructing from scratch.

Any other setback, and Aeneas feared that his people would lose that little spark that had kept them going forever.

“What do we do, Aeneas?” Achates asked, an eyebrow raised. “I don’t think the men have it in them to build another city.”

“They won’t need to,” A voice called from a few feet away.

Aeneas stiffened, hand moving to his blade, but then Ascanius had already drawn his sword and levelled it at the newcomer in front of them, standing under the shade of some trees a distance from the beach.

How his voice had carried across the sand to them, Aeneas didn’t know.

He glanced down at his boy with momentarily pride and latched his attention back onto the figure—wait.

Aeneas felt something in him soar.

“Relax,” He stepped in front of his son, pushing his sword down. Aeneas turned to Achates, nodding his head. His second slipped out of his defensive stance and planted his spear back into the sand.

“Is that—”

“Apollo.” Aeneas’ focus moved back to the now steadily approaching figure. Another had joined him--a shorter woman. They both had the same golden blond hair and the same piercing gold eyes. She wore a white peplos, and he was dressed in gold and white robes with a laurel wreath crowning his head. A lyre hung from his side, and Aeneas took a step forward to meet the approaching deities.

Ascanius’ eyes were blown wide, and beside him, Achates shifted with unease. The people on the ship had crowded to the deck to catch a glimpse of the patron god—the god who had abandoned his city and left it in ruins.

Apollo and Leto came to a stop in front of Aeneas and his company.

“It’s been a while.”

“It has,” Apollo glanced up at the people on the ship, and then back down, golden eyes landing on Ascanius. Aeneas knew the gods usually thrived on mortal awe. But Apollo was as nonchalant as a man with a secret lover in the presence of his wife. “You’ve done a pretty good job following our instructions, Aeneas,” The god said wryly.

“What?”

“You need a new navigator, because you definitely haven’t been going West.” He sighed and waved it aside. “Anyway, it’s good to see you all made it this far.”

“Not all of us, and no thanks to you.” Aeneas’ eyes flickered to the beaming woman at his side. He dipped his head. “Lady Leto. It’s nice to meet you.” He had heard much about her from Perseus, and Aeneas had never dreamed that he would be meeting her without his brother.

“It’s nice to meet you as well, Aeneas. I’ve heard much about you.”

“All good things, I hope,” Aeneas inclined his head. Leto smiled, and the son of Anchises felt her aura wash over him, putting his nerves at ease and calming his anxious heart. Ascanius’s eyes kept flickering from one deity to another, wonder and awe and mild anger present in them. They would need to have a talk about that last one later.

“We’re on Delos, aren’t we?” Achates spoke up. “Your Island.”

Apollo nodded, snapping his fingers. “Correct.”

“Which means we can’t stay here?” Ascanius piped, and Aeneas could hear the disappointment in his tone.

“We can’t,” Aeneas shook his head. “You left us, Apollo. I’ve been praying to you for a year and seven months. You never answered. None of you did. My mother came by, but even her visits are starting to get less and less. What’s going on on Olympus?”

“The Olympians—well, Zeus, believes that you are strong enough to lead your people on the path the fates have chosen for you. Without their interference,” Leto answered.

“Father doesn’t like the meddling that happened during the Trojan war. Too many gods opposed each other. There was too much in-fighting. And allowing interference in your journey would mean the fighting continues. Some gods would try to stop you. Others would try to kill your people. Some, like me, are trying to guide you in our own subtle way. Who do you think alerted Polydorus and asked him to bring you that message?”

“You couldn’t have come six months earlier?” Aeneas scowled at Apollo.

“Your journey is just beginning, Aeneas,” Apollo said, shaking his head. “I try to nudge things in the ways I think the fates want them to go. But this journey isn’t just about survival.” He poked Aeneas’ chest. His power washed over the demigod, making him stumble back. “It’s about growth. It’s about the things you learn and the friends you make along the way.” Another poke. “It’s about discovering yourself and—” Another poke. “—discovering your destiny. I did my part in Troy. I will do my part here as well, to the best of my abilities.”

“What if we want no part in the plans you and Olympus have for us?” Aeneas shook his head. He was so tired of them. So tired of the games. So tired of the running. “What if we just want to stop? Rebuild somewhere, anywhere that’s inhabitable.”

“Then your lineage doesn’t survive till the next generation,” Apollo shrugged, golden hair bouncing. “Your people die. Your names and your deeds and the names of all you have lost become nothing but specks in the sands of time. Is that what you want, Aeneas?”

He didn’t answer.

Leto continued, “You must find the land of your forefathers, Aeneas. That is the only way your city’s spirit shall rest.”

Aeneas ran a hand through his hair. “How? You tell us to go to our new home. Point us in absolutely no direction and throw us into the open sea with no idea how to get there or how to identify what we’re looking for, or even how long it would take! We’ve wandered for a year, Apollo! A year and seven months!”

“Give us something to go on,” Aeneas tried to rein in his anger. He tried to control himself. He didn’t fear Apollo. Perhaps he should. But right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Some coordinates would be nice..”

Apollo’s eyes flashed gold. “Seek your ancient mother. From her womb, the House of Aeneas shall rule all lands, and his children’s children, and they shall subdue the world.”

The wind shifted. Aeneas’ hair stood on end as Apollo recited his prophecy. Sand blew into the blue sky, sifting through their clothes.

“Helpful,” Aeneas scowled. But he knew that this was it. The gods were never direct. They never had been, and he highly doubted they were going to start with him. “And what of my brother? Do you know where Perseus is?”

Something shifted in the sky. Apollo and Leto exchanged an uneasy look. Aeneas’ eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

Apollo didn’t answer.

“What did you do, Apollo?” He didn’t know where his boldness came from. But he was just so frustrated. He wasn’t usually like this.

The god’s eyes glowed. “Your brother lives, Aeneas. Olympus has a reason for everything, and you must learn to accept that. He has not forgotten you. Even now, beneath foreign stars and behind the veils of dusk, he hunts. He walks the edges of the earth with Selene at his side, seeking your fire and your people. He and Selene have followed every trail, chased every whisper, even hunting down your enemies, hoping they would lead him to you.”

Aeneas’ breath hitched.

“But he can’t find you. Because I won’t let him.”

It was like a blow to the chest. Like the excruciating pain that had filled him the day Achilles had severed his wrist. Aeneas took a step back, more out of shock than surprise. Leto’s aura blanketed him, and Aeneas felt a sense of betrayal engulf him, fighting the calm Leto brought.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Apollo frowned, as though he couldn’t quite comprehend why Aeneas would feel the way he did. “I didn’t do it to punish him—or you. I did it because if Perseus met you now, the man you’d see wouldn’t be the one you remember. He’s still angry. He’s still raw. Still dragging Troy’s ashes behind him.”

“Apollo—”

“I pulled him away from the fall. Not out of cruelty. Out of necessity. You saw walls burning. He saw something worse. Something that broke him in ways you don’t understand. The truth? I need him to be more that what he is. Not a weapon, no. I want him to shape the world, not just fight in it. But he has to find himself first. Not who the gods say he is. Not who I say he is, even though I guide him on the path. Not even who you remember.”

“He’s not ready, Aeneas. And until he is, your paths will not cross. You’ll meet again. When he stops chasing ghosts and starts chasing tomorrow.”

The betrayal ran deep. The knife tore through him. The anger flooded his skin. The worry and the longing for his brother encapsulated Aeneas. Nothing Apollo had said made any sense.

But—Selene. Perseus was with Selene.

“He is,” Apollo nodded, reading his thoughts. “She should be able to find you. She’s followed lost souls through war and shadows for longer than either of us can count. But this isn’t about power. This is about permission. Fate has shrouded you, Aeneas. Your thread is sealed, your light is veiled. For your sake, and for his. Even Selene can’t see through that. Not without tearing the weave itself, and she wouldn’t do that. She helps where she can—leads him away from dead ends, steers him toward the truths he doesn’t want to face. But she can’t guide him to you until it’s time. When it is, she’ll know. The sky will shift. The veil will lift. Until then, she walks beside him, in silence, same as you carry him in your memory.”

Aeneas swallowed.

He looked to Leto, who shook her head, sadly.

“Now, go,” The sun god nodded. “The land of your forefathers. It awaits.”

Suddenly, there was a gust of wind. Sand blew into Aeneas’ eyes. He sputtered and blinked furiously. When the beach came back into focus, the gods were gone.

“Land of our forefathers,” Achates spoke up. His voice was hoarse. His eyes were wide in mild shock. But he gathered himself and asked, “Teucer?”

Aeneas nodded slowly. He couldn’t think. Not after these revelations.

“Teucer was from Crete,” Ascanius glanced up at his father. “That’s East of Delos.” Aeneas ran a hand through his son’s hair and nodded.

Ascanius released a breath and took his father’s hand. “Uncle Perseus will be fine, Father. You have to trust him. And so will we, if we trust each other.”

XMX

THEY SMELLED it before they saw it.

Perseus crouched on a windswept bluff as the western wind swept through his tangled hair, carrying the salt stink of the sea and something far fouler: fire, blood, and burning grain. Smoke rose in thick black plumes ahead, curling into the reddening sky like the fingers of the dead reaching for the heavens.

Selene stepped silently beside him. Her silver gaze took in the scene without a word. She had grown used to this, the ruins they followed like ghosts, trailing the scent of Troy’s ash across the world.

Below, nestled against the shore, the city of Ismarus burned.

Not wholly—just the western quarter, closest to the harbour. Roofs still smoked where they’d been torched. Doors were splintered from within, wagons overturned, and the bodies of men and women lay sprawled like broken dolls across the threshing floor. Horses roamed riderless through the fields. Blood dyed the riverbank red.

And beyond it all, down by the beach, there they were.

The Greeks.

Laughter echoed across the shore. Bronze-clad warriors lounged on the sand, drunk and shirtless, passing cups and breaking roasted meat with their hands. Stolen cattle lowed near their ships, and a chorus of pipe music rose above the noise.

Perseus’ jaw tightened until it ached.

“They came here like flies,” he said coldly. “Still thirsty after Troy.”

Selene’s eyes flicked to his face.

“It’s been a year and a couple of months,” she said softly. “They’re still heading west. Odysseus, if your hunch is right, is trying to get home. This place wasn’t even his war.”

“Then he’s doing a fine job making it his.”

He stood, his shadow long in the dying sun, and his fingers drifted to the hilt of his sword.

“We could end it now,” he said. “We’re faster than them. They’re drunk. Their boats are beached. I could cut his throat before he even—”

“Perseus.”

He stopped. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was like ice through fever.

“You think killing him will change what he did?”

He didn’t answer.

“You think Troy will rise if his heart stops beating?”

Still he said nothing. She stepped closer.

“You think your family’s bones will speak if you spill more blood?”

That last one pierced him. He inhaled through his nose and let it out in a ragged breath. His hand fell from the hilt.

Selene touched his arm, not gently, but like a tether.

“Not here,” she said. “Not yet. We are here to find Aeneas.”

He nodded.

But not in agreement.

In restraint.

XMX

THEY circled the city instead, moving like phantoms through the trees that rimmed the far side of the plain. The Achaeans had left destruction in their wake—livestock taken, cellars pillaged, doors kicked in. The sun dropped below the hills. Twilight stretched across the world like a bandage pulled over a wound, but it didn’t hide the rot.

They found the survivors near the river mouth: a battered procession of Cicones dragging the wounded on carts and sledges, old men carrying children, women guiding limping husbands. Spears, battered shields, half-melted helmets—what little was left of their warriors.

They were on alert in an instant. Their city had been taken, their people killed, but their spirits remained unbent, unbowed and unbroken. The people turned their blades on Perseus and Selene when they stepped out of the forest, materialising from the chariot in the sky above.

“Peace, Ciconians,” Selene’s ethereal voice rang through the clearing.

The weapons dropped instantly. Mortals dropped even faster, to their knees. Her aura was pressing, and intentional or not, everything from Selene screamed goddess.

There was silence. Perseus looked at them, and his throat turned sandy as Selene motioned for them to stand. Was this how his own people had looked after everything had been ripped away from them?

Then the Ciconian chieftain stepped forward—an older man in a torn crimson tunic, with sorrow in his eyes and dried blood on his hands.

“Lady….”

Selene cracked a sad smile. “Selene.”

Perseus knew she liked it when she was recognised. It hurt him that she wasn’t. It hurt him that Phoebe’s prophecy was already being set in motion, and he was too wrapped up in his grief to try to find a way to fight it. The old man forged on, “Olympus answered our prayers, then? Are you here to help, Milady?”

“No,” Selene said. “We came looking for someone. A Trojan.”

“I am sorry.” He shook his head. “We know nothing of a voyaging Trojan. None have passed through here.” Something got crushed in Perseus’ chest. He inhaled deeply. “We can give you nothing.”

Perseus stepped closer. His grief surged up once again. “But I can give you vengeance.”

The chief studied him. His eyes drifted to the sword on Perseus’ back, the scar on his cheek, the milky white of his eye, and the fire smouldering just behind his calm.

“You know their weakness?”

“I know their pride.”

XMX

WHEN night fell, they watched from the hillside again. The Achaeans had built no palisade, no defences. They thought the sack was over. They thought they were victorious.

Odysseus stood near the edge of the camp, wine cup in hand, recounting the day's spoils to a circle of men.

“We took their best stallions before they even woke!” he laughed. “By morning, they’ll be worshipping us as gods!”

The others roared with mirth. Drunken songs rose again. One of them stood and mimed the cries of the dying. Another tossed a burning log onto a Ciconian banner, watching it curl and blacken.

Perseus said nothing. His eyes never left Odysseus.

“He’s not sorry,” he said.

“He won’t ever be.”

“Then why not kill him?”

Selene didn’t speak for a long time. The moon rose behind her, silver light on her brow like a crown. Artemis was probably watching from her chariot. Perseus still hadn’t decided if he hated her too.

“Because hate is a tether,” she said finally. “And the more you feed it, the less of you there is left. To find your brother, or to be with me. And that might be selfish, but I love you too much to see you lose yourself, or to lose you to it.”

Perseus didn’t respond. But Selene knew he loved her too. A summer and some months ago, in the aftermath of Troy’s destruction, he had promised to try to move on. He promised to rebuild and to carry Troy’s flames. Not its ashes.

Neither of them expected him to forget his grief overnight, but then neither of them expected him to be as lost as he was now, even with her by his side.

