Chapter One

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When I was born my mother sought to name me Helle. A mighty name for her mighty first-born, neglecting to acknowledge that I was, in fact, my father’s second child after the slave-born Iapyx. Despite being mortal like me, he carried himself as if he knew he had the power to bring down the gods themselves. He commanded a room when he spoke, drew the attention of the gods, healed ailments as if he were blessed. The name my father eventually gave me, Icarus, seemed to damn me to existence within his shadow. After all, in our language, it was not just a name, but the word follower.

My mother first met my father through his work. As one of the king’s many slaves, they never interacted save for a glance or a stray smile. The king employed my father, Daedalus, as an inventor. He must’ve been the most skilled one in Crete, despite his unassuming appearance. He had wistful eyes and a white beard hugging his chin. Though many sung his praises as if he were divine, he was merely a mortal, and chose to keep his distance from the all-seeing gods that resided in Olympus.

King Minos’s castle was nothing short of beautiful. Long gilded hallways were passages between large rooms and courtyards, stone walls coated with climbing ivy. Gold trims snaked through each room, slightly warm to the touch as if it were freshly kissed by the sun. Some rooms were decorated with painted golden swirls, soft and curved and always being repainted by a sea of concubines and slaves. Olive-skinned, warm like the gold, their eyes smiling and catching those of any passerby, they would giggle and entertain themselves with hand games and rumors. It was among those concubines, beautiful and kind, where my mother resided.

My mother had soft brown hair and green eyes so bright they seemed lit from within. They would’ve met my father’s, the tension between them hot and humid as a summer day. I watch her smile at him as if she truly cares to listen to what he says. I watch her giggle at his jokes. Genuine or not, my father fell for it every time. So when Minos offered a concubine of his as payment to my father, he only had eyes for one out of the hundreds.

“This woman,” he said and pointed to her.

Minos considered her as just one of many and, despite her beauty, was not at all disappointed to sell her off. “Her name is Naucrate. And she is yours.”

It was the next day he met her in her gold-trimmed room in Minos’s castle. It was one that looked like all the others, barren and lived in, filled with the chatter of the other ladies. But it was clean, only a small pallet to rest on. It was underwhelming for such a large castle, allowing a romantic such as my father to believe he was rescuing her from an unsavory fate.

My mother heard the news. Word traveled fast among the slave girls, as if along a rushing river. She saw a path to freedom before her, one that lay within my father and the bearing of his child. When he came to collect her, she told him the name she dreamed of for her first born. Helle. For my boy as bright as the sun.

My father had never wanted a woman who wanted him. Iapyx’s mother had been deflowered by Daedalus’s wishes and not her own. He had no experience with women who dreamed of round bellies and nursing children.

“We will be married,” she said, “or you will leave me here. And if we are married, know this: you must relish the love you’ve had previously, because you will not invite another woman into our bed while I’m alive.”

Desire. Jealousy. These were new things to my father, and the inventor loved nothing more than to experiment. “A deal,” he said, and pressed his lips to her forehead as if to seal it. He had done the same to Iapyx’s mother and I’m certain he would do the same to any future lover. I do not know which brought her more joy: The love of my father or the envy of her fellow concubines that she had won it. I think she would have gone on raising my father’s children for eternity had she not grown old too fast. As a mortal she was soon stricken by the curse of being older than her fellow concubines. And my father did not desire a mature flower. When he told her so, just prior to my birth, was the only time he’d seen her weep.

After my birth, a concubine – whose name I will spare because there are so very many concubines – washed me and handed me to my mother. Another cleaned her, wiping away her sweat. Yet another fetched my father.

“Icarus,” my father said as he saw me.

But my mother wanted a Helle, a first-born who was brave and good tempered as the fresh ocean breeze. A son that gods would fear and mortals would worship. He placed a hand on my forehead.

“Let him be my Helle,” my mother said.

“And why?” my father wanted to know, “When he will do nothing but follow his brother’s lead?”

My mother thought, and even with me in her arms they loosened, taking me just a worlds’ breath farther away from her chest.

“Must I marry a god to be permitted to name my child after one?”

“Perhaps,” my father said. “Perhaps you must.”

