fire, he would start painstakingly with small bits of dried moss placed just so, then the smaller twigs, then larger, building upwards and upwards. This art too, I did not know. Wood needed no coaxing for my father to kindle it.
He saw me watching and rubbed self-consciously at his calloused hands. “I know I am ugly to you.”
No, I thought. My grandfather’s halls are filled with shining nymphs and muscled river-gods, but I would rather gaze on you than any of them.
I shook my head.
He sighed. “It must be wonderful to be a god and never bear a mark.”
“My brother once said it feels like water.”
He considered. “Yes, I can imagine that. As if you are brimming, like an overfilled cup. What brother is that? You have not spoken of him before.”
“He is gone to be a king far away. Aeëtes, he is called.” The name felt strange on my tongue after so long. “I would have gone with him, but he said no.”
“He sounds like a fool,” Glaucos said.
“What do you mean?”
He lifted his eyes to mine. “You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go.”
Our arms would brush as he worked at the ship’s rail. When we sat, my dress lapped over his feet. His skin was warm and slightly roughened. Sometimes I would drop something, so he might pick it up, and our hands would meet.
That day, he knelt on the beach, kindling a fire to cook his lunch. It was still one of my favorite things to watch, that simple, mortal miracle of flint and tinder. His hair hung sweetly into his eyes, and his cheeks glowed with the flame’s light. I found myself thinking of my uncle who had given him that gift.
“I met him once,” I said.
Glaucos had spitted a fish and was roasting it. “Who?”
“Prometheus,” I said. “When Zeus punished him, I brought him nectar.”
He looked up. “Prometheus,” he said.
“Yes.” He was not usually so slow. “Fire-bearer.”
“That is a story from a dozen generations ago.”
“More than a dozen,” I said. “Watch out, your fish.” The spit had drooped from his hand, and the fish was blackening on the coals.
He did not rescue it. His eyes were fixed on me. “But you are my age.”
My face had tricked him. It looked as young as his.
I laughed. “No. I am not.”
He had been half slouched to one side, knees touching mine. Now he jerked upright, pulling away from me so fast I felt the cold where he had been. It surprised me.
“Those years are nothing,” I said. “I made no use of them. You know as much of the world as I do.” I reached for his hand.
He yanked it away. “How can you say that? How old are you? A hundred? Two hundred?”
I almost laughed again. But his neck was rigid, and his eyes wide. The fish smoked between us in the fire. I had told him so little of my life. What was there to tell? Only the same cruelties, the same sneers at my back. In those days, my mother was in an especial ill humor. My father had begun to prefer his draughts to her, and her venom over it fell to me. She would curl her lip when she saw me. Circe is dull as a rock. Circe has less wit than bare ground. Circe’s hair is matted like a dog’s. If I have to hear that broken voice of hers once more. Of all our children, why must it be she who is left? No one else will have her. If my father heard, he gave no sign, only moved his game counters here and there. In the old days, I would have crept to my room with tear-stained cheeks, but since Glaucos’ coming it was all like bees without a sting.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was only a stupid joke. I never met him, I only wished to. Never fear, we are the same age.”
Slowly, his posture loosened. He blew out a breath. “Hah,” he said. “Can you imagine? If you had really been alive then?”
He finished his meal. He threw the scraps to the gulls, then chased them wheeling to the sky. He turned back to grin at me, outlined against the silver waves, his shoulders lifting in his tunic. No matter how many fires I watched him make, I never spoke of my uncle again.
One day, Glaucos’ boat came late. He did not anchor it,