Perseus sighed.

He just stared until the song turned to snores and the camp slept, fat and smug.

XMX

BEFORE DAWN, the Cicones struck.

Like smoke itself, they descended the slopes. Perseus had marked the tents of the officers, the routes between patrols, and the gaps in the watch. Selene had drawn the paths in the dirt, leading the strongest to the heart of the camp.

It was not a battle. It was a reckoning.

Greeks screamed as they were roused from dreams of conquest. Arrows flew from the trees. Spears pierced canvas. Bronze clattered. Horses panicked and tore their tethers. The smell of blood returned.

Odysseus rose fast. He was half-dressed, but his blade was in hand before his eyes fully opened. He called for a rally, struck down two assailants, and ordered a retreat to the ships.

Perseus stood where he had the night before, watching. His hand trembled at his side as he forced himself to stay put.

Odysseus saw him.

For a moment, through the smoke and chaos, their eyes locked.

There was a flicker of something—recognition, maybe. Or memory. Odysseus hesitated, mouth half open. Unimaginable hate and rage soared through the son of Poseidon. He made to move.

And then a horse barrelled past, breaking the line of sight, and the moment was gone. Odysseus was gone.

The Greeks fled, dragging the wounded behind them. They shoved off, oars biting the foam, leaving wreckage and bodies in their wake.

Ismarus smouldered, but it stood.

XMX

LATER, in the hush after battle, Perseus sat on the riverbank, watching the blood of two nations swirl together in the shallows. Selene knelt beside a wounded boy, waving a hand over his injuries and taking them away. Perseus liked that about her. She didn’t think she was above helping the mortals. She thought she existed because of them, and that was true—that was the problem—and that was why he loved her.

“He got away,” she said.

Perseus didn’t look at her.

“Good,” he said.

“Do you mean that?”

“No.”

She didn’t push him.

The boy whimpered. The dying fires crackled.

Perseus picked up a splinter of broken spear and turned it between his fingers.

“Next time,” he said, “I won’t just watch.”

Selene looked at him. Not with judgment. With quiet understanding.

“If next time comes,” she said, “I’ll still be here.”

He turned to her, and for the first time in probably months, the pain in his eyes faltered.

“You shouldn't be.”

“I know.”

She reached for his hand, and this time, he let her take it.

“Can you do something for me?”

XMX

THE FIRE still lingered in the wind.

Even after the ships had fled and the warriors limped aboard, leaving half their spoils and more of their pride in the mud of Ismarus, the scent clung to Odysseus’ robes like smoke on a funeral cloak.

He stood at the stern, staring back at the blackening shore as the oars bit into the sea. Around him, the men were quiet. Even those who’d laughed at the plunder now brooded over injuries and dead comrades.

They had feasted like gods.

They had fled like thieves.

Odysseus closed his eyes, and the salt wind faded.

The ship rocked gently.

He sighed, and made his way back to his bed. He had thought he’d seen something today…

Odysseus didn’t resist as Hypnos came for him.

He stood again in Ismarus—but it was not the same city. The fires were gone, yet the ash still fell like snow. The grain stores stood unburnt. The temple stood whole. The women and children wept in silence.

And from the temple doors, someone Odysseus had thought he would never see again stepped out.

He wore black—not bronze, not the golds of his lineage, but the dark linen of the mourning dead. His hair was tangled, unwashed. His eyes glowed not with hero’s pride, but with the cold, ragged hatred of a man who had watched a city fall and stayed standing only because the gods were not kind enough to let him die—or to let Odysseus kill him.

He didn’t walk. He stalked.

Blood misted at his heels, and the walls of the city cracked beneath his steps.

Odysseus froze.

“You were gone,” he clenched his teeth.

“Gone. Not dead. Not ever,” said Perseus, voice low like a mourner at a funeral pyre.

“Troy is dust. What do you want from me?”

Perseus drew no blade. He didn’t need to.

“Do you think that because you won with Athena’s meddling, the blood isn’t on your hands? The blame isn’t yours as well?”

“I did what I had to—”

“You and that bastard dragged a child from his mother’s arms and threw him from a wall.”

“That was—”

“War?”

Perseus stepped closer. The air shuddered around him.

“You call it necessity. I call it cowardice.”

Odysseus gritted his teeth. Even in a dream, he felt the weight of that moment—the look on Andromache’s face, the awful stillness of the fall.

But it was not just Perseus now.

The air shimmered like water, and beside him appeared the Titaness Selene—still, cold, and wreathed in moonlight. Her hair drifted like smoke on the sea. Her hands bore no weapons, but her gaze pierced.

She turned her face to Odysseus, and in it, he saw not anger, but judgment beyond the realm of men.

“You’re being watched,” she said softly. “By more than kings. By more than fate.”

Odysseus turned to her, suddenly aware of his bare feet, the salt cuts on his hands, the crown of seaweed tangled in his hair.

“Am I to be cursed by every star that witnessed Troy’s fall?”

Selene tilted her head.

“No. Only by those who loved it.”

“I destroyed what I had to.”

“You destroyed what you feared.” Her voice softened, like a lullaby sung over a battlefield. She tilted her head, examining him like he was a roach she couldn’t quite understand.

“You feared children who might rise. Cities that might outshine your own. Gods who might one day turn their gaze from Ithaca to Ilion.”

Perseus stepped forward. The dream trembled.

“One day, you’ll wash ashore in a land that doesn’t know your name. You’ll beg for kindness from mouths that spit salt. And there, maybe, you’ll understand what we lost.”

Odysseus stared at them both, drenched in silver and shadow.

“You can’t haunt me forever.”

“I don’t need to,” Perseus said.

He leaned closer.

“One day, I’ll be real.”

And then the world split open.

Odysseus jolted awake.

The sea stretched wide and empty. The sky above was pale grey.

No sign of Perseus. No moonlight. Just the creak of the mast and the slow, steady pull of the tide.

But he could still smell the ash.

XMX

THE SUN rose over the charred coast of Ismarus, casting long shadows through the ruined city. Smoke still curled from cracked beams and smouldering wagons, winding into the morning sky.

The Cicones would survive. The dead were buried. The women and children hid behind palisades hastily repaired through the night. There would be no celebration — only the sullen ache of those who had endured.

He stood outside the ruined temple, watching the survivors scrape dirt over the dead. A child buried a dog with shaking hands. An old woman covered her son’s face with a cloth torn from her own robe. There were no wails anymore. Only the silence of the aftermath.

Selene sat beside a broken pillar, sewing up a wounded man’s arm with golden thread spun from magic.

“They’ll survive,” she said gently.

Perseus didn’t answer.

“You didn’t kill Odysseus.” It was amazing how she knew that it was still on his mind. That even after the dream, which he’d thought would sate his thirst for blood, he still wanted to cut Odysseus’ head off.

“Not yet.”

She glanced at him.

“You gave them a chance. You gave the Cicones the strategy they needed. That was enough.”

“Not for me.”

He walked among the embers like a ghost, towards her.

“I should’ve run him through when I had the chance.”

“And then what?” she asked. “You’d be a myth told by the next tyrant to justify more war?”

“At least I'd be remembered.”

She rose. Walked toward him. Met him midway, like she had been doing every day for the past summer and a half.

“You were never meant to be remembered, Perseus. You were meant to live. You were meant for more.”

He laughed bitterly.

“That’s what Apollo said.”

They stood under the broken sky, nothing between them but ash and truth.

“I hate him,” Perseus said finally. “I looked him in the eye, and I thought it would be better. But I hate him so much.”

“But you were better than him yesterday, a better man than he could ever hope to be.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It never will be.”

She took his hand, and this time, he let her hold it. Her fingers were cold. Steady. She squeezed. And Perseus squeezed back.

XMX

BUT he couldn’t rest.

Not after the dream.

Not after everything.

He was trying. He was trying so hard to keep it together for Selene. She had done so much for him. He hated how he felt like an anchor weighing her down. But he couldn’t let her go. All he could do was try to fix himself for her. He knew they had to figure out a way around the prophecy about her and Helios. But it was so hard. And he was so selfish.

He stood alone on the shoreline now, boots buried in wet sand, staring across the horizon where dark specks — ships — drifted away like birds.

He knew which one was his.

He could still feel the man’s presence, even now. It clung to the sea like a curse.

His fists clenched.

He had done everything Selene asked. Had turned away when his soul screamed to plunge from the trees and gut them all. Had helped the survivors bury their dead, feed the orphans, and raise the barricades. He had stayed his hand.

But gods damn him…

It wasn’t enough.

He raised his face to the wind.

The scent of blood and brine filled his lungs. Loss and hate gnawed at him. Odysseus had laughed as his city burned. He had smiled as Perseus’ godson screamed.

He was the reason Perseus had failed.

“He connived with Athena and designed that blood horse,” He snarled. To himself. There was no one to hear him.

So he called the sea. He called out to his father.

The one-eyed man walked into the surf until it reached his waist, then his chest. He didn’t get wet.

The morning sun shimmered around him, but he did not shine. He was shadow beneath the waves, born in war, shaped in ruin. Shaped in the hate Selene was trying so hard to keep him from tumbling into.

“I was never your champion,” he said into the waves. “For the longest time, I thought I was your mistake.”

He looked out toward the ships, now merely a dot on the horizon. But he could see. And he hated them for it.

“But if I still carry your blood—”

He spread his arms.

“—then let the sea remember it.”

The water around him pulsed. The surf pulled back. The sky darkened without a cloud.

From the depths, something answered.

A pressure rolled up through the sand beneath his feet — old, terrible, and familiar. The wind howled. The gulls fled. The sea rose.

Far in the distance, on the water, the Achaean ships began to rock violently. Perseus could feel it happening.

Thunder cracked, sudden and savage, without lightning. The clouds formed in seconds — spirals, black and slick, like serpents converging. A maelstrom bloomed behind the retreating fleet.

Selene flashed to him in an instant.

By the time she reached the shore, the sea had turned black.

“Perseus!”

He stood waist-deep, arms raised like a prophet of the gods, his eye shining with power and hate.

“Perseus, no!”

“He’ll get what he deserves.”

The sky screamed.

Selene stepped into the waves after him.

“This isn’t justice. This is vengeance.”

“What’s the difference?”

She reached him, grabbed his arm. He didn’t move.

“If you become what he is… what is left? What is left to find your people?”

That broke something in him.

His breath hitched. His jaw clenched. Slowly, his hands fell.

The waves hesitated. Selene released a breath. “You won’t be able to save anyone if you can’t save yourself.”

Then the sea let loose what he had summoned. Somewhere in the open sea, Odysseus and his ships would feel the ocean’s rage.

XMX

PERSEUS collapsed in the surf, and put his head in his hands.

Selene pulled him back onto the sand, cradling his head. The storm raged far out at sea, but the waves here grew gentle again, lapping at their ankles like a tired animal.

He looked up at her, hollow, all the rage drained from him. He was tired. He was just so tired.

“I did that.” The dark haired man gazed towards the ships.

“You asked for it.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“You did.”

She didn’t flinch.

“And now it’s done.”

He stared past her shoulder, out toward the writhing storm clouds in the distance.

“They’ll say it was the gods. A punishment for greed. Or some foul wind of Poseidon’s.”

“Let them.”

Selene brushed a curl from his face.

“You made sure they never forget Ismarus.”

He closed his eyes.

“I almost lost myself.”

“You didn’t.”

“Not this time.”

She kissed his brow, soft as mist.

“And if you do,” she whispered, “I’ll remind you who you are.”

XMX

WHEN the dead were all buried, the Cicones stood once more with shields in hand. The Achaeans were gone, for now.

Perseus and Selene stood on the high bluff, watching the smoke drift eastward.

Below, a young girl plucked a reed from the river and wove it into her hair.

Life would return.

Eventually.

Selene squeezed his hand, hard.

“Where to now?” Perseus asked, as he looked west. His face was a map of what he’d lost.

“Wherever the next broken place is,” she said. “We’ll find him.”

“And if we don’t?”

Selene smiled faintly.

“We will.”

He nodded, slow and heavy.

They walked west, through tall grasses and towards a wild olive grove, where she had left her chariot.

Behind them, the sky wept rain over the Achaean fleet.

Ahead of them, somewhere beyond the hills, Aeneas might still be alive.

Perseus’ heart was a battlefield. But in his mind, there was the faintest ember of something like direction.

His journey wasn’t done. Neither was his war.

But something had shifted. A thread pulled loose from the knot inside him.

Not forgiveness.

But the first breath before it.

A/N: Yeah, this is the first chapter. A lot of mixed emotions here. Aeneas is surviving and trying, but he needs his brother. Perseus is on a slippery slope here, I guess. He let them go, but then helped others try to kill them afterwards, then let them go, then tried to kill them himself... You could say he relapsed. Here’s to hoping I’m able to depict his growth in an amazing way for all you amazing people. Same time in a few weeks, guys! Have a lovely day!

Chapter Text

AENEAS couldn't help the wide smile that spread across his face as he basked in the sunlight on the hill overlooking the field. He had forgotten what hope felt like.

He had forgotten what happiness felt like.

The wind ruffled his hair, and the son of Aphrodite scratched his beard and then leaned down on his sword, which was planted deep into the earth. Ever since the destruction of their home, his people had had no rest; known no peace.

Aeneas had always been a pious man. He'd served the gods, he'd worshipped each of them equally. He'd even prayed for guidance after Troy had fallen. But they'd been forsaken by said gods, thrown to the wolves and left to fend for themselves.

No more.

What they were rebuilding would not take away the loss.

But it would be the first step to their salvation.

And Aeneas was glad he was the one to lead his people to this promised land. For the first time in forever, he felt no need to curse Olympus or to beg the earth for his brother, even though he worried for him every day. He had gone West. He had found Crete, like Apollo had instructed. Aeneas and Achates had led Troy to the bosom of her ancient mother.

They weren't okay.

He didn't think his people would be okay for many centuries to come.

But they were getting there. And for now, that was enough.

His people were weary. But they were hopeful.

They were tired, but they were survivors.

And after so much loss and disappointment—so much seafood—Aeneas knew they were all ready to be done with the wandering. The gods had promised them a legacy of greatness.

And despite himself, the dark-eyed man was glad that he was finally going to see that legacy bloom into being. He just wished that his brother was here to help them along and to protect it through the ages.