Her face was stricken with horror. Once as a child I asked why the gods were so special. Iapyx said, “They command such power, and mortals must do nothing but obey them or face their wrath.”

My father was much more succinct. They aren’t.

“Surely a simple name wouldn’t invoke the gods’ wrath,” my mother pleaded. She had already envisioned her life with her son Helle, the mortal touched by gods.

“No. The gods are temperamental. They wouldn’t give a name to such a boy. He has many unpleasant features.”

My mother ceased to argue. I think by now she had made up her mind, and she knew better than to anger her husband.

She stood. There was only a soft flap of stomach remaining of her round belly, her cheeks fresh and rosy. She was still beautiful by any standard, despite being a king’s concubine.

“I understand,” she said. Then she left to find her Helle.

Despite my mortal birth, the ladies of the house always joked that I grew as quickly as a god. Many women tried to care for me in my mother’s absence, hoping to win over the love and status of my father. But they soon realized, time and time again, that my father no more appreciated their aid than he did the ground he walked on.

“Icarus has been left with me,” Iapyx said, “Again.”

My father did not answer. At times I felt he wished my mother took me with her, the way he looked at me with quiet disgust, wishing that his follower of a sudden would leave, gone away to join the gods and become Helle. I might have, had I any idea where my mother had gone off to.

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The concubines’ chambers always felt hollow and timeless. They occupied the south end of the castle, sunken underground, always alight by sweet-smelling candles. They were marbled, a soft peachy pink for femininity. My father thought them garish, laughing with Iapyx about the women and their pink light.

I lived freely in the castle. I would sing to myself and smile as the women fawned over my voice. I would tend to the ivy in the courtyards until I felt they climbed me and not the walls. There were sometimes butterflies in the gardens, but never flies in the halls. Minos would not have it.

When Minos entered a room it would ripple with gossip and chatter, and the ivy in the gardens itself would tilt towards him. My father would enter after alongside the smell of oil. They would speak in hushed tones as the women of the house would greet them, pour them wine, set the table. Iapyx and I would follow close behind. Good evening, Father, welcome home.

They would have great talks while they drank. Iapyx would join in as best he could. The ladies of the house would approach my father to show off their young, supple bodies. They’d invite him to their beds the same way they would the king, desperate to escape how Naucrate did. Many times my father would take them up on their offers, but not always, and at those times he would laugh with Iapyx about the nature of women.

By my father’s side, the world was constantly moving. The shuffling of papers and the dripping of water emanated from his rooms. My brother said his work was like that of the gods, but I couldn’t say so, lest they would strike me down where I stood.

“Why would the gods strike me down?” I said to my father.

“They do not like to be challenged.”

“And what if I struck them down first?”

My father frowned. I listened to the sound of his wine lapping against the edges of his glass, deep burgundy and seemingly endless. “You’re only a mortal.”

“Iapyx thinks himself a god.”

“Iapyx has the skills to back it up,” he said.

“But we are the same.”

“No,” he said, “Look.” His gaze traveled to Iapyx caressing the king’s hand. Where his fingers touched the skin was smooth and soft like that of a child. “Iapyx has power. What such power do you have?”

All night I touched my own hands. They did not soften.

Iapyx soon became very good at delivering children. It emboldened him, until he could not say how many concubines he nursed back to health after their babies were born. Were it me I’d count each one and tally them until the weight of my good deeds bore down on my back. He was the first to hold the baby of Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, Xenodice. He would think of her as a daughter of his own. Even from her birth, they were entangled like the ivy vine. “Xenodice. Blessed by the gods.” He made his claim despite no god truly blessing her. My father admonished him, already certain that the gods would strike him out of the sky.

He did not make the same mistake with their next child, Catreus. In a tone hushed and covered with fresh snow, he said to Minos, “He will make a fine king.” And by this both Minos and my father were pleased.

Xenodice and Catreus learned quickly and seemingly only from Iapyx. They made the same biting comments behind childishly innocent stares. His voice is high and screechy. His hair looks like a birds’ nest. He’d be lucky to follow behind me.

Their words were as dull as their sense of humor, but they sharpened as they grew. I learned to avoid Iapyx as best I could, save for when we worked together in our father’s study. They soon found their entertainment in the concubines’ chambers and the younger siblings in Minos’s halls. While my father worked, they snuck off to see the women and established their authority over their wide-eyed children. They would plot a hundred tricks. Come shower, the women would cajole, and while the children washed with their mothers, Iapyx and Xenodice would run off and hide the towels.

