None knew where to find her. Save for one- Odysseus. And as he, as well as half the city undertook the task of recovering Silhaume to her uncle, avoided notice he hurried to where he knew she would be.

The beach. The little bay by the dock where he had long ago denied her freedom and driven her to the wildness of mind that now was her only salvation.

She was lying on the sand, she had wept.

"You must go home Silhaume, before the consequences are too great."

When she spoke he was unable to comprehend the mad evenness of her voice,

"You are so weak, Odysseus. Almost as weak as me," she sighed, "and as naive. I cannot go back. It cannot be done."

"Don't talk like this."

"There is no other way that this could happen."

He lost his calm, grabbed hold of her wrist, "Could it really have been better- if I had taken you away?"

"It will hurt you much if I say the truth," she ripped out of his hold. He tried again to still her; she leapt back- agile and expecting of his every move.

Then she ran; the skin of her bare feet tearing on the jagged rocks surrounding the beach. Odysseus took off after her, sprinting with more ease in sandals.

Silhaume had halted at the height of a great hanging cliff.

Has he spurned her on to this?

"Please don't."

"I asked you 'please' on that night."

She regarded the treacherous landing beneath the overhang with a smile.

"Silhaume..."

"Goodbye, Odysseus my love."

With outstretched arms she jumped backward into the jarring crevices below, trusting that no foolish hands would try to deter her from this deed.

The waves swallowed her without pause, accepting the poisonous madness of her soul.

Odysseus returned to Ithaca with a fraction of his mind missing. He could not explain to Penelope what went wrong.

Twelve days after Silhaume's plunge her body washed back upon the shore; perhaps the sea could not receive the bile of her past after all. When he saw the lifeless corpse Odysseus wished she had looked peaceful, released. But she was not.

Her lovely face was a bundle of missing flesh; her magnificent eyes were gone- digested by the ocean creatures.

Odysseus hid his sorrow and torment of the innocent girl's death, but he would not ever forget it.

Alchenon was plagued horribly by his niece's death. He swore on some nights that he could she her wandering ghost, that she would not let him sleep.

Each one of his friends and relatives had died within the twelve days. Many, like Seryphia, whilst swimming by the beaches whom were bitten by deadly sea snakes.

Alchenon claimed, countlessly, as he was driven further and further from sanity that-

She would not let him forget.