Helen, Cassandra understands, isn't the foil of this war: if anything, she's a stitcher of wounds, another unheard herald trying to protect her own. When she stands next to Andromaque and Cassandra again her beauty lies and deceits; in reality she's as peaceful as the first and as mad as the second.
Their three silhouettes on the ramparts, spelling wife-queen-prophet, are like a string of pearls: sometimes they reach powerless fingers as they see the frame of a loved one fall, slain, and they can't do anything but watch as the armies walk over him and meet again and again in the deafening ring of steel.
*
Nine years: what it takes for Cassandra to come to hate love, who took her tongue, her brothers, her father, her city, who will take her life.
Nine years: what it takes to bring Helen of Troy to her knees and cry for the mercy of death.
Nine years: what it takes for the high tide to rise, for the waves to ebb, for the storm to break.
*
Cassandra, better than anyone else, knows what destiny holds: she doesn't lift her head when a herald walks in the throne room and exclaims, "Troy burns," just like she doesn't meet Helen's eyes as she catches her mouth in a kiss and says that they will meet again.
She runs to the temple, forcing herself not to watch her home burn to ashes, and when she gets there, she sinks to the ground.
This isn't over, says the vengeful god.
Cassandra dries her eyes. "I know," she answers the silence, and lays her head against the ground, waiting.
no subject
Helen, Cassandra understands, isn't the foil of this war: if anything, she's a stitcher of wounds, another unheard herald trying to protect her own. When she stands next to Andromaque and Cassandra again her beauty lies and deceits; in reality she's as peaceful as the first and as mad as the second.
Their three silhouettes on the ramparts, spelling wife-queen-prophet, are like a string of pearls: sometimes they reach powerless fingers as they see the frame of a loved one fall, slain, and they can't do anything but watch as the armies walk over him and meet again and again in the deafening ring of steel.
*
Nine years: what it takes for Cassandra to come to hate love, who took her tongue, her brothers, her father, her city, who will take her life.
Nine years: what it takes to bring Helen of Troy to her knees and cry for the mercy of death.
Nine years: what it takes for the high tide to rise, for the waves to ebb, for the storm to break.
*
Cassandra, better than anyone else, knows what destiny holds: she doesn't lift her head when a herald walks in the throne room and exclaims, "Troy burns," just like she doesn't meet Helen's eyes as she catches her mouth in a kiss and says that they will meet again.
She runs to the temple, forcing herself not to watch her home burn to ashes, and when she gets there, she sinks to the ground.
This isn't over, says the vengeful god.
Cassandra dries her eyes. "I know," she answers the silence, and lays her head against the ground, waiting.