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Odysseus saw the soul mark almost as soon as his son was born. In the moment, it was just an expected smudge of black against his skin, swallowed up by the blood and the crying and the adrenaline, but once he and Penelope were settled into clean blankets holding him in their arms, he moved to revisit it.

“I saw it,” he told his wife, leaning heavily on his shoulder with all her pain and relief and exhaustion. He adjusted their son in his arms, moving back the blanket he was swaddled in. “His mark. It’s on his shoulder.”

“Mm.” Penelope nudged her temple against his cheek, too tired to sit up. “What is it? Can you tell?”

Odysseus moved the blanket to reveal it, smiling as his son squirmed under him with half-asleep squeaking. He had only had him for the last hour, and he was well affirmed in what he’d been sure of before the baby was born—he was the whole of his heart, put to a person.

He revealed the mark, small and wrinkled on brand-new red skin. It would be clearer when he was older, bigger, but he had waited so long to know him already, and he was desperate to have this now.

“It’s in two little pieces,” Odysseus said, smoothing his thumb over the mark. The baby cooed at the touch, reaching his hands out to nothing. Odysseus’ heart swelled. “Spiky, like laurel leaves—like a crown.”

Penelope made a soft sound. She reached out to meet the baby’s eager hands, letting him take her finger in hand. “A broken crown?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” He adjusted his hold on the baby, turning him to show the mark to Penelope, who regarded it with bleary eyes. “I suppose we’ll know if I’m right as he grows, eh?”

“Mm.” He felt Penelope’s smile against his shoulder as she leaned against him. “He’s beautiful. He’s going to look just like you.”

“Well, make up your mind.”

Penelope chuckled and shoved at his shoulder tiredly. Odysseus leaned to kiss her temple, readjusting so he could sit even closer, the baby across both of their laps. He fussed slightly, reaching again for Penelope’s finger, and she smiled and gave it to him.

“What do you think?” she whispered. “Does he still feel like a Telemachus to you?”

Telemachus; far from fighting. Odysseus smiled.

“Prince Telemachus, of the little laurel crown,” he murmured. “My son. How I can’t wait for joy to find you.”

Almost ten long years of war. Odysseus wasn’t sure how much longer it could drag on, but he knew it would find a way if they couldn’t find a way to turn the tides.

That was how he and Diomedes found themselves sailing on a course for Scyros.

“No,” the princess had said, her strong voice wobbling as it crossed the space between them. She had moved to hide her son behind her legs, but the boy was up to her chest in height and would not be so easily cowed. She trembled as she tried to stick her chest out, tried to appear unshaken. “You fed my husband to that war, and have returned to me not even his bones. You will not take my son as well.”

“Your husband sought glory, and he found it in spades,” Diomedes said lazily beside him. “He and his Therapon, that is. Did you ever notice that they had the same mark, that mountain peak on their wrist and ankle?” Deidamia flinched, and Diomedes smiled, a wolf’s smile. “Strange that you do not bear the same one. Though it is beautiful. Hard to be so visible when there is no one to match with.”

Deidamia’s hand went to the small black mark on the side of her throat—a bubble, or perhaps a seashell, Odysseus couldn’t quite tell from this distance. Certainly not the mountain peak the great Aristos Achaian had borne to his death back in Troy. He saw that this observation had shaken her.

She tried to steady herself and speak again. “My son is not yet eleven. He is not a soldier. He will not serve your war.”

“You are mistaken, princess,” Odysseus said softly. “Only the blood of Achillides can bring about the fall of Troy. Achilles is dead. All that is left is his son.”

“And a soldier he is, we know it,” Diomedes cut in. “Do not think Thetis did not guide us here herself. Neoptolemus, she called him.” New war. “We know that she has trained him.”

Deidamia did not call her son Neoptolemus when she pleaded with him not to go. Pyrrhus; red haired. A mother’s nickname. A princess deluding herself that her child was not a warrior.

Neoptolemus did not speak much on the ship’s passage to Troy. He hung his legs over the side of the ship in the evenings to speak with his grandmother, materialising from the waves to consult with him, and skulked about the shadows of the ship, listening with keen ears and unsettling green eyes. He reminded Odysseus horribly of his father, in such a hollow manner that it disturbed him. Achilles had never been so quiet, but it was not a comfort on his son. He was silent like a god was silent, dangerous and waiting.

Not yet eleven, Deidamia had said. He was the same age his own son would be, somewhere beyond the shores of Ithaca. How far away that seemed.

It was over dinner in the latter half of their journey, sitting on the deck of the ship, that Neoptolemus addressed them for the first time. “You told my mother that my father’s mark did not match hers.”

Odysseus and Diomedes shared a look with each other.

“We did,” Diomedes said. “It is true.”

Neoptolemus tore off the corners of his bread, eating it one piece at a time. “And that his mark matched that of a… companion.”

“It is nothing to be scandalised by,” Odysseus said. He did not know what the atmosphere around such things was like in Scyros; likely his mother had spoken ill of it simply because it had affected her marriage. “And it is not a secret. Your father and his companion showed little shame around their marks.”

Neoptolemus didn’t say anything for a moment. “My mother never spoke much of it. She said that father had the same one as her, hidden where no one could see it.”

“Your father is ash now,” Diomedes said simply, without apology. “But we saw no other mark when we stripped him of his armour. Everybody knew of the mountain adorning his heel, and that it matched that of Patroclus’ wrist.”

Neoptolemus looked at him, with the eyes of a hawk. Odysseus feared he might throw some tantrum, insisting that his mother would never lie to him and that they had no proof of his father’s soulmate. But he only glanced between him and Odysseus, cataloguing their bare expanses of skin, and said, “And who matches your marks?”

Diomedes groaned before Odysseus could say anything. “Now you’ll get him started. He never shuts up about it as it is.”

