He tilted his head. “Was it Achilles, then?”
The ground fell out beneath me. My stomach dropped so hard it left me dizzy. “No!” I hissed. “Why would you—”
“Why didn’t he stop it?” Theron cut in, his voice rising with a fury that felt like it might burn the stone around us. His eyes raked over the mark on my cheek, the split at my lip, every wound I had tried to hide. “He looks at you like you’re his heartbeat. But he let this happen?”
My breath hitched. Panic slammed into me, clawing up my throat. I staggered a half step back, trying to rip free of both his hold and the truth he circled, the one I couldn’t bear to name.
“Stop,” I said, the word breaking harsher than I meant, my voice edged with something far too close to fear. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But he did. I saw it in his eyes, the merciless gleam of a man who had put the pieces together and didn’t care if I wanted them scattered.
His grip lingered a moment longer, hot and punishing on my arms, as though he couldwillthe truth from me if he just held on hard enough. Then, slowly, his fingers loosened and he let me go.
The absence of his touch felt almost violent.
My hands fisted at my sides. I forced my expression blank, but my pulse thundered in my ears. I felt exposed, like he’d peeled something back.
“You don’t understand this place,” I hissed. “You don’t understandme.”
“No,” he said, stepping closer. “I understand far too well. You’re the queen, and yet your cheek bears his mark. In my land, queens are not struck. They arerevered.They rule beside their kings, not beneath them.”
Something twisted in me. His words flayed me raw, scraping against wounds I tried to keep buried.
“What fantasy is that?” I bit out. “You think a crown means something here? I used to think that too, and I learned very quickly that my only role here is to smile. To be beautiful. To be awarm body.Nothing more.”
His eyes didn’t flinch. “And if I told you that you could bedangerousinstead?”
My lip trembled. I hated that it did.
“That would be useless. If I ever lifted a hand against Menelaus, they’d hang me from the gates.”
Theron stepped in. Close. His heat pressed against the chill in my skin. The scent of spice clung to him, but beneath it—something wilder. Like the air after lightning split the sky, that strange metallic tang that made the hairs on my arms lift. “You never know when opportunity might strike, Your Majesty.”
I stared at him, my breath snagging in my throat.How dare he.It was only the cruelest man who would try and make me hope when hope was a poison I could not afford.
“Leave me,” I whispered.
He didn’t move.
His hand lifted, hovering just short of my cheek. He never touched me, but the nearness made my breath stumble, as though the air itself pressed against my skin.
“You don’t have to be what they made you.”
A pained laugh scraped from my throat. Bitter. Broken. “And what am I, Theron?”
His eyes burned into mine. “Something weak. Something powerless.”
I flinched and my mouth opened, desperate to protest even if he was right.
But he cut across me. “Someday you’ll be a real queen, Helena. One they’ll learn to fear.”
With one last look, he turned and vanished down the hallway, leaving only the echo of his words.
I stood in the corridor until the last of my tears crusted on my cheeks. The sting on my face throbbed, a constant reminder of what I truly was.
Menelaus’s possession.
And nothing more.
