Ghost Queen in the House of Love

28. Onia

Cadmus returns to court as if he hasn't been gone, and everything resumes as it always has.

Except, it doesn't. It can't. It is as if things haven't changed in so long, but once I looked away and scrutinized them once more, they've irrevocably transformed. Not too long ago, I could convince myself to act content as a dutiful wife and passive queen.

He keeps his distance from me. When he looks at me, at my changing body, he doesn't seem to really see me at all. I realize I don't mind.

Circe. Somewhere in this palace of ivory and roses, but so far away. I must pretend I don't miss how she looked at me.

When I tell him about Kalypso in our chambers, he adjusts his laurel in the mirror and waves a hand. "Witches." He comes over to where I sit on the bed and sets a hand on my shoulder. "Anyhow, I'll find you new girls, and you can dismiss them as you wish."

My skin tingles where he touches, not from affection but from the strange electricity inside me, and he withdraws his hand, his frown deepening. At least he isn't as cruel as he was. How long that will last, I can't say. Nor can I say what I'd do to him if he tried to bruise my wrist again.

He doesn't ask about Circe, of course, likely relieved that she's gone. Realizing that he doesn't mind my curse so much, after all; it kept me servile. With its luck, it might surge back and render me irreconcilably melancholic or apathetic. Even without it, there's little keeping me from returning there; it's always been a part of me, and my power here, no matter my title, is as constant as sand.

I am the daughter of love and war. I will meet my challenges. And when our eyes meet, and hesitation hollows out his stare, I think, good. He hasn't forgotten.

Before I leave to brush my own hair, he calls to me, "I have found women interested in replacing 'Kora'." The way he says it interests me, as if these women, who he likely has hand-selected, clamored to come here. Perhaps they did. After a life here, I never realized things beyond the palace were less than idyllic. The way the Olympians told it, those loyal to them bask in eternal paradise until they die.

I look over my shoulder. "Oh?"

***

Indeed, Cadmus has assigned three new maids to me: Calliope, Helena, and Phelia.

Outside our chambers, in the sitting room with its plush, low klines and crystal amphoras of spiced wine, he has the three of them line up for me, all in simple, unadorned white chitons.

Calliope is a thin, lanky girl of seventeen with her ashen hair in a long braid down her shoulder.

Helena is a small, gray-eyed woman of twenty-nine with brown tresses and a concerned line above her brow. She rocks on her heels.

Phelia, or Ophelia, is a lovely, auburn-haired woman of twenty-six with rosy, freckled cheeks and a generous shape; her locks form a braided circlet around her head.

With a perfunctory smile, I tell Cadmus, "I will accept them into my service. Thank you, my king." Vaguely, I think of how regal he looks in purple.

"Of course. I am happy to do it." He presses a kiss to the top of my hand.

As the days pass, I can feel the new handmaidens watching me. Calliope is timid, Helena is nervous, and Phelia is jovial.

When they speak to one another and laugh over quips and stray observations, it doesn't seem they are in allegiance. I imagine one of them reporting to him. Perhaps I can find a way to change that. Mother always taught me there are ways to learn about allegiances without force.