We reached the antechamber just outside the great hall, where brides were veiled before stepping into the ceremony. Two of the lesser priestesses waited, veils folded over their arms like burial shrouds. They approached in perfect unison, raising the sheer fabric high before lowering it over my head. The gauze slid against my cheeks, settling in a white curtain around my shoulders.
It should have felt the way it had when I was veiled as a chosen—a crown of honor, the start of something I had been desperate for. But now, it was a weight. It pressed down, foretelling endings, of a life lost. This veil was not to set me apart. It was to bind me.
The great doors groaned open, and the throne room unfurled before me.
Every inch gleamed bloodred and gold, ribbons of silk spilling from the ceiling, floral garlands coiling between the marble columns. On either side of the aisle, nobles stood cloaked in wealth, jewels glinting at their throats, and their smiles stretched too wide. It was the sort of joy that lived only in the presence of power, and never without it.
Menelaus’s tunic had been cut to flatter, framing the hard-built strength of a seasoned warrior who had won Sparta’s wars and worn its glory like a second skin. Heavy rings weighted each finger. He was handsome in the kind of way thatcould charm a room before it realized it had been conquered … handsome, and utterly dangerous.
The sight of him stopped something inside me cold. I wondered if the others saw it too, that beneath all that beauty was the hunger of a man who would drink a kingdom dry if it pleased him.
Blood pounded in my ears, each beat a countdown to the moment I would stand beside him and become another jewel in his crown.
I walked forward and he grinned when he saw me, a wide, wolfish stretch of teeth. And beneath the grin … something jittered. Something restless. A tremor ran through his hands. His fingers kept flexing and curling again, the rings he wore clicking softly together in a nervous, metallic rhythm he didn’t seem aware of.
As I watched, a thin coil of red smoke wrapped his wrist and crept up his arm, vanishing the moment I blinked.
My steps faltered and I stopped outright, frozen mid-stride.
Whispers rose from the watching crowd and their eyes scraped over me. Behind me, Alcmene’s fingers brushed the small of my back. “Go, my lady,” she murmured in a barely audible voice.
I drew a breath I couldn’t feel and forced my feet to move again, my eyes still locked on Menelaus. I watched his hands, his wrists, every twitch and tremor, waiting—half dreading, half expecting—for that curl of red smoke to return.
But there was nothing … and he continued to stand there smiling like nothing was amiss.
A tight, uneasy flutter climbed my throat. Maybe it was stress twisting my vision. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe the horror of last night had cracked something in me.
My gaze flicked once to the crowd, hopefully or perhaps foolishly searching for a familiar face. I didn’t find one. Certainly not my mother’s. The absence settled immediately, and I turned my eyes forward before the ache could deepen.
I didn’t look at the nobles flanking the aisle or the flutist whose fingers trembled around his reed. I didn’t look at the High Priestess standing rigidly near the platform, her mouth arranged into something similar to dismay.
And I absolutely didn’t look atAchilles.
Even as I walked down that long aisle, even as a hundred gazes lingered along my skin, I refused to look.
Achilles’s presence pressed against me all the same. I could sense him along the eastern wall, standing with his soldiers, helmet tucked beneath one arm, jaw set in a way that spoke of held back violence. A force barely contained.
If I looked at him, if our eyes met, I might break.
I might run.
Or beg.
So I kept walking.
I fixed my gaze on the throne and on the king who was about to claim me.
Every step forward was another nail hammered into the Helena I had once been. Helena of Amyklai. Helena, who ran through the red dirt. Helena, who loved her village and dreamed of a union that would split the sky.
She was being buried beneath red silk and duty, and no one would mourn her.
When I reached the base of the platform, the music faltered, one sour note trembling in the air before cutting off entirely. The silence that followed settled around me. I knew I was supposed to kneel; Nomiki had explained every step. But my body remained still. My spine held. My chin stayed lifted.
For a suspended moment, we stared at each other … until a shift in the light caught his face.
His eyes changed.
It was the only way to describe what I was seeing. The color in them darkened, sinking into shades that twisted my stomach. The flames around us didn’t catch in his gaze, they disappeared into it, swallowed by a depth that shouldn’t have existed. Something shifted there, as if an unseen presence had stirred awake and turned its attention toward me.