Odysseus grinned, and pulled up the skirt of his chiton, revealing the twisting scar that puckered his thigh. There, between the gnarled ridges of scar tissue, was his symbol; slightly misshapen by the scar’s pull, but still recognisable. His olive tree.

“My wife bears this mark,” he said, tapping it for emphasis. “You have heard of the courting of Helen, I’m sure, the one that preceded this war?” Neoptolemus nodded. “I attended, of course, as any young prince of the time was expected to, but I was not there for Helen.”

“He knew he never would have attained her as it was,” Diomedes interrupted. Odysseus elected to ignore him, given that he hadn’t throttled him yet for recounting this story again.

“I met Penelope in the olive grove, and the sharpness of her tongue had me taken with her immediately. I petitioned with her uncle for her hand, without ever seeing her mark.” Odysseus smiled. “I promised him that I had not seen it, and made a bet with him that I would find the symbol that matched mine on our wedding night, if he accepted. And so he let me marry her without the assurance that we were a match. And we were, just as I had expected.”

“Hoped, more like,” Diomedes cut in.

Odysseus shrugged. “Describe it as you like, we matched. The Gods promised us to one another before we ever fought for it.”

“You lied to the king,” Neoptolemus accused him coolly. He cocked his head to one side, inquisitive, sizing him up. “You had seen the mark.”

Odysseus shook his head, showing his palms in supplication. “I admit to being a liar, but not to my Penelope. I took her to bed our wedding night, and she commanded me with a wolf’s grin to find the proof that we were each other’s. I could not, and she was forced to concede and show it to me herself.” He brushed his own hair back, tapping the side of his head. “Hidden, behind her ear. She knew I would not have seen it. She was just as cunning as I was.”

“At least she knew when to shut up about it,” Diomedes muttered.

Neoptolemus still watched him, still with that curious angle to his head like he wasn’t sure what to make of him. Odysseus let him watch, watched him right back.

“Are you a romantic?” he asked. “Daydreaming of who you might meet on the other side of the war?”

Neoptolemus considered this, but he did not give any hesitation in his answer. “I do not think it means anything.”

Diomedes whistled his approval, laughing as he downed more wine. Odysseus tried not to frown at the boy.

“You are still young. One day you will find yourself scanning the arms and feet of every young person you encounter, searching for a symbol that is familiar.”

Neoptolemus did not appear to give much weight to this reassurance. “If it does not matter now, I do not know why it will matter then.”

That was the last proper conversation they had before they arrived in Troy, the boy opting to stick to his lurking and confiding only in the sea-nymph that followed their ship. Odysseus did not lament this, yet that conversation stuck in his head. He had never known anybody to treat their marks so dismissively, not in the dozens of men he knew who disregarded their wives’ links to them in favour of taking up mistresses and concubines.

He had heard the rumours, that Achilles’ son was heartless and ruthless in all the places that he himself had not been. That he had spent years in the sea-caves with Thetis, unlearning passions and emotions that plagued most men well into their adult life. He had not believed it until then.

Soon there would be no room to deny it.

“Take the boy to my tent.”

Odysseus was reluctant to give the order, but a scan of their beach camp revealed it to be the lesser of many evils. The siege had been fierce today, and their sands were littered with dead and wounded; their dwindling medics and healers had their hands full, literally and metaphorically. Scrubbing down a reckless preteen who was hissing and spitting near as much as he was limping might be better than staunching stubborn blood flows to no avail.

Neoptolemus didn’t look any more pleased than he was by the circumstances, but he didn’t think he had ever seen the boy pleased. His resting expression was stony and solid, and more often than not was creased fully into a scowl. Where Achilles had been fiery fury and tantrums, his boy was ice cold wrath.

“I can lick my own wounds,” he bit out as Odysseus soaked rags with water, trying to assess where he had taken the most damage. He was bloody and splattered, but he always returned to camp that way; it took a minute to discern which blood was his.

“I’m not just here to bathe you,” he said. He prodded at his side through the armour—Neoptolemus whimpered and pulled away, scowling. “That’d be an awfully hard angle to sew up yourself.”

“I don’t need stitches,” Neoptolemus spat. “It’s a scratch. I didn’t get stabbed. I know what I’m doing.”

“Like your father did?” Odysseus retorted. He smacked a wet rag into Neoptolemus’ hand before he could argue with him. “Try and get some of this blood off. I need to see what I’m working with.”

There was silence as Odysseus went about unbuckling his armour, dumping it in a dirty heap on his floor, interrupted only by the boy’s stifled hisses of pain when he moved too much, or twisted his side. Odysseus helped to wipe away some of the blood splatter on his thighs, the rag growing dark with the stain as blood continued to trickle down from under his chiton.

Odysseus stood up, taking both rags to the basin in the corner and doing his best to wring out the blood. “Get that chiton off. Even if it isn’t deep enough for stitching, it’s going to need a hell of a bandage.”

Neoptolemus grumbled, but Odysseus could tell from the rustling of fabric and soft sounds of pain that he obeyed him. Armed with clean rags and a handful of simple medical supplies that he kept in his tent, he returned to his side and examined the wound, softly dabbing away fresh blood as he went.

It wasn’t as deep as he’d feared, he found, but definitely needed something to stop the bleeding. At the very least it wasn’t life threatening. Perhaps he would limp around camp for a few days and learn how to be careful on their next expedition.

“I told you,” Neoptolemus grumbled when Odysseus voiced this. He started with some retort, some scolding to put the kid in his place, when the wet rag caught something that pulled his attention. It was not his wound that gave him reason to pause, but what he saw froze him anyway.

Neoptolemus noticed his sudden stillness and looked down all too quickly, like he was afraid monsters had started crawling out of the tear in his skin. He seemed relieved to see what Odysseus was staring at. “What? It’s just my mark. Everyone has one.”

