OPHELIA

  FOR ALL THE GREATNESS the Spartan King declares of himself, I cannot help but find it is not enough.
  The tales are tall and the rumours bold of what lies within the palace of the Spartan mountain, and yet still they pale in comparison to the reality. I doubt there is any verbal manifestation able to hold a flame to this, if there is, those who hear but never see will call it lies.
  I called it lies, until now.

  It's carved from the rock face of the mightiest of mountains, a message that cries that even nature must make way for this King of Kings. His works are meant to be looked upon, despaired before, worshiped. If only by a man so godly that his creations are just that, otherworldly and unless seen unable to be believed.

  Not one thing in this palace is simple. His floors are not plain, but streaked marble and tiled with mosaics. Depicting tales of war and wager, blood and birth, even some of sanctity — with fair-faced maidens with their arms so full of love, and bodies born of worship.

  These walls are smooth to the touch — though I do not dare touch, instead I follow Sir Deimos silently, with wandering eyes that look upon what they please; unbridled with want.

How can a King so cruel look upon such beauty and command it? How can a mind so vile conjure such wonder? Such certainty?
  Surely such a beast should live somewhere just as beastly, a cave perhaps, or maybe a marsh. But here I look upon his palace, and for all the wickedness in his heart, I see his soul — here, cast upon these walls, in art.

  These walls are flawless as unworked palms, and I wonder just how many men bled down to the bone to secure such finery. An eternity of labour would not have been long enough to craft something so fine.
  Perhaps there is barbarism in this beauty after all.

  Previously, when the King sat for his tributes upon a throne of broken swords, there was allure in that too — in all the harsh edges and divinity of it, yet the cruelty of that had been forefront. It may have taken days, but nonetheless I could count the swords and so determine the deaths needed to construct such a thing.
  This palace is not so, it prefers to keep its savagery sacred, locked away beneath stony floors and guarded doors. But some things can only stay safe for so long — the Cretan King, Minos, locked his beast away in Daedalus' labyrinth, and just look how that ended; with Minos boiled alive and the remains of his creature dashed upon the rocks.

  "Ophelia," From his lips my name is shocking, a stark awakening limned in sincerity, "Save yourself and do not give the King an excuse."

  "An excuse to what?" I ask, frowning as we approach another door, wide as five men and guarded by two. Behind it there is a low rumble of chatter and upon our arrival the sentries throw open the doors with low, stooping bows.

  "Demand your favour." He says warningly, and though his face is shielded there is a blackness that lingers there, beyond the shadows. A darker shade of night. "Bite your tongue before he bites it for you."

Laid out in front of me is a great hall, alive with feast, the room long and wide and open-aired. The entire back wall is open, a colossal balcony of sorts, with a marble railing giving way to dripping fountains of ivy and an unimpaired view of the city below.
In the distance the orange flame of daylight begins to sink. It hovers above the King's head like a halo of molten sun, reflecting in the curves of his circlet. He's as tall sitting as I am standing. He lounges in his chair at the head of the long table, carefree and leisurely in a way only a King can be, whilst the world waits tensely around him — for his next move.

"Sir Deimos," He calls; voice a tremor to the earth, "Come, sit beside me, bring your women too so we may introduce them to Daedalus."

The craftsman sits to the left of the Spartan King, and to his right, four empty spaces remain at the otherwise thriving feast. The table is long and large and laden with bowls of beaten bronze, each one overflows with an abundance of food — more so than I've seen in my life.
My stomach gnaws at the sight and we sit: Sir Deimos, me, Ascella, then Andromeda.

Someone says something, either Daedalus or Sir Deimos but I am not listening. My eyes are fixed upon the bowls, inlaid with gems and painted figures, each one piled high with a different fare. Nearest the King; meats from every animal, more fresh fish than can be caught in a day, seeded breads and kelp that looks like the legs of stringy, green sea creatures.  I spy an array of cheeses further down, boundless vines of grapes, glistening olives — stone-stoppered viles of honey. No pomegranates.

Here wine flows like water, poured generously and drank starvingly, desperately, as if such a thing may run out and they'll never taste it again.
  Back home such libations are few and far between, only set upon for rituals, sacrifices and on the rare occasion there is reason to — celebrations.

  I look up when I feel the Spartan King's gaze. Much like his presence, his eyes are far from silent. A heady weight, pressing and oppressive. Like the hottest chill the air has ever known. Cold as ice, yet they alight such a shocking heat inside me. Maybe it's the prickle of my skin that alerts me to his focus, or the dancing shiver of my fine hairs standing on end.

  It's an aching thrill — his presence — like the static that comes about before a strike of lightning, or the brief moment in which a heart lurches before it's torn. It's dangerous, that much is certain.

  Perhaps, like ours, the spilling of the Spartan King's wine symbolises sacrifice after all. The slaughter may only be yet to come. He already has my father, locked beneath these palace floors, and though he says his crimes are not our own — unless we make them — this Northern King reeks of faithlessness. How many of the swords he sat upon were Spartan silver?

"Eat." He commands, and I look away, pretending his words weren't meant for me, like I wasn't just glaring back at him with a head full of blasphemy.

  Delicately, and with the slow sophistication a lady should, I take bite-fulls of bread and cheese, all too aware that I'm being watched. The food, like everything else in this foreign land, is like nothing I have tasted before.

  "What do you think?" Asks the Spartan King.
  And I am too wise a woman to think he's speaking to me, so I don't look up from my olive-flecked bread as the craftsman answers graciously, "I've never tasted such finery."

"— Of the women, Daedalus." The King drinks greedily from a jewel-incrusted chalice, his movements demanding attention and his lips wine-stained, plump with untouched divinity.

"Oh yes," The craftsman says awkwardly and with his eyes downcast, "They are perfectly lovely too."

  "She is for you," Says the King, tilting his chalice at my eldest sister. Andromeda pales, knuckles clenched beneath the table as she is talked about like she's not even there. "May she give you sons. Consider it a gift, a spur for all the future works you may create for me."

A spur — leverage — is what he really means. This man is no saint, instead, a sinner. And this is the cruelest game of all. It's frightening really, how quickly I catch on — how parallel our minds must run. Perhaps I am no less a monster than him after all, only I hide it better.
He has given my sister as leverage, for the craftsman to take wholly and completely — to love and to hold and to fill her womb with more sons for the King to barter with. Once the craftsman falls for her, which the King knows full well he will, as Daedalus is a good man — and good men not only have hearts, but show them too — then the game will truly begin.

"You are too kind my King, only I have no desire for a wife."

This is no kindness the King bestows upon him; it is a curse. And I wonder if Daedalus knows it too, this game the King plays, or if instead he is as foolish as the King believes him to be and his rejection comes from a place of grief for his past wife .
  For his sake I hope not.

"You desire sons though? For what man does not." There's a grin to his words. The flash of teeth that leers at evil incarnate. He knows Daedalus cannot refuse him.

  If he finds insult in the Northern King's scheming he does not show it. How humiliating, I think, to be spoken down to by a man half your age, even if he is royalty.
  By looks alone I cannot quite work out how old I think the King to be. He is unmarked with youth and gifted with a godly glow, the golden kind that casts him like a sunset.

   "I had a son..." Says the craftsman.

The King's grin grows, "— Lost one too, I heard. She may bare you another, as many as you wish."

***
QOTD-What's your opinion on Zeus?