Discord's Apple

Sinon caught it by the grip and swept it in an arc to finish the motion of its flight. He hefted it, turning it to study its edge.

“Do it,” Apollo said. “Kill yourself and get the impulse out of your system.”

It was a trick. Sinon knew it was. The god wouldn’t have brought him here to torment him, only to watch him kill himself.

He didn’t want to kill himself. He never would have thought it, even if he’d been captured by the Trojans, tortured and enslaved while all his friends perished. Courage came in persevering. Odysseus taught him that. But this place was different. Did courage mean anything here?

He would not be a slave, not to the Trojans, not to a god.

He turned the sword, grippe

d it with both hands, set the point in the middle of his belly, just under his ribs. His heart was racing. This isn’t right. He gave his mind over to panic and stumbled forward, driving the sword in as he did.

Pain followed the metal through his flesh. Moaning, he fell to his knees. He stayed there, holding the wound, feeling blood pour over his hands. Now I am a slave to Hades.

Apollo, a mocking curl to his lip, came to him, gripped the sword, and yanked it out. Sinon cried out and doubled over, holding his belly because he felt as if his guts were spilling out.

Then the pain lessened. The blood on his hands dried. His organs didn’t burst onto the grass. He straightened and looked, smoothing his hands over the front of his tunic. The cloth was still ripped, but the wound in his belly was gone. Healed.

“You cannot die.” Apollo used the bloody point of his sword to flick at the chain around his neck. “Another thing—in Troy they call you the Liar. I can’t have that here, for I am the god of Truth. As long as you wear that chain, you cannot lie.” He turned and went away.

Sinon collapsed, his breath coming in gasps, his mind flailing, refusing to understand.

I killed myself and did not die. I am neither alive nor dead now.

Time passed. Sinon lived in luxurious captivity, richly fed and clothed, lingering amid the entertainments of the Sun Palace. Apollo summoned the best musicians, dancers, and bards to perform for him. Sinon kept to the shadows, intensely jealous because the performers could leave at the end of the evening.

He ran. He jumped hedges and raced his shadow, as if still training to be a warrior. He made himself a wooden sword out of a tree branch and practiced hitting at shrubs, scattering leaves and broken branches around him on the lawn. Sweating deadened his mind and kept him from trying to be clever like Odysseus.

The sun never set on Apollo’s palace. Always, it was midday—always a little too warm, too bright. Tracking one day to the next was impossible.

One day, walking in the garden, he startled a woman who was bathing in one of the pools. She gasped, covering her breasts with her arms. He quickly turned away. With his luck, the Sun God’s sister had come for a visit, and he knew the stories that told what happened to men who spied Artemis at her bath.

He’d started to leave, when she called him back. “Wait a moment. You must be Sinon. The Greek.”

He stopped. Her voice was bright, good-natured.

“I’d heard you were a prisoner here. Don’t be shy—stay and talk with me. You were at Troy, weren’t you? Will you tell me stories of the war?”

Cautiously, he approached. She modestly hid herself in the water, only her head and neck breaking the surface. She was young, with a rosy, shining face to match her voice. He couldn’t guess the color of her hair, which was dark with water and slicked back.

Smiling, she nodded at the brick-lined edge of the pool. “Sit here, so I don’t get a crick in my neck staring up at you.”

This had to be a trick. He had seen women at the palace—nymphs and minor goddesses come to sport with Apollo and each other, indulging in the god’s hospitality. None had ever spoken to him. Sinon knelt a little way from the pool’s edge.

“You don’t trust me,” she said.

“I don’t trust anything about this place.”

“Wise man.”

“Who are you?”

“Celeste.”

“Are you a nymph? Or something else?”

“I’m . . . something,” she said. Her smile filled her expression, so at ease and lovely.