It was true, everyone had one. A completely unique symbol, bestowed by the fates at birth, that they shared only with their partner, their soulmate, whether they had met them or not. Exclusive and personal. The spikes of a laurel crown, split in the middle as if cracked in half. A broken crown, devastatingly familiar, perched right on the freckled hip of Achilles’ son.

“Yes,” Odysseus managed to make his mouth say, trying to draw his focus back to the task at hand as if wading through muddy water. His hands reached for the bandages as if not attached to the rest of him, his eyes still caught on the black mark of his symbol. “Of course. I had never seen yours before.”

Neoptolemus rolled his eyes. He jolted in pain as Odysseus poured oil over the wound, a concoction made to prevent infections. He barely heard his startled noise of pain. He was barely aware of what he was doing and what was being said.

It had been ten years since he had last seen that symbol, smaller and less distinct on the shoulder of an infant. His son’s soft, innocent skin as he held him for the last time, wished him his goodbyes and departed with his men. His baby boy, with his round blue eyes and reedy giggles and warm skin.

His innocent baby; far from fighting, Telemachus, paired by the gods to the youngest soldier on the battlefield—Neoptolemus, new war. Matched to the soul of the boy who would soon tear through the walls of Troy, the boy with ice and rage, a snake waiting to strike. Soulmate to a boy who thought there was nothing to the concept of soulmates at all.

His mind whirled as he tidied the wound, still bleeding, and wrapped it tight with layers of bandages that were quickly stained red. Thankfully, the second layer of bandages remained clean, keeping the blood flow contained. His mark was still visible below the wrappings, clear and visible upon his hip. Odysseus would have tried not to look at it, if it had been possible for him to think of anything else.

It was—laughable. He had never thought the gods could be so terrifically wrong. But they weren’t wrong, were they? Could they be?

The terrible thought haunted him—that somewhere, miles away from here, his son could be the perfect match for Neoptolemus. The formative years of his childhood without a father, in a world being ravaged by war; had it turned him distant and angry, too? Was he bitter and cruel and violent, waiting for someone who would match him for harshness and hatred?

He had never met his boy, not really. Perhaps there was more to this match than it seemed. He looked at Neoptolemus in front of him, small and bloodstained, staring right back with a defiant glare. He tried to make out something of his son in his cold green eyes; he could not.

Neoptolemus’ eyebrows furrowed further into a scowl. “What now?”

Odysseus shook his head. “Nothing. Put your chiton back on.”

He caught one more flash of his mark as he leaned over and struggled to do so. He might have been able to convince himself that it had not been the same as he remembered, had he not glanced back again; but there it was, the odd black shape with its spikes and crack through the centre. Odysseus would not forget it if he tried.

The sunlight on the shores of Ithaca was just as warm as Odysseus had remembered it.

After twenty years absence, the coarse sand interspersed with weeds and pebbles cradled him like home, and home it was. The sun shone down on him and his family, gentle and comforting, and the sounds of waves lapping the shore threatened to lull him to sleep. All was peaceful.

He cracked open an eye at the crunch of sand beside him; smiled to see his son sitting there, brushing grit off the skirt of his chiton. He smiled at him, crooked like his own smile with his eyes creased like Penelope’s. Odysseus’ heart swelled.

Telemachus gestured to Odysseus’ leg, his scar twisting and exposed in the sunshine. He liked the warmth of it, and cared little for modesty these days. “It hardly missed your mark. Funny how it held its shape.”

Odysseus hummed contentedly, Penelope’s hands in his hair where she sat behind him, cradling his head in her lap. “Fate finds its way to keep things visible.”

“I suppose it needs to be distinct, if it’s somewhere not everyone will see it.” Telemachus felt for his own mark, exposed on his shoulder. Everyone could see the mark that he bore, the spikes of laurels split abruptly in two. Odysseus looked away, stomach curdling. “Strange how some people can keep theirs private, like you and mom, and others don’t have a choice but to display it.”

Odysseus thought, unbidden, of the princess Deidamia, hand to her throat as he and Diomedes taunted her with memories of her late husband. He tried not to think of her, when he could; tried to avoid thinking of her son more than anything else. Relief had pulled a sigh from him when his son had first told him how he continued to wait for his match, even as he said this with a wistful bow to his head.

“Love will find you,” Odysseus had assured him. He hoped it would not come from the bearer of that mark; the gods knew it would not be the first time. He prayed that it would come soon, and that it would be enough.

But he knew his son had the same romantic streak in him that came from himself. He caught him tracing his mark’s outline when he was idle, admiring it in mirrors when nobody watched him. He saw the eager tracing of his eyes over every young person’s skin that he met, searching for a match to himself and finding nothing.

“He is waiting for his chance at happiness,” Penelope told him one night, combing through his tangled hair with her fingers under the shade of their olive tree. Her voice was sad, wistful, as it often was when she told him of the life he had missed. “The suitors would torment him over it, his mark. He took to wearing chlamys most days, if the weather permitted, but they all knew of it. Made a game of taunting him with how he would never find his match.”

Odysseus sat up abruptly, bones hot with his anger. “That is ridiculous. How many of them were matched, that they thought to torment him with it? With the idea that his one person, of all the world, would be found within a hundred of them in this palace?”

Penelope sighed. “They did not need to be clever to be cruel, my love. The laughter of men finds a way to get under your skin even when you know that it is senseless.”

Odysseus held her close, knowing how much of that laughter she had endured herself, and said nothing. He had not told her of the young warrior Neoptolemus, or that he bore the mark their son was so eagerly searching for. It was, perhaps, one of the only secrets he kept from her, having explained almost every other day of the war and his journey home. He could not bear to give voice to it when he was still hoping that it would come to nothing.

“It is a silly thing to be teased about,” he said eventually. “You can find love outside of what fate dictates.”

Penelope hummed. “You can. But many say that it would never be the same.”

