Anysa hesitated, then nodded. Her voice softened. “No. These are the kind of rooms they give you … when you’re about to become queen.”
The word collided with me so hard my breath stuttered to a halt.
Queen.
My mouth parted. My gaze darted around the room like it belonged to someone else, like the answer might be stitched into the drapes or painted on the walls. Roz sat back on its haunches and looked too, its nose twitching likequeensmelled different.
“No,” I said, except it came out as a whisper because I had no idea how what she said could be true. “I failed the Trial. I’m disqualified.Youshould be queen.”
“But I’m not,” Anysa said, no hint of malice or jealousy in her voice.
I sat up too fast. The room swayed, and Roz squeaked, sounding alarmed. My hand shot out, catching the edge of the table next to the bed as I tried to steady the riot hammering through my chest.
Queen.I felt it settle beneath my skin, strange and foreign, like ink sinking into papyrus and etching a mark that had never been meant to exist.
I said it again, just to hear it. “Queen.”
It tasted like dawn. Like cool water after working too long in the sun. Relief hit me so hard it bordered on pain. It filled my chest, spread through my limbs, loosened something that had been wound too tight for too long.
How was this possible?
Anysa watched me, her grin faltering into something gentler. “The whole palace is talking. Gods, probably all of Sparta. You’re all anyone can speak of.”
She popped a grape into her mouth. “Do you want to know how it happened?” she asked around a mouthful.
I blinked at her. “I know how I almost died, Anysa. I just don’t understand how I ended up here.”
Her grin widened again as she tossed another grape in the air, catching it without looking before she leaned closer, stage-whispering like we were gossiping in a bathhouse and not discussing my near miss with Hades. “You should’ve seen the High Priestess’s face when you turned around and chugged a cup of death like you were toasting a victory. She looked one gasp away from dropping dead herself.”
“I didn’tchug—”
“Youdefinitelychugged.” Anysa jabbed a finger at me. “You grabbed that chalice like it owed you money, and dared it to kill you. And now here we are. Queen Helena.” She gave an exaggerated bow that nearly knocked over the grape bowl.
My head spun. “So they think me surviving the poison … was a sign?”
“No, although I’m sure that’s part of it. Only some sort of … goddess-like woman could have survived that poison, even with a poison master involved. Antidotes fail more often than they succeed,” she said, raising an eyebrow like I’d been keeping something from her.
I shook my head at the ridiculousness of that, while wondering why Chloé hadn’t been offered the antidote, but Anysa wasn’t done.
“When Menelaus saw you were still breathing after a few minutes, he clapped his hands, looked out at the court, and declared thatyouwere the only one who had truly passed. Not because you had survived, but because you tried to save someone else. Because, he said,a queen does not guard herself. A queen protects her people.”
My lips pursed. I wouldn’t have guessed he would value that in his queen. He certainly didn’t seem to value that in himself as he let Sparta starve and die.
Her eyes scanned my face, searching. “And now, Helena … you’re the people’s queen. The woman who drank death and lived. The woman who chose someone else over herself.” She sat back with a low exhale. “Which means you’ve now got a crown-shaped problem. And it’s growing by the hour.”
I stared at her. “It all seems like madness.”
Roz squeaked like it agreed.
She raised a brow at it and smiled. “Of course it’s madness. Everything about the Trials was. But you survived it, Helena. And that’s what matters right now.”
Anysa’s smile suddenly faltered, and her fingers stilled in the grape bowl. “No,” she said quietly, “that’s not the only thing that matters.”
I looked at her, startled by the sudden hush in her voice.
“Youdrankfor me.” Her throat worked around the words, and for a second, I thought she might laugh it off like she always did. But she didn’t. Her eyes shimmered instead, wide and wet and brimming with something raw. “The king would surely have let me die like Chloé, but you turned and drank. Like your life meant less than mine.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came.
