By the end, my throat burned and throbbed, every swallow a reminder of his hands. The sheets beneath us were wrenched and bunched from where I’d clawed at them, trying to stay conscious, trying to stay alive. He’d sighed contentedly, rolling away like a man settling after a meal, already drifting off.
I lay there shaking, lungs still stuttering, staring at the painting on the ceiling while my pulse screamed in my ears. Long after his breathing evened out, my body stayed locked in that moment, replaying the truth I couldn’t escape. He’d almost killed me. It had almost all been over.
My body was sore in places I wished I could tear away as the guard stopped at my door and pushed it open. I stepped through, every muscle screaming. The door shut behind me with a thud that sounded too much like finality.
Alcmene stood in the room, her face pale, her hands tight around a pitcher of water. “Your Majesty,” she breathed, taking a step toward me.
I said nothing. My tongue felt thick, useless, as if words would splinter me further.
She stepped closer, soft footsteps against the stone, and lifted a shawl, the fabric brushing my arm as she tried to drape it around my shoulders. “You’re freezing. Let me—”
“Don’t,” I whispered, the word scraping out frayed.
She froze mid-motion. The shawl hung between us, trembling slightly in her hands. Her eyes searched my face, wide and uncertain, and I knew she could see it … my pain, the tremor I couldn’t hide.
I turned away, hugging my arms close, as if the chill were safer than her kindness. “Please. Just go,” I whispered around the lump in my throat.
Alcmene hesitated. I felt her eyes on me. Her worry. But she didn’t argue. She knew when to leave a wound untouched. She bowed her head, placed the pitcher on the table, and slipped through the door without another word.
The silence closed in.
My hand shot out, seizing the pitcher. With a broken cry, I hurled it across the chamber. It shattered against the wall, shards skittering across the floor, water running in rivulets through the cracks in the stone.
I snatched a wet rag from the basin and scrubbed at my skin, fierce and desperate. The crimson paint smeared instead of lifting, streaking across my arms, my collarbones, the hollow of my throat.
A sound broke the silence … a faint squeak.
I froze.
Roz crept out from beneath the table, small and strange, its gray fur shimmering faintly, that long red tail curling and uncurling like a ribbon. Pale blue eyes glowed, watchful, too knowing for such a tiny body. Roz had appeared every night I wasn’t with Menelaus, never judging, only watching … its presence a quiet reminder that I wasn’t entirely alone.
But not tonight.
“No.” My voice cracked. I lurched upright, the rag dripping in my hand. “Get out!” The scream tore free, strangled and violent. “Leave!”
It flinched. For a moment it only looked at me, head tilting, as if it understood more than it should. Then it darted back into the shadows, swallowed by them as though it had never been there.
I caught my reflection in the mirror. You couldn’t see the bruises under the paint smears. I looked more bloodstained than anything else.Fitting,I thought,that on this last night of paint and ritual, the color would still cling to me like a curse instead of washing clean.
The rag slipped from my fingers. My knees gave way, crashing to the stone. The cold bit through the silk as I folded in on myself, sobs tearing out of me so violently I could hardly breathe. The red streaks were like brands of shame that would not wash away.
My vision blurred, the corners of the room swimming. If the Sidonian warriors hadn’t entered … If Achilles hadn’t stepped forward … If Menelaus hadn’t come to enough to let go of my neck …
The thoughts twisted in my gut. I gagged on my own breath and curled forward, pressing my palms into my eyes until bursts of light flared behind the lids. But still I felt it, his hand pressing down on my head, holding me there. Still I saw it, his eyes emptied of anything human, fixed on me with a cold, unblinking intent. The certainty that my end meant nothing to him at all.
My stomach lurched. I stumbled to the corner and retched, bile and nothing else burning my throat. I hadn’t eaten. I couldn’t.
I collapsed back to the floor, trembling, my gaze falling to the glitter of red still clinging to my thighs. The torches around the room stretched long shadows across the walls, swaying like specters. They swayed, and I swayed with them, hollow, weightless, undone.
I couldn’t do this.
There was no escape. Not from the palace, not from the king … not from the gilded cage of my own body. No matter what I did, the prison closed in tighter.
I couldn’t change Menelaus. I couldn’t control him.
No one would save me.
Not Achilles.