Odysseus pulled away enough to cup her face, to gaze into those beautiful ocean eyes. “I would have loved you no matter the shapes imprinted on your skin. Be it an olive tree, a bow, a seashell, a feather, I would have adored you either way. I always would have fought to return to you.”

Penelope smiled, kissing him softly. “I know you would. But we are matched. It is hard to love in spite of fate when fate has demanded it already.”

Fate demanded much of them, controlled all of their lives. Odysseus had been a slave to prophecy for the past twenty years, watching the fall of great men and the rise of younger ones, just as it had been told. Achilles had been the best of them, and he had died young. His son had been their victory, armed with his father’s legacy and the arrows of Heracles. Neoptolemus’ life was controlled by fate perhaps the most of all; but Odysseus would not let him have this. He would not use it to cheat his way into his son’s heart.

“We will have to see,” he sighed, settling back into the pillows at his wife’s shoulder. He felt her smile as she kissed the skin of his temple. “Fate can be a fickle thing.”

Odysseus did not see the boy—man, now—until it was too late to send him away.

It was expected that some sort of gathering would be held following his return, the last of the Achaeans to make it home alive, and thus the kingdom had opened itself to the noble soldiers who had fought at his sides. He had heard no rumours of Neoptolemus since they had departed Troy’s shores; since he had told him, as sternly as he could manage without drawing suspicion, never to sail to Ithaca. But somehow the invitation had found him, and Odysseus spotted that distinctive mop of fiery red hair across the hall as soon as he entered.

He tensed, caught between hoping that no one would pay him any mind and storming through the crowd to throw him out before he could give his greetings. But to cut through the crowd would be to cause a scene, and what he wanted was for no one to realise that he was here. Of course, by the time he knew it, it was too late. He spotted his own son’s head in the crowd, only a few heads away, and knew there was nothing he could do.

“What is it?” Penelope murmured, her hand on his knee. Odysseus could only shake his head, eyes stuck as Telemachus, ever the princely host, pushed through the crowd to greet the new arrivals. His chiton and golden arm band did nothing to conceal the mark on his shoulder, shimmering in the afternoon light. Odysseus’ hand gripped the arm of his throne until the wood creaked under him.

He couldn’t make out the words exchanged over the noise of the hall, but he saw the moment the warrior’s eyes fell to the mark on Telemachus’ shoulder. Saw his breathing stop; then start up again, his eyes flickering over the crowd around them. Nonchalant. Like it meant nothing. Of course.

He recalled what Telemachus had said to him on the beach that day, about the placement of marks; hidden for some, helplessly exposed for others. He understood, now, that this was the working of fate once again; the one thing it could do for him, after tying his son’s soul to a killer. He would not see Neoptolemus’ mark, tucked under his chiton over the rise of his hip. He would not know that Neoptolemus had seen his, recognised it, and chosen to reject it. That was for the better.

Neoptolemus approached the throne later—much later than the other men, kneeling with some reluctance. Most of the others had milled through the palace hallways, taking up the courtyard or the dining hall, leaving the noise of the throne room at a murmur. Penelope had left his side for something; no one was listening.

“I see, now,” Neoptolemus said eventually. His head was still facing the ground, eyes steady on his own sandals. His voice was deeper than it had been at Troy, the sign of a boy become a man. Odysseus hated him fiercely. “Why you reacted the way you did.”

It sounded like an apology. Odysseus knew that it wasn’t. “Stay away from my son.”

Neoptolemus briefly bowed his head a little further. He got to his feet and left the room without meeting his eyes.

For what little it was worth, Neoptolemus spent the weekend at as much of a distance from any of the men that he could manage. Odysseus kept his eyes on him as much of the time as he could, and so he was helpless to watch as his own son approached the soldier, again and again, no matter how hard he tried to avoid him.

Perhaps it was innocent enough; Neoptolemus was the only one here that matched Telemachus in age, and he had spent enough years in a palace full of older men not to wish to spend time with them now. He was simply seeking out someone to share things in common with for the celebration and would forget about him once the party was over.

But he knew his son’s reclusive tendencies, brought on after years trapped with the suitors. He had expected him to make polite appearances and then slip into the shadows for the duration of the evening. Yet, when the noise and the drunkenness of the other men grew to be too much, he watched his son pause and offer a hand to the son of Achilles before making his escape.

Odysseus could not forget the cruelty of Neoptolemus long enough to let this be. He left his wine beside his wife’s place at the table, murmuring excuses, and stalked down after them to the beach.

He had seen that boy on the battlefield. He knew that he could wield a sword or spear with all the skill of his father at half the age, could cut through grown men like a fish through water and wash the blood away after as if it were mud and nothing more. He would only have grown stronger in the years since, becoming a man with the height of his father and no doubt the temper. Odysseus would not wish that man upon his son. He would not allow it.

He heard laughter before he made it to the shore, and ducked behind the scrub where he would not be spotted. In the silvery moonlight, he spotted his son and the warrior on the damp sand at the water’s edge.

“I have heard of your naiad blood,” he heard Telemachus say. He could not see either of their faces from this distance, but their voices carried on the wind over the distant rumble from the palace. “My mother is half-naiad as well. The daughter of Periboea.”

“I have heard this, too,” Neoptolemus said. Odysseus was surprised by the sound of it; as deep as he had heard in the throne room, but softer, somehow, each word considered carefully. A weathered manipulator.

“Perhaps you would swim with me,” Telemachus coaxed him. “The water is lovely in the evenings. It would be a pleasure to have somebody keep up with me.” Odysseus saw the closeness of them, the almost casual touch of his son’s hand to Neoptolemus’ hair.

Swimming would mean undressing. Telemachus would see the mark on Neoptolemus’ hip. Even in the dim moonlight, it would not be hidden, and he would be curious. Odysseus couldn’t bear to think what would happen when he came to see that mark, know of their connection.

