A soldier hurried up, dust on his sandals and his voice clipped and urgent. “The king’s back from his hunt and he summons you. All of you.”
My stomach knotted. Menelaus would demand answers—and gods only knew what he’d decide to do about poisoned water … and whoever had dared poison Sparta itself.
The throne room glowed with the late sunlight slanting through the high windows. The warmth was at odds with the bitter tension rippling through the space. Nomiki knelt before us, sweat glistening on her temple.
“All the tainted water has been emptied from the cisterns, my king,” she said. “The new barrels have arrived from the mountain springs and are being stored under guard. No one is to touch them without inspection.”
Menelaus barely inclined his head. “See that it remains so.”
My body ached from hours bent over the wounded, but it wasn’t pain that held me rigid. It was what Nomiki hadn’t said … what none of them dared.
What was going to happen to the villages if the palace had to replace all of its water? What would happen when the villages’ scraps were stolen to keep Mene laus’s fountains flowing?
I forced the words out, steady despite the tremor in my chest. “My king. Will the outer villages still have water?”
His glare snapped to me, hard and irritated, and completely normal looking. “Yourvillage will still have water, Helena,” he said, sarcasm dripping as if I’d been selfish to ask.
A blur of movement cut off my reply as Achilles’s fist crashed into Theron’s jaw with a sickening crack, and the hall erupted into chaos.
Theron staggered but didn’t fall. His head snapped back around, eyes glittering, a smile stretching across his mouth like a wound made from joy. “Still no thank-you, Captain? Or is this just how you like to start your foreplay?” His tongue flicked across the blood on his split lip.
Achilles surged again, but this time Theron met him halfway. He ducked the second blow and slammed his shoulder into Achilles’s chest, sending him crashing into a marble pillar. A bronze torch stand toppled with a deafening clang.
They grappled, fists flying. Theron moved like mist, slipping past Achilles’s swings with a speed that made the air blur, every dodge a taunt in itself. He caught Achilles with an elbow under the ribs, then twisted and slammed his forearm into the side of the captain’s face.
Achilles grunted and retaliated with a knee to the thigh, knocking Theron back. They circled each other, wild and breathing hard. The air between them seethed with fury … and that strange tang I was beginning to know too well, the scent of a storm breaking, iron and ozone, the smell of Theron’s power.
“Enough!” Menelaus snarled.
It took a full heartbeat for the two of them to break apart. Guards surged forward but hesitated, clearly unsure about their odds against Sparta’s most revered warrior or the man who could wield magic.
Achilles stood with his fists clenched and chest heaving. Theron wiped blood from his mouth with a careless swipe of his thumb, but his eyes were alert.
“I will gut you,” Achilles hissed. His face was a mask of restraint, his eyes cold and unblinking, the promise of violence simmering just beneath the surface.
“You could try,” Theron replied, flashing his teeth like a wolf savoring the hunt.
“Achilles,” Menelaus thundered again.
Achilles snarled. “You would have me do nothing? Look around you! Poison in the water, enemies invading the palace just last week. And when did it all start?” He jabbed a finger toward Theron. “Sincehearrived.”
“I’ve spent the entire day healing your citizens,” Theron said coolly. “While you, Captain, were too busy brooding somewhere.”
“Brooding?” Achilles lunged again, but two guards seized him by the arms, dragging him back with effort.
“Enough,” the king said again, this time quieter, the threat threaded through his voice. The silence that followed stretched taut, like a net straining under the weight of a catch.
Menelaus rose from his throne, his hands clasped behind his back. “Sparta has many enemies,” he said, his gaze taking in each person in the room. “Assassins in our halls. Invaders trying to get in our vaults. And now, poison in the very water we drink.”
His eyes settled on Theron last. “And yet, it wasyouwho saved my court. Who soothed the screams. Who did what none of my priestesses could.”
Theron tilted his head, mock-bowing with a hand to his chest. “A pleasure.”
The king turned to Achilles. “Put away your grievances. I will not have Sparta weakened by infighting. Theron has earned my trust. You will not raise your hand to him again without consequence.”
The muscle in Achilles’s temple twitched. “He is not what he seems.”
“No one is,” the king replied. “Not even you.”
