Her gaze went first to the gift in my lap before lifting to the faint shimmer of red paint still clinging to my collarbone.
“I’ll take it to my grave,” she said quietly.
My head snapped up, breath catching. “What?”
Alcmene stepped fully into the room, her hands folded neatly at her waist, but her gaze dug into me. “Whatever passed between you and the captain last night. I don’t need you to tell me—I saw the signs. The air still carries it.”
A chill slid down my spine. My pulse stumbled. The room suddenly felt smaller, the air pressing in tight, as if the walls themselves might whisper my secret into Menelaus’s ear.
I opened my mouth, but the words tangled uselessly, a trapped bird beating against my ribs.
Alcmene moved closer, her face solemn, knowing. “Be careful. Menelaus has ears in every hallway. Eyes in the walls. He feasts on secrets. And nothing stays hidden from him for long.”
“I don’t care,” I bit out, the words tearing from my throat. My hand shook around the necklace, the chain biting into my skin as though it meant to draw blood.
Alcmene’s gaze didn’t waver. It pressed into me, unflinching, like metal left too long in the fire, glowing, absolute, impossible to turn away from. “So that’s it, then?” she asked incredulously. “You would risk your crown, your village, your blood, your life—for this? For love?”
The heat of defiance burned in my chest, but the words struck deep … just not the way she intended. My whole life had already been given up, for my family, for my people, for a kingdom that would never see me as anything but a jewel.
I had sacrificed every dream, every piece of myself, on their altar of survival. And gods help me, I loved them still. But for once … for once, I wanted something that was mine. I curled my fingers tighter until Achilles’s hair pressed like fire into my palm, a hidden flame I refused to let go.
“That wasn’t just love,” I whispered, my breath breaking, my voice torn open. “That was something older than kingdoms. Wilder than war. Something even the gods themselves could not stop.”
Her brow lifted, her face unreadable. “That kind of love always comes with a cost.”
I felt my lips twist into a faint, reckless smile. “Then let it cost me.”
Alcmene’s face tightened and the furrow between her brows deepened. For a moment she looked far older and wearier, as if I’d confirmed every fear she carried for me.
Her voice dropped, soft but searing. “Is it enough though?”
The words cut deeper than anything else she’d said. My breath stuttered. “What?”
“Love,” she said, the word tasting bitter in her mouth. “Is it enough to anchor you? To save you? Or will it be the weight that drags you under faster than any crown ever could?”
The question hung in the air, smoke and ash, refusing to fade.
I dropped my gaze, brushing my thumb over the coil of his hair, fragile and unbreakable all at once. My throat ached as the truth clawed free.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, every word scraping raw. “But if I fall … at least I’ll have fallen for something that was real.”
Alcmene didn’t answer.
She only turned away, pulling the curtains wider. The morning light bled in even more, spilling across the sheets, across my bare, paint-streaked skin, exposing me to the world I could no longer escape.
I sat there, his taste still ghosting my lips, and prayed that love would be enough.
Chapter40
You’re quiet tonight,” Menelaus said, his voice pitched for me alone. A smile slashed across his lips as he stared at me in that devouring way of his. “Tell me, my beauty … are you still sulking about the banquet the other night? Or are you hiding something?”
My fork stalled halfway to my lips. The meat slid back onto the plate with a dull thud, loud in my ears. Heat prickled the back of my neck, the room pressing closer, every laugh and clink of goblets suddenly far too loud.
I forced a breath, but my pulse betrayed me, thrumming wild as a horse before the charge. His hand was already on my thigh beneath the table, his fingers pressing with quiet certainty in a silent claim. He didn’t need to hurt to make his point. Just the weight of his touch told me he could tighten if he wished … and that he expected me not to pull away.
“I’m only tired, my king,” I said, shaping the excuse with a smile I prayed would pass for softness.
It wasn’t a lie. I had spent the morning overseeing the distribution of palace reserves to a village on the coast that had been struck by the Dread. They’d lost thirty people in one afternoon. We had plenty here to give them, but organizing transport, arranging escorts that wouldn’t steal the goods for profit, and ensuring the right hands carried the right crates had taken hours. My muscles still hummed with the strain of it, and a faint headache pulsed behind my eyes.