He was trying to talk himself out of approaching, causing some spontaneous distraction to keep them from it, when he heard Neoptolemus reply, too casually, “I would rather not, prince,” and move away from him, brushing his hands off on his front. Brushing Telemachus’ affections away like dust.

Telemachus tried to say something, not quite reaching Odysseus’ ears, and Neoptolemus’ reply shut him down, leaving him standing aimless and dejected on the rocky beach. Neoptolemus threw a “good night” over his shoulder like an afterthought, stalking back along the path where he ran into Odysseus.

He jumped at the sight of him, and settled quickly back into a scowl, stomping along the pathway. “You’ll get what you want. I will be leaving tomorrow.”

“He will be heartbroken.”

Neoptolemus whirled around to face him, his skin half-blue under the moon, his face twisted into an expression of rage. He looked like he had been wounded in battle, indignant and pained and furious. “What do you want from me, old man? I did not know—coming here. I did not know anything of it. I did not approach him in your halls, did not push him away when he approached me. I did not let him see our—my mark. I am leaving before it becomes suspicious, and you will never see me again. So tell me: what do you want?”

There was a shine in his eyes, a crack in his voice. It took Odysseus aback, so much so that for a moment he had no response.

Are you a romantic? he had asked him on that ship, the first time they had spoken of soul marks. Before he had known anything of the boy but rumours. They do not mean anything, he had responded, unaffected. His voice so much higher then, his skin smooth and unscarred. It does not matter now, and it will not matter then.

“I did not want for him to know you,” he hissed. Neoptolemus straightened up; or it might have been a flinch. “He is a good man, and a man with hope in his heart. He does not need your rejection.”

“I didn’t—”

“Thank the gods you did not show him your mark. If he were to know of it, and know you were leaving in spite of it, I would have killed you myself, and I would have enjoyed it.”

Neoptolemus glowered at him, steady in his defiance.

“Do you want me to leave by morning, or not?”

Odysseus felt his jaw tighten.

“Ready your ship. He will not mourn you for long.”

Neoptolemus stormed off down the path, and Odysseus let him go. He heard splashing at the shoreline, Telemachus surely deciding to swim by himself if his desired companion would not join him. He breathed out slowly, tried to let some of the weight leave him. Telemachus would recover from his absence. He would never know what he was losing, and be spared the hurt he would otherwise feel.

He let his breathing settle, and headed back up the path, towards the noise of the party where his wife would be waiting for him.

Summers passed. Ithaca recovered from his long absence and flourished, their harvests rich and bountiful and their people warm and joyful. His marriage bed continued to bloom, his wife’s smile never far from his side, and his son grew in strength and wisdom, preparing for the day when he would take the throne.

Telemachus had not said much about Neoptolemus’ departure that day, years ago now, but Odysseus had seen the hurt and confusion in his eyes. He had not seen it for long, even if it returned with every new person to enter the court and display a mark that did not match his.

Even if he was still holding out hope, he was not without joy. The youngest of Nestor’s sons, Peisistratus, was no stranger to their halls, and he and Telemachus walked the hills joined at the hip, even with their mismatching marks both clearly displayed. Odysseus had a grudging respect and fondness for Peisistratus. He would have happily settled for him, if Telemachus had been willing to do the same. But still he waited, stubborn in his hope, watching the horizons for absent ships.

It was all too soon that Neoptolemus returned to their shores.

He was aboard Diomedes’ ship rather than one of his own, looking for all the world like he’d been dragged there like a dog by its leash. Odysseus could tell as soon as he lay eyes upon him that he had not come here wilfully; that did not mean he begrudged him any less for it.

“He fears the wrath of Menelaus,” teased Diomedes as he exited the ship, unaware of the sour tension building on the dock. He slapped Neoptolemus on the shoulder as though he was proud of him. “The marriage did not go as planned.”

Odysseus would have glared at him, had he been willing to meet his eyes. “Menelaus wanted him for his daughter?”

Diomedes laughed. “That was the promise. Would have been the way it went, had Orestes not come home bearing her mark just days before.”

Neoptolemus would have known that he did not have the mark to match Menelaus’ daughter. Had been trying to prove something, perhaps.

“Didn’t feel like sticking around for the wedding after that,” Diomedes continued airily. “What an affair. No union moves faster than those between soulmates, huh?”

Neoptolemus glared at the Ithacan soil. Odysseus glared at him.

He was forced to put up the men in his palace, ushering them in with the hopes Telemachus would still be out for the afternoon. Neoptolemus disappeared into his room with little threatening, and Odysseus dragged Diomedes away by the arm, muttering scoldings and threats for having brought the boy back here. Diomedes shook him off.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, incredulous. “He was here for the gathering when you returned, was he not? He got on well with your son.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Odysseus hissed, shoving at him. “I told him never to come back here, and you drag him straight to my shores without a thought? He bears my son’s mark, idiot. As if he wouldn’t cause enough suffering without it.”

Diomedes startled somewhat. “He—what? How do you know that? Neoptolemus and Telemachus?”

Odysseus shushed him aggressively, dragging him into an empty room in the hopes they wouldn’t be overheard. “He has seen Telemachus’. Telemachus has not seen his.”

Diomedes blinked wildly, shaking his head in an attempt to grasp what he was hearing. “What’s your problem, then? I thought your son was looking for his match. You haven’t told him?”

“Neoptolemus is a bloodthirsty bastard,” he insisted.

Diomedes snorted. “You are a bloodthirsty bastard.”

“If he had known of it—seen the proof that fate wanted them together, and watched him leave anyways—it would have crushed him. He is my boy. I will not see his heart broken like that.”

“So it’s fine for him to have his heart broken time and time again by others, so long as none of them have set foot on the shores of Troy?” Diomedes shook his head. “Your boy is a romantic. It is the nature of a romantic to hurt.”

