I frowned as I stared at them. Menelaus had never seemed afraid of anything, not beasts, not enemies, not the Dread itself. The idea of him wearing charms, of all things, unsettled me.
Before I realized I was doing it, my gaze lifted to his face, searching.
I hadn’t forgotten how his eyes looked when they changed. But if I was hoping for a connection or a clue now, disappointment met me instead. His eyes were merely bloodshot with exhaustion, strained around the edges … but human. There was no otherworldly creature in their depths.
I must have made a sound because Menelaus’s attention suddenly turned toward me, his dark brows knitting as his eyes cut to mine. I smoothed my face, dropped my lashes, and let my hand curl around my goblet as though nothing was amiss.
He lingered a moment, searching, as though he might peel the thought straight from my skull. Then, with a soft grunt, he turned back to his wine.
How fitting,I thought,that he should choke on even a taste of the fear his people had been made to swallow every day.
Something suddenly brushed my palm where it was dangling down, and my heart stuttered.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was. I would’ve known that touch in the dark.
Achilles passed beside the thrones in full regalia. His hair had been pulled back with a leather strap, a ceremonial blade sheathed at his side. His stride was smooth and confident and caught several eyes as he crossed the courtyard.
He didn’t glance at me, and part of me wanted to cry. Since the Dread had swept through the palace, I hadn’t seen him. The halls were sealed, the guards doubled, the risk of being caught too high. Days ebbed and returned without relief, and the silence where he once was had grown into an ache.
I curled my fingers into a fist against my lap, clinging to the ghost of his touch as though it were a prayer, as though memory itself could be enough to sustain me.
My eyes stayed on Achilles as he took his place near the outer circle of guards, statuesque and unreadable. The mask he wore for court was almost cruel in its perfection. I wondered how many of them believed it. How many thought he was merely a sword at the king’s side.
I shifted slightly in my seat.
A hush fell over the nearest cluster of nobles as the acrobats bowed, their painted skin shimmering with sweat. The king leaned back in his chair and wiped at his lip with the back of his hand.
“Well?” he drawled. “What do you think of the celebration, my beauty?”
“It’s … grand,” I said carefully, each word tasting acrid against my tongue. “Larger than I’d planned.”
What I wanted to say was that it was too much—obscene, even. That no land gasping for food should heap gold on bread and drown fountains in saffron when its fields lay broken and its people wasted away.
Instead, my lips curved into the polite smile he expected.
“Grand,” he repeated, chuckling. “Yes, I imagine it is to you. Your little village couldn’t have managed more than a maypole and a goat, could it? No wonder you’d planned so little for my favorite festival.”
My jaw locked until the muscle twitched, and I had to press my tongue hard against my teeth to keep from lashing out. The insult dug deeper because it was true in its way—our offerings had been small, humble, but they had been born of hunger and prayer, not excess and waste. I fixed my gaze on the fountain dyed saffron, willing myself not to look at him.
He turned more fully toward me, resting his elbow on the arm of his throne so that his broad chest loomed closer, and I was forced to breathe in more of the noxious scent of his talismans.
“This”—he gestured to the excess around us with a sweep of his ring-heavy hand—“is what true rule looks like, my beauty. The people expect grandeur. They need to see it. It reminds them that their king is chosen. Thatheis favored. That he is their god.”
The gold links at his throat clinked like shackles.
“You see them down there?” he asked, nodding toward the commoners permitted to crowd near the lower terraces for the festival. “You think they begrudge me the meat on my table? The coins in my vault? They don’t. They worship it. Theywanttheir king to feast while they try and lick honey from an empty comb. It gives them hope, knowing someone lives well.”
I gaped at him. Even for Menelaus that was mad.
His voice dropped, threaded with something like fondness. “They’d throw their daughters to the pyres if it meant their bloodline brushed mine.”
I focused on one of the talismans around his neck, a bird bone by the looks of it, instead of reaching out and slapping him in the face.
“They don’t want humility, Helena. They want a god they can bleed for. A lion, not a shepherd. And I …” He smoothed a hand over his chest. “I am the storm they kneel to when the crops fail and the rivers dry.”
His gaze darkened as it roved over me, settling with smug possession. “You, my dear, will learn to wear this crown the way I do. Not with grace. But withmight. And so will my sons.” His gaze dipped pointedly to my flat belly, his mouth tightening before he drained his goblet, and turned back toward the revelry, already bored of my silence.
My knuckles whitened around the stem of my cup as a set of dancers leapt into their final spin, limbs flashing like swordplay, the crowd erupting in applause.
