“Smile, Helena. You’re next.”
I woke with a gasp.
My chest heaved, breath shuddering in and out of me like a knife had paused a breath from my throat. Sweat clung to my neck, pooling at my collarbone. My hands fisted the sheets, my heart racing.
The air shifted. I didn’t hear anything, I just sensed the subtle press of another presence, the way shadows seem to breathe when you’re not looking. A prickle worked its way up the back of my neck.
I wasn’t alone.
I turned slowly, my body already knowing who was there before my mind would admit it … and found Achilles standing in the corner, half shadowed, torchlight catching the edge of his jaw and the dark sweep of his shoulder armor.
My breath caught, but I didn’t move or pull the sheet tighter. I didn’t even sit up.
I just looked at him, unable to muster even the effort of surprise.
“Captain …” The word escaped before I could stop it, more breath than voice, a sound that seemed to unravel from somewhere low in my chest. It carried none of the formality it should have, none of the steel I meant to lace into it. Just a quiet surrender I hadn’t intended.
His title tasted strange on my tongue, wrong, too small for the man in front of me, but I refused to give him the truth of his name. Names were for claiming, and I couldn’t let him claim this moment. I couldn’t let him know how my pulse tripped just seeing him here.
He crossed the space between us, until he reached the edge of the bed. For an aching moment, he just stood there, looking at me like I was something precious and already lost.
“I had to check on you,” he said, the words slipping into the quiet.
I let out something between a laugh and a breath, though there was no humor in it. “To see if I survived the day … and herdeath?”
His gaze held mine, steady, unblinking. “To see if you survivedhim.”
My hands fisted in the sheet, not because I was afraid of Achilles, but because I wasn’t. “You shouldn’t be here,” I murmured. The words were habit, worn thin from overuse, the ones we always seemed to give each other when one of us didn’t know what else to say.
“I know.” His eyes swept over my face, searching for something that felt like it was already slipping away. “But I couldn’t stay away.”
I should have turned my head. Looked anywhere else. Instead, I let him look, let him see the exhaustion draining me, the way my shoulders folded inward, how I hadn’t been able to stop shaking since Anysa fell.
His hand shifted, so gradual I almost missed it, each inch closing the space between us like a question I hadn’t decided how to answer. When his fingers found the line of my jaw, heat bled into my skin, and for a heartbeat I hovered on the edge of flinching. But the warmth stayed.
“You’re freezing,” he said, his thumb grazing the corner of my mouth. “Even here, in all this heat.”
I swallowed hard. “I can’t seem to warm up,” I said, and the edge of my voice finally broke. “Did you know she was going to die?”
Something flickered in his eyes—fury, maybe. Or the kind of helplessness that came from wanting to burn the world down for someone and knowing you couldn’t.
“No,” he said immediately. “I swear it. The king sent me out on an errand this afternoon. I didn’t come back through the gates until moments before I saw you tonight.” Achilles shook his head. “Tell me what I can do.”
I didn’t saysave me. I didn’t saykill him. I didn’t sayburn this cursed palace to the ground.
Because I wanted those things for myself.
I leaned the smallest fraction into his hand. “Tell me something that can make me forget … just for a moment,” I finally whispered.
He bit down on his lip, like he was considering my request.
I watched the rise and fall of his chest, the faint glint in his eyes as if he were searching for something buried between the weight of his duty and the pull of whatever tether bound him to me. I closed my eyes, letting myself have this moment.
When he finally spoke, it was barely more than a murmur. “If I take your pain for myself … even for a breath … you may not want me to give it back.”
My lashes lifted, slow and heavy, until his face filled my sight, closer now, the line of his mouth drawn tight. His hand slid from my jaw to the side of my neck, and his thumb pressed lightly against the flutter of my pulse.
“I’m not asking you to take it,” I said. “Just … drown it for me.”
