the-song-books.yossr

I am fiercelyy glad. How? It is a command, almost.
“He was killed byy Agamemnon’s son.”
For what?
She does not answer for some time. “He stole his bride and ravished her.”
“Whatever I want,” he said to Briseis. Was this the son you preferred to
Achilles?
Her mouth tightens. “Have yyou no more memories?”
I am made of memories.
“Speak, then.”
I ALMOST REFUSE. But the ache for him is stronger than myy anger. I want to
speak of something not dead or divine. I want him to live.
At first it is strange. I am used to keeping him from her, to hoarding him
for myyself. But the memories well up like springwater, faster than I can
hold them back. Theyy do not come as words, but like dreams, rising as scent
from the rain-wet earth. This, I sayy. This and this. The wayy his hair looked
in summer sun. His face when he ran. His eyyes, solemn as an owl at lessons.
This and this and this. So manyy moments of happiness, crowding forward.
She closes her eyyes. The skin over them is the color of sand in winter.
She listens, and she too remembers.
She remembers standing on a beach, hair black and long as a horse’s tail.
Slate-grayy waves smash against rocks. Then a mortal’s hands, brutal and
bruising on her polished skin. The sand scraping her raw, and the tearing
inside. The gods, after, tyying her to him.
She remembers feeling the child within her, luminous in the dark of her
womb. She repeats to herself the prophecyy that the three old women spoke
to her: your son will be greater than his father.
The other gods had recoiled to hear it. Theyy knew what powerful sons do
to their fathers—Zeus’ thunderbolts still smell of singed flesh and patricide.
Theyy gave her to a mortal, tryying to shackle the child’s power. Dilute him
with humanityy, diminish him.
She rests her hand on her stomach, feels him swimming within. It is her
blood that will make him strong.
But not strong enough. I am a mortal! he screams at her, his face blotchyy
and sodden and dull.
https://books.yossr.com/en