“Neoptolemus is not. I will not have that unfeeling asshole tied to my boy.” Odysseus paced the space, running hands through the snarls of his hair. “He doesn’t care for marks, will not honour things like love and affection. Men like him should be born bare of a mark entirely.”

Diomedes snorted in derision, edged slightly with irritation. “He is hardly the first terrible man you have met, nor is he the first to have the eyes for your son. You cannot fight the fates on this.”

Odysseus whirled on him. “He is heartless, and cold—you saw the way that he killed—you heard the way he spoke of marks, that they meant nothing—”

“When he was eleven,” Diomedes said harshly. It cut through the panicked rage of Odysseus’ rambling. “He is grown, and so is your son. It is out of your hands.” He put a hand on Odysseus’ shoulder, strong and steady. “He is not his father. And what was it his father was known for, in equal measure to his strength in war, but the strength of his love? Are you not known for the same?”

Odysseus felt his anger abate enough to breathe again. “He is not—”

“It does not matter what he is, or isn’t, or what you see in him,” Diomedes interrupted. His eyes were dark as hot coals, the swallowing maw of the night sky above the sea, endlessly reflected on itself. “Protect your son’s love rather than preventing it.”

Odysseus swallowed, then stopped. Thought of his son’s face, hopeful and fractured, watching over the horizon or scanning crowds. Thought of the way he smiled at Peisistratus’ side, and how it faded to something hollow. Thought of the wistful look in his eyes when he and Penelope told him their stories. He thought of his voice on the beach that night, and though he thought he’d forgotten it, thought of the softness in Neoptolemus’ response.

“If he hurts him,” he resolved, “I will kill him. Slowly.”

Diomedes shrugged, like he hadn’t expected anything less. “Seems fair to me.”

Neoptolemus was filled with loathing to be back in Ithaca again.

He had been relieved to escape Sparta, had not thought to question where Diomedes would bring him until it was too late to abandon ship. He could not threaten the man to change course, and could not tell him why he needed to without revealing what he was sure Odysseus would kill him for speaking aloud. So he was lulled into sullen silence by the rocking of the ship, forced to wait out this torture.

He had not been to Ithaca since Odysseus had commanded him to leave, and yet he thought of its prince nearly every day. He couldn’t bear to return and see him again.

“Ithaca is a good country,” Diomedes assured him as the ship pulled into the dock. Neo could already see its king at the harbour, his long-greyed hair pulled by the wind. “All rocks and goats, sure, but the water is warm most of the year. And there are plenty of pretty little things to coax in with you.”

Neo forced himself not to react to this, even as Diomedes laughed in delight. Forced himself not to remember Telemachus’ offer, down at the moonlit shore, his slender figures tracing the outline of the pin at his shoulder. He would not remember.

His soul mark had not meant a lot to him, growing up. His mother spoke of them in simple but dismissive tones, and his grandmother had always looked upon them with disdain, a filthy mortal tradition she cared not to know about. It wasn’t until Odysseus had looked at it like it was waiting to attack him that he had really paid any attention to it at all. Not until he saw the same symbol, the right way up and shining black on the skin of another prince, that he really understood it.

It was cliché and tired to say that Telemachus had shown him why marks and soulmates mattered, but there were few other ways around it. He’d had his trysts and entanglements before, but had never held out hope looking at markings the way his partners had. He never cared to spend more than a few nights with any of them anyway; no point in checking if the gods wanted to seal them together for their mortal lifespans.

Telemachus was not like that. Neo had seen the mark and never touched him. He had stewed in longing for over two years without so much as hearing his name since.

Telemachus was not in the palace when Odysseus had Neoptolemus thrown into a guest room, which he was grateful for, but he would not be away forever. He would probably be back by dinner, by which time Neo would be expected to show himself and join the royal family for their meal. Last time he was here, he had promised Odysseus he would avoid his son. He was not sure he could make the same promise twice.

He was grateful for the quality of his clothes as he dressed for dinner, packed for the wedding that had not been. He had known when he travelled there that Hermione of Sparta would not be his; but he had no room to explain it without proving it somehow. He had been grateful when her match had come, being promoted easily from guest to groom and letting Neo make his silent escape.

Odysseus said nothing when he entered the room for dinner, simply watching him with hard eyes as he found his way to his seat. Neo did not cow from the challenge, but didn’t bother to give him more than a few seconds attention before sitting down, trying to keep to himself.

The prince was sat opposite him at the table, because of course he was. He must have been on some diplomatic mission—or merely dressed up for dinner, which was dizzying and unlikely—because he was adorned with gold, his hair swept back in waves around the severe lines of his cheekbones. His eyes and smile were as sharp as ever, directed at Neo while the servants brought in the meal.

“Prince,” he said lightly, professionally.

He had teased him when they met, called him Prince of Scyros, Prince of Phthia, and made a point to use both titles every time he’d addressed him. It had put butterflies in the pits of Neo’s stomach. He remembered them now.

“How delightful you would return to Ithaca after so long. You left in such haste last time.”

Neo’s stomach lurched. Of course, he had remembered. Of course, he would not get off that easily.

“Three years is not so long,” he said coolly. “Though I’m touched you noted my absence.”

Telemachus might actually have blushed at that, pursing his lips in a half smile and looking down at his plate, and if Neo could have gotten away with excusing himself so soon into the meal, he would have. He hoped Diomedes would be amenable to setting sail again in the next day or two.

It was much like the last time he had been here, if not worse for the lack of crowds surrounding them to swallow up any conversation. Odysseus’ presence cast a long shadow over the table, even as Telemachus continued to address him and prod at him in the most professional manner he could, slender fingers and sly smiles and graceful tilts of the head. He was still the most beautiful man Neo had ever seen. Still the only person he’d ever truly been taken by.

Fate was adamant about this match, it seemed. Neo was not certain that he could outrun it.

