The door cracked open, and Alcmene slipped inside, her cheeks flushed from rushing. In her hands was a rolled scroll bearing Amyklai’s seal. The annoyance drained out of me in an instant.
“A letter came for you,” she said, offering it with a small, breathless smile. “From home.”
My heart lurched as I snatched it from her hands. Calismae’s handwriting curled across the papyrus in bold, joyous strokes, every line tugging my mouth toward a smile I could barely manage.
You’ve done it, she’d written.You’ve won.
The wagons arrived this morning piled high with barley and medicine and barrels of clean water. Enough to feed the whole village for months. Your people stood in the square and wept. The children ran beside the wheels, laughing, their arms overflowing with grain and fruit. For the first time in years, no one went hungry today.
And Thalessa … she was released from her cell at dawn. She isn’t doing well, but she breathes the open air again. A healer was sent from Limnai and she said that with time, she might recover, albeit without her tongue. Regardless, you’ve given her a chance. A chance she never would have had without you.
We are saved, Helena.
The words bled warmth into me, settling deep into the cracks left by last night, cracks that had opened the moment Anysa’s blood soaked the marble. I pictured the square as it must have been: the smell of fresh maza rising against dry dust, the sound of children’s laughter drifting like it used to, before the land was cursed.
If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear it. Almost believe that all of this … was worth it.
It was worth it, I told myself fiercely.
But Anysa’s blank gaze immediately appeared in my head and the certainty slipped right out of me.
I bit down on my lip as I rolled the letter with care, trying to savor Calismae’s joy and my people’s salvation. Menelaus had kept his promise. He’d even sent a healer for Thalessa.
And however much I despised that he’d allowed Anysa’s death, however much angst coiled inside me at the thought of standing beside him for the rest of my life … if I wanted him to continue keeping his promises then I had to play nice.
For now.
Future queen or not, I had no illusions about the power balance between us.
I set the folded letter aside and lifted my chin. “Any news of the king?” I asked Alcmene, trying to keep my voice steady. “I still don’t understand how no one in the palace knows why he went hunting this morning. He had to have spoken to someone.”
She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could speak, a burst of cheering rose from outside.
Alcmene’s face lit with relief. “He’s returned,” she said brightly, as though everything were finally, mercifully back on its proper course. My nerves surged at once, surprising me with the flicker of relief that I would become queen today, that all the waiting and uncertainty was finally over.
A knock split the air. Alcmene’s head lifted, her gaze catching mine in the mirror. “It’s time.”
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My hand hovered above the edge of the table, the rolled letter lying there like the last warm thing I’d ever touch.
Another knock sounded, harder this time, impatient.
I rose, the red sash whispering against my skin, and thought of Calismae’s words. Of the wagons already standing in Amyklai’s square. Of children eating their fill. Of Thalessa breathing free air again.
If that was the only good I could wring from today, then I would go to my wedding with it burning in my chest.
The palace guards flanked me on both sides, spears angled to herd rather than defend. With every step, the corridor seemed to draw tighter around us, an unseen noose around my neck.
The guards kept stealing glances at me, quick sidelong cuts of their eyes. One lingered too long and flushed, his mouth tightening before he fixed his gaze ahead again. A younger one at the edge of the line gasped outright, his grip on his spear faltering for a heartbeat.
Alcmene trailed just behind the column, her measured steps a quieter echo of theirs. I wondered, as I had all day, whether my mother would be here today, whether I would see her face in the crowd.
Calismae’s letter had said nothing of Calismae coming, but perhaps my mother …
At every turn, servants bent to one knee as we passed. Some chanted blessings to Menelaus. Others beamed, their voices rising with cheers and well-wishes, all joyous as they watched me walk toward my crown.
As if the Dread had never struck last night.
As if an innocent daughter of Sparta hadn’t been slaughtered for a needless sacrifice.