I did not stop them. I preferred to laugh and talk with the women and spent every moment I could in their chambers. One day, King Minos offered me a chance to see his sacrificial bull. This was a great honor, for the bull was a gift from Poseidon himself, a giant white steer that he would sacrifice to the gods. I looked out at the wide open field, almost hoping to see a god overseeing the growth of the steer, but it was barren save for the white bull.

The bull had one slave girl as a caretaker. She dipped her head to Minos and my father and smiled genuinely at me. I had seen her a handful of times while I was in the chambers. She was beautiful, with skin like a gnarled tree and inky black hair, though I didn’t expect any less from one of Minos’s girls. Her name was Eutychia, meaning fortunate.

“Nice of you to bring guests. The sons of Daedalus, you must be, of course.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “You must be Icarus. This unruly hair is a plain giveaway. You had a very beautiful mother, it’s a shame yours doesn’t look more like hers.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my hair,” I said.

“Oh, of course not! But see how your brother’s is calm and tamed, and his voice like a deep growl.”

“Sometimes I wish he’d never speak,” Iapyx said, “That would solve the problem of his voice.”

“Just do as your brother does, that would benefit you, yes?”

“Of course.” Iapyx smiled proudly. “Shall we see the bull?”

I had never seen such a thing before. The bull’s coat was as clean as milky cotton, with gentle sleepy eyes. Its horns were gold, reminding me that this was no ordinary bull. They gleamed in the bright sunlight.

“May I touch it?” I asked.

“No,” my father said.

Iapyx looked to my father, then King Minos. “No,” he echoed absently. He was still taken aback by his bull.

“There is a lump upon it,” my brother finally said.

The slave woman practically began falling over herself. “A lump? Oh my, how had I not noticed? Poor dear, I hope it has not taken ill!”

I leaned in close. It was very small, nothing more than a blemish or a bug bite, but the king’s face looked overcast. “Have it fixed by morning.”

The lady nodded fervently, of course, your majesty. I am sorry.

We stepped into the king’s chariot and I sat in the back alone. My father smiled coyly at Eutychia, before the horses leapt, carrying us across the rumbling path toward the castle.

I remembered how the ladies of the house told me that gods bleed gold. It was a symbol of their divinity, their status above mortals, but it was not often that a god bled. When they did, Olympus itself shivered with fear. The ladies’ eyes were wide as they spoke. It was rare, they said, and terrifying.

“Father,” I said, “will the bull bleed gold?”

“Yes,” he replied without turning to look at me. The horses surged forward and the ground became a blur beneath me. I did not look. My heart was being wrung out like laundry as I thought of that bull and its blood. I imagined it, golden sap staining its fur, eyes open and never to close again. Poseidon smiled at the killing in his name.

“Father,” I said, “I feel unwell.”

“You are sick from the chariot,” Iapyx said, “When you feast you will feel well again.”

I ate well at dinner just as he said, but the feeling remained. I must have looked as well as I felt, because Iapyx and Xenodice began to giggle and point. “What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing,” I said.

They only laughed harder, hiding their faces behind soft paws. Xenodice said, “How was my father’s bull?”

“Beautiful. It is a shame it’s to be killed.”

Iapyx laughed. “Killed! Can you believe how stupid he is?”

“I can’t,” the princess said.

I shouldn’t have humored them, but the tantalizing nature of the unknown drew me in with the imagery of the bull stained in golden blood. “What do you mean?”

Xenodice's pointed, teasing face. “He won’t sacrifice it. He’ll sacrifice a different one. He told me so himself. It’s too beautiful to kill.”

“He would never.”

They rolled with laughter. It caught my father’s attention. He enjoyed laughing with his son.

“We’re talking about the bull,” Iapyx said, “He thought it would be sacrificed.”

My father’s laughter, deep and sonorous as a church bell. “Stupid boy.”

That was how I lived in the castle. I wish I could say that I bided my time to escape, but truthfully, I might have stayed, believing there was nothing more to life than misery until the end of my days.