The new ship cut the water as if the sea had decided to cooperate, its hull riding higher than the galley’s, sleeker, the timbers fitted so cleanly that the wake spread behind them in a smooth, disciplined fan.

  The sails took the wind without complaint, canvas breathing in steady rhythm, and every sound, oars dipping, rigging creaking, water sliding along the sides, felt measured, intentional.

  For the first time since leaving Troy, the voyage did not feel like an argument.

  The crew moved differently.

  Eur stood at the helm with relaxed authority, no longer braced for impact at every swell.

  Thea sat near the bow, sharpening a blade more out of habit than need, her posture loose.

  Phil leaned against the rail, eyes half-lidded, listening to the wind.

  Ment had found a place for the golden calf near the mast and was humming softly as he checked the lashings.

  Pol and Kid sat with their backs against the gunwale, boots dangling over open sea, talking quietly about what they would do when they reached Ithaca.

  When.

  Not if.

  Jax stood amidships, hands resting on the rail, watching Scheria shrink behind them.

  The marble city glowed in the afternoon light, white and gold against the green hills.

  Music still drifted faintly across the water, carried farther than it should have been able to travel.

  Kindness echoed longer than cruelty, it seemed.

  He pulled up the system overlay out of habit, expecting some new warning to snap the calm in half.

  The blue light appeared, restrained and almost polite.

  Low.

  The word felt strange.

  He let the overlay fade and breathed out slowly, forcing his shoulders to drop.

  Even Athena’s presence had softened, no longer a steady pressure but something distant and watchful, like a teacher who had stepped back to see what the student would do next.

  Pol nudged Kid with his elbow.

  “When we get home,” Pol said, “first thing I’m doing is sleeping for a week.”

  Kid snorted.

  “First thing I’m doing is eating. Second thing is sleeping. Third thing is telling everyone I survived monsters and gods and still made it back.”

  “You’re not telling them everything,” Eur said without turning. “Some things you keep.”

  Kid grinned.

  “Some things I embellish.”

  Laughter rippled across the deck, light and real.

  Even the calf lowed, as if offended it wasn’t included.

  Jax let himself smile.

  Then the wind died.

  Not gradually.

  Not like a shift or a lull.

  It stopped as if someone had closed a door.

  The sails sagged.

  The wake thinned.

  The ship slowed, the smooth glide breaking into an uneasy drift.

  Phil straightened first, eyes opening fully.

  “That’s wrong,” he said.

  The sea flattened.

  Not calm, flat.

  The surface smoothed until it reflected the sky too perfectly, a mirror that showed no depth beneath it.

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  Eur tightened his grip on the helm and tried to correct course.

  The rudder resisted, heavy, as though the water had thickened around it.

  Jax felt it then, a pressure, subtle but immense, like standing beneath a cliff that hadn’t decided whether to fall.

  The blue light flared unbidden.

  The word pulsed once, then held.

  Ment’s humming stopped.

  He looked up slowly, hand still resting on the calf’s neck.

  “Captain,” he said. “Tell me I’m imagining this.”

  Before Jax could answer, the sea spoke.

  It was not a wave.

  Not thunder.

  It was a voice carried through water and air at once, so vast it seemed to come from every direction.

  “PH?ACIANS.”

  The word rolled across the surface, heavy enough to make the ship shudder.

  The crew staggered, hands grabbing rails and lines.

  Jax turned back toward Scheria.

  The island was closer than it should have been.

  Or perhaps the distance no longer mattered.

  The sky above it darkened, not with storm clouds, but with a deepening blue, as if the light itself were being pulled away.

  The music stopped mid-note.

  The harbor froze in a way that had nothing to do with cold.

  Poseidon’s voice came again, colder now, sharpened by judgment.

  “For aiding the breaker of oaths. For sheltering the defiant. For carrying him closer to the shore I deny.”

  The sea around Scheria began to rise, not in waves, but in rigid forms.

  Water thickened, hardened, transmuting into pale stone that climbed the hulls of ships still at anchor.

  A Phaeacian sailor reached for the dock.

  His hand froze mid-motion, fingers outstretched, skin turning marble-white in a heartbeat.

  Another tried to run.

  His foot lifted, never landed.

  The harbor became a sculpture of interrupted lives.

  Jax felt the weight of it hit his chest like a physical blow.

  “No,” he said, voice lost beneath the god’s pronouncement.

  “They helped us. This was on me.”

  Poseidon did not answer him.

  “You will learn,” the voice continued, inexorable.