His people were nearing two hundred in number. They had met two ships of survivors from the sack a few months back, led by some of the Trojan generals and their allies from the neighbouring cities.

Some of them were from the city-states around Troy, which the Achaeans had taken first—like Briseis' home. There were Dardanians, and Trojans and Thracians, and so many of the cities whose kings had answered to Priam. But now they all sailed under one banner—and they all bowed the knee to him.

One people. One home.

He had already thought of a name for this place.

And yet, Aeneas hadn't mentioned it to anyone, except Achates and his father and son. He didn't like it, but Aeneas had been through enough to know better. He wouldn't name the city until the last of his people had moved in. Until he knew for sure that this was real, and that he wasn't crazy for believing, even for a second, that he had done it and that they could just stop and just be.

A breath escaped his lips as he said its name. "Pergamea." He loved how it just rolled off his tongue. He loved the rush it filled him with. The tingling it sent down his spine all the way to his stump.

It meant "New Troy."

It was a reminder that despite everything they had lost, they were still here. They could still rebuild.

They could do more than surviving.

They could live.

For his wife.

For his brother.

For his best friend and his sister-in-law. They would have loved this place, he knew. And his heart ached at the reminder.

But Aeneas hadn't seen his people like this since the year before the final stages of the war. Over by the river, his son Ascanius and a handful of the kids were playing at soldiers with wooden swords while the younger ones chased each other through the field of grass around them.

Construction of the new city had been underway for nearly a full moon now, and over in the camp by the fires, the men from the three ships laughed and drank wine and skinned their game from the hunting trip earlier that morning.

Down the hill, a small herd of cattle, which Aeneas had traded a hand and foot's worth in gold (from his mother at the start of their journey) for, were grazing in the grass. Laughs ricocheted from across the plain.

Above them, Mount Ida, Zeus' home, towered over their camp. The polis of Crete lay at the far side of the island, too far away to trek to and too reserved to pose any real threat.

Their city wasn't even halfway done. But they were at it. And soon, the New Troy would be even greater than the last.

The smell of honey and meat wafted through the air, making Aeneas' stomach growl. An altar to Apollo and another to Zeus had been mounted by the priests in the centre of their budding city, and against his better judgment, Aeneas had let his people be. Granted, the gods hadn't been total disappointments.

Not yet, at least.

And quite unlike him, a lot of his people hadn't lost their faith.

Because faith was the only thing they had left.

But the smell of the burning lamb was making Aeneas hungry. Below him, a group of men and women were tilling the field, planting and singing hymns and praises to whatever gods they thought still gave a shit or two about them.

The victorious feeling threatened to engulf him.

But Aeneas knew better.

Troy and the war, as well as the aftermath, had taught him not to think with his heart, but with his head. Nothing was ever as simple as it appeared.

The son of Anchises dug his sword out of the ground and waved to the people beneath him with a smile. He sheathed the blade and began walking back to his own tent.

In the end, he was right.

There was no rest for people like them.

The plague came two days later and swept through their camp like a storm.

-X-

IT CAME like…well, like a plague.

First, the livestock went. Not that they had a lot to start with, but the plague was relentless and unforgiving. Their cattle started dying off two weeks after that day, suddenly and all at once.

One of the farmers had noticed it first-oxen stumbling in the makeshift pens they had managed to construct, legs trembling as if shackled by unseen hands.

Aeneas remembered rushing quickly to the fields when the messenger had arrived, just in time to see the first few topple down dead. He'd ordered everyone to stay back, but he himself had gone close enough –not to be affected, but to see. Their eyes bulged, their tongues were blackened, and a couple had dropped to the ground like sacks of flour. Aeneas remembered dazedly asking everyone to stay away from the cattle because he had instantly recognised it for what it was.

He had been around Apollo for long enough to know a plague when he saw one. But this didn't look like the god's handiwork. Apollo would have come to him directly, or at least, sent a cryptic message, whatever the message behind this was.

It didn't seem like a disease, no, but slaughter—yet no blade had touched them. Aeneas had called for a fire and burnt the herd and their enclosure right then and there.

But it wasn't enough.

Whatever had killed the animals had seeped into the earth.

Soon the fields followed. Stalks of wheat, once proud and green, twisted into shapes that looked almost human, bowed and contorted like men frozen in prayer. Barley heads burst into ash at the lightest touch, and vines shrivelled into the likeness of grasping fingers. Even the fig trees cracked open along their trunks, as if split by a giant sword. The earth itself groaned like a wounded body, and the sky seemed to turn its gaze away. The sun barely shone on them anymore.

Still, Aeneas hadn't wanted to give in.

Then the people sickened.

The prayers started almost immediately.

The priests burnt sacrifices and lay prostrate before the altars for days. Now, Aeneas burned with worry as he moved through the camp which housed them.

He didn't understand.

This was their home.

This was what the gods had promised them.

And instead of goodwill, they chose to meet Troy's survivors with a wretched disease instead?

He had stayed up late praying, begging, wishing for it to end. Because something like this—it wasn't natural, and he realised that they blamed the gods for everything, but in his life, the divine were always to blame.

But it had just been two days, and he feared that if they stayed any longer, they would all be gone before the week's end.

What he feared even more than that was abandoning the home they had discovered—the city they had constructed and the new life the gods had promised them.

He didn't know what to do.

He didn't know where to take them next.

Aeneas exhaled through the piece of cloth covering his face as he hurried through the uncompleted city gates. Everyone was inside now. Construction had stopped. Tent flaps closed, and buildings had been left unfinished. He headed to the closest one and stepped through the curtains.

Instantly, he heard the footsteps bounding over to the door.

Aeneas' heart sank as he saw his son and his father come into the outer room. He held up a hand, and they stopped at the entryway. Ascanius had a piece of cloth over his face as well, and so did Anchises, even inside. The open windows allowed a gust of wind to flap over Anchises', peeling it off. It was stale and filled with rot.

Aeneas didn't think he had ever seen his father look like this, except when they were escaping from the burning maze that was Troy.

"Any update?" Anchises asked before Ascanius could burst into a flurry of questions.

Aeneas shook his head in frustration. "The fields are gone. The Earth itself is gone. The plague has spread beyond the point the fire ended."

Anchises bowed in defeat. "We can't stay here, son. It is a sign."

Aeneas shook his head. Deep within him, he knew it was true. But he couldn't bring himself to face it. He couldn't ask them to leave and face the disappointment and the hollowness that came with going onto sea again for endless searching.

He also couldn't leave his people to die.

His pater looked even more beaten down than usual, and Aeneas' heart ached for him. Anchises wasn't getting any older, and all this wandering was bad for his health. He was more likely to be affected by this plague than any of them. "And—"

"Uncle Achates!" Ascanius cut him short, speaking through the muffling cloth and shuffling on his feet eagerly. "You're going to see him, right?"

Aeneas hesitated. He had been on his way to the other side of the camp, where the healers had constructed a makeshift tent for the sick.

It was overflowing.

Achates was inside.

Just a day ago, he'd complained of a headache. And then Aeneas had spotted the first of the boils on his arm.

"I want to see him, pater."

"No." His response was immediate, his fear immense, and his voice sharp and cutting. "Absolutely not."

"But—"

"I said no," Aeneas glowered. He didn't remember the last time he had raised his voice at his son. "It's a plague, Ascanius. It is contagious."

"He's been trying to escape all morning," Anchises shook his head wearily.

"Ascanius," The son of Venus felt his heart leap into his throat with horror and growing exasperation. He had confined his family here for a reason. He knew the risk that came with coming to see them, especially after wandering around the camp. And that was why he was still at the doorway. That was why they weren't supposed to go past the point where they stood.

"You do not step out of this house, am I clear?" He had never been angrier- at himself, at the gods, and at his son. "You care for Achates, I know. So do I. But going outside means going to your death. Do you understand that?"

"I'm not a child, Father. I can help you. I can do something—"

"Exactly. You are not just a child. You are the future of our people. You are my son. I am your King, and you will do as I say."

Ascanius released an exasperated breath. "I don't understand—"

"Listen to your father, child," Anchises chided. "He is only doing what is best for both of us."

"Ascanius," Aeneas released a breath, expelling his frustrations. "I have already lost your mother and your uncles and our entire family. And I refuse to lose you to a plague from foolhardy gods or your own carelessness."

His son deflated. Thunder boomed above them. But Aeneas didn't care.

"Yes, father."

Aeneas sighed, brow furrowing. "I promise to send Achates your best. But you do not leave this house."

Ascanius nodded. Aeneas glanced around. "I have guards posted around. So don't even think about sneaking out the window. Despite what you might think, you can't take them. Not yet, anyway."

Ascanius deflated further. Aeneas glanced at his father and nodded, "Keep an eye on him, please." They were both too precious to him. He looked down at his son. Ascanius looked disappointed, but Aeneas knew that deep inside him, it was just worry and anxiety that drove his actions. The former King of Dardania spared them one last glance as he took a step outside.

"Ascanius, I know you don't understand me sometimes," He paused. "But someday, when you take the mantle—when you are charged with the lives of hundreds—then you will understand what true leadership is about. You will understand why I do some things the way I do."

He released the curtain behind him with a sigh.

-XMX-

AENEAS hurriedly made his way to the other side of the camp.

As he neared the medic's tent, the smell hit him.

His throat burned, and his eyes watered. Aeneas pulled his cloth closer to keep the stench away, but it didn't work. He retched.

His people would die if this continued. He had to give the order. Tonight.

Surely, this couldn't be the home the gods had promised. This place, which was occupied by death and disease, wasn't a home.

The medic tent, in just two days of its construction, had become a place of dread. The canvas sagged heavily with damp, and inside the air was thick with the reek of sweat, urine, and crushed herbs that the few healers they had had burned to mask the smell. Bowls of water turned cloudy within the hour, and flies gathered despite constant swatting. The sound was worst of all: the rasping of breath, the rattling coughs, the fevered whispers.

Aeneas approached cautiously and walked through the open entryway. It was well away from the city and the camp. But he still didn't like it.

Men, women and kids—about twenty-two in number- shifted restlessly on straw mats, sheets sticking to their skin, and the healers moved among them with hollow eyes, knowing they could do little but wipe brows and pray that they themselves didn't contract whatever this was—because none of them knew.

It was a miracle their group contained medics at all.

Three people had died already. Three people, Aeneas had been charged to protect.

Three deaths marked the plague's course through the camp. Their weight was heavy. One was the old herdsman who had tended the first dying cattle. Another, a boy who wasted away before he had grown to manhood. As Aeneas had seen his body burnt, he had imagined himself doing the same to his own son. He couldn't stomach the thought. The third was a woman who refused to leave her withering vines outside the camp walls. Their passing seemed chosen, deliberate—as though some god had walked among them, not to destroy, but to remind them that even in exile, even on foreign soil, divine hands could reach them through pestilence.

Aeneas could not shake the smell of it—the sour tang of decay and sweat. When the wind passed, it didn't carry freshness but a damp, heavy odour, like a breath from a fevered mouth.

His friend had a hammock at the end of the tent.

As Aeneas made his way through the people, it felt like something was trying to crawl up his throat. He didn't like feeling so helpless.

He didn't like feeling so unsafe.

It was only a matter of time before he also contracted this disease.

He wanted to hide from it.

But he couldn't leave these people to face this alone.

And so he worked, tirelessly, day and night, trying to hear the voice of Olympus. But nothing had come. He was around or inside this tent all the time, trying to do his best to help. He was their leader, and he would face this with them.

Perhaps whatever god had sent this down was sparing him because he was still meant to fulfil some unknown destiny on behalf of his people.

Aeneas internally laughed.

When he saw Achates, his heart sank. Eighteen summers ago, he would have never imagined caring if his childhood bully lived or died. Perhaps he would have preferred the latter.

But now—Achates was a solid support in the tumultuous sea Fate had thrown them into.

Achates lay curled on his side with his shoulders hunched, his skin clammy. Aeneas saw him turn and sit up painfully. He approached his friend steadily, worry filling him.

This was just a day after contraction.

This was bad.

And they couldn't stay here.

Achates' eyes burned red, unfocused, and when he tried to speak, his words came slurred, as if weighed down. He coughed into his hand and Aeneas and the other man both stared at the flecks of crimson in his palm. Around him, others shivered in their sheets, their lips cracked white from thirst. Some lay flat, their bodies arching with shudders, while others muttered as if speaking to dreams.

The blond man smiled wistfully. He shook his head and tried again. This time, Aeneas could make out a bit of what he said.

"You-need to…need to leave."

He stood a distance away, arms folded, and scoffed.

"You think I don't know that?" His voice came out muffled and exasperated. "I want to make the announcement," He continued. "For us to leave at first light, damn the gods and their promised land. We must have made a mistake."

Achates nodded in approval. He seemed to be in a lot of pain.

He coughed, and his entire body shuddered.

"And—and us?"

Aeneas bit his bottom lip. He tasted blood. "I don't know."

He couldn't leave them here to die.

But he couldn't take them along and risk carrying the plague with them.

He hated this. "Ascanius wishes you a speedy recovery. As do I." But he knew there was no recovering from this—not when the healers didn't even know what it was.

He didn't want to tell his friend they would be fine.

Because then he would be lying. And Aeneas was sick of the lies.

And so he stood there, amidst the chaos and the dying, trying not to think of the fact that he might be burning these bodies next. It felt like a second Troy – already up in death and flames.

-X-

SELENE took her hand off his shoulder as they materialised on the ground beneath her chariot in the forests. For someone who hunted often in her free time, following Aeneas' trail had been her most challenging hunt yet.

And she was thousands of years old.

She glanced at the man at her side. Her friend, who had stolen her heart without even trying. The one who had changed how she viewed everything—from the tiniest mortal baby to her own everlasting life.

She remembered her first husband.

Selene couldn't help but smile.

Old habits died hard, she supposed.

He had been mortal, too.

She had begged Zeus to make him immortal, and he had put her lover into an eternal sleep. Then, after she had borne his children –fifty daughters – Selene had turned him into a beautiful creature and set him free.

She was somewhat glad that she wouldn't have to do the same to Perseus.

When he had been made immortal – when he had sobbed in her arms about it – it had forced Selene to question the very thing that made her who she was.

And it had forced her to ask herself –who would she be if she had been born just as Perseus had? A normal human mortal – without her powers, without her domains.

She still didn't know the answer yet.

