“He’s filth,” Menelaus snapped. “And if you think I’ll have urchins wandering my halls when the Dread is just outside—”
“I brought him,” I said, stepping forward. My voice rang clear in the sudden silence. “It was me. I found him at the gates.Ibrought him inside.”
Menelaus turned to me. “Someday you’ll bear me a child, Helena,” he said. “A strong son with royal blood. Not some gutter-born creature with rot in his lungs.”
The boy flinched harder, trembling all over, tears continuing to streak silently down his face.
“Please,” I said, loud enough for every guest still chewing to hear. “He is achild, not a threat. He needs shelter, not punishment. And if the palace cannot spare a corner for one starving boy, then what exactly are we ruling for?”
The guards grabbed the boy as if I hadn’t said a word. He didn’t resist. Didn’t cry out. Just sobbed silently, his small shoulders shaking as they tore him away.
“Let him go,” I cried, stepping toward them, only for Menelaus’s hand to shoot out and clamp around my wrist and yank me toward him. I glared up at him, not bothering to hide my hate. Hoping he could see the threat in my gaze, that one day, I’d be driving steel through his throat.
His expression darkened, anger simmering just beneath his skin. “You call that strength?” he spat. “It is weakness. And Sparta does not suffer the weak.”
“The only weakness I see in Sparta is you,” I snarled.
His hand whipped across my face before I could even draw breath.
The sound cracked through the hall like a split branch. My head jerked sideways, hair spilling across my eyes. Fire bloomed across my cheek, and I staggered back a half step. My lip tore against my teeth as blood rushed over my tongue in a hot and metallic rush.
From the corner of my blurred vision, I saw Achilles lunge forward, fury carved into every line of his body.
“Move,” Menelaus barked. “Remember yourself, Achilles.”
Achilles didn’t back down. “She is yourqueen,” he snapped, his voice rough with barely contained violence. “You’ve obviously forgotten that.”
Menelaus’s eyes narrowed as he studied his captain. “Oldest friend or not,” he said, each word hard enough to bruise, “I am still king.”
The words hung between them, stretched taut, as if the air itself braced for the first strike.
I swallowed the blood and lifted my chin. The world wavered at the edges, but I kept my gaze fixed forward. I made myself still. I buried the scream. I buried everything.
“Clean yourself up,” Menelaus muttered, already turning away. “I won’t be seen with a queen who looks soiled.”
I didn’t move until the clamor returned—forced laughter, clinking goblets, music resuming like nothing had happened.
Then I left. I didn’t know where I was going. I just needed tomove. To get out before the walls collapsed on top of me. My vision blurred, the sting in my cheek pulsing with every heartbeat. I couldn’t stop reliving it … the feel of his hand, the laughter that followed.
I rounded the corner too fast and found my way barred by yet another solid chest. Hands closed around my arms, steadying me before I could stumble. I lifted my gaze to Theron, a scowl crossing my lips. Unlikeme, the longer he stayed in the palace, the more alive he seemed to look.
His skin had never looked sickly, even in chains, but now it gleamed, sun-warmed and whole, the way marble glows when sculptors smooth it to a final, perfect sheen. There was nothing of the prisoner left in him. His shoulders carried a new breadth, one that was sharpened and honed.
I saw myself reflected in his gaze. The blood on my lip. The bruise already blooming along my cheek. The sight made my chest tighten, and I shoved against him, breaking his hold before he could look deeper.
His eyes narrowed, the fire in them cutting close. His voice dropped, simmering with something I didn’t care to examine. “Who did this to you?”
I lifted my chin, bitterness coating my tongue. “Why? Planning to congratulate him?”
Something flickered across his expression, surprise, maybe. Or amusement. But he didn’t smile as he grabbed my arms again.
I tried to twist away, but he didn’t release me.
“Let me go,” I snapped, jerking against him. “The last thing I need is someone seeing you touch me.”
“There’s no one,” he growled, his grip unyielding, dragging me closer as if daring me to lie. “Now answer me. Was it the king?”
I forced my chin up again, meeting the violet blaze of his stare. “Do you want to die?”