  “Kindness extended to my enemy is kindness stolen from me. Let their stillness remind you what aid costs.”

  The transformation rippled outward.

  Ships locked in place, sails petrifying as if caught in a wind that no longer existed.

  Towers stiffened, their edges sharpening into impossible angles.

  The palace gates sealed, marble flowing like wax before hardening again.

  Nausicaa stood at the edge of the quay, eyes wide.

  She took one step forward.

  Stone climbed her ankles.

  Jax surged toward the rail, every instinct screaming to turn back, to do something, anything.

  Eur caught him around the shoulders and hauled him back.

  “You can’t,” Eur said, teeth clenched.

  “You can’t fight this.”

  The sea fell silent.

  Scheria stood frozen behind them, a city of statues locked in the act of generosity.

  The pressure lifted slightly.

  The ship lurched as the water released its grip, the sails filling with wind again, gentle, almost mocking.

  The god spoke one last time, quieter now, as if the lesson had been delivered and no further emphasis was required.

  “Sail,” Poseidon said.

  “And remember.”

  The voice faded.

  The wind returned.

  The ship surged forward, pulled away from the harbor as though by an unseen hand.

  Scheria receded, its gleaming marble dulled now by stillness, beauty stripped of movement.

  No one spoke.

  The only sound was the creak of the mast and the calf’s uneasy breathing.

  Jax stood rigid, staring back until the island became a pale shape on the horizon and then nothing at all.

  He felt hollow.

  A blue box appeared, larger than usual, its borders darker.

  The numbers meant nothing.

  Ment sank to his knees beside the calf, pressing his forehead briefly to the deck as if grounding himself.

  “They didn’t deserve that,” he said hoarsely.

  “No,” Jax replied.

  The word felt insufficient.

  He looked down at his hands, half-expecting to see stone creeping up his fingers.

  “They paid for us.”

  Eur rested a hand on Jax’s shoulder, solid and warm.

  “If kindness is punished,” Eur said, “that’s on the gods. Not us.”

  Jax nodded, but the weight didn’t lift.

  He had chosen to accept help.

  He had known the stories.

  Known the risk.

  Power always collected interest.

  They sailed in silence for a long time.

  The sun dipped lower, painting the sea in copper and red.

  The wind held steady, pushing them onward whether they wanted it to or not.

  Then Phil spoke.

  “Smoke,” he said, pointing ahead.

  Jax followed his gaze.

  On the horizon, a dark smear rose into the sky, thin at first, then thicker, branching into several plumes.

  The shape beneath it resolved slowly, a coastline, familiar even at a distance.

  Ithaca.

  Jax’s chest tightened.

  As they drew closer, details sharpened.

  Ships clustered in the bay, too many, their hulls crowded together like parasites.

  The palace stood on the hill, its silhouette harsh against the fading light.

  Smoke rose from its upper levels.

  “Suitors,” Pol said quietly.

  “And more than before,” Thea added. “They’re entrenched.”

  The blue light flickered again, urgent now.

  The wind shifted, carrying with it the distant smell of burning wood.

  Jax gripped the rail, knuckles whitening.

  So close.

  The system pulsed once more, harsher, the text edged in crimson.

  A low rumble rolled beneath the ship, not thunder yet, but the promise of it.

  The sea darkened ahead, the surface beginning to ripple with something deeper than waves.

  Behind them, Scheria was gone, frozen in memory and stone.

  Ahead, Ithaca burned.

  Jax closed his eyes for a single breath, then opened them.

  “Ready the ship,” he said, voice steady despite the storm gathering in his bones.

  “We don’t turn back. Not now.”

  Eur nodded and turned to the helm.

  Thea moved without being told, checking lines and angles.

  Phil nocked an arrow, though there was nothing yet to shoot.

  Ment stood and wiped his face, setting his jaw.

  Pol and Kid exchanged a look, fear there, yes, but something else too.

  Resolve.

  The calf shifted, hooves scraping softly.

  Jax stared at the smoke rising from his father’s halls and finally understood the shape of the road ahead.

  The gods were done testing him.

  Now they wanted payment.

  The sea began to rise.

  We’re home.

  And home is a battlefield.

  - How do you feel about Poseidon’s punishment? Fair divine justice… or pure cruelty? ????

  - Would YOU have accepted the Phaeacians’ help knowing this might happen? Or sailed on starving? ??

  - Ithaca burns. Suitors wait. The storm rises. What’s your plan for the final siege? ????

  The sea rises. Ithaca waits.

  No turning back.

  Onward. Home demands payment. ???