He held his ground as best he could over the coming days, wary of Odysseus’ watching wherever they went. He would not put it past the old king to have him followed, and knew he would be the first to find out if anything happened to his son. Neo would have avoided the prince entirely if he hadn’t seemed cluelessly intent on shadowing his every step.

Diomedes, ignorant bastard, seemed to have no intention of leaving Ithaca anytime soon, urging Neo to “untense” and “enjoy the sunshine” every time he approached him. And so he remained trapped, Telemachus around every corner in front of him and Odysseus around every corner behind. The days blurred into a week, and then two.

“The day has been so warm,” Telemachus announced with a sigh after dinner one night, before Neo could make his customary escape. He was caught at the table, pinned by the expectation to await dismissal from his host. “I expect the water will be lovely tonight.”

His mother hummed from the head of the table. “Isn’t it always?”

Telemachus was only looking at Neo. “Perhaps we might spend our evening on the beach. If our guests would deign to join us?”

Neo spent a long minute breathing, remembering what rhythm was normal, how long to hold it, how long to breathe out. Telemachus did not break eye contact with him in this time.

Unbidden, Neo’s gaze flickered away, settled on Odysseus at the head of the table. He, too, was watching him, eyebrows drawn together. It was him who broke the silence hanging over the table. “Perhaps we might.”

Neo continued his slow, focused breathing. It felt like a concession, to his tragically hopeful heart. Like permission. He was afraid to take it for something it was not.

Neo was relieved when all five of them rose to make the trek down to the beach, Diomedes’ booming laughter shattering any tension before it could form. Telemachus ran ahead down the path, laughing and calling idly to his mother, giving Neo opportunity to watch him, the swaying of his skirts and hair in the low breeze. The sun was setting over the hills, gilding his simple outfit with as much gold as he had worn on the first night here. His eyes glimmered when he caught Neo watching, turned to watch him right back.

They all settled on the rocky shore, removing sandals to let their toes touch the coarseness of the sand, dry with the water still so far off down the beach. Telemachus prodded him with conversation as he had at dinner, with less formality in spite of his parents’ continued presence. He sat next to him in the sand at one point, their knees knocking together in a rush of sparks, and his laugh rung in Neo’s ears like bells.

Odysseus remained limned with tension where he watched, but the anger that had burned his eyes almost as long as Neo had known him had died to ruddy embers. He offered tight smiles and clipped remarks to his son’s jokes, and did not crease his face into a scowl to regard Neo beside him. When the sun’s last light was dying out, and Telemachus had dragged his mother down to wade in the shallows with him, the pair of them were left alone. Neo braced himself for the threats.

Odysseus’ voice was not as harsh as it had been any other time. It surprised him. “Do not hurt him.”

Neo dug into the words, the tone, for some underlying threat; some demand to leave, some implication that his patience for Neo’s life was thinning. He found none. The words were simple and bare.

His throat was dry. He bowed his head. “I do not intend to.”

“I mean it.” Odysseus put a little more of that edge back in his voice now. It trembled slightly, and Neo understood how much this took from him; not only to admit he was wrong, but to relinquish control of his son. He was not a monster, Neo knew, though he hated him anyways. Just fiercely protective. “He was not forged from the same flames as you. If you bend him, he will break.”

Neo realised that for all he had learned from and admired the man, more than any other soldier at Troy, Odysseus did not know him at all. Less than he knew of his own son. Still, he nodded, turned back to watch Telemachus, skipping knee-deep through the calm water.

They did not speak again, to Neo’s relief, and Odysseus was quick to join his wife back to the palace when she returned from the waves. Diomedes had already left, wine drunk and mischievous, before their conversation. That left Neoptolemus and Telemachus.

Telemachus smiled, with a little less brightness than before—he was nervous, Neo realised. They had been here before. He would be an idiot to think he didn’t remember.

“I am still hoping to swim with you,” he said, almost shyly. “You—we can stay dressed. If you want.”

Neoptolemus thought of the mark on his hip, dark and definite. He looked at Telemachus’ eyes, bright in the moonlight, his smile hopeful. He swallowed. “Alright.”

The water was warm, but still biting compared to the night air, and the salt and chill swallowed him up as he waded in, licking at the skirts of his chiton and climbing up past his chest as he walked. Telemachus entered with less grace, but unfettered joy, running until he could not run any further and then diving under the lapping waves. He seemed to sparkle in the night when he resurfaced, his hair flat against his scalp making his face appear all the sharper. He smiled, and Neo could see the glimmers of naiad blood in the brightness of his bared teeth.

“Race you?”

Neo smiled a little. It tugged at the scars on his face, but he could bear the ache.

The hours vanished into the wind as the two of them dove through the waves, formalities falling away entirely as Telemachus pawed at him under the water, unabashedly cheating until their races turned to wrestling, laughter bubbling up between gasps for air and cries of indignance. The salt was drying sticky and crystallised on their shoulders by the time they dragged themselves back up the beach, where the rocks were still mostly sand. Telemachus flopped down onto the sand once he'd confirmed the area was soft, still laughing breathlessly. He was tracing the mark on his own salt-crusted shoulder; Neo wasn’t sure he was aware of himself doing it.

Telemachus saw him watching and followed his eyes, then smiled at him, perhaps a little sheepish. “Dreadfully unique, isn’t it?”

Neo swallowed. “I think that’s the point of them.”

Telemachus laughed. He turned to look at it again, poking at it now instead of tracing it lovingly. “Are you unmatched, too?”

Neo felt the sand for rocks and lay down beside him, counting his breaths. Don’t hold it, don’t breathe out for too long. “I suppose so.”

“Hmm.” Telemachus traced his finger over Neo’s shoulder, the same spot where their shared mark lay on himself. Every inch of contact felt like electric shocks. “Where is yours? I haven’t seen it.”

