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Thalia
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other God before me.
But Thalia was still building the damn fire, Pirithous’s knife waiting on the table beside the chicken bones from the dinner she’d shared with Steven the previous day. She’d disinfected the blade with rubbing alcohol before she came outside, and the fact that Pirithous hadn’t so much as twitched when she took it told her he needed sleep more than prayer and sacrifice. As if she hadn’t already known. Bleeding himself wasn’t going to do his immune system any favors, and for all she knew, it was the reason he’d gotten the infection in his shoulder to begin with.
No. That wasn’t entirely fair. Steven had found a few slivers of wood inside the mess of his shoulder, and those were probably the real reason he’d ended up with a fever. Thalia absolutely refused to believe it was his gods smiting him. Apollo couldn’t be that unreasonable. They had to realize that it didn’t help anything to make him sick, and they definitely weren’t going to get converts if they killed him. Then again, maybe there wasn’t anything reasonable about any god.
You shall not bow down to them or serve them: for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
“Forgive me,” she murmured as the flames caught the wood. “I’m not serving them, or bowing to them, I swear. But he can’t make the offerings himself right now, and he doesn’t have anyone else.”
To the third and fourth generation. And here she was hoping that Pirithous’s gods would be reasonable? Thalia chewed her bottom lip. Who was it that Pirithous prayed to? Persephone? That sounded right. Not that she had any idea what it was he said when he made his offerings. It was the thought that counted, right? The intent, more than the words. She wasn’t intending to worship other gods, or put them before her own. Did that make it less of a sin?
She took a deep breath and stepped back from the fire. Pirithous usually sliced open his palm and let the blood drip onto the bone, then burned it all together, unless he was making separate sacrifices to different gods. At least that was her impression. He never really explained what he was doing, exactly, and the prayers were all in his not-quite-Greek. She picked up the knife off the table and pulled it from the leather sheath, turning it over in her hands.
“God, protect me,” she said, closing her left hand around the blade and shutting her eyes.
“Thalia!”
The knife jerked with her surprise and her palm burned white hot. “Ow! Damnit, Pirithous!”
He vaulted over the railing of the deck, landing lightly on the ground eight feet beneath him and pulling the knife from her grasp before she had time to step back. She closed her hand into a fist, and hid it behind her back. He’d always made it look painless, but it was all she could do to keep from hissing at the fire in her palm.
“Do you have any idea what would happen if you gave them your blood?” he demanded.
“I was hoping they’d accept it in lieu of yours, while you healed.”
His knuckles were white around the hilt of the knife, and a sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “Not even your god could protect you, once you had given up your own blood freely in sacrifice!”
“Oh,” she said, swallowing the bitterness in her throat. But then, if she did give herself up to his gods, he couldn’t really argue that she’d be better off without him, could he? They could be together, if they shared the risk. She could take care of him and make sure he didn’t get deported.
His eyes blazed white and he stepped closer, towering over her. “What was that?”
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
The burning eyes narrowed. “Not what you said. Whatever you thought just then that filled you with wild hope.”
She stepped back until she hit the table with the chicken bones. “You said Persephone wanted you to remind people to pray. That she’d grant you her protection once you had. If I offer her a sacrifice, will that count? If I gave her my blood?”
He was staring at her with wide eyes now, his face pale and gray. He really shouldn’t have been out of bed at all, and she could see his exhaustion. He would probably have stopped her already if he hadn’t been using most of his strength to stay upright.
He shook his head slowly, as if trying to clear it. “There is no way of knowing. Not until the offering is made and the goddess gives her sign in the flame. But I would not have you at their mercy.”
She laughed, short and sharp, and turned away from him. As if she weren’t already at their mercy, worrying over him. Maybe they couldn’t hurt her directly, but they weren’t without powers of persuasion. Pirithous would die trying to protect her, but he’d never let her risk her life for his. Ridiculous hero complex. She offered him the bones, annoyed by the whole situation.
“You might as well make your offering before you go back to bed, since you’re up.”
He grunted, his eyes narrowing again as he searched the bones.
“My blood isn’t in the pile,” she assured him. “But don’t think you’re going to slice open your own hand this morning, okay? Bones only. You need your strength.”
With only one good hand, Pirithous had little choice but to trade her the knife he held for the plate with the bones, and she breathed easier once she held it again. She knelt as she’d seen him do and used a handful of grass to scrub the blade clean. It kind of worked, but he must have known some trick she didn’t.
He murmured his prayers and dropped the bones into the fire, swaying on his feet. Thalia sighed and went to him, slipping under his arm to keep him from tipping over.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get you back into bed before you collapse.”
***
PIRITHOUS WAS A LOT heavier than he looked. Sure, he was all muscle, and muscle generally weighed more anyway, but he wasn’t a bodybuilder. How had she not noticed how much he weighed with all the time she’d spent underneath him? He should have crushed her that first night, but all she could remember was her own frustration that he wasn’t inside her, and she was still clothed. There hadn’t been a moment’s discomfort in all their time together, outside of what had been done purposefully for both their pleasure.