Perseus inhaled deeply. They had appeared behind a small fishing community by the beach of an island. They'd heard from the harbour market in another small town off the mainland that three ships had been spotted by a fishing crew somewhere near here in the past week, and so they'd come to check it out.

"Do you think this is another dead end?" The one-eyed man asked with a sigh.

He barely smiled these days. And she hated that.

Truth be told, Selene could be anywhere in the world by now. She was a titaness. She didn't feel obligated to stay. This man beside her was a shell of the person she had grown to love.

She stayed because she could see pieces of that person trying to break free. And she loved him too much to let him go.

Selene knew logically that she should probably be spending her last few decades in any other way, doing anything else. But she had had millennia. There was nothing new under the sun, and she had done it all already.

Instead, she chose to spend it here, with him. Because she would rather die in the arms of someone she loved than die alone on another adventure.

Die…

The word had a bitter taste to it.

She had never considered it before. Never thought it would apply to her.

Some days, while Perseus slept, she stared into the sea, wondering what would happen to her and to him after she left.

Would she cease to exist, just blink away? Was there an afterlife for the faded? She hadn't thought of it before. No one had ever truly faded; not really. They either went to the pit or slumbered, like Mother Gaea. Most of her family, who had sided with Kronos, now suffered in Tartarus. But they still existed.

Fading was an abstract concept, even for immortals like her.

Was it Tartarus that awaited her or something else? Something worse?

She didn't know.

But she would face it with her head held high, because that was who she was.

She would face it with no regrets and no unfinished business.

Perseus would never rest until his brother was found and his people were safe and settled. His journey would start there. His mark would be made there. Only then would the clock start ticking for her and Helios.

She was a cruel thing, this being they called Fate.

Selene wasn't old enough to remember her –Ananke. But her envoys still spun her threads and carried out her will. Selene hated being bound to the whims and caprices of the primordial.

Why must she fade because Fate had said it was to be so?

She had thought about this so many times. Fate was inevitable. Fate dictated history and the course the world took. But she also knew that the paths they set on, the decisions and the choices they made… that was all them. That was what Perseus and Apollo didn't understand, and that was what Selene was trying to teach him. It was like being put in a box but still having room to move.

She had never understood the mundane mortals and their gripe with this. But now, she got it, somehow.

The mortals thought they lived under the thumbs of the divine, and that was true to some extent. They danced to their music and to their tunes. She herself was a perpetrator, and it was something she knew she couldn't really change, but still felt bad about anyway. It was their nature as immortal deities, and it was something she was trying to work on.

That was the beauty of her relationship with Perseus.

It had made her grow.

And now, it was why she disliked Apollo, perhaps as much as the son of Poseidon did. Not only because of what the god had done, but because now she could relate to Perseus and the mortals—to the feeling of being trapped. Because, despite having room to move in the box, she was still sealed in.

She understood him better than any other god ever would.

The only difference was that she didn't think the leash Fate had on them was as tight as Perseus thought it was.

She hoped she would get to teach him that before her end. That his life was still his. That his actions still mattered. That he had to learn to live despite the box and use that little space in the best ways he could.

But not now.

Not today.

Today was for the hunt.

The Titaness turned to Perseus. He looked haunted and worn. Exhausted to the bone. He had been fighting so many demons, and she had been doing her best to help him.

She just wished that her best friend would come back.

She just wished he would let her in and let go of all his rage and grief.

But she also understood that things like this didn't just disappear. It was a process, and she was making progress. When they found his brother, everything would be better—for him, at least. Not for her, but she was okay with that, too.

He needed time.

Granted, the prophecy and her current predicament were proof enough that no one—not even immortal deities—had time on their side.

"Selene," His brow creased. He turned to her, cloak billowing in the wind. His scarred hands reached out and caressed her face. "You okay?"

She shook herself out of her thoughts.

This is what she had been talking about. Traces of the old Perseus. But she had come to love them both.

"I'm fine."

She could see the worry in his eyes as his hands traced her skin. The man sighed. "I've been running you around the world for gods know how long. Forgive me."

"You know I wouldn't be anywhere else," She squeezed his hand. Selene exhaled, and she felt the magic leave her breath, altering the mist around them. They had taken to this in their searches now, after she had accidentally petrified a farmer.

"I really don't deserve you," he said wistfully, in a low voice. Selene smiled softly as his appearance shifted, his hair turning brown and his scar disappearing. Her own clothes were replaced by a normal peplos and sandals covered by a brown cloak. Her dark hair turned brown as well, her silver eyes losing their glow.

Now they looked like a normal pair of travellers.

Selene planted a kiss on his lips. "After everything we've been through together, you say that one more time, and I am throwing you into the Sea of Monsters."

He looked a bit thrown off, but then a laugh escaped his lips.

Her spirits soared to hear it—it was like tinkling bells.

"I wish you would do that more often." It hurt her to see him so angry all the time. But moments like this—this was what she would take with her to the end.

His laugh faded into a small light smile. But it didn't reach his eyes. "I love you. And I will try for you." And he was.

After Odysseus, he was trying. And she loved him even more for it.

She took his hand and squeezed it tighter. "Let's go find your brother."

-X-

THE PATH wound between nets hung to dry and narrow lanes where children darted barefoot among canoes. The village smelled of brine and smoke, the day's catch still being salted on wide boards. Perseus walked beside Selene, their steps unhurried. Her hand brushed lightly against his arm.

For once, his shoulders did not carry the full weight of his loss. He was still a bit lightheaded from their exchange earlier because he really didn't deserve Selene and her companionship after giving her nothing but grief these past two decades.

Fishermen called out as Perseus and Selene passed, shouting out the prices of their fish. Selene smiled tightly, and Perseus murmured, "Do you think we should try talking to the locals? Maybe buy a few fish?"

He didn't eat fish, for obvious reasons. But they needed information.

Selene shook her head. "I've got a better idea." She motioned forward as they walked. Perseus frowned and followed her lead, and then nodded when he saw it.

A shrine to his father.

Offerings hung at the entrance: garlands of kelp, small wooden carvings of ships, a cluster of clay lamps burning steadily in the salt breeze. The cedar idol of Poseidon at the doorway was blackened by sea air and smoke, but the villagers had set fresh water and oysters at its feet, gifts from the tide.

An old priest stood on the threshold, as though he had been expecting them.

"Did you know this was here?" Perseus asked.

Selene nodded. "I sensed your father's presence. I know you have been trying to reach him these last few days."

Perseus swallowed. His throat felt heavy. So much had happened since Troy. And he had wanted his father to point him in the right direction. He'd made him a promise on Mount Helicon. Now was the time to come through.

The priest's robe was patched, stained with salt, and his beard smelled faintly of smoke as they approached, but his eyes were clear and welcoming. He greeted Selene first with a bow, as if instinctively recognising divinity in her, then turned to Perseus with a look that lingered—curious, appraising, but not unkind.

"You come to the Father of the Sea," the priest said, his voice rough from years of chanting against the wind. "Few strangers do so with steady steps. Many bring fear, many bring only need."

Perseus inclined his head, still uncertain of the words that belonged here. "I bring neither fear nor demands. I just seek guidance."

The priest's smile creased his weathered face. Around them, villagers lingered, pretending to fuss with nets or baskets but stealing glances. Selene's quiet presence steadied Perseus; she seemed to glow in the fading light, despite their mortal disguises, not with show, but with the simple certainty that he was not alone.

The sea rolled just beyond the shrine, each wave folding gently onto the rocks. Its rhythm was unhurried, as though it, too, was listening.

"Very well," The priest nodded. "Come in."

"I'll wait outside," Selene nodded. "Do what you must. I will be here when you return."

Perseus squeezed her hand and followed the priest inside.

The interior was small but intricate.

"It's just—" He started. "We're just travellers in search of a group of people from the East."

"The Trojans," The priest concluded.

Perseus stared. "You know who I am." It wasn't a question.

The old man smiled. "I am cursed with the sight of the gods, child. I have served Poseidon for many, many years. I know his offspring when I see them."

"Good," Perseus said. "Then you know why I am here, and why I need your help."

"Your father has a message for you, Perseus," The priest sat, and folded his legs beneath him. The temple glowed blue. "Do you rush fate. When the time is right, you will find your brother."

"I can't just sit around and do nothing," Perseus scoffed almost immediately. His anger was returning, sharp and piercing. He had been expecting Poseidon to appear. Not another lecture. "I can't just wait for him to come to me. What if he never does?"

"The gods have a reason for—"

"Damn them all," Perseus snapped. After all his bravado after the fall of Troy, all his talk about outlasting them and living on despite them—he hadn't even tried. He had descended into a hollow pit of darkness because he hadn't been able to find his brother. The waves stirred behind them. "You tell Poseidon that he can come deliver his messages himself when he grows a pair."

He hadn't seen them—any of the Olympians—since the fall. Apollo, who had used him, Artemis, who had friended him, Athena, who had destroyed him, or even his own father, who had made him.

The priest grimaced. "You are angry. Tread carefully, Perseus. Your rage will be your undoing."

The demigod swallowed. He clenched his fist.

And unclenched.

And clenched it again.

Finally, he exhaled.

"The Trojans," He sighed. "Do you have any idea where they are? Does Poseidon?"

"They passed through here a moon ago," The old man sighed. "Yes. Led by the son of Aphrodite. Three ships, if I remember correctly. They came to trade for supplies."

"And do you remember where they were headed?"

The old man hesitated and then sighed, "Crete."

Perseus felt something flood him.

It felt foreign.

It felt like…

It felt like hope.

He squashed it down.

Because nothing was ever that easy.

"Thank you," He managed, his previous anger forgotten.

"But—" His heart dropped as the old man continued. "There have been whispers. Word of a curse. Death and decay follow your people, Perseus. The land itself resists them."

He wasn't sure what to feel. Relief that his family was alive. Fear for their lives. Perseus was torn. He hated feeling so uncertain…so useless.

He abhorred it.

"Thank you," He choked out. "You don't know how much you've helped us."

The priest nodded. "I only do as I am instructed."

He escorted Perseus to the entryway after that. As they stepped out into the light, Sel turned. Her jaw was clenched. She tilted her head to the side, and said, "Your brother walks were hope withers quickly."

It was an observation. A fact.

"You heard."

"I did," She pursed her lips. "We must make haste. If a plague is indeed hitting the Trojans then we need to find them before they take off again."

She turned to the priest. "Thank you for your assistance. We are in your debt."

The man bowed, deeply. "The honour is all mine, Lady Selene." She arched her brow but didn't ask.

Selene took his hands, and Perseus barely felt it as they faded into the soft evening light.

They reappeared in the moving chariot in the sky.

The scarred man looked over the edge, at the fishing village which was slolwly becoming nothing but a spec in the ground. He turned to look at his lover, who's disguise had been stripped off.

Perseus toyed with the question in his mind. Selene had heard what the priest had said.

She had been trying to take him off his warpath—to help him deal with his anger and his grief and his loathing, for so long now.

He didn't want it to consume him.

But in the face of everything he had been through, it was just so, so hard to feel anything else.

"Do you—" He swallowed. "When Aeneas looks at me, do you think he will still see his brother—or only the ruin I have become?"

Selene glanced at him. Her delicate features were lit with light. Her aura washed over Perseus, and he felt calm.
"He will see blood. A ruin can still burn with love, Perseus. And you are not a ruin—I will not watch you become one."

"And what?" He shook his head. "After all this—after fire, after ash, after loss—will he even still know me? Or will he just see all the promises I failed to keep—all the people I failed to save?" His mind floated to Astyanax and Andromache, Cassandra, Priam and Hecuba and Polyxena. Their deaths weighed heavily on him.

Every night he said their names, because it was his fault they were gone. And every night, it didn't hurt any less. He was filled with so much self-loathing, it physically hurt.

"Yes. Even if his lips cannot speak it, his soul will know you. That thread cannot be cut, not by gods nor war nor death." She kissed him.

"Whatever happens, Perseus," Selene breathed. "Whatever Aeneas thinks, I will still stand by you. You and me, until the very end."

He smiled sadly amidst the turbulence. "Until the very end."

-X-

WHEN his eyes opened, he stood barefoot on a shore made of ash, clothed in a tattered cloak above his armour.

Aeneas blinked, unsure how he had gotten here.

He remembered leaving the tent with a heavy heart and a heavy mind. He remembered finding his own and lying down to think. He remembered the first cough and the red-hot fever that had plagued him right after.

He was asleep.

And an answer was coming.

Aeneas glanced around, steeling himself.

On the sand burned a fire without smoke, and within its shifting light figures emerged — neither tall nor short, neither men nor women, but gleaming with a faint bronze glow.

They looked eerie and yet so familiar.

Aeneas tried to take a step back when he realised. But he couldn't move, actually. He stood rooted in place as the figures approached. The sifting wind blew sand into his face.

Aeneas blinked, and they were in front of him.

The Penates. His household gods.

They circled him silently at first, and the firelight caught on their hands as if they were polished clay brought to life. Their faces were rigid, neither smiling nor angry, shifting constantly from hard to formless, from light to dark. There were three of them, and Aeneas released a breath as one reached forward and tugged at his cloak. Another touched his chest with cold fingers. One by one, they peeled his garments away until they pooled at his feet.

"Child of Troy," whispered the first, as it wound a strand of his hair around its finger.

"You wear too much," said the second, pulling the cloak aside.

"Too much grief, too much memory," murmured the third, laying its hand against his heart.

Aeneas shuddered but did not resist. He did not know why he was naked before them, only that their hands felt both like a mother's and like a potter's shaping clay. They circled him, brushing his skin, leaving trails of heat and chill.

"You tried to root yourself in Crete," said one, its voice like running water.

"You planted sorrow in borrowed soil," said another, tugging at his arm and pulling him to his knees. Aeneas collapsed with a grunt.

"But not every home is a womb," said a third. "Some are graves."

They dragged him down onto the ashen ground. His heart thundered, and his eyes widened at the meaning behind their words. His skin was smeared grey. The man tried to rise, but their hands pressed him down, and their voices deepened, echoing as if spoken from caverns, overlapping and resonating across the shore.

"Bare you must stand," one intoned.

"Bare, so we may mark you," said another, running a hand down his spine.

"Bare, so you may not leave behind what dies," whispered the third.

He felt them lift him by the shoulders, then by the wrists, as if he were being pulled apart. Their faces hovered close — all the same, yet all different, shadows flickering across their bronze glow.

