The palanquin was lowered as the king reached me and he stared, his eyes gleaming beneath his heavy crown. “My beauty,” he murmured, extending a strong, ring-laden hand.
I stared at his hand long enough that I expected annoyance to surface, but when I finally looked up, all I found was patience … as though he were simply giving me the space to choose.
Taking a deep breath, I lifted my chin. I was Helena of Amyklai. Helena the Beauty. Helena ofSparta. This was my destiny, and I would not cower before it.
I placed my hand in his.
His fingers closed around mine, and he dipped his head just enough for the words to brush my ear, soft as a vow. “There’s my queen.”
I forced myself to smile, errantly thinking how his touch sparked nothing. There was no lightning under the skin, no heat leaping up my wrist like a brand. Just … contact. Achilles’s hand had been different. Calloused, rough, and alive. Charged like danger and desire braided beneath the skin.
Menelaus’s grip was simply … there.
With time that will change, I told myself as I stepped off the palanquin carefully.
“I’ve never seen something more beautiful,” he murmured, loud enough for those near to hear, though his eyes never left my face.
Something, not someone.
Was his wording intentional?
“Thank you, my king,” I answered as he guided me forward, his hand firm around mine, steering me through the parting crowd with the quiet assurance of a man who knew everything here belonged to him.
His throne rose ahead, towering and brutal. Stone lions crouched on either side, their bared teeth set in a snarl.
But beside it, smaller, and unmistakably new—there was a second throne. It was lower to the ground, but cut from the same red marble with its seat draped in white silk. Menelaus’s sigil was along the base of it.
“For you,” Menelaus said, his voice deep with pride. “All of this.For you.”
Around us, the crowd bowed as one as I stared at my throne.
I was truly about to be queen.
And with time—time to steady myself, time to learn him, time to wield the power placed in my hands—Menelaus’s touch might kindle something more than duty. With time, I would grow into my crown.
With time, I would save Sparta.
“Sit down, my beauty,” Menelaus coaxed as he led me to the seat. “Let them see what a goddess looks like when she takes form.”
I stepped forward and lowered myself onto the throne. Red and black shimmered along my arms, catching the light like ancient seals pressed into skin.
Just two months ago, I’d been in Amyklai, training and waiting. I’d studied maps by candlelight, recited histories, drilled posture and poise until my back ached and my lungs burned. Those lungs had seared with every breath as I held each stance a little longer, imagining the day I would stand before a king without trembling, imagining the day I would finally belong to something greater than a village’s hopes.
All of it in preparation. All of it in hope.
The throne was cold beneath me. And yet, around me, the room gleamed like a fever dream, a hundred courtiers draped in decadence and watching my every move. They didn’t see the woman who’d spent her mornings dodging dust storms and her evenings mourning the dead. Who had waited in that manor like a soldier ready to be summoned.
They saw the crown. They saw a queen.
And maybe I could be that. Maybe I already was.
My fingers twitched against the stone. The red shimmered on my skin, glowing faintly like fire sealed beneath glass. The music had softened, and even the laughter from the court had taken on a careful hush.
Once more I lifted my chin.
I had trained for this.
I had bled for it.