She flushed, lowering Pirithous onto the bed and hoping he was too exhausted to eavesdrop on her emotional state. He mumbled something in his language that she was fairly certain meant thank you, but his eyes lingered on hers, warm as a sunny day.
“You should see to your hand,” he said.
“First things first.” She adjusted the pillows behind him and drew the sheet up over his body. “Go back to sleep.”
He snorted. “I do not dare. You will only find yourself more trouble. With the fortune that follows us, I would wake to find you had offered yourself to Zeus.”
She smiled, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Would it help?”
“No.”
“What would?”
He took her left hand, turning it palm up. The slice through her palm was shallow and much smaller than she’d thought from how much it hurt. “You are fortunate you did not do yourself greater harm.”
“You do it twice a day.”
“But I am half-god and know better how to use a knife.” He traced his thumb across the webbing of her own. “You could have lost the use of your thumb, had the blade bitten deeper.”
“I wouldn’t have cut myself so carelessly if someone hadn’t scared me half to death.”
He arched an eyebrow and her face flooded with warmth again. “With your eyes closed and your hand a fist around the blade, while you trembled?”
“How do you know I was trembling?” She pulled her hand back, closing it into a fist again, in spite of the burn along the cut. She really did need to wash it and find some kind of bandage that would stay put.
“Your fear woke me,” he said gently. “I thought the centaurs had come, or some other threat. Then I saw you with the blade in your hand and my heart nearly stopped with its own terror.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Nor I.” He raised his hand to her face, his palm hot against her cheek. “When I asked you not to pray to your Virgin, I did not mean you should pray to my gods instead.”
“I know.” She squeezed his hand and pulled it away. “And I wasn’t really. I just knew it would upset you if you couldn’t make your sacrifice, so I thought I could do it for you. But then I didn’t know the prayers, either, or who I should offer it to. Persephone, right?”
“Sacrifice is prayer, Thalia.”
“It isn’t like I was offering to serve them, or—or bowing down.” The second commandment rose up in her mind again, and she turned her face away. “My god is a jealous god,” she murmured, half under her breath. What exactly would God have done if she’d gone through with it? Would she have felt something break inside her, if she’d given Persephone her blood?
“Even more dangerous then,” Pirithous said, “to offer sacrifice without obedience. My gods are jealous too. More so, I think, than yours.”
“Do your gods punish the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of those who turn away from them?” she asked. “Or all of humanity for the sins of the first two?”
“There are blood-curses, passed down and inherited from father to son. My son likely never knew any love from Hera, to be sure. But I do not know that the gods have ever smote all of humanity because of the acts of one man. They punish us for their own failings though, at their whim. What sin does your god punish you for?”
“The pursuit of knowledge, I guess.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just disobedience. God told Adam and Eve they couldn’t eat the fruit of one tree, but then the serpent tempted Eve, and Eve ate it, and gave it to Adam to eat too. They were thrown out of the Garden, and now we all suffer death because of it, among other things.”
Pirithous smiled. “Is that what you think? That mortality is punishment?”
“Not just mortality, but yes.” She didn’t really like the way he was looking at her. As if she were a misguided child. “It’s what we believe.”
He shook his head. “I do not think this is so. Immortality can be a gift, I suppose, but what joy would there be in life if you lived forever? It is the risk of death that brings excitement. There would be no bravery, no honor, if death did not threaten us, if there was no fear.”
“I never thought about it, but if your gods do exist—”
“They do.”
“—then it kind of messes up the creation story. Or did your gods not create the world, too?”
“I do not understand,” Pirithous said. “Do you mean Gaia? She is the earth, Uranus the sky above, but I would not say they were, either of them, created. They simply are.”
“Who made humanity, then?”
“The gods.”
“Well how can your gods have made mankind if my God made mankind?”
“Perhaps they both made different men,” Pirithous said, smiling. “Certainly there has been more than one race of men in the world. Each god to his own.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asked, studying his face. “That we were all made by different gods?”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “I am the son of Zeus, Thalia. My grandfather is Kronus, and my great-grandfather, Uranus, the sky itself, who covered Gaia and brought forth the Titans as her children. Is this not more important than which god made which men?”
“Wars have been fought over which god made which men, and which races are worthy of salvation. Maybe people didn’t care three thousand years ago, but they do now.”
He grunted, settling back against the pillows and tipping his chin up to rest his head against the headboard. “There are not wars enough that you need walls around your cities, or clothing that does not restrict your movement. Nor have I seen a weapon of any kind in your home but the sword and knife I brought myself. If these beliefs were so large a conflict, surely you would care more for your safety.”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “In the United States, our country was founded on the separation of church and state, because most of the people who settled here had been persecuted once, in their homelands, but it hasn’t stopped people from trying to impose their beliefs through the manipulations of those principles, either. The fights are different, and the means by which they’re fought have changed a lot. That doesn’t mean the conflict isn’t still there, simmering beneath the surface on all levels of government and in a lot of communities. But of course we don’t have walls around our cities—there hasn’t been a war here since 1860, a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“That is a long time to live at peace,” Pirithous murmured. “Is it so the world over?”
Thalia grimaced. “That’s kind of a sore subject. We keep involving ourselves in wars overseas. I mean, the terrorist attacks kind of changed everything. Before we were involved, of course, but now we have troops overseas dying for who knows what...”