"You seek Crete," one hissed against his ear.

"But Crete is not your mother," said another, brushing ash from his face.

"Seek not where your feet wish, but where your blood remembers," said the third, tapping his chest.

Aeneas opened his mouth to ask, but no words came — only a dry rasp. The gods' hands closed over his eyes, and in the darkness they spoke again:

"There is a place older than Troy," The first said.

"-older than this grief," Continued the second.

"There, the river waits," The last ended. "There, your house will grow again."

When their hands lifted, he was clothed again, but in garments he had never seen — woven of mist, falling to nothing as he looked. The fire snapped shut, as their last word, overlapping and intertwined, resonant and dissonant at the same time, exploded in his mind, ripping a scream out of Aeneas' throat and making him clutch his head in agony.

"Sail."

He awoke with a start, sweat damp on his brow. The air around him was thick with silence, broken only by the moans of the sick in the tent at the other side of the camp. But the words clung to him like iron. Aeneas rose.

A cough escaped his throat.

The son of Anchises shook his head and marched outside. The sun was rising up on the horizon.

At dawn, the three ships were prepared: one for the dying, heavy with grief; and two for the living, who would steer forward and lead them. As soon as their oars struck water, the fever-smoke that had choked them in Crete broke and thinned, drifting away. Aeneas felt it lift away from him as the island turned smaller and smaller; as the smoke from the burning and incomplete city spiralled into the air.

He stood at the prow of the first ship, and the demigod glanced up when Achates hobbled up from below decks. His paleness was gone.

His second approached him, and his voice was hoarse as he asked, "How did you know?"

Aeneas exhaled and was quiet for a few minutes. "I didn't." He leaned over the side of the ship and didn't say another word.

-X-

THE MOON had not yet risen. The passes of Crete were ink and stone, jagged shadows clawing over the ridges where the sea wind howled. Perseus walked them alone.

Selene had left earlier that evening, and for the first time in so many moons, he was alone. She hadn't told him exactly where she was going, just that it was necessary, and that she would be back before dawn.

She had pressed her hand briefly to his arm, her eyes soft as though she knew what leaving him in solitude meant. Then she had gone, fading into the dusk like a dream.

Now, he wandered the paths like a restless spirit, his thoughts full of absence—hers, but more piercingly, his brother's.

Always a step behind.

Always too late.

The trail was cold again, the signs faint, and it gnawed at him. He'd come to see the burning, the stench, and the death.

Death followed his people at every turn, and it made him sick. The thought of it…he felt it stripping away reason, leaving the raw, nerve-exposed core of his fury and his grief as he walked on the pass, aimless and restless.

Maybe if he left now, he could still find his brother. But how…when he didn't know which direction they had gone?

Then the earth growled.

The rocks shifted ahead, scattering in a cascade as something vast emerged from the dark. Perseus perked, blinking his one eye.

Golden eyes flared against the cliff-face.

A lioness, though lioness was too small a word: her shoulders were boulders, her coat gleamed with a strange burnished light, as if dawn had been caught and hammered into fur. She was larger than any beast of the mortal world, nearly divine. Much unlike the leonte he had killed when he was younger—those had just been animals. Monsters from Tartarus. But this…sacred, Perseus realised with a tightening in his chest. Sacred to whom, though?

A warning.

He didn't care.

She prowled toward him, tail lashing, each pad striking the ground with a resonant weight.

Perseus' hands curled into fists. His jaw ached from how tightly he clenched his teeth. Another god's hound. Another test. Another delay. The rage that had been simmering since he and Selene had come to find ashes and dust burst through his veins, white-hot. The man swallowed.

He welcomed it.

With a roar of his own, he met her charge.

They collided like boulders shattering. Her claws raked sparks off stone as she bowled into him, and he slammed into her with the force of a falling tree. They rolled, a whirl of fur and flesh and grit. Her breath was hot, rank, fanged jaws snapping inches from his throat. His fingers seized her scruff, then her throat, then her jaws themselves as he forced her head back. She was impossibly strong. Her muscles rippled like coiled serpents beneath her skin, every sinew forged by divine will.

Pain streaked down his side where her claws found flesh, but he welcomed it, needed it. Perseus clung to it like a drowning man to driftwood. A crazy laugh escaped him because every shred of agony was proof he was still in the fight, still alive, still capable of doing something.

"COME THEN!" he bellowed, ichor flecking his lips. "TEAR ME OPEN! IF THE GODS WANT ME, LET THEM TAKE ME!"

The lioness' growl vibrated in his chest cavity, shaking his ribs. He slammed her down, his knee pinning her flank, his hand driving toward her throat to crush the life from her. He could already imagine the crack of bone, the warm spray of blood, the beast silenced by his wrath.

He wanted it. He wanted the kill. He wanted to drown his impotence in her death.

But as his grip tightened, as the golden eyes burned into his, a voice cut through the frenzy.

It wasn't a sound, no. A memory.

You are not your rage.

Selene's voice. Gentle but unyielding, as it had always been. He had remained silent every time she'd said it, half-defiant, half-regretful. But it stayed. And now, in the lioness' eyes, he saw no malice.

Warning.

Not a foe, but a mirror.

His breath shuddered. His callused fingers trembled against her throat.

If he killed her, he would be feeding the gods exactly what they wanted: his surrender to blind fury, to destruction without thought. Apollo wanted a weapon, and he would hate himself even more if he gave in to him. And yet—if he spared her, what then? What would it mean?

The lioness snarled, bucked beneath him. His own roar answered—but this one was different, less rage, more release. With a savage heave, he twisted her body, flinging her across the plain. She skidded, claws tearing earth, then righted herself, wounded but alive.

She paused. Golden eyes fixed on him, burning with something almost like recognition. Then, with a final rumbling growl, she bounded into the shadows and was gone.

Perseus staggered back, chest heaving, ichor dripping down his ribs. The silence that followed was immense. His muscles trembled with exertion, his hands still curled as if around her throat, phantom pressure tingling his fingers.

For a long time, he stood alone in the pass, staring after her.

It would have been so easy. Too easy. To kill, to lose himself in the rush of violence. But Selene's words had stayed his hand even in her absence. And for the first time in what felt like ages, it hit him. He'd forgotten this after his city fell, and he had desperately needed a reminder that there was more to strength than rage and ruin.

He sank to a knee, pressing a palm to the torn earth where the lioness had stood. His ichor dripped into the soil. The pass seemed to breathe around him, the stones quieter now, as if waiting.

"I can't keep doing this," he whispered, though no one was there to hear. "Not like this."

But the admission was the first step. And he felt it. He felt the freedom that came with acknowledging the fact that he was shattered, and he needed to pull himself together. It was a shift, subtle, almost imperceptible, but there.

The son of Poseidon turned and made his way back to the beach. It would heal him.

As he approached the still waves, it hit him.

A laugh escaped his throat. Raw and hoarse and full of foreign delight.

He'd been so blinded by everything that Perseus hadn't considered it earlier. His people were travelling in a ship, on his father's domain. He wanted to find them?

All he had to do was ask the sea.

-X-

THE SEA, that day, had been kind. A wind from the west had borne Aeneas' ships gently through the Ionian waters, carrying them to the Strophades—two small islands cradled in green, guarded by cliffs, watered by hidden streams.

From the decks, Aeneas and the exiles looked with hollow eyes at what awaited them on the shore: goats clambering on the slopes, fat and unclaimed; cattle grazing the meadow grass. No herdsmen stirred. No shepherd's song rose.

They had been on the sea aimlessly for three weeks now.

Three weeks after the plague had risen, and after they had left Crete.

No message, no direction, nothing.

Their food had run out, and they had been living off fish.

And now, somehow, they had ended up here.

Aeneas wanted to believe it was another sign from the gods, whichever ones chose to interfere this time. But he didn't know.

It wasn't much of a choice, though. They'd lost all their food. It was a no-brainer. They docked.

Hungry men and women stumbled ashore, and soon laughter rose where silence had reigned. Fires were kindled, knives were drawn, and beasts were felled. Blood steamed in the salt air. The Trojans feasted as they had not since Troy's fall—meat crackled on the spits, grease ran thick down their hands, and bread softened once more in the dipping-bowls of oil.

They'd almost died, and as terrible as their lives were, Aeneas didn't want to discourage them or spoil the mood by telling them they couldn't stay.

The demigod sat among them, his people gathered at his side, and for a heartbeat, he let himself breathe.

Ascanius and his father ate their fill beside him. He chewed the roasted flesh slowly, forcing himself to taste.

The plague had almost taken him too.

And for days after, he hadn't allowed himself to feel anything. Not fear, or regret or the loss of their New Troy. He'd just been going through the motions, because that was all he could do to distract himself from the thought that he was leading his people nowhere—they were wanderers, and his brother and whatever survivors he'd managed to find were still missing.

But for the first time in three weeks, Aeneas saw his men smile, grease staining their beards, eyes gleaming. He heard the voices of the women, singing again as they prepared even more food. Kids danced around the fires.

Aeneas didn't have the heart to stop it. It was a moment of peace. A moment wrestled from the world's teeth.

A thought occurred to him then, that every time they allowed themselves to be happy, something swooped in-

The first shriek shook him to the core.

Aeneas dropped the meat with a cry and sat up.

Because that was definitely not human.

The laughter died down. The curly-haired man reached for his sword just as the air split.

Shadows fell. From the clouds they came, large and vile, and he recognised them almost immediately.

Harpies.

The hounds of hunger. They had wings rank with filth, feathers matted with rot. Their faces were not wholly beast but not wholly woman, twisted with fury and unending hunger. They had talons hooked as bronze scythes, and they gleamed as the monsters tore downward through the fire-smoke.

Aeneas swore. He'd never seen one in person, much less forty.

His reaction was instant. "Achates, women and kids!"

His friend darted into action with a call to arms.

The feast shattered. Aeneas' men leapt to their feet, swords half-raised, meat still clutched in their hands. A shadow blotted the fire; a Harpy stooped, seized the lamb from the spit, and with a single tearing bite devoured it, blood and grease streaming down her throat. Another struck the bread from a boy's hand, fouling it with dung and slime. The camp roared into panic—women screaming, soldiers swearing, embers scattering like stars.

Aeneas himself surged up, sword drawn, rage snapping through him like lightning as one monster's talons raked across a soldier's throat.

Not again, he thought. Not when my men are starved, not when hope has come to the table at last.

Must all gifts be snatched from them?

Did Troy have to fall a thousand times before Olympus would be satisfied? He had not escaped with his people from the fires just to lead them into the shadows of death.

Aeneas charged. Bronze flashed. His blade rang against a Harpy's hide—and bounced off without bite. The thing screeched and wheeled away, unharmed, its foul wings buffeting him with stench. Aeneas swore.

Why didn't the celestial bronze injure them?

"Strike them! Drive them off!" he roared. His men obeyed, spears hurled, shields raised, yet every blow that met flesh ricocheted. Aeneas swore, having a horror-filled flashback of Achilles and his iron skin. Monstrous feathery flesh resisted bronze. No cut bled.

The battle turned frantic. Harpies shrieked and stooped, talons raking at faces, wings slamming into shields. Spears snapped. Aeneas saw one soldier dragged into the air, clawed across the chest, thrown bleeding upon the stones. He saw another's sword hand broken by a beating wing. Yet still they fought, driven not by hope of victory but by rage and survival. Achates and another group had surrounded the women and the elderly and the kids, and shielded them desperately against the onslaught.

Amidst it all, the harpies snatched their meat and their food and their drink.

Aeneas raged at the heart of it, his blood burning hotter than the fire scattered on the ground. He struck again and again, blade singing, though each stroke slid from their vile hides.

He was so tired. Of these trials, of these tribulations.

His son stood above Anchises, spear raised, fending off attacks furiously.

Aeneas screamed with fury. Why did Olympus keep mocking them? Why did their misery delight the divine? "Olympus!" He called. "If you would have us die, strike us clean! Do not grind us to dust upon these islands!"

The Harpies screamed back, a chorus of torment. One stooped upon him, eyes hollow pits, talons reaching for his face. He raised his shield, braced, and thrust upward with the bronze. The thing shrieked and veered—but not in pain. In fury. In mockery.

Then the air changed.

A silence fell in the storm of wings, heavy as judgment. The flock parted. Down upon the shattered feast descended the vastest of them. Her wings stretched wide as sails, her feathers tattered and black, her gaze burning with a fire that was not wholly mortal. She did not strike. She hovered, and the camp quailed before her shadow. Aeneas wiped blood from his cheek as he panted and stared up at her, the burning urge for survival tearing through his bones.

Her voice tore the night.

"Children of Troy, cursed of the gods, marked by hunger—what feast is this? Did you think to glut yourselves on what is not yours? Did you think the world would sate you?" The birds around her cackled. "No! You shall eat—but not until your mouths close upon your very tables. You shall wander, and famine shall dog your heels, until Italy's soil tastes your blood and your sorrow!"

The words knifed into Aeneas' marrow. He felt the curse coil into his bones, heavy as the ashes of Troy. He swayed with the weight of it, almost broken. Almost.

Then he set his jaw and responded, because damn Olympus, and damn her, and damn this.

"Back to the ships!" he bellowed. His people turned and in an uncoordinated and frenzied race, bolted toward the shore, shields raised against the buffet of wings as the Harpies swooped down again.

"Ascanius! Father!" Aeneas cut his way towards them and grabbed on to his father, hauling him over his shoulder and tossing him a shield to put on his back.

And then Aeneas used his one hand to grab onto his son.

They ran.

The Harpies pursued, shrieking, raking, but never striking to kill—only hounding, only driving them as if to herd them into the sea.

Through the sand, through the foam, Aeneas' people stumbled, flung themselves aboard. Oars struck water, sails leapt to the wind, and the ships dragged free. Above them, the Harpies circled, a storm of wings against the stars, their cries echoing across the waves until distance swallowed them.

Later, on the deck, Aeneas stood motionless, sword limp in his hand. The curse rang still in his ears. Another warning. Another shadow nailed to his destiny. He stared toward the west, where Italy, Hesperia, whatever this promised land was called, lay veiled in the distance. His face was carved in grief, in fury, in resolve.

The people on the ship didn't speak. They tended to their wounds in silence and solidarity.

Not Troy, not Crete, not these carrion shores. Somewhere ahead, there was a home that would not be stolen.

