Achilles shifted, stepping forward half a pace, every muscle in his body pulled tight, ready to strike.
But Menelaus … he leaned forward, a serpentine smile stretching across his lips. “Well,” he said, his voice thick with something that might have been hunger, “that is interesting.”
Theron closed his hand and the flame vanished.
“I offer it as a gift,” he said smoothly. “The old ways are not dead everywhere, my king. Some of us still remember what it means to speak with power.” His gaze dipped in another gesture of respect. “Though mine is nothing beside the might you already command.”
Magic. Real magic.
The word wasn’t spoken, yet it curled through the air like incense, illicit and intoxicating.
Besides the strange red mist that I’d seen breathe from Menelaus’s mouth and the otherworldliness in his gaze during those two times, I had never seen anything like this. Nothing so tangible. Nothing alive in someone’s hands.
And now here it was, kneeling in red stone halls, asking to serve.
Menelaus’s gaze sharpened. “Are there others?”
Theron’s smile didn’t waver. “None like me.”
It was the kind of answer that offered just enough and kept everything important hidden.
The king’s fingers tapped the throne arm again. A beat. Then another.
He was deciding.
“I could have you executed,” Menelaus said finally. “Or dissected. My scholars would enjoy the puzzle of your veins.”
“And yet you won’t,” Theron replied with gleaming eyes. “Because you’re smarter than that.”
Every body froze while we waited for the king’s decision.
Menelaus’s laugh cracked through the stillness, sudden and too loud against the hush. It rumbled low at first, then climbed higher, rolling wild and unsteady until it ricocheted off the vaulted ceiling like madness let loose.
“I like him,” he muttered. “Rise, Theron. You want a place in my court? Fine. You’ll earn it. And you’ll start by showing me what else you can do.”
Theron rose in a single fluid motion, his head bowed. “You honor me,” he said.
Menelaus sat back with a sneer. “We’ll see if you’re useful, islander. I’ve no need for fanged peacocks unless they can hunt alongside me.”
Theron’s lips curved as though he already found the whole thing a game. He tipped his head, his movements laced with a lazy kind of threat.
“Then I’ll hunt.”
My gaze flicked to Achilles. The blue in his eyes was no longer just suspicion.
Hunt.Theron had spoken the word as if it were a vow, as if the palace, the king, even Achilles himself were nothing more than prey.
Whatever this man was, he was dangerous. And Achilles had just marked him as an enemy.
Menelaus’s fingers drummed once more against the armrest. “Escort him to thephulake,” he ordered, his voice carrying the finality of a decree, gaze steady on Theron, as if daring him to object.
A flicker passed through Theron’s violet eyes. It wasn’t surprise or defiance. Merely … calculation. He inclined his head, the movement fluid … playful. “As you command, my king.”
Achilles was on him in an instant, his hand clamping hard around his arm in a grip less escort than warning. His shoulders bunched with restrained violence, veins standing out along his forearm as he shoved Theron toward the guards. They closed in, spears angled, though it was clear Achilles alone could have dragged the man across the hall.
The cloaked stranger didn’t resist. He turned with the same unhurried grace as before, as though even rough hands and iron spears could not touch him, as though every step back toward the prison cells was still entirely his choice.
The heavy doors boomed shut behind them. Yet Menelaus’s gaze clung to the space where Theron had stood, as if the man’s presence still haunted the hall.“Blue flame,” Menelaus muttered, almost under his breath. “Fire that does not burn, that does not die …” His eyes gleamed with appetite. “I wonder if perhaps I have found a weapon that will help me rid the gods from not just my lands … but everywhere.”
