OPHELIA

YOU. THE WORD FRACTURES, splintering a thousand times over — each and every shard fatally finding its way into my chest.

You. One word. Three letters. And yet, I wear it like a manacle. It is a chain, thick and heavy, coiling itself about the brittleness of my bones, scoring irreparably into what is almost certain to be my fate.

You. Some storm builds within me and at first, I cannot tell what it is, sorrow and rage manifesting within the same fiery space, each fuelling the other, and together, they become a far greater beast.

I let my face speak all the words I cannot. My eyes are screaming. My lips hold a cry, and I keep it there, in the corner of my mouth like an animal in a cage. Later, when I am alone, I will release it.
I will let my grief tear me apart from the inside out. But right now, I am a daughter of house Onasis.

For a long while, there is only silence. Nobody wants to be the first to speak, or perhaps nobody knows what to say. They do not congratulate Sir Deimos, for they all know that he made the wrong choice.
He should've had Andromeda, with her poetry and her angel's voice and her mind that would rival even his finest philosopher's.
  He could've had Ascella. Who'd have bourned sons with eyes like oaken pools, and smiles like the sun. He could've had a mural, born of a wife who could cast his face a thousand times upon the palace and a thousand times fairer.

  Instead, he has me. Me, with my tongue as a weapon and my words whetted to fine points. Me, who will hate him until the day that he dies. Me, who moments in, is already planning how best to steal his final breath.

I stare longingly at the sword sheathed at his hip, with its blood-stoned hilt and wonder, how many hearts that sword has known. How many people has this man killed? How many innocents? How many women...
Then I look up and let my distaste etch its way into every sullen line of my face. Sir Deimos stares back through shadows that limn his grey irises into soulless pits.

Foolish as always, my father's presence is felt to shift before he is heard, "Why not take another?" He says.

Sir Deimos holds my gaze, captures it as if it is something tangible, something that can be held. He holds it wholeheartedly and does not let it go, "I do not want another."

"You misunderstand me, Sir Deimos, I do not mean for you to forsake this daughter," Father says all too quickly and like I am not from him. Andromeda tries her best to shrink back as he places a hand on her shoulder. His favoured prize. "— But why settle for one when you may have all three? Take another why don't you."

This time, when the soldier speaks it is deadly low, a silencing order to a stupid man. Sir Deimos' eyes press into me, prodding at all the things he cannot have and I feel the very breath of him coiling around my neck like a noose. "I do not want another."

If I am reduced to nothing more than a body then each word is a stone and this new world is the ocean. My pockets, once brimming with hope are now filled with rocks as this world works its way into my bloodstream.

If I am to survive then I must learn to swim; fast.

  Every breath the Spartan King takes is lax; leisurely as if even death himself will wait for him, and the air, a thing to be commanded at his will.
Even the rise and fall of his muscled chest appears as if it's an act, perhaps more immortal than even he would be willing to admit. Why then? I wonder, it's certainly not as if he's worried about frightening the gentry away.
  After all, I see the way he looks at them, like insects swatting at a festering wound. Their presence makes his skin crawl, I can tell that much, though he doesn't exactly try to hide his distaste. He does not shut it out. He lets it in, welcomes it. And in turn, it too, pays him tribute, if only in the way of making the folk fear him more.

  They know he hates them. And so, they know he will have no reservations about killing them if their accolades are insufficient.

"Pray safe your daughters have not inherited your greed, Onasis." The King says, shocking the cavern into stark silence. "A most disparaging trait."

"My King?" Father's hand drops from Andromeda's shoulder. His face paling to sand.

"Yes, Onasis?" There is a shift, like static charging as the King sits forwards on his throne, goading an answer from a question that does not exist. "What is it?"

For once, my father does not fumble. He stands taller, chin raised and proud, steadfast in his self-destruction, "I meant no offence, my King, only to pay you homage — and so I offer to you a gift dearer to me than any coin may buy, three times over. I gift you not one, but all of my daughters."

Like fire. That's how the Spartan King's eyes burn. Like someone has stolen the sun from the sky and put it there, in his eyes. "There is no gift in all this world or the next that will sweeten your favour, Onasis."

"I'm not sure I understand —,"

" — You will," The King interrupts, his voice ripples like waves through water, freakishly calm, and yet somehow, enough, "In time."

  Sir Deimos's face is wicked through his mask. He knows what's coming. I realise with shocking sincerity that this has been planned. All along this has been a trap, to lure my father here, to the palace. It is confirmed when the King continues, "In the meantime, perhaps Sir Deimos and his men may help refresh your memory."

  " — Father!" Andromeda's voice rings out like a bell as wrought iron manacles are bound around the wrists of the blasphemer.
  Ascella is holding her back, Andromeda trying so desperately to run to him. The soldier's press forward, no less than three men laying hands to drag him away.
  My father does not fight. He knows his crimes just as well as the Spartan King claims to; face solemn with evident condemnation as he lets himself be led away.

  Andromeda sobs, grieving as if he is already dead, as if the moment he is to leave our sight he will cease to exist. And though Ascella tries to comfort her, even her own eyes leak tears. Salty tracks stain their faces.

  I look. And look. And feel nothing at all.

  Nobody comes for my comfort, to hold me like my sisters do. There is nobody to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, to soothe the ache away. I don't hurt, or maybe it's just I've been hurting all my life. Whatever it is, I don't feel it.

  I do not grieve for my father and I do not believe this unjust, for I do not know his crimes, but whatever they claim to be — I believe them without a doubt.

  "Come here, little lambs." The King says; eyes predatory as if we are something to be devoured and the bones discarded. "You needn't be afraid. Your father's crimes are not your own," He grins then and my skin crawls, needy with anticipation, "Not unless you make them."

  I am the only sister to willingly step towards the throne, obedient in a way that seems to please the King, as his eyes follow me and me alone.
  The guards force Andromeda and Ascella forwards; and my eldest sister trips and falls with a mournful shriek, a most pitiful, pathetic sound, only to be dragged to her feet by the back of her robe.

  "Sit beside me, won't you," He says, welcoming as a flame.

  Eyes wide, I nod; self-servingly dutiful as I kneel there, beneath his hand and beside the throne, alongside the mountain of things piled at his feet. Golden chalices, bone-ivory carvings, foreign pelts and native steel.

  "Good girl." He says.

  A moment later, my sisters kneel next to me, Andromeda sobbing silently still. A small dampness forms by her knees as her tears soak the dias. She is weak, I think, I will not be like her.

  "Bring the next." Commands the King, and soon the line shifts, bringing forth a middle-aged man.

  "Daedalus of no named house."

***
QOTD-Hands you if you know who Daedalus is;)