He closed his eyes. For a breath, he bent beneath the weight—then lifted his head again, like steel reborn, because he had been chosen for this, and he would not let them down.

Aeneas' voice rang across the sea, so loud he was sure all the other silent ships could hear it.

"If hunger hunts us, we will outlast it. If the gods despise us, we will carve a place despite them. Troy shall rise again from famine's jaws," He paused, and his eyes glinted dangerously. "Even if I must choke on dust to raise it."

A/N: Sorry this took so long! Leave a review/comment/ vote/favourite/kudos/follow if you like it.

First of all, I'm trying to build on growth, anger, trauma and the aftermath of the Trojan war for everyone.

The gods and their machinations disillusion Perseus, and as he was the last one to see Troy fall, it is understandable that he has all this internalised rage and loathing for the ones who interfered and for himself. In the outro, I remember saying he would survive despite the gods and outlast them. But after a loss this great, something like that doesn't just happen. I want to show how he rebuilds and grows as a person. All of them.

On the other hand, Selene is questioning Fate but sets her fear aside for love.

Aeneas is losing his faith but must stay strong for his people. He follows the gods' directives even though he doesn't trust them anymore after they promised him a future and deserted them.

Don't worry, this arc is just a couple of more chapters. Five, I think, then the whole searching, trauma, etc. ends. And then we launch into the real story. Have a great month, loves. Try not to miss me too much.

-TripleHomicide.

Chapter Text

AENEAS smiled sadly to himself as he watched the two men struggling in the sand. It had been months since the escape from the Strophades islands and the Harpies' curse. They had been voyaging from island to island, going West like the gods had directed, and only stopping to trade with small towns, gather supplies and pray to the heavens.

This was one such stop. They'd come to Actium with the sunrise, and although Aeneas knew this was not their final destination, the priests had insisted they stop because the people were weary.

The curse of the Harpies had been weighing on Aeneas' mind for months. So far, it hadn't come into fruition. They had still gotten a lot to eat, whether fish, meat or fruits, and Aeneas was pretty sure most of his people had forgotten all about it. Not him, though.

He couldn't forget about it, and he knew it would come to pass, however long it took.

He'd had many sleepless nights, tossing and turning, wondering what their next step was to be. Were they just to keep sailing until they hit the end of the known world? Was that Hesperia?

He didn't know, and no one was telling him anything.

The Ionian sea had been long and treacherous. They'd lost two men to a storm a week prior, and it had set a cloud of depression onto the three ships Aeneas captained. Their vessels were battered, sails torn, and souls weary.

And so he had agreed when the priests had asked them to stop.

They'd settled down in Actium, a small island with a small city on the mountain pass far away from them. Aeneas had sent a messenger to greet the king immediately they had docked, and the delegates the royal family had sent back had been nothing but kind.

He pressed his hands into his eyes, blinking back the exhaustion. The people had needed something to kickstart their morale, and so Achates and his father Anchises had suggested games and sports.

This stop wasn't about their survival or their supplies, no. This time it was about thanksgiving, and renewal.

Rest was a foreign concept, and the son of Aphrodite knew that his people had no such delusions. Not anymore, and not after everything that had happened. Nonetheless, they had hit pause, built an altar to Apollo, and offered prayers and thanksgiving for their safe passage so far.

Aeneas had joined in the prayers, as he always did. He had offered a spoil from the war – armour from an Achaean and a golden shield to the god of the sun, on behalf of his people. Not just because he needed Apollo to drag his godly ass to Actium and give him directions, but because he was the leader of this ragtag group of Trojans and he couldn't be outward with his loss of faith, lest the gods punish the people for following his example and leaving behind their piety.

They needed divine favour for the next leg of their journey, wherever it was taking them to, and even though Aeneas knew there was an interference ban that Jove was taking seriously, the Olympians still found loopholes and still found ways to help when they saw fit.

He needed his mother to find a way, and he needed to hear from her.

It wasn't even just about his survival and her guidance. Aeneas missed her, and he missed the rest that her presence gave his spirit.

He knew Venus would be with him if she could be, and he also knew that he wasn't internalising any resentment against her for not answering his prayers. She was probably doing all she could, and Aeneas owed it to her not to lose his trust in her as well.

The ludi had been going on for nearly an hour now, and as the referee of the last wrestling match raised the hand of the victor, the people cheered. The communal games had lifted spirits. Laughs resonated in the clearing, and bets were made over the fires and the food.

"And next up," Gyas, one of the Captains who was in charge of the games called. "A duel! We have a particularly exciting match for you all today. One very fine young warrior has challenged our own leader, Aeneas to a swordfight."

The brown-eyed man blinked in surprise. He hadn't been made aware of this. He arched a brow at Gyas, and the man just smiled wider, the twinkle in his eye growing. Whispers started among the people, and Aeneas heard patches of giggles as the Trojans who were participating in and spectating the various games happening around stopped to watch what was going on.

Gyas stepped aside and gestured behind him, "Our very own Ascanius, probably the most skilled of our youngest warriors, will fight his father! May the gods smile upon you both, and may the best man win!"

The sea air was sweet with pine smoke and salt. On the strand of Actium, the Trojans cheered, laughter ringing for the first time in months. The games had come to a stop— footraces, wrestling, contests of the bow. Now, a circle opened in the sand. Aeneas smiled. Oh, this boy would be the death of him.

But it was all in good fun, and he wouldn't deny Ascanius that.

Aeneas stepped into the circle, sword in hand. The weapon caught the light of the sun, flashing like a streak of fire. He carried it in his left, and vaguely recalled a time, years ago, when he had been a dual sword wielder, before Achilles had taken that away from him. Adjusting to having one hand had been hard, but not impossible, and sometimes, he didn't even remember what it felt like to have both. His shoulders ached, his mind was tired, yet something inside him stirred — not the weariness of exile, but a memory of home, of Hector and Perseus, and of teaching in the courtyards of Troy.

Across from him bounded Ascanius, blade raised too high, movements sharp and quick like an unbroken colt. His face was flushed, proud, a little reckless. The men around them laughed and shouted wagers, some for the boy's youthful speed, some for Aeneas' own tempered strength and experience. But they all knew it wasn't a fair fight.

He grows each day, taller, swifter. One day, he will not be a boy, but a leader, Aeneas smiled proudly, watching his son approach. But then, another thought invaded his mind, Did Ascanius himself see that? Did he understand the weight he must carry? Or was he still chasing glory as if it were a game?

"Keep your guard low," Aeneas called, voice firm but light, as if teasing him. "A proud sword lifted too high leaves the heart unguarded."

Ascanius grinned, undaunted. He lunged, blade flashing. The crowd roared. Aeneas shifted with the ease of long habit, bronze ringing on bronze. He gave ground slowly, allowing the boy to push him, savouring the gasps as Ascanius pressed forward. The exchanged blows upon blows, and bronze smacked against bronze. Sparks flew as Aeneas danced around his son, letting him get so close, and then dodging him at the last second, making the people roar with laughter. Ascanius slashed at the air in front of his father and grinned when he nicked at Aeneas' cheek, drawing blood.

The son of Aphrodite laughed, despite himself. He was getting old.

Let him taste triumph. Aeneas would let him believe he had his father cornered. He called out, "Remember this, Ascanius, war is not only the hand; it is the heart that waits, and the patience that chooses its moment."

Another clash, sparks leaping. Sand sprayed as their feet carved lines in the circle. Ascanius pressed too far, too eager. Aeneas twisted, a sweep of his shoulder — the boy's blade flew from his grip, clattering into the dust.

The men roared with laughter and applause. The Trojans surged towards them. Some clapped the boy on the back as he flushed and bent to retrieve the weapon. Aeneas did not gloat. He lowered his own sword and waited, smiling faintly.

"You see?" he said, so only his son could hear. "Strength alone is nothing. Speed alone is nothing. Even love of glory is nothing. Patience — faith —thatwins battles. Remember, Ascanius. Fate and the gods give us our part to play. Yours will come, sooner than you think."

Ascanius nodded, breathless but smiling, his eyes bright with respect. For a moment Aeneas felt his heart lift, lighter than it had been since the walls of Troy fell. Around them the Trojans cheered, drinking and laughing, the smell of roasted meat rising on the wind.

Let them have this joy,Aeneas thought.They have carried grief long enough. Let them laugh, let them believe in tomorrow. And let this boy, my son, believe in himself — until the day comes when fate calls him, and I am not there to guide his hand.

It was a silent prayer, a silent supplication, and he hoped that whatever deities listening would not judge Ascanius too harshly.

He ruffled his son's hair, drew him close, and raised both their arms to the sky. The Trojans shouted their names, the surf broke on the rocks below, and for one brief hour, the exile felt almost like home.

-X-

HE DIDN'T think he had been this shocked since Achaean warriors had spilled out of the bowels of the wooden horse.

Aeneas and his men approached the small coastal city in wonder, eyes wide and full of astonishment. The son of Aphrodite himself was tentative, his fingers wrapped tightly around his sword. Beside him, Achates walked forward with a scowl, fists clenching, and then unclenching with every step he took.

"What do you think this is?" The other man asked, voice low and raspy. "A mirror city? A joke from a cruel Olympian?"

Aeneas shook his head. He didn't know.

They had been sailing north-west for about a month since the games at Actium, and per the directions the people of Actium had given them, Epirus was the island they had docked on.

When the scouts had come back with the news, Aeneas almost couldn't believe his eyes.

A mini Troy, a look-alike, set in a clearing off the coast, full of people and animals. They had set off immediately, Aeneas and his two most trusted men, to have a look at the mirror city for themselves. They had observed it from the tallest trees first, and been able to see past its walls.

Now, as they walked, it rose above them, grand and intricate, as though every detail had been carved from memory. Each gate, each building, each road, exactly the same, the only distinction between the city and Troy being its size.

It left a bitter taste in Aeneas' mouth, but it also lit up something inside him, which had been getting squashed over, and over again by the life they had been living and the harrowing trials they had been going through.

Because maybe they were meant to find this. Maybe there would be Trojans here—because who else would know their city so well? They had been going west; they had been following orders, they had been moving as per the god's directions. And they definitely hadn't stumbled here on accident.

Ilioneus, the scout, had said the city was inhabited. Whatever it was, Aeneas could not make up his mind about it. All he knew was that this wasn't Hesperia, and this wasn't where their journey ended.

As they approached the familiar gates, his throat bobbed. One last sand dune, and they would be within shooting distance.

He didn't like how exposed they were.

The city got nearer, and their steps got heavier, until they reached the iron gates. The sight of it brought prickles of tears to Aeneas' eyes. Beside him, Achates' scowl deepened.

Aeneas raised a hand, about to knock on the large gates, when the coast was filed with the sound of creaking. He took a step back, hand moving to the sword instantly. The gates were opening.

Aeneas watched with bated breath. Beside him, Cloanthus licked his lips, as though he could taste the tension. Achates ran a hand through his blond locks, eyes glinting with the promise of pain for whatever awaited them behind those doors.

"We are here to make enquiries and friends," Aeneas whispered, eyes glued onto the gates as the gap between them widened. "To answer our questions. No one draws a weapon until I command it to be so."

Cloanthus grunted in response, and Achates nodded tersely.

Aeneas blinked as the grinding stopped and the gates came to a halt.

The world spun when he saw the people on the other side.

It was like eating a vial of poison and drinking a goblet of the finest wine at the same time.

It was like his heart ruptured and melted into pieces but then grew wings and soared.

The son of Anchises felt dizzy, and then blinked, because this couldn't possibly be real, and this was the best thing that had ever happened to him since they had escaped Troy. A cry escaped his lips as she approached them through the open gates, and Aeneas let go of his sword as he felt the first tear escape his eyes.

"Oh, my gods," Achates' words could not convey the shock that the king was feeling in that moment, standing where he was.

The woman approached them with a wide smile, and Aeneas could see she was holding back tears.

"When they told me you were coming, I didn't want to believe them," She shook her head in awe.

"Andromache," Aeneas took a shaky step forward. Because this couldn't be real. She couldn't be real. He had thought she was dead. As they collapsed into each other's arms, Aeneas took the walls down and let the dam burst.

-XMX-

THEY WALKED through the streets of the miniature city, followed closely by the two guards that had drawn open the gates to the new Troy, Buthrotum. Aeneas held her hand tightly in his, and mere words could not express the emotions that were being stirred up inside him with each agonisingly amazing moment he spent in her presence.

He hadn't wanted to think of Andromache and her son. Not when he wasn't certain that Perseus had rescued them. And maybe that made him a bad friend to Hector, but the thought of his sister-in-law and his nephew being lost as well as his brother had been too much to handle, and he had chosen to block everyone outside Perseus from his thoughts. Well, tried to, at least.

But here she was, alive and well, smaller than the last time he had seen her, which had been at the celebratory feast.

Aeneas' lips were burning with questions.

But he still couldn't bring himself to speak. He could just hold her hand and feel that she was really there, really alive, and that all these people in this small mirror city were Trojans as well.

As they walked, the crowd grew.

Men, women, kids. Soldiers, the elderly, priests, nearly about a hundred and fifty people were milling around in the city, peeking through doorways and windows, to catch a glimpse of Aeneas, the wandering Dardanian king, and Hector's widow.

It shattered him even more, because these were his people. But this was not Hesperia, and he knew they could not stay long.

Aeneas' throat bobbed and he shook his head. Not now.

His eyes flickered around them as they walked, from the people to the guards, to the woman at his side. Everything looked the same, as though the memory of the city had been drawn from the people's brains and Athena herself had constructed the polis from scratch.

But Aeneas knew that the wretched goddess would never do that for them.

This was the handiwork of Trojans, and it carried his heart to heights they had never been before.

Andromache glanced up at the sky. Her dark hair had strands of grey in them. Her eyes were weary and full of memories of loss, but glinted with the joy of seeing Aeneas again. Her milky skin had lost its glow, but she was still as beautiful as the day Hector had married her, in her gossamer blue dress and her veil.

"I know you have many questions, Aeneas," She looked back at him. "But it is almost sundown, and I have a ritual I must perform. I want you to come with me. I will tell you everything there."

"Okay," He managed. The son of Venus was still breathy from the initial shock. He swallowed. If Andromache was here, it meant Perseus had succeeded. Was this what Apollo had meant? That their paths would cross when they were both ready?

Was he ready?

He didn't know.

"I figured I would be seeing Perseus right now," He tilted his head to the side, brows drawn in confusion. "My brother knows of our arrival, doesn't he?"

