Free The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton

settled. I sat down beside him on the bed.
    â€œIt isn’t up to me,” Father said. “The Chamber is deciding who goes. Apply to them.” Father was looking a little better now that the voyage had been agreed on.
    â€œWe all want to go,” Phaedrus said.
    â€œYou can’t all go,” Father said. “What if the ship went down?”
    â€œWhat if it did?” Kallikles asked. “That’s part of the hazard of life.”
    â€œAll of you lost at once?” Father said. “No.”
    â€œThe city wants to send the best,” Phaedrus said. He grinned at me. He was constantly making jokes about my name—it was he who had first thought up the game of pursuing Arete. “And in addition to my little sister, the most excellent people they can find. We brothers are the certainly among the best of the Young Ones.”
    Father took a deep draught of his wine. “Arete’s going,” he said. “No more.”
    â€œThe problem with that is that we’re heroes,” Kallikles said, spreading his hands. “You know we are. And this is a heroic mission, where we will have the chance to prove ourselves. It’s like the voyage of the Argonauts. We all ought to have that chance. The Chamber gives us the chance, on our own excellence. If they turn us down, then they do. But if you speak against us they will turn us down.”
    Father shook his head. “Not all of you,” he began, but wrathful Neleus interrupted.
    â€œI insist on going, even though I’m not a hero!” He looked furiously at Kallikles.
    We all looked at him. And suddenly I saw us all looking at him. It was strange. They were all my brothers, and I knew them well, Neleus among them, but now I saw them all with new eyes. Neleus sat alone on his bed, and we were all looking at him, and we were all one thing, and he was another. We all looked like Father, and he did not. We all had Father’s calm blue eyes and chiseled features. We had all shades of skin color—or all the shades of the Middle Sea, as Maia put it: Kallikles’s chalk pale, Father’s olive, mine brown, and Phaedrus’s near-black. We had hair that curled wildly and hair that lay flat as silk. Kallikles was short and Phaedrus was tall and I was a girl. We were an assorted set, but we were all Father’s children, children of Apollo, of a god. We knew we were all heroes, and Neleus knew he was not. My father and my brothers looked coolly at Neleus, and I looked with them, ranged myself with them in that moment. I had to whether I wanted to or not. I was a hero. I could not make myself be like Neleus. I was human—we were all human. But we all had something else in addition, and Neleus did not, and we all knew it.
    â€œIt shouldn’t make any difference,” Neleus said, into that long silence. His voice wavered a little.
    â€œIt shouldn’t,” Phaedrus said, gently enough. “But you have to see that it does.”
    â€œYou’re not any better than I am,” Neleus blazed.
    Phaedrus lifted an eyebrow. “You know I am. I’m faster and stronger. We’re exactly the same age but I haven’t been able to wrestle with you in the palaestra since we were six.”
    â€œIt’s not fair!”
    â€œIt may not be fair, but it’s the way it is,” Kallikles said. He reached out a hand toward Neleus across the space between the beds, but Neleus ignored it.
    â€œIt’s not your fault,” Phaedrus said.
    â€œBeing heroes doesn’t make you better people,” Father said. He sounded immensely weary. “It might even make you worse. Knowing about it might. Simmea was afraid of that.”
    â€œWhat does it mean, exactly?” I asked.
    â€œArete, even you must see that this isn’t the time for a Socratic debate clarifying terms!” Kallikles said, turning on me angrily.
    â€œI don’t see that at all,” I said, keeping my