“I do not understand,” he said. “You have been at peace for a hundred and fifty years, yet you are warring against other nations? How is such a thing considered peaceful?”
“We haven’t had any wars here,” she clarified. “On our own soil. We’ve been at war with and in other countries plenty. The world has kind of turned into a mess this last couple of... decades, I guess. Ugh. Or maybe it was always a mess, looking for an excuse to happen. That we helped make happen. I don’t know.”
“I see,” he said, but by his tone she wasn’t sure if he’d understood half of it. “No wonder the gods hope to rekindle the old faith. Wars were always good to them.”
“I don’t think they’ll get any converts in the Middle East. They’re pretty serious about their faith out there—not that we aren’t, too.” She winced at her own bias. Explaining all of this to Pirithous—what he really needed was an International Affairs 101 course, and she wasn’t at all qualified to provide it.
Pirithous smiled, lifting his head to meet her eyes. “I do not know the lands of this Middle East. We had no such place in my time.”
“Oh.” She twisted, searching the bookshelf. Maybe she wasn’t qualified, but she was what Pirithous had, the person he trusted to even ask, when she knew how much he hated admitting he didn’t know. That he hated revealing his ignorance. She had to have a map somewhere. No, not in her room. “I’m pretty sure that Alex had a globe—hang on one minute.”
He nodded, his forehead furrowed, and she left him to search her brother’s room at the other end of the hallway. At least it gave her a breath to organize her thoughts. It wasn’t that she was entirely oblivious to world events so much as she had been neck deep in graduate school work the last few years, and undergrad before that. And really, anything she knew would be a help to him—even if she didn’t know it all.
The globe was on Alex’s desk. A little bit outdated, she noticed, but at least Russia wasn’t labeled the USSR. She brought it back to her bedroom, balancing it on her lap after she sat down again.
Pirithous’s eyes went wide. “What is this?”
“It’s like a map, only 3-D. Or did your people not know the earth was round yet? I thought that was a Greek thing first?”
He stared at it, his good hand tracing the ridges of mountain ranges. “This is your world?”
“I think it’s everyone’s world,” she said, smiling. Now who was a child? She spun the globe on its axis, looking for Afghanistan. “Okay, so. This is Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel. And you know Egypt.” She spun the globe slightly. “And this is the United States of America. See how big it is? That’s why we don’t have walls around our cities. There’s no one to wage war on us, really, anymore, not since we kind of genocided our way from sea to shining sea, and with the oceans—well, let’s just say we’re not generally in a lot of danger from outside forces. Canada is friendly, even if they think we’re kind of ridiculous sometimes, and Mexico isn’t unfriendly, even if we treat them horribly.” She grimaced, thinking of the border camps. The migrants they’d been denying even basic human rights and dignity for years. The children torn from the arms of their parents, their family. “Especially recently. And we have good defenses, even if someone tried to fire missiles at us—or at least I hope we do.”
“May I?” Pirithous asked.
She passed him the globe, watching him as he searched its face. “It took me nearly a month to sail to Egypt in my day. How do you wage wars in such faraway lands? Does it not take years to travel such great distances?”
“We fly.”
He looked up, his gaze sharp. “Fly? Like Daedalus and Icarus with wings made of wax?”
“No.” She grinned. “We have airplanes. It only takes a matter of hours to go even half way around the world. Well—twelve to fourteen, I guess, but still.”
He shook his head. “I do not know airplane.”
“It’s a giant... machine? With wings. But they don’t flap. It glides. Like a hawk or an eagle, I guess. Made out of metal, but hollow inside, so you can fill it with people, like a car. You can go anywhere.” She sighed. “I wish I could take you to Greece by plane. I think you’d enjoy the trip. But they’d never let you on an airplane without a passport. Once you left they’d never let you back in, and I have no idea if Greece would accept you there, either, even if we did somehow manage to get you out of the country on this end.”
His attention had drifted back to the globe, and she was sure now that he didn’t know what she was talking about. Pirithous didn’t understand why anyone would refuse a hero a place at their table, and he still thought of countries as cities with individual kings who could be appealed to and made into guest-friends. Thalia’s hand went to her arm without thinking, and the gold band that she no longer wore. She’d moved it from the kitchen to the dresser, because Pirithous hadn’t taken it back. Probably he would be deeply insulted if she asked him to, but she couldn’t bring herself to wear it anymore. It hurt too much, knowing that none of this could last.
Because of his obnoxious hero complex. She stared at her hand where she had cut it. At least the bleeding had stopped. There had to be a way. If she threw a bone in the fire covered in her blood, like he did, and gave herself to Persephone...? She touched the cross at her throat and the movement caught Pirithous’s attention. He nodded to her hand.
“You should wrap it,” he reminded her. “See to your hand.”
“Pirithous—”
“See to your hand, Thalia,” he said softly. “So we do not both fall to fever.”
She sighed and rose. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
But his gaze was already on the globe again, devouring it. All the places he would never get to go.
Her stomach twisted. There had to be a way around all this. If she could just speak to the gods, to Persephone...
She would find a way.