Andromache's face fell. She shook her head, and said, slowly. "I haven't heard word of him since that night in Troy." Aeneas' face fell. He swallowed.

"And Astyanax? He's about three summers now—"

"Astyanax is dead."

It was like a blow to the back of his head. Aeneas stopped. He swayed on his feet, blinking back the dizziness. "Like I said," Hector's widow tightened her grasp on his arm. "I will explain."

They continued walking leisurely, Aeneas' heart beating pitter-patter as he tried to come up with explanations—as he waited as though his life hanged on the balance—for his sister-in-law to start speaking.

Achates and Cloanthus had gone back to bring the rest of the voyagers into the city, and so when they reached what looked like a cenotaph, and Andromache's guards fell back, Aeneas was left alone with her.

The tomb was more of a cave in the wall, and by the sweet smell which wafted out of its bowels, Aeneas could tell that it was visited often.

"I don't know what happened to the others that night," Andromache led him into the cave. There was already a torch lit and placed in a holder on the cave wall. Hector's widow removed it daintily and motioned for Aeneas to follow. The cave smelt of flowers and ash; of milk and honey. The light illuminated the room, and Aeneas found himself staring in awe. The tomb was empty.

But on the walls -

"Names of the fallen," Andromache moved to the left and took a jar of what looked like wine. "We assumed that everyone who wasn't here with us in the city died during the sack."

Aeneas smiled sadly, as his eyes caught sight of a large rock in the middle of the tomb. Scratched on it were more names. The royal family.

Hector's name was first.

Aeneas saw his, and his brother's, come right after.

"When the Achaeans razed Troy to the ground, I was still inside the palace. My—" She stammered. "My son, Astyanax. I was running with him when Perseus found us. He tried to get us to safety. Odysseus and Neoptolemus cornered us. It—it was all so fast. I don't—I can't remember—"

Aeneas moved closer, and hugged her. She was struggling, and he didn't want her to relive any memories she had buried and hidden away.

But at the same time, he needed to know what had happened.

"We were running," She said, extracting herself from his embrace. "The palace was collapsing around us. I don't know. It's all foggy and muddled. But Odysseus took my son and—threw…he threw him out the burning window."

Andromache moved to large rock and slipped gently onto her knees. Aeneas felt something in him rip as his eyelids fluttered. He lifted his head to the cave ceiling.

A single tear escaped past his eyelids.

Loss made his throat heavy.

Oh, Andromache. Oh, Astyanax.

Ripped away from the land of the living before he could even see two summers.

Hector had made them promise to save his family. And Aeneas had failed.

"Your brother," The woman gently tipped the jar, and the sweet smelling wine seeped into the soil. "He tried. The gods know he tried. They burnt Polyxena at the stake beneath us, they killed Priam and his court and his children. Hecuba and Cassandra, everyone—but he did his best. He fought tooth and nail to save our lives. He took on the entire army by himself. The last memory I have of him was the entire Achaean fleet swallowing him whole while Odysseus carried me away. He was trying to get to me."

Andromache inhaled, and her eyes fluttered shut. From a bowl at her side, she picked some ash on her fingers and brought them to her lips. She murmured words softly, appellations and tributes.

Mourning.

Andromache was performing funeral rites.

Aeneas watched in solemn silence, head bent. So much. They had lost so much.

"For my son, and for my husband," Andromache whispered.

When she rose, her face was stained with tears.

Andromache did not wipe them away.

"I am sorry," She swallowed. "Seeing you again, it—it's hard. It has brought back feelings I thought I was past. I have not felt loss this profound since Hector died."

"I am sorry I wasn't there for you," Aeneas shook his head. "I am sorry we abandoned you." Oh, Hector. He knew his brother wasn't here, but he knew Hector would hear him. I am so, so sorry.

"You did nothing, Aeneas. It was the will of the gods that Troy fall. None of us could have stopped it. Our people have always been marked with destruction. We used to be the ones to deliver it, and then the tables turned. Now it hounds us and bites at our heels like a hungry dog, forever unsatiated."

He sighed.

"After Troy fell, I was taken as a captive by the bastard of Achilles," Andromache walked with him to the entrance of the empty tomb. "Neoptolemus brought me to Epirus as part of his spoils of war. I was wed to him, and I bore him a son in the first year. Helenus wound up in Epirus a few months after that, and by then, my new lord husband had tired of me. He gave me in marriage to Hector's brother."

A cold hardness had seeped into Andromache's voice as she wiped away her tears. It was sharp, and Aeneas could see the pain behind her eyes. She had been through so much.

His nephew was dead, and Aeneas was still reeling from that information. Now she was telling him she had been sold like a broodmare, chained and betrayed, used and discarded. It made his blood boil. She had been a slave.

Perseus had promised to get her out.

But Perseus had failed, and Aeneas knew that only something truly horrible would have kept him from keeping his promise.

He wanted to say something. He wanted to beg for Andromache's forgiveness, and for Hector's, for letting her live like this.

But Aeneas knew that Andromache was a strong woman. It was why Hector had loved her, and he also knew that she would not want his pity. So instead, he said, "Helenus? He is here as well?"

"Helenus sits as King of Buthrotum. He built this city, and I am his Queen. Neoptolemus was murdered at Delphi, and Helenus inherited part of his kingdom here in Epirus. The people here are wanderers. A couple of Survivors from the sack who found this place, but mostly others from Neoptolemus' kingdom. Slaves that Helenus freed when he took the throne. We do not number up to a eighty."

He studied her. "Are you happy here?" Aeneas paused. "With Helenus? Do you love him? Does he treat you well?"

Andromache smiled, and for a moment, she looked like the girl who had stolen his best friend's heart, all those years ago. "Yes, he does."

Aeneas nodded. Andromache smiled sadly, and said, "What of you? It looks like the gods and the years have not been kind on you at all."

"They haven't," Aeneas exhaled. He ran a hand through his hair. "So much has happened, and yet, so little has been accomplished. The gods gave me a task."

And so he told her. From Aphrodite leading them to the crypts. To the ship waiting at the harbour, to the snatching of Ganymede and the blood squirting soil. From the stop at Delos, the plague at Crete, to the visit from the household gods, and Apollo's message, the curse of the harpies, and the games at Actium. From searching for Perseus and hunting down survivors; running from bands of Achaeans and chasing a future with no end in sight.

He told her everything.

When he was done, Andromache was at a loss for words.

"Oh, Aeneas," She placed a hand on his shoulder. She looked weary, and depressed on his behalf. "The world is an evil place, and you have been dealt a cruel hand."

"Cruel things happen to good people," Aeneas placed his single hand on hers. "That is something I came to terms with a long time ago."

He didn't want to think of his brother. Because if Perseus hadn't been able to save Andromache—if truly, he had disappeared and been engulfed by the army—it meant he hadn't been able to save anyone else.

And Aeneas didn't know what to think of that.

Apollo had mentioned that Perseus had to fight his demons. Was this what he had meant?

Before the son of Aphrodite could say anything, they heard footsteps. One of the guards from before came a stop in front of them.

"They are here, My Lady," He bowed sharply. "King Helenus requires your presence in the audience chamber."

Andromache nodded. "Come," She motioned to Aeneas. "Helenus will be so glad to see you."

-X-

IF YOU WERE TO ASK her how they had ended up on this side of the Ionian Sea, Selene could not tell you.

When Artemis' chariot had crested the sky high above them, the former Titaness of the moon and Perseus had been wandering, just allowing her steeds to take them west, as they usually did whenever a lead turned out to be a dead end.

Perseus eyed the waves solemnly beside her, and Selene was curled into his side, her head on his chest.

It was moments like this she was thankful for.

When, despite everything that had happened, they just forgot about all the shit they were going through, and just were.

She stiffened when she felt the change in the atmosphere, as Perseus perked up beside her. His hand left where it had been in her dark locks, and Selene frowned, sitting up to see what had caused the interruption.

Before she could speak, Perseus had stood. "What's that?"

Selene was beside him in a minute, and together, they peered off the edge of the chariot.

Beneath them, mist shrouded the waves.

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" She arched a brow.

"Exactly," Perseus' brow furrowed.

Selene cocked her head to the side. Impossibly, the ocean was dead silent. Almost as if time had stilled around them. They glanced down again. The sea was shrouded in mist, eerily silent, no birds or sea beasts, only drifting shadows and fog, unpierced by Artemis' light.

"I want to check it out," Perseus was already slipping into his cloak.

"Perseus," She didn't like this.

"Please," He fixed her with an exhausted, sad, stare. "I need a distraction."

Selene exhaled. "Fine, but I'm coming with."

The demigod smiled slightly, but it didn't reach his eyes, "As if I would even dream of walking into my potential demise without you by my side."

She laughed, and it was like an echo across the silent sea, hollow. Selene shook her head, and moved to take the reins. "Alright, then."

With a flick of her wrists, the chariot veered gently off the straight path it had been following, and headed downwards.

Selene felt him come up beside her as they pierced the veil created by the fog. She bit her bottom lip, eyes scanning the terrain for any sign of danger.

And then she saw it.

They were approaching an island, buried deep in the mist. Dark and mysterious, as though it had been drained out of all colour. When they got closer, she saw them.

Spirits.

Shades.

Thousands of them, milling around the small island, chattering lowly. They were similar to ghosts, but less glowing and white, and more grey and shadowy.

"Holy Asphodel," Perseus swore. "Did we somehow enter the Underworld without noticing?" He wore a look of genuine confusion on his face.

Selene shook her head, as she felt her shoulders untense. With a sigh, she relaxed. "No. I know where we are now."

Perseus arched a brow, waiting for Selene to continue.

"Achnamae, the Dwelling of the forgotten."

"Achnamae," He repeated, as though testing the name.

The spirits were numerous.

And they didn't seem to notice each other. Selene guided her silver chariot down through the clouds, taking in the dull view. The island was grey and brittle, a shore tangled with black reeds that rattled though no wind touched them. The air itself seemed heavy, blurred, as if it held its breath, and the shapes moving along the beach were not whole, but flickers. From where she stood, she could see them—faces half formed, torsos dissolving into mist before she could focus on them.

No loud voices carried up, except the occasional wail. There was only a low hum, and mild chattering, like grief pressed into the earth. The sea was black and still, and there were no signs of life. Beside her, Perseus' throat bobbed. They stood in silence until the chariot stopped, right above the land of fragments staring back at them.

The bland island was scattered with little bits and pieces of things. Weapons, armour, toys, baskets. All mortal appendages Selene sometimes didn't understand.

Memories.

"I've never heard of it," Perseus eyed the shore below. "Where do you suppose it came from?"

"I've heard stories," Selene pursed her lips. "This place is as old as the gods themselves. It is said that in the earliest age, when the first gods appeared from Khaos—when the realms and the primordials first came into being—this was the place where the Pontus and Thalassa waged war for dominion over the sea-before they got married and spawned all the sea creatures. This was the aftermath—a restless and unmapped place. Over the years it became an island, where wandering souls would drift. Those unable to find the ferryman's call, unable to rise to judgement. The spirits buried without their coins of payment line the banks of the Styx. Eventually, they all find their way here."

"So, ghosts?"

"No," She shook her head. "Ghosts are different. They have unfinished business. These spirits have nothing." Selene looked down again. "The passage of the soul into Hades is not just about the coins you pay Chiron. It's also about remembrance. That is why gods fade, Perseus. Because they are forgotten. To be remembered by the living—through name, story or ritual—is to be anchored to the eternal halls of the immortal. Without remembrance, you are nothing. Nameless. A soul is not whole unless it is named. Name is what binds the soul's fragments together; memory, deed, face and fate. Those who are nameless become fractured echoes of themselves. On this island, they linger as whispers, forms that flicker in and out of coherence."

Perseus watched, and Selene could see the interest building.

"My aunt Mnemosyne decreed this—that without the name, and without the memory the soul becomes nothing, their true essence unraveling. To lose one's name is to lose identity and power. And so, the souls here cannot even tell who they were. They hunger not for food, but for remembrance."

Selene heard Perseus inhale sharply. She gave him a sideways glance. "What is it?"

His throat bobbed. "Down there." She followed his line of sight, to a group of shades in familiar armour with a familiar insignia on their breastplates.

"Trojan soldiers."

"Oh," The Titaness released a breath. "That must've been why you felt the pull to this place."

There was rusted armour around the spirits. Half-buried spears, and shields hanging on ghostly trees like fruit. There was no wind, and no noise except the hum from the collective chattering. The spirits themselves were half-formed figures, more like impressions that people, their flaces blurred, their bodies continuously shifting with every movement they made.

They drifted aimlessly, and from the chariot, Selene and Perseus looked on curiously, as one wailed, and clutched at his chest, falling to his knees. Amidst the chattering, another clawed at his throat, fell to the ground, then rose again and drifted away, as though nothing had happened. Some were lashing out, brandishing phantom swords. Under the trees, another wept silently, face contorted in horror, but no sound came out.

It was all so eerie.

At the edge of the island, some of the spirits clawed at a phantom barrier. They couldn't leave. They were trapped in this liminal exile.

Beside her, Perseus exhaled. They watched the blurred shifting of the spirits along the shoreline, their bodies collapsing into the fog the moment they seemed almost real.

Finally, he spoke, his voice soft. "I see myself in them."

Selene regarded him, silent, but steadfast. She saw it too. The same emptiness he carried—the hollow after the battles with is demons. He continued, "We are one and the same. Fragments, untethered, remembered only for the men we killed, or not remembered at all."

And he was right. History would never call Perseus the quiet man who lay awake at night, with the weight of it all pressing his chest. The man who cried himself to sleep and lashed out at the world when it got too hard.

She took his hand. "You are tethered to me."

Perseus smiled, but Selene could see it wasn't real.

"I am," He nodded. "But I am also trapped between gods and war." His shoulders lifted in a light shrug. "I don't know who I am without either of them. But sometimes I think it might be better to drift away, like these spirits. Better than fighting for gods who will forget me and a world which despises my people."

Selene sighed, deeply. She squeezed his hand, and gazed at the spirits milling around on the ground. This journey they were undertaking together—it was teaching her so many new things. No one had ever bared themselves to Selene the way Perseus did with her. With a last squeeze, she released his arm, and lifted herself out of the chariot.

Selene floated down towards the ashy earth—towards the Trojans.

