An Eye for an Eye

“Ah. It’s you.”

Zelos spun around with a grin. His expression was mimicked by the skulls implanted in the wall above his bed, each with shining gold and silver teeth – trophies of his ascent to power.

“You’re not with Hades yet?”

Poena withdrew a long iron needle from her belt. After a moment, she averted her eyes. “Not yet.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Yes. Very unfortunate for you.”

She slid the needle between her third and fourth fingers and secured the handle under her thumb, careful not to prick herself. Still, she did not look at him.

“That’s… what I meant.”

Rolling his eyes, Zelos turned away from her and she heard the clinking of metal against glass as he poured himself a drink.

With a relieved sigh, she returned her gaze to her target. His bare back, twice the size of her own and roped with muscle, was carved with deep, ugly scars. Some of them had been gifts from her own hand.

Poena took a careful step towards him, her padded sole as silent as a cat’s paw.

“Would you like a drink?” Zelos asked politely.

“No.”

With a chuckle, the man twisted once more to face her, stopping her dead in her tracks. “Are we not old friends? Can’t we take a few moments to enjoy one another’s company?”

Poena averted her gaze again. “I have a… separate request.”

“Go on.”

“Could you please dress yourself?”

Zelos raised his eyebrows and glanced down the length of his body, as if only now recognising his nakedness.

“Well,” he said. “The last thing I would have expected from my assassin is tact.”

Poena watched him out of her periphery as he strode to his bed and donned a silken gown of faded gold, turning his back once more as he secured it around his waist.

In the split second his shoulder had angled away and his eyes dropped to his hands, Poena lunged. She latched onto his back like a limpet, driving her entire weight forward, and speared her needle viciously into the side of his throat.

The needle snapped against his skin.

Poena paused for a second too long, staring at her broken weapon in shock. Zelos’s fingers shot backward and wrapped tight around her throat, lifting her off of him with ease. With his other hand, he casually rubbed the faint mark on his neck.

“Did you really think that would work?”

Zelos began to close his fingers. Poena clawed desperately at his hand. There was cold delight in his eyes.

“You’ve been gone for a long time,” he said. “Long enough for my strength to grow. What has happened to yours?”

Poena attempted to kick him in the groin but her foot could only just reach the hard slab of his stomach. He didn’t flinch.

“You’ve spent so long wondering what it takes to kill me,” Zelos said. “I’ve spent almost as long wondering how to make you stay dead.”

With the same effort it might take to swat a fly, he tossed Poena headlong through the window she had used to enter his bedchamber. She smashed through the glass and bounced down the roof tiles, falling twenty feet to the courtyard below.

When Poena regained consciousness, she was unable to do much but writhe in agony. Her chest felt crushed by the impact. Each gasping breath brought the sharp taste of copper to her tongue.

The sound of bare feet smacking loudly against the stones near her head brought her suddenly back to lucidity. She opened her eyes. Zelos was standing over her in his expensive golden robe, the night sky hauntingly empty beyond the outline of his face. No stars, no moon – just an absence of light.

“There aren’t many books on the subject,” Zelos continued, just barely out of breath. “I haven’t yet found a rendition of ‘How To Kill An Incredibly Persistent Spirit’. Perhaps I’ll be the one to write it. Someday.”

“I’ll…” Poena paused to cough, and blood dribbled from between her teeth. She licked it from her lips. “I’ll kill you.”

Zelos sighed. There was cold distaste in his gaze.

“Unfortunately, not tonight.”

He reached down, grasped her by the locks of her hair, and lifted her into a sitting position. Poena stared up at him through squinted eyes, one arm slung across her chest as if to hold herself together. She braced for the killing blow to land, as it had many times before.

To her surprise – and horror – Zelos instead released her and stepped back.

He said, “Truthfully, and as much as I hate to admit it… I need something from you.”

Poena spat out a globule of blood and saliva, glowering at him. She already felt the agonizing, tingling warmth of her body mending, pulling the injured tissue back together.

“And you need something from me,” he added.

“Your head.”

“Very funny.” He smiled, but there was no humour or delight in it this time. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, darling. There is someone else who requires both of our attention.”

Poena pushed herself to her feet, swaying, and faced Zelos with a scowl.

“Palamon is on your little hitlist, isn’t he?” Zelos said. “Recently, he’s also risen on mine.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Zelos shrugged. “Well–”

With as poor timing as ever, Zelos’s men arrived.

They flooded into the courtyard in droves, surrounding them with glinting shields and spears. Had she fewer broken bones, Poena may have cleared the space between herself and Zelos in two bounds. Instead, the sharp jut of two iron points against her back held her in place.

Many of the men seemed unsure of what to do, puzzled at the sight of their god and his bleeding assassin conversing in their courtyard.

“Y-your Holiness–”

“Another attempt on my life,” Zelos muttered. “What do I pay you for?”

The soldier who had spoken, tall and gleaming in his full suit of armour, audibly gulped.

“Well… you don’t pay me at all, sir.”

Another heavy silence fell over the courtyard, interrupted only by the awkward shuffling of Zelos’s men.

“Call for my doctor,” Zelos sighed. “She needs medical attention.”

Poena’s eyes widened. The crowd shifted uneasily around her.

“I don’t,” she snapped.

She hurriedly looked around for an escape, eagle-eyed, but she was fully enclosed by Zelos’s grim-faced men.

The false god sighed again. “What else can I do to show you I’m serious?”

“Nothing.”

Silence fell; a tense impasse followed in the dark courtyard.

