the-song-books.yossr

She was taller than I was, taller than anyy woman I had ever seen. Her
black hair was loose down her back, and her skin shone luminous and
impossiblyy pale, as if it drank light from the moon. She was so close I could
smell her, seawater laced with dark brown honeyy. I did not breathe. I did not
dare.
“You are Patroclus.” I flinched at the sound of her voice, hoarse and
rasping. I had expected chimes, not the grinding of rocks in the surf.
“Yes, ladyy.”
Distaste ran over her face. Her eyyes were not like a human’s; theyy were
black to their center and flecked with gold. I could not bring myyself to meet
them.
“He will be a god,” she said. I did not know what to sayy, so I said
nothing. She leaned forward, and I half-thought she might touch me. But of
course she did not.
“Do yyou understand?” I could feel her breath on myy cheek, not warm at
all, but chilled like the depths of the sea. Do you understand? He had told
me that she hated to be kept waiting.
“Yes.”
She leaned closer still, looming over me. Her mouth was a gash of red,
like the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice, bloodyy and oracular. Behind it her
teeth shone sharp and white as bone.
“Good.” Carelesslyy, as if to herself, she added, “You will be dead soon
enough.”
She turned and dove into the sea, leaving no ripples behind her.
I DID NOT GO straight back to the palace. I could not. I went to the olive
grove instead, to sit among the twisting trunks and fallen fruits. It was far
from the sea. I did not wish to smell the salt now.
You will be dead soon enough. She had said it coldlyy, as a fact. She did
not wish me for his companion, but I was not worth killing. To a goddess,
the few decades of human life were barelyy even an inconvenience.
And she wished him to be a god. She had spoken it so simplyy, as if it
were obvious. A god. I could not imagine him so. Gods were cold and
distant, far off as the moon, nothing like his bright eyyes, the warm mischief
of his smiles.
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