Beneath the olives whose silver leaves caught the weeping light of Helios, Theseus knelt. His knees pressed to the dust of Colonus, to the very earth Oedipus would not cross. Alone, for the daughters were far behind among the laurels, and no eye bore witness but the gods.

“O son of Laius,” he said, voice low and solemn as the deep roll of the sea that once bore him to Crete, “why dost thou linger thus, a shadow at the threshold? Athens is not defiled by thee! Nay, she is honored!”

The blind man did not answer, but the wind stirred his cloak, and Theseus felt the ache of pride in him, the iron-wrought shame he would not shed. He reached—not to touch, not yet, when Oedipus would flinch away in fear of staining him—but to offer: the curve of his own brow bowed, the curl of his fingers trembling.

“Thou sayest thou art unclean, yet what is filth to me, who has wrestled beasts and borne the blood of men upon my breast? If I am to be king, let me shelter what the world calls cursed. Let Athens be thy cloak, thy rest, thy home. Let me be that, if thou wouldst allow.”

His throat burned with the weight of what he dared not name.

“My hearth stands ready. My halls are wide. But if walls repulse thee, then I bid thee come into me, into my soul, my sleep, my very bed, and find no scorn there. Only reverence.”

He drew a shuddering breath, though the air was still. “I kneel not as king now, but as a man who would be known by thee. Not as tale, nor terror, nor oracle—but as guest. As kin. As—” He bit the word back like a wound. Oedipus turned his blind face toward him, the dark pits of his ruin unreadable.

Still, Theseus waited, breath caught between fear and flame.