He stopped himself and his lips settled into a thin, unsettling smile.
My stomach turned.
The High Priestess stepped out from behind us and I startled, not aware she’d been in the room. She bowed so low it was as if she might dig herself into the stone. “Your Majesty,” she cajoled. “If I might offer counsel.”
Menelaus gave a disinterested flick of his wrist. “Speak.”
She rose, folding her hands before him, prayer beads wound tight around her fingers. They clattered against one another, their sound like hollow bones.
“The man is dangerous,” the High Priestess said carefully. “As you have declared, there is not room for any other god in Sparta.”
Menelaus arched a brow. “A god?” He let out a humorless laugh. “He crawls out of the sea and parades tricks before my throne and suddenly he rivals me?” His lips twisted with contempt. “Whatever he is, he is not a god. And he will never match what I am … or what I can do.”
The High Priestess dipped her head at once. “Forgive me, great king. I did not mean to imply otherwise.” Her voice softened to a near whisper. “I only wished to caution that strangers who arrive with such power often arrive with a purpose. A hidden one. And it would be wise to remain … attentive. If the court begins to believe he was sent by the gods—”
“They’ll worship him?” Menelaus finished scornfully. “Is that your fear, Dione? That he’ll steal your place at my side?”
She bowed her head again, but not before I caught the dismayed flash in her eyes. “My only fear, my king, is for Sparta. Let me get rid of him,” she continued. “Let me quietly purge the stain before it spreads. No one will question it.”
“No,” Menelaus said simply. The High Priestess looked up, blinking.
The king lifted a goblet that had just been handed to him and took a languid sip, letting his gaze once again linger on the space where Theron had stood.
“I want him watched. Studied,” the king went on. “He showed us but a flicker of power. If he is here to serve me … then he’s more valuable than you or your priestesses have ever been. If he can burn without wood and light without smoke, he might be worth more than half my army.” He pursed his lips. “Do I need to remind you that you prophesied that our queen would be Sparta’s ruin as well? And yet, I look around and there’s no ruin to be had.”
She stiffened even more.
Menelaus leaned forward. “There is only one god in Sparta … me. But I do like things I can use. And if that means keeping a wolf in the court, so be it. I’ll keep him on a leash.”
“And if the wolf bites?” she asked softly.
The king’s features sharpened like the prospect excited him. “Then we’ll break its teeth.”
My sense of foreboding deepened as the High Priestess bowed again and drifted back into the shadows silently, her warnings once again ignored.
My eyes flicked back to the door, on the shadow Theron seemed to have left behind. Because even though the court had returned to its pretense of calm, I knew the truth. We’d invited something into our house. Something powerful. Something that was just waiting.
And no matter how strong the leash, wolves were born to break them.
Chapter45
The night stretched long.
Again and again, I turned Achilles’s ring on my finger, a thing meant only for the privacy of my rooms, of course. The band had been warmed by my skin, and the lock of his hair brushed faintly against me as I waited.
At first, I lied to myself. I was sitting beside the brazier only because the room was cold. The second set of cups laid on the table meant nothing at all. My pulse wasn’t leaping every time footsteps passed in the corridor, and I wasn’t straining for the rhythm of his tread.
But the moon wended slow and merciless across the sky, and still he didn’t come.
Perhaps it was the storm Theron had unleashed in the Great Hall, the ripples of it still unsettling every shadow in the palace. Or perhaps … it was us.
The memory of how close we had come to being discovered still burned against my skin, raw and unhealed. Maybethatwas the danger Achilles refused to risk.
Regardless, his absence left me with an ache.
I slid beneath the covers alone, turning onto my side in the fresh sheets. The fire in the hearth was burning low and shadows licked at the walls, but I didn’t call for more wood.
I didn’t want warmth. I wanted him.