Neo raised his eyebrows, even as he felt his muscles twitch and threaten to betray him. “Have you been looking?”

Telemachus laughed. “Well, yes. I always look.” He shook his wet hair out of his face, tried to squeeze some of the water out onto the sand. “I know not everyone’s is as visible as mine. But I’m—curious.” I’m waiting for the person whose mark matches mine, he didn’t need to say.

It was a shame to tell him now, when he’d soaked his clothes trying to keep it hidden, Neo thought. But his mouth was dry, his thoughts distant; he couldn’t imagine denying Telemachus anything. He was a figure of stars and sea, resplendent against the dark sky, and his eyes were only watching Neo.

Quietly, he said, “It’s on my hip.” And then, “No one ever really sees it.”

“Can I see it?” Telemachus’ voice was just as quiet as his, even if he didn’t know what it was he was asking. There was no laughter in the air now.

Neo remembered the urge to run, to race up that beach path to the dock and never come back. He felt it, imagined it, and then breathed it out. Telemachus did not flinch. “Okay.”

The moon was full and bright tonight, lighting up the beach like a silvery torch. He could see the shape of Telemachus’ mark outlined perfectly against the brown skin of his shoulder, and he knew his would be just as clear. Telemachus shifted at his side as he leaned up on his elbows and pulled up the fabric to his belly button, watching in reverent silence.

Neo glanced at his face, saw his jaw go slack and his eyes wide, and looked back to the sky. The stars spun around above his head in gentle encouragement.

“You—” Telemachus’ voice came out in a whisper, not quite certain of itself. “It’s you.”

Neo felt his heartbeat in every inch of his body as Telemachus took a sharp breath in, looked up to see that his eyes had not moved from his mark. Their mark. “You knew?”

Neo wasn’t sure if he would be angry, but he didn’t lie. He couldn’t, not this time. “Yes.”

Telemachus released another breath, disbelief, and said nothing. His fingers were warm when they touched his side, in spite of the swim; Neo shivered anyway.

“You knew last time,” he said eventually. “When you left.”

Neo squeezed his eyes shut. If he was to be sent away a second time, he would rather it be the prince who gave the order. Rather have him know and reject him than be forced to keep the secret himself. “Yes.”

Telemachus did not shout, command him to leave, cry and hurl curses at him. He was silent for so long that Neo was forced to open his eyes, look upon him again. He was still watching him, face peaceful but confused.

“Why?” he whispered.

Neo forced his gaze to hold. “Because you deserve better.”

Telemachus didn’t react to the words. His eyes flickered back down to Neo’s hip, where his fingers still traced the familiar shape of his mark. He did not seem angry. His touch filled Neo with warmth.

“Better than my soulmate?” he asked softly. The word put a twist in Neo’s gut. He could not find a response; he could hardly remember how to breathe.

He didn’t have to. Telemachus leaned in and kissed him, fitting his lips to his so tenderly that Neo felt he would collapse. Those slender fingers fitted themselves to his jaw, tilting him into the kiss with a staggering gentleness, one that no one had ever afforded him before. The fall was so immense, so sudden, that Neo could not tell if he was burning up or drowning. This, he knew, was what it meant to be Icarus. This feeling was why he had attempted to fly, even when he knew it was hopeless.

He kissed Telemachus back with all the softness he had ever managed to scrounge up, trembling and tentative. He wound his hand into his wet hair, afraid to hold him too tight, but Telemachus’ free hand wound into his hair and grabbed him even tighter, pulling him close, crushing them together. Neo thought he could fall and fall and fall forever. He prayed never to need to breathe again.

The air between them smelled of salt and rain when they pulled away, their breaths warm and heavy as their foreheads rested together. Telemachus’ grip on him remained tight, not allowing him to escape for anything more than air. If Neo had his way, he would not have gone even that far.

He was still close enough to feel Telemachus’ lips brush his when he finally spoke again.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispered. “After you left.”

Neo throbbed. “You didn’t know.”

“No,” Telemachus agreed. He stroked a finger down Neo’s cheekbone, idly, the way that he had touched his mark like he wasn’t aware he was doing it. Neo was a lightning strike, a tree burst into flames, a spark in the wind. “I didn’t know it was you. I was waiting for it to be someone else. But—I caught myself thinking about you. When I didn’t mean to. You stuck in my head.”

Neo closed his eyes. His nose was getting cold in the night air; he brushed it against Telemachus’, warm enough to burn, just like the rest of him.

“I thought of you, too,” he whispered, barely audible, like he was afraid to voice it aloud. Telemachus’ hand tightened against his cheek, kept his face pressed in close to his. “I—I thought it was the fates’ doing. Because I had seen the mark. But I tried to forget you. I couldn’t.”

Telemachus kissed him again, sweet like the first fig of the spring, like the smell of blossoms when they first drifted through the air after months of frost and snow. Neo was lost in him, could have been lost in him forever.

“I think the fates knew about it,” he said conspiratorially, in between kisses, “but it wasn’t their doing. Loving you is all mine.”

Neo kissed him, the lap of the waves in the distance, and kissed him again and again until his mouth grew tired and his lungs ached for air. Telemachus was smiling when they broke apart, even as he gasped for breath.

“Neoptolemus,” he murmured, pecking the edges of his lips. Neo’s heart lifted at the way he said it, as if he was lovely, divine, more than a herald of war. “Pyrrhus. Prince of Scyros, Prince of Phthia.”

Neo’s scars tugged as he tried and failed to resist his laughter. He caught Telemachus’ lips again with his own. “You do not need to call me so many names.”

“Mm?” Telemachus pulled away, brushing his dripping hair away from his forehead, stroking his face. “What should I call you then, prince?”

Neo kissed him gently, a quiet promise. “I am not a prince of anything. I am merely yours.”

Telemachus smiled against him. “I think I can remember that.”