When she landed, the dark haired woman brushed a strand of hair from her face. The ground of the island felt light, as though it wasn't even really there.

She was surrounded by shades, and the humming had gotten louder. Selene took two steps until she was face to face with the nearest Trojan spirit.

It looked exactly like the others—face shifting, form ever-changing, ashy and grey.

Selene reached out, and her fingers brushed against the ghost apparition. With a breath of her power, she drew its memories from whatever abyss they had been hidden in. Selene was vaguely aware of Perseus appearing from the mist to observe her as her mind was engulfed with the memories of this shade—as she gave it form, and brought its life back to the surface.

"Tell me your story," She breathed.

Its voice was warped and ghostly, "I was a foot soldier, under Crown Prince Hector's battalion. I died defending my brother with his own shield."

"Tell me your name."

The spirit fizzled. The phantom voice staggered. "I—I don't know."

"You carried your brother's shield. You were loyal. I will call you Philon, the beloved," Selene drew her hands away. "I give you back your dignity, Philon. I give you a name, and I give you rest."

It didn't happen instantly. But as they watched, the smoke drifted away, as though layers of mist were being pulled back, until finally, a man stood before them, glowing blue in the grey of the island. Perseus watched them sombrely. The man had a gaping wound in his side. He bowed his head, "Thank you, Lady Selene." With that, he melted into blue mist, and vanished.

Selene's chest tightened. She had not expected the release to stir up anything in her. But it was there, and it felt like a weight, lifting off her shoulders. For years since Troy had fallen, she had dreaded her own coming fate. She had feared her fading would be like obliteration. Silence. The final extinguishing of herself. But here, watching a spirit leave, not broken but dignified, the Titaness felt something in her shift. Maybe her fading might not be an end, but a transformation. Not disappearance, but remembrance in another form.

And she would not waste whatever time she had left worrying about it instead to living her life to the fullest.

Perseus had stood silent, his jaw tight. She could read him, and she knew he had been confused initially, but he hadn't interrupted. He saw this island as another cruel trick of the world that takes and takes. She knew that he had expected the naming of the ghost to be pointless, like laying a flower at an empty grave.

But when the shade had given her thanks, she had seen the crack—the change—in his demeanour. Recognition.

"You have spent your entire life believing that only war and trials gave a man substance. That identity is forged in blood. You questioned this identity because of Apollo. But this," Selene gestured to the spirits around them. "This is a different proof. Memory, love and grief, even, can bind a life as surely as the triumphs of it. Life isn't just about the highs, Perseus. It's about to lows too, and the things you learn along the way."

And he knew she was right. The soul hadn't left in bitterness.

"Your grief can be gentle, Perseus," Selene stared down at him. "You have been taught that the sea rages, and that the oceans do not like to be restrained. But you have also forgotten that the depths do not mourn their dead with storms."

Perseus blinked furiously, and Selene watched as he lifted his head to the sky. He was smiling sadly when he looked back at her.

Selene inhaled, and she took his hand, her face pale with her own fear, her lips tight with the confession she was about to make. "I will fade, Perseus," She said, quietly. "Not today, not tomorrow, but the centuries are shorter than they once were. I am afraid of it—afraid of being gone." Her hands trembled at the words, yet her eyes held steady. "But perhaps what we have seen tonight is true. Perhaps to fade isn't to vanish, but to change. Perhaps I will remain in another form—in memory, in the love of those who dare to remember me."

Perseus looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Not as the steadfast rock who was his support in trials and tribulations. But as his girlfriend, mortal in her fear, luminous and eternal in her courage. Selene felt her heart warm and he touched her face, gently—as he came to terms with the fact that war did not have to be his only anchor, that the marks he left in tenderness and love might carry him farther than any blade ever could—that she was his anchor.

"I want you to be that person, Perseus."

"I will not let it come to that," He whispered. "I will fight for you, or I will die with you."

"No. I want you to live for me," She leaned into his touch. "Live, because this shade, this entire island—it has meaning, Perseus. Our identities are not bound to permanence, but to the way we are loved, and the way we are remembered, and the way we leave this world."

He leaned down, until his forehead was touching hers.

Selene's eyelids flickered shut, as she allowed herself to be vulnerable with him, as he always did for her. Their breaths mingled, and finally, she pulled away. "So, are you going to help me with these spirts, or?"

He smiled.

When they left in her chariot hours later, the island was changing. The mist had cleared slightly, and the whispers had softened.

Not all the souls had been saved—not all of them could be. So many were too far gone, and they still wandered. But that was okay.

They would be okay.

-X-

RIGHT BEFORE HE BOARDED the ship, Aeneas pulled Andromache into a hug.

"Will I ever see you again?" She asked, voice sorrowful.

Aeneas smiled sadly. "I wish I could stay. But the gods have other plans for us."

The ships were fully loaded and ready to go. They were stacked up on supplies and food, and weapons. Aeneas knew that no one on those ships really wanted to leave.

Buthrotum had been their home for nearly three months now, and it hurt them all to leave it.

But they couldn't stay here.

They had dallied around for far too long already, and ignoring the task at hand wouldn't make it disappear.

The rest of the company of Buthrotians—Trojans-surrounded them on the beach, waving farewell to their fellow countrymen, wishing them luck, and offering prayers for their safe journey.

Aeneas tried to soak it all in. He didn't know when he would see anything like it ever again.

After their discovery of the city almost three months ago, Aeneas had wept that night in Helenus' guest chamber. For Andromache, for Astyanax, Creusa, Perseus and Hector. For his people, and the lives they had had. For the lives and the loves they had lost.

It physically hurt him to be reminded of the home that had been razed to the ground and the people that had turned to ash alongside it.

He had failed them all, and that made this journey to Hesperia even more important. Because he couldn't fail the legacy they had left behind. He had to preserve Troy's flame, and he had to keep pushing, and fighting, until he carried them all to the end.

Before that, Helenus had received them graciously.

Aeneas had to admit, he hadn't always been the blond Prince's biggest fan. But they had been younger then, and fools. When he had seen Hector's brother, they had embraced tightly, and he had held on for longer than was necessary because he had been afraid Helenus would dissipate into air and all of it wouldn't be real.

The last time they had met in person, Priam's son had lost a battle to Deiphobus over Helen's hand. Aeneas had seen him in a dream after that, losing his eye and his finger to Odysseus, to protect the secrets of Troy.

But Helenus had eventually folded to the torture, and for the longest time after the city actually fell, Aeneas had resented him for it.

But there, and then, he couldn't even remember his misplaced anger.

The feast for his people had been grand and delightful, and for several hours after, Aeneas had remained in bliss, because he was with people he loved, and they were safe, even if it was for such a short period of time.

But then after the feast, left alone with his own thoughts, he had mourned.

Now, he clapped the King on the back and clasped his hand firmly.

"I wish you safe travels. May—"

Helenus' voice stilled, and a breathy gasp escaped the semi-blind man. His head snapped upwards to the sky, and his single eye flared gold.

Fuck.

Aeneas swore as the King's hold on him got tighter. Andromache stepped back in morbid shock. Ripples of surprise tore through the people. Aeneas wanted to rip his hand away, but he knew not to move.

Helenus let out a wretched cry, and something red seeped out from beneath his eyelid—the one that was permanently shut.

Blood.

His head snapped down sharply, as though pulled by a strong hand.

"Aeneas," Helenus' voice came threefold, as though the Morai themselves spoke through the seer. "Son of Love, full of Hate." Chills erupted across Aeneas' body as his hairs stood on end. But he stood his ground, gritting his teeth. Helenus was having a vision.

The other man gasped almost instantly, and tore himself away from Aeneas as the gold died down from his eyes. He wiped the blood that was streaming from his nose and mouth.

"Damn them," The king swore. "I haven't had a vision for three years, Aeneas."

"Olympus does not joke with its emissaries," Andromache approached Helenus, unfolding a piece of cloth from thin air. "They want to leave nothing to chance. What did you see?"

Helenus shifted, uneasily, taking the cloth.

"You must go to Sicily, and then to the sea of monsters. You must hide from the beasts of the deep, and set your sights on a place far west. Lavinium, in Hesperia is the name, and once you find the white sow with thirty piglets, you will know you have arrived. Then seek out the Sibyl at Cumae for what to do next."

Aeneas swallowed deeply, and let out a hollow laugh. The blond man glanced around, at the ship full of waiting people, and the beach full of watchful ones.

"I would wish you good fortune, but—"

"We all know how well that turns out," He shook his head, grimly.

Andromache sighed and removed something from her bodice. A small sword, golden, and familiar. Intricate, and beautiful.

"Give this to Iulus," She tilted her head to the side as she regarded him, calling Ascanius by his pet name. "Hector meant to hand it to Astyanax on his fourteenth name day. I know he would want Ascanius to have it."

"We will never forget your kindness," Aeneas bowed his head, accepting the gift. He ran a hand across the scabbard. This had been Hector's first real sword, after they had passed their training lessons. It had been his pride and joy. And Aeneas knew Ascanius would use it well.

"Thank you," He regarded them, warmly. "Both of you." He didn't want to think of Helenus' prophecy. The time for thinking would come later.

They smiled, through the blood, and the tears of the solemn farewell. Aeneas nodded one last time, whirled on his feet, and ascended the gangplank.

He didn't look back.

-X-

THEIR ship was as silent as a field of the dead. It was a few hours to dawn, and Aeneas, restless as ever, had risen and moved to the helm to watch the sun rise and say his daily prayers.

He sighed as he watched the still waves, and the demigod's eyelids fluttered with exhaustion.

"Mother," His voice was a whisper. He didn't want to disturb the ship. "Please. Right now, I don't even want you here to guide us to Hesperia. I just want to see you. It's been far too long, and…I need you, mother."

He waited, silently, and tensely.

Like he had expected, no response. Just the cool breeze of the sea.

Aeneas huffed in exasperation. She wasn't going to come, and Aeneas really couldn't fault her for it. His people owed her their lives.

"Your mother tries her best, you know." The voice was sudden, and made the son of Aphrodite jerk and reach for his sword. He spun on his heel almost immediately, but a chuckle met his reaction.

"At ease, hero."

The man before him looked eerily familiar. Sea green eyes, full of life. Raven hair, windswept. He wore the simple garbs of a fisherman, and in his hand, held a simple fishing pole. His sandals were equally normal, worn and brown, and there were smile lines beneath his eyes.

Aeneas felt his heart stop. It couldn't be. The word popped out of his lips before he could stop himself, "Perseus?"

The man laughed. It sounded exactly like the sound of waves hitting the surf. "Try again, son."

"Poseidon."

He let his hand fall to the side and tried to hide his disappointment.

"Oh, don't bother," The sea god said, as though amused. "I know I wasn't the one you were expecting."

Aeneas tilted his head to the side, regarding the Olympian. His eyes latched onto the fishing pole, but—no, it wasn't a pole anymore. It was a blue-green trident, and it was glowing with power.

"Did Perseus send you?"

"I wish he did," Poseidon shook his head. "No, Aeneas. I owed your mother a favour, and she came to collect."

"What's stopping her from coming herself?"

"She will come," The Olympian told him. "In her own time, Aphrodite will come for you. And then you will understand. For now, I am here to give you the guidance you so desperately plead for."

"Do they teach you Olympians cryptic-ness in god-school or is that a habit you all happened to pick up over the centuries?" He arched a brow.

"I see why my son likes you," Poseidon chuckled.

"And where is your son?" He pursed his lips. "Why does Olympus keep us apart?"

"Perseus walks his own road," Poseidon stepped forward, until they stood shoulder to shoulder. They watched the waves together, silent and pondering. "Fate binds your destinies. But you will meet only when both of you have been tempered."

"And when will that be?" Aeneas pounded his arm into the wood. "Have you not taken enough? Have we not suffered enough?"

"You have," Poseidon's eyes twinkled. "But, Aeneas. Suffering is not what makes a man."

"How can you say that?" Aeneas' voice cracked. "When all we have known is suffering? Our home, ashes. Our friends and families, gone. This mantle of leadership on someone like me—a failure like me. Someone who couldn't even protect his own wife, and you want me to protect an entire people? I am not strong enough, Poseidon."

He blinked furiously. He was so tired. He was just so tired of it all. And he hated himself for it.

"Strength, dear Aeneas," The sea god leaned on the hull. "Strength is endurance under weight. Strength is not the absence of pain. You have it, child. Who else could lead these people to their future?" Before Aeneas could speak, Poseidon continued, "Even the sea breaks—but then it gathers, and it bears on."

"The people are tired," Aeneas glanced down, at the reflection of the moon on the water. "I am tired. I can't keep leading them nowhere."

Poseidon shook his head. "Leadership carries, Aeneas. You are the memory of a people in motion. Your burden is their lamp." He turned to look at the former Dardanian king. "Your grief and your wounds cannot be magically erased. I myself carry wounds. But they are meant to be oar weights. Not anchors."

"You say all this," Aeneas said, bitterly, "But do not come when we call. You give us ambiguous directions and false hope, throw us into the sea, and abandon us."

"Is that what you really think?" The sea god pulsed with power. "That Olympus had abandoned you?"

Aeneas could not respond.

"Do not mistake our silence for abandonment, Aeneas. Your mother watches over you, day and night. The whole council follows your progress. We intervened when we must. We put you on the path. Who do you think steered your ship to Andromache's city?" He arched a perfect eyebrow. Aeneas pursed his lips as Poseidon continued, "The gods may set winds. But you must hold the sail. Put your faith in your men; in your son, and in the task—not in gods."

Aeneas swallowed. He hated that everything Poseidon was saying was true. He was right, and Aeneas had to stop praying for escape and start praying for endurance. He had to take charge of his own destiny.

"Tonight I have calmed the inlet," Poseidon gestured to the gentle waves around them. "But this isn't a miracle shortcut. You must learn, and choose, and act. That is how you grow."

He met the glowing eyes of the deity.

Aeneas nodded. It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He stood straighter. He would stop asking to be carried. It was his turn to do the carrying.

"Lead the living, son of love," Poseidon planted his trident in the wood. "Let Perseus fight his shadows. When the sea has taken what it must, then your roads will bend toward each other." His placed a finger on the demigod's torso, "You, Aeneas," He poked the demigod in the chest. "You must shepherd dawn."

With that, the god of the oceans melted into mist.

Aeneas' eyes fluttered shut. He needed strength. Because he had to hold the sail.