Poena had one needle left to strike with. If she could not escape, she would try to kill him again.

With a brief wave and a barked command, Zelos dismissed his soldiers. They reluctantly withdrew their spears and returned to the doors of the palace. Poena itched to disappear into the perfect darkness of the night, but something in the strange calm of Zelos’s gaze held her there.

Once the soldiers were gone, he turned his back on her. He offered his vulnerability to her once again.

“You will never stop coming after me, will you?” he said quietly.

“Never.”

“Even though we both know he had more to do with father’s death than I did…”

Poena had already speared her second needle between her fingers. If his skin would not yield, she was certain one of his orifices would do the trick. An eye, perhaps… for an eye.

“Oh, enough,” she spat bitterly. “You wanted the power of a god all to yourself. It was not enough being his favourite.”

“And Palamon?”

“He will not escape what’s coming for him. But he was not my brother. My friend.” Her voice wobbled. She clutched her fist so tight that her knuckles whitened. “I will relish watching the life fade from his eyes… once I am done with you.”

“What if I offer you a bargain?” Zelos said quietly. “My life. As long as you help me kill the bastard first.”

Poena spluttered. She waited for him to turn with a mocking grin on his face. His broad shoulders remained turned to her.

“What?” she whispered.

“My life,” he repeated. Finally, he spun around, and his mouth was thin and unsmiling. Poena saw real torment in his eyes. “I will give it to you. I reckon I could outrun my fate for a few more centuries, but I’m not sure I want to. Not if he still lives.”

She examined his expression carefully, searching for the trick.

“What did he do to you that has made you so soft, all of a sudden?”

“He took my daughter.”

The words cut through her like a knife slice. They were followed by a sharp, unrelenting silence that tasted heavier than the blood in her mouth. Poena regarded him without sympathy; only bitterness.

“He took someone you treasured, did he?”

“Poena–”

“I’m glad, really,” she snarled, stepping closer despite her aching ribs. “I am glad that fate has finally turned on you the pain you inflicted on me.”

Zelos closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring as a shadow of his old rage crossed his face. He raised a heavy fist as if to strike her down, and Poena tensed, shifting the iron needle between her fingers, ready to stab him in return.

And then, slowly, he opened his palm.

“Make the bargain with me,” he whispered. “Please.”

Poena looked from his open hand to the hollow look in his eyes.

“Give me one good reason to trust you. Or any reason, for that matter.”

“I can’t.”

They met eyes, trapped in yet another impasse under the starless sky. Poena knew she would not kill him today; her body was too broken, and the ghost of their childhood hung too heavily between them. But if Palamon truly had his daughter, the world was about to burn. And if she agreed to this alliance, she was guaranteed to have Zelos's life another day.

Slowly, Poena lowered her weapon and tucked it back into her belt.

“Where is he?” she asked.

Zelos let out a breath that sounded like a deflating balloon. He looked away, turning his gaze toward the dark, imposing silhouette of his palace walls.

“The eastern strongholds, past the salt flats. He's gathering an army of his own. He thinks he's untouchable because he holds the keys to the underworld gates…”

Poena didn’t answer right away. She closed her eyes and focused inward. The mending was the worst part of her divinity. It was not a painless magic; it was a violent reconstruction. Beneath her skin, she could feel the jagged edges of her broken ribs grinding against each other, pulling together with wet, sickening clicks. Muscle fibers knit themselves back into alignment like hot wires twisting under her flesh. She forced herself to stand perfectly still, refusing to let Zelos see her flinch as her body put itself back together.

When she opened her eyes, the dizziness had cleared. The taste of copper on her tongue was fading, replaced by the cool night air.

“The salt flats are a three-day march,” Poena said, her voice steadier now. “And your men are useless. I saw how they cowered when you raised your voice.”

“They are mortal,” Zelos said softly, glancing back at her. “They fear death because it's permanent for them. You and I… we have forgotten what that kind of fear feels like. But Palamon remembers. He’ll learn it again.”

He reached toward his gold robe, tearing a strip of the fine silk from the hem. He held it out to her. Poena stared at the fabric.

“What is that for?”

“To wipe the blood from your chin,” Zelos said, his mouth twisting into a ghost of his old, arrogant smirk. “You look like a monster, darling. It ruins your… mystique.”

She snatched the silk from his hand, cursing him silently. The fabric was soft, smelling faintly of myrrh and expensive oils. It was the scent of the life he had stolen for himself while she hunted in the shadows. She wiped her face, staring at the dark red stains on the gold cloth before tossing it carelessly onto the stone floor.

“We leave at dawn,” Poena said, stepping past him toward the edge of the courtyard.

“The soldiers will see us,” Zelos warned. “They will wonder why the god of the citadel is traveling with his executioner.”

“Let them wonder,” she muttered, looking up at the high stone wall. Her strength was returning, the divine blood in her veins humming with renewed vitality. She caught the edge of a stone pillar, her fingers tracing the ancient masonry, and hoisted herself up with effortless grace.

Before she vanished into the perfect darkness of the night, she paused, looking down at Zelos one last time. He looked small standing alone in the empty courtyard, stripped of his grand illusions, a god begging a mortal's shadow for help.

“Don’t sleep too soundly tonight, Zelos,” she whispered into the dark. “Our bargain only protects you from the front. If I see an opening from behind, I might just take it.”

Zelos didn’t look up, but she heard his quiet, bittersweet chuckle echo against the stones.

“I would expect nothing less, sister.”

Poena turned and vanished into the starless night, the weight of the poisoned needle heavy at her hip, keeping her promise alive.