Another woman stepped forward with a red sash. “And this,” she said, winding it three times around my waist, “carries the knot of Gamelion. Woven for marriage, fertility, and protection.” Her fingers tightened the knot just above my navel. “Only your husband may undo it.”
My heart sputtered at the reminder that I would be lying with Menelaus. This night wasn’t just a ceremony … it was a tether to the nights ahead.
The last woman brought pins shaped like laurel leaves, gleaming gold. She twisted my hair into braids, anchoring them against my scalp, then let the rest fall in soft curls down my back. The pins glinted as she tucked them in place. “For wisdom,” she whispered, “and for victory. Laurel crowns the worthy.”
The door opened without warning and I inwardly groaned when I looked in the mirror and saw the High Priestess entering the room behind me.
She swept toward me, her robes trailing behind her, gold cuffs flashing at her wrists. Her face was as composed and unreadable as ever, but her eyes tightened with something that looked very much like alarm as she looked upon me.
She hadn’t wanted me in the Trials. She’d tried to banish me before they even began. Now I was to be queen, and still she regarded me like I would destroy Sparta.
“I’d like us to work together,” I said, breaking the silence. The priestess’s brows rose. “I know this may not be what you wanted,” I went on, forcing calm into my voice, “but I believe Sparta can be more than what it has been. I would like us to be helpmates in that. In healing it.”
Her expression didn’t shift, but her eyes narrowed as she assessed me. “That,” she said carefully, “would please me.”
Surprise unfurled in my chest, but before I could speak she went on, her voice distant. “I only wonder if fate will allow it.” Her gaze continued to hold mine in the mirror. Not cruelly, just … full of the weight of whatever terrible future she seemed to see dancing behind my eyes.
“You were born of flame, Helena,” she said, more to the mirror than to me. “And flame doesn’t know the difference between warmth and blazing ruin.”
I had no answer for that. Evidently, I would need time to prove I wasn’t to be the end of Sparta.
“Now for the final step,” the High Priestess said. She nodded once, and one of the women moved in silence, lifting a bowl from the table and passing it into the priestess’s waiting hands.
I turned toward the mirror, frowning. I was already dressed, already rouged, crowned in red poppies, and perfumed. What more was there?
The High Priestess stepped in front of me with the bowl, and I glanced into it and frowned. Inside swirled a thick, red substance, nearly opaque, streaked with the faintest glimmer, like crushed garnets melted down. An earthy scent rose from it, stinging my nostrils.
“What is that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the smell.
“Your body is to be marked,” the High Priestess murmured, lifting the bowl higher so that the light caught the surface. “To ensure none may touch what now belongs to the king.”
The words struck and my heartbeat stuttered, then quickened, thudding too loud in my ears.
Her eyes lifted, finding mine. “Should someone try to touch you, it will show. And they will be punished.”
My mouth felt dry. “How?”
“By death.”
A beat of silence stretched. My throat tightened. My thoughts, traitorous things, leapt back to that night—a calloused hand on my cheek, warm breath against my skin, Achilles’s mouth.
I shoved the memory down, but my body betrayed me. Heat scorched my chest, and I prayed the High Priestess couldn’t see the guilt painting itself across my face.
“Proceed,” I finally murmured, even though she had already dipped the brush and brought it to my skin.
The first stroke landed cold just beneath my neck, a shock of red that glittered faintly in the light. Not blood. But itfeltlike it. Like it knew it should’ve been.
The bristles scratched across my chest, leaving behind a stripe of color that shimmered like fire trapped under glass.
Another stroke, this time over my shoulder, then down my arm and my legs.
The High Priestess said nothing as she worked. Her hands remained steady, but her gaze was not. It flicked once to the mirror. Once to my face. Then away, like the sight of me unsettled her every time she looked.
Red swept over the hollow of my throat. It clung to me like a memory I hadn’t lived, like hands I hadn’t invited. Every place it touched ceased to be mine.
I wanted to wipe it off and scrub myself clean, but I stayed still.
This was everything I’d wanted, everything I’d worked for … even if each stroke of the brush felt like it was changing me into someone new.
