One letter had even come from Anysa’s village. I had to read it twice because the words kept blurring from my tears. They’d thanked me for sending Anysa’s body back to them so they could give her a proper burial. They’d thanked me for remembering them when the rest of Sparta would not. They’d thanked me for caring about a place that had nothing left to offer but prayers.
There were still so many to help … there was still so much devastation and horror in Sparta, but the letters were small symbols of what could be celebrated. They were a start.
You’re risking all of that, a voice whispered. My fingers knotted into the sheets at that reminder, until the linen bit my palms. Roz nosed at my hand with a soft trill, as though warning me to loosen my grip.
I shoved the sheets aside and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was cool beneath my feet, reminding me that the world went on whether I wanted to carry its weight or not. Roz hopped lightly down after me, landing with a soft thump, its glowing eyes fixed on me like a shadow made alive.
Alcmene was already there, bustling with a tray of jars and fabrics. She pressed me onto the stool before the mirror, humming again as though she didn’t have a worry in the world. Roz leapt soundlessly onto the table’s edge, its ribbon-tail draping across the jars as if claiming them.
Her fingers moved deftly over my skin, brushing oil into the hollows of my throat and collarbones and smoothing my hair back from my face as though I were some effigy being polished for display.
I forced my voice steady. “I hope I remember everything today. It’s much different than how Amyklai celebrated.”
“There’s little to not get right. You’ll be seated beside the king during the opening invocation representing his blessing on the season,” she said, her tone matter-of-fact as she reached for the crimson gown. “There will be feasting, dancing, and the Procession of the White Flame tonight, and you’ll walk in front of the others.”
I stared at her in the mirror. “Yes,” I murmured, thinking of the other wives and highborn girls promised to Sparta’s nobles. It was supposed to be symbolic—future bearers of the bloodline walking behind the king’s flame. “I wonder if we’ll look like lambs trotting toward our butcher,” I mused, and Alcmene snorted.
Roz hissed faintly, ears twitching, and I soothed a hand over its fur. “I’m only jesting,” I murmured, and it squeaked in reply like it didn’t believe me.
I looked down at the gown she’d chosen, a gauzy, layered thing of crimson with draped gold chains at the shoulders and a waist that cinched tighter than any belt I’d ever worn.
“How symbolic,” I muttered.
Alcmene chuckled under her breath as she adjusted the neckline. “Just smile and walk like you believe in all of it. Lift the people’s spirits. That’s all they ask of you.”
She drew my hair back, binding the pale strands until they gleamed against the red silk. Oil slicked my skin, catching the light, until I no longer looked like a woman at all but something fashioned for display … an offering sculpted to please Menelaus. Roz sat upright, watching me in the glass, its gaze unblinking and unsettling … as if it saw beneath the oils and silk to the fear crouched in my chest.
I forced myself to look at the mirror, and there she was again: not Helena of Amyklai, not the girl who once knelt by cracked fields and prayed for rain. This figure was painted into something else entirely.
As I was reminded every day, soon I would become what the festival represented— the future bearer of the bloodline. A vessel for Menelaus’s heirs.
The sickness that flickered through me at the thought of his hands, his seed, his children—our children—nearly buckled my knees. Roz pressed its head against my arm, comforting me, though its pale eyes never softened.
“Chin up,” Alcmene murmured, her hands firm as she lifted my face from where I’d bowed it. Her dark eyes steadied mine in the glass. “Go be a queen.”
I stepped into the courtyard and gaped. Crimson and gold banners streamed from the marble pillars, too many, too gaudy, their threads glittering. Musicians played near the fountain, their flutes and lyres weaving through the air. The water had been dyed with saffron and rose, a decadent display that made the palace scent like a brothel at spring’s height.
This was not what I had planned.
I had wanted restraint. I had set aside the excess budget and food to be sent to the outer villages to feed the hungry.
But staring around at the gold pressed into the folds of figs and olives, the gold hammered into the rims of goblets, and the fact that even the bread was gilded, crusted in flakes like snow from some forgotten god’s table … the villages weren’t going to get anything.
My jaw ached from the smile I forced for watching eyes. I leaned toward Nomiki where she stood just behind my shoulder. “Why is it like this?” I hissed, keeping my lips curved. “This is not what I specified.”
Her eyes flicked sideways, careful not to meet mine. “The king’s wishes,” she murmured. “He said it must be … more.”
More, always more.
Fury burned in my chest, but I couldn’t show it. Not here, with Menelaus watching and every noble eye waiting to devour the smallest slip.
A sudden roar of delight shuddered through the crowd. My head snapped toward it in time to see a troupe of acrobats vaulting into the air, their limbs glinting with oil, their bodies twisting like tongues of flame. One spun through a ring of fire held aloft by another, landing on the marble tiles with catlike grace. The crowd erupted again, cheers and applause breaking loose as feet hammered the stone beneath us.
I reluctantly made my way to where Menelaus was seated on an ivory throne. I settled into the seat next to him, its edges biting cold through the silk at my thighs. Menelaus leaned close, his broad shoulders filling the space, the cords of his forearms shifting as he lifted his goblet. His rings clinked against the metal.
His chest gleamed with gold and polished bronze, but when I leaned back, the faintest curl of something acrid reached my nose, burnt sage and bitter myrrh, cloying under the sweeter perfumes that drowned the courtyard.
I wrinkled my nose before I could stop myself. Then I saw them, tucked beneath the chains at his throat: small leather pouches, knotted strings of teeth, scraps of bone and herbs pressed into crude charms. Talismans to ward off the Dread, a dozen at least, strung around his neck like a beggar’s armor.
