She hums. "You know little of prophecy. All mortals are thus: it is not for them to know the workings of the cosmos. Listen and listen well: a little shadow of a great mystery shall I sketch for you. Fate binds mortal lives, nor is it Ours to unbind them; why should this be so? Even Zeus does not intervene for those He favours. Is He unable? Or unwilling? I tell you now it is the latter, for the balance of all there is depends upon Fate. The wrath of Zeus then is provoked by what you did: for prophecy is as the skeleton of Fate, and you twisted it grievously in hearing those words from the soothsayer's lips. Do you understand?"

Something red rises in his chest. “How could it be so different from consulting the Oracle at Delphi? I have every right to know of my own future.”

"Have you never wondered why the Delphic oracles speak in riddles and half-truths? Why not simply speak the future in plain words?"

He exhales, stretching out his muscles.

“Alright. Alright. You need not continue.”

Ambrosios turns, picking up his cloak from the ground in one deft movement. There is colour in his cheeks again; strength in his body; life in his eyes. “Thank you, Goddess, for this boon. I will not waste it.”

"I hope not."

Her voice is grim, and her eyes bright. 

"To hear the future so plainly is a grave burden as well as an opportunity, Ambrosios; take care, for the path you walk is beneath the Cloudgatherer's eye, and even I cannot divine My father's mind."

The woman turns, and the bird takes flight and is gone. 

He has not been walking for a minute before the sheer magnitude of his folly crashes over him like a wave.

There is no hope, none at all, that this is going to work. 

Why then does he continue?

For continue he does, heavy steps towards the Pylian camp. 

No tricks today: none of his men scattered about, no cunning plot. 

He marches, as if to war.

…

There are no soldiers about the King’s camp. No warriors aside from the Queensguard.

The place is eerie. Weapons have been laid aside as though this were a ghost town, but servants bustle back and forth regardless, invisible as they always are.

The path ahead is clear to Ophellios’ chambers. Only there.

It is only a matter of walking inside.

The place is lit dimly with candles; incense swirls in the air.

There is a path, from a bathtub in the heart of the room, laid out by wet prints of bare feet on marble. Ceremonial water grows cold.

With his back turned, the King kneels trance-like before a shrine on the far side of the chamber. His hair is made dark with water and curls at the nape of his neck; droplets run down his spine like small diamonds. Goosebumps rise.

He is draped in white fabric and little else, murmuring supplications to a statuette of his father. Aetos does not speak the foreign tongue he prays in.

A glint in the Cretan’s eye is a warning. There are no sacrifices. No calves, no lambs. Reflecting the candlelight, clutched in the young king’s hand, an ornamental dagger rests like a slumbering beast on the ground.

"What are you doing?"

The silence that falls is sharp; discordant. It rings painfully in Aetos’ ears, fading into beats like a war-drum as the seconds slowly pass.

Ophellios straightens, his muscles like iron – but he does not turn away from the ritual.

“Are you here to finish it?”

The muscles stand out rigidly like cords on his arms, in his neck; the war has been long and hard, and in that moment he looks... careworn, weathered, like a ship after a summer of storms. 

The boy isn't using the knife; that much is good. 

"No." His voice is calm, quiet; after so long lost in a sea of uncertainty and hesitance, this mad path is, at least, wondrously clear. "At least, not in the way you think."

…

"You do not want this." It's surprising, now, how easily the words come. "I could say that all this is folly - it is - but what matters more, it is not your will. And I thought... I thought I should not leave you to this alone."

Slowly, he turns his head. His profile in sharp relief, he looks an echo of the statue of Phoebus before him.

His hands itch to go for a weapon.

"You cannot tell me truly that you think this for the best."

“Tell me why you came.”

"I thought it was time for you to know the truth."

“I already know too much.”

He takes a deep breath. 

The truth is that I-

"Pylian King, what do you believe is the true tale of all these strange and terrible events?"

His lips curl in a cynical perversion of a smile.

“You finally wish to listen?”

Ruefully he half-smiles. "All else has failed."

He shakes his head slowly. “I owe you much, Lord of Crete; but I do not owe you that.”

"I think you and I are very far beyond talk of debts owed. Do you not see the course on which you are set?"