Blood slicked the floor beneath them. Both men shone red, sweat and gore mingling. The stench of iron thickened in the air.
The Sidonian staggered upright, trying to feign laughter through bloodied teeth. He raised his fists, beckoning.
Achilles threw his blade down and met him mid-leap. They crashed down, the marble shuddering. Achilles straddled him, fists hammering into his face until bone gave way. The Sidonian’s roar broke into a wet gurgle.
The hall fell silent but for the sound of it, flesh on flesh, vengeance in motion.
My heart was battering, fear and awe tangled so tightly I could scarcely tell one from the other.
Achilles finally rose slowly, blood dripping from his knuckles, and his chest heaving. The Sidonian twitched once at his feet, then stilled. The captain bent down and grabbed his sword, raising it in the air as gasps shivered through the court. The emissaries shifted, their stillness finally cracking. Menelaus leaned close again, his voice thick with delight. “Our lion always devours.”
Achilles suddenly brought the blade down again and again, hacking at his chest without mercy until the Sidonian’s body was nothing but ruins.
The silence that followed wasn’t shock, it was worship. For a long heartbeat, no one moved.
Menelaus burst into laughter, a thunderous bark that cracked the hall wide open. He surged to his feet, the rage that had gnawed at him all night gone as if it had never existed. “Behold!” he shouted, his voice thick with triumph. “Sparta’s might! Sparta’s lion! Is there any man in this world who does not tremble before us?”
The nobles erupted, stamping their feet against the floor as their voices clashed together in exalting cheers.
At the center of it all, Achilles lifted his sword high, crimson dripping down the blade, his chest heaving with the violence still singing in his blood. “Sparta!” he roared. The crowd took it up, chanting his name, chanting our land’s name, and the air throbbed with their voices.
I sat frozen, my heart pounding so wildly I thought it might burst. Relief flooded me—he had survived—but it tangled with a horror that made my stomach roil. He looked like a god, radiant with blood, terrible and beautiful … But I was cold. So very cold.
Menelaus sank back into his throne, his laughter still rumbling in his chest. He leaned toward me, his breath heavy with wine, and his words this time meant for my ear alone. “Come, my beauty,” he murmured. “Let us go celebrate.”
My heart plummeted, crashing against my ribs. The taste of bile stung the back of my throat. I knew exactly what that meant.
The cheers of Sparta thundered around me, but inside, the last place that could feel hope simply went dark.
Chapter38
Ilimped back toward my chamber, each step dragging a dull ache through my body. The sounds of revelry still chased me down the stone halls, laughter, music, the clatter of goblets … a feast that had long since soured into frenzy.
The guard at my side said nothing. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed straight ahead, but I could feel the stiffness in him, the unease that made him avoid my face. Perhaps he didn’t know what to say to a queen who had been thrown to her knees before the court.
Or perhaps he didn’t care.
The air stank. The halls shook with the reedy cry of music and the din of men too drunk to remember themselves.
My last image of the king was of him sprawled naked across his bed, snoring into the tangled sheets, his skin slick with sweat. His hand still rested possessively against the place where he’d pinned me, even in sleep. A lover’s pose, almost tender …
When his appetite for spectacle in front of our guests had finally waned, he had taken me to his chamber. He’d tried to be gentle. His voice softened, his praise whispered thick with wine. He spoke to me sweetly, almost lovingly, as if the man who’d ordered me to my knees in front of the Sidonians had been someone else entirely.
But the illusion shattered quickly.
His gaze had changed … it had shifted. And for the first time since our wedding night, I saw it again. The same thing that had looked out at me was there once more.
His touch turned rough and impatient, and then his hand had closed around my throat. His fingers tightened just enough to steal my breath, to make my vision spark and dim at the edges. Panic surged as my lungs clawed uselessly forair. I tried to speak, to gasp, but nothing came out, only a thin, broken sound trapped in his grip.
The room tilted, my heartbeat thundering wildly, and then beginning to stutter.
For a terrible moment, I knew he wouldn’t stop. That the creature inside of him didn’t care whether I lived, only that I yielded. Spots burst across my vision and darkness crept inward.
And at the last second, when I was sure this was the end … he released me.
I collapsed against the bed, coughing violently, air tearing back into my chest like glass. He loomed over me, breathing hard, eyes still wrong, still distant—as if he hadn’t even noticed how far he’d gone.
His touch afterward was rough, impatient, and stripped of pretense. He was too drunk to register the tremor still ripping through me, too proud to care how close he’d come to ending me.
