We turned the corner and I almost tripped at the sight of Achilles.
He stood like a sentinel at the end of the corridor, flanked by two guards. His armor shone in the torchlight, helmet tucked under his arm, posture set. His gaze snapped to mine the instant I appeared.
His eyes widened, a lightning flash of recognition and horror as he took me in, and then his voice cracked the silence. “Avert your eyes.” The command thundered. The guards jerked their heads down, shame flooding their faces as they obeyed.
Only he looked.
His stare pierced me, twin flames of blue fire, searing into me.
A muscle jumped in his jaw, his fingers twitching near the hilt at his side. For a moment, he looked as though he might strike someone—anyone—if it could undo what had been done. But there was no undoing. No saving. Only this: his agony reflected in mine.
The air between us throbbed with words unsaid. A silent scream. A vow. A plea.
My chest locked tight, my hands curled into fists at my sides … and I forced my feet forward. Past him and the guards with their downcast eyes. All while I tried to ignore the fact that they’d most likely heard every sound that tore from my throat behind those doors.
I didn’t look back.
Because there was no solace to be found. Not in him. Not in anyone.
The blood on my thighs had dried sticky against my skin, the ache in my body a constant throb I carried with me down the corridor.
His gaze burned into my back, branding me long after I had gone.
The air was warmer in my rooms. Cleaner. But it didn’t reach the chill beneath my skin.
Steam rose from a newly drawn bath, scented with lavender and rosewater. The sight of the water should have been soothing. But it wasn’t. Nothing could soothe this.
Alcmene stepped forward, sponge in hand, her eyes damp with unshed tears. “Come, Your Majesty,” she murmured, and I let her help me into the bath.
I took the sponge from her with a trembling hand. My voice scraped out like a blade. “I’ll do it.”
She flinched but nodded.
I stepped into the bath. The water closed over my skin with a hiss of heat, but it wasn’t enough. Not enough to strip away what clung to me. Not enough to erase the stench of him. I scrubbed—harder than I should have. The sponge dragged over my arms, my chest, my thighs.
Again.
Again.
And again.
Until my skin bloomed red and raw, until the steam blurred with tears I refused to shed.
The sponge grated over my skin like penance.
Pain flared beneath each pass, angry and hot. I welcomed it and relished the sting. At least it wasmine. At least it was real. I scrubbed harder, dragging it across the curve of my hip, the back of my neck, the insides of my thighs—everywhere he had laid claim. Every place that felt destroyed.
Alcmene stood nearby, silent, her hands folded at her waist as steam curled in the air around us.
“My mother used to tell me stories,” Alcmene suddenly said, and I stilled, the sponge clutched in my hand, drops falling from it into the bathwater like blood into a basin.
“What?” I rasped, my voice faint and strange. It cracked in the middle, like it was struggling to be a voice at all.
Alcmene nodded once and knelt beside the bath. “She told me about Antheia,” she said quietly. “The forgotten daughter of Demeter. Not a goddess of wheat or hearth—but of vengeance.”
She grabbed a pitcher from the table beside the bath and dipped it into the water before pouring it over my burning skin.
“She was born in the spring,” Alcmene continued, her eyes distant, as if seeing the tale unfold before her. “Raised among fields of wildflowers and softfruit. Gentle. Kind. But when her village was raided—when her sisters were taken and her mother silenced—Antheia went to the gods and she begged for help.”
