I kept my eyes forward as the hall clamored, but the sound scraped over me. The wet rip of meat as men tore into lamb, the shrill wails of flutes, the applause for each lewd jest. They called this place Sparta’s strength. They called it Sparta’s glory.
But I knew better.
Yes, wagons still arrived at my village, grain, salted meat, barrels of oil, all bartered for the gleaming illusion of their queen. My people were fed. Their bellies no longer clawed at them in hunger, but mine … mine was a different famine. Each day bled my spirit thinner. Each dawn I woke with less of myself than the night before, as though my soul were being chipped away, piece by piece.
I glanced over and saw Hetairis lounging across a soldier’s lap. His hands roamed, greedy and careless, and she arched into it as if they were alone in the room. My stomach twisted. The image bled into memories of last night … when Menelaus had summoned me and forced me into her arms while he drank in my humiliation like fine wine.
She had smiled then too, smug that I wasn’t enough to satisfy the king myself.
Her gaze slid across the hall and caught mine. That same knowing curl tugged at her lips.
Scowling, I refused to drop my eyes, wondering why only women seemed to believe that survival required gutting one another.
I shifted, trying to hold in a wince at the bruises I carried under my dress. I had been trained for this, molded into obedience, taught to wear silks and smiles and play the part of queen. I had known what was expected of me, what my duties would demand.
But no lesson had prepared me for Menelaus.
For the way his hunger seeped into everything, for the appetite in him that was never truly sated, no matter how much of me he took, as though desire itself were the instrument that kept him moving. My only solace, thin as a thread, was that his eyes had not shifted since our wedding night, and I had only to deal with the man. It was a fragile comfort, but comfort all the same.
Menelaus shifted beside me now, leaning in affectionately in that confusing way of his. After a month I was still half convinced that he didn’t mean to be cruel, he just couldn’t help himself.
I had tried to be demure, to seduce, to be coy, to lead things, but no matter what I attempted he still just pinned me down and took what he wanted, hollowing me out into a shell with every touch.
“My queen,” he murmured, his voice unctuous in a way that made my skin crawl, “I’ve a surprise for you tonight. All the way from your village.”
I went still. A surprise from Amyklai?
For the smallest, most foolish heartbeat, hope flared inside me. Would I finally be given faces instead of ink and papyrus—Calismae, perhaps, or my mother, stepping through those doors at last?
Menelaus lifted his hand and gestured toward the hall doors, his rings glinting like promises I did not trust. “Bring him in!”
Him.
My lips pulled into a snarl at the sight of Menelaus’ssurprise.
Ephor Nikandros stepped into the room and bowed so deeply his back dipped into a reverent crescent, his posture groveling rather than respectful.
Hatred scorched through me so hot it felt like a fever.
“My king!” Nikandros called, lifting his arms as though greeting a sunrise. He approached the dais and bowed again, lower, his obsequiousness thick enough to choke on. “What an honor. What a blessing. To bask in your presence.”
Menelaus barked a laugh, lapping up his submission.
Nikandros straightened, his eyes sliding to mine. There it was, the smile he always wore, thin and false. A serpent’s smile dressed in priestly silk. Pretending affection. Pretending loyalty. Always pretending.
“Your Majesty,” he said, plastering warmth across his face, “our god has lifted you high indeed. Amyklai is honored by your crown.”
The words tasted rotten.
My nails bit into my palms as he dared to invoke my village, dared to mimic alliance, dared to bow again as though his presence were a blessing instead of the curse it was.
Nikandros’s oily smile waited for my reply, but I managed a single nod. Nothing more. My throat refused to open. Hatred clogged it too thickly to let sound through.
Menelaus frowned, searching my face for a reason for my rudeness. I kept my expression blank though, and he finally flicked his fingers, as though brushing away a gnat, and Nikandros dipped into another simpering bow before scurrying off to mingle with the nobility like a dog sniffing for scraps.
The banquet lurched back into motion, but my appetite was ruined and I spent the next hour throwing scorn-filled looks at Nikandros that he somehow missed.
I barely looked away until Achilles stepped through the throng with that lethal stillness wrapped around him like a cloak. He’d been with the troops at the southern border since the day after the wedding and somehow, I’d forgotten what it was like to look upon him. A war-song given flesh, he moved with the inevitability of a falling star, his presence bending the golden light toward him as if the world itself could not resist his pull.
