His eyes were different. Cold. Focused. Like something inside him had locked into place, and the rest of him was just following orders.
The crowd grew quieter.
Achilles bared his teeth. A snarl. A challenge. “Do you really think that your tricks can make you into a warrior?” he hissed.
Theron spun under a high swing and grinned. “No, but watching you sweat does wonders for morale.”
Achilles struck harder.
Steel clashed in a blistering rhythm. Achilles roared and lunged with a flurry of brutal strikes, left, right, high, low, relentless—meant to crush, to end.
Theron ducked the final strike, slid like water under Achilles’s arm, and came up behind him. In one motion, his sword kissed Achilles’s throat.
Gasps erupted around me. I wasn’t sure if mine was one of them.
Achilles went rigid, his chest heaving as a muscle jumped in his jaw.
The edge of Theron’s blade pressed in, just enough to bite. A single drop of blood welled up.
With a grunt Achilles twisted free, shoving Theron’s blade aside. The move should not have worked. I’d seen Theron counter sharper attacks with mocking ease moments before. Yet this time, he let him slip past.
Achilles lunged again … another strike I’d already watched Theron turn aside with ease. But this time, he didn’t. He twisted just enough to take the edge off, let the blade crash past, and his own sword slipped from his hand, clattering across the stones as Achilles bore him to a knee.
The courtyard roared, a tangle of cheers and confusion, triumph muddled with disbelief about how close the fight had been. My pulse hammered as the truth struck me.
Theron had let it happen.
He knelt, unruffled, flicking grit from his sleeve as if the dust were an idle nuisance. His voice carried, languid and mocking. “Yours,Captain. I concede.”
Achilles didn’t lower his blade. He stepped back slowly, his expression carefully blank, but his eyes betrayed him. He knew. He knew Theron had thrown the fight.
Theron looked straight at him, and his expression was pure provocation.
It was the kind of smirk that promised the game had only just begun.
Chapter54
The harbor bled.
That was the first thought that struck me as Menelaus’s fleet of ships pulled away from it. The sea stretched vast beneath a sun still pulling itself from slumber, a wine-dark color that shifted in molten hues of crimson and garnet. The Aegean Sea. The sea of war.
And I was finally sailing it.
My breath caught in my throat as if I’d glimpsed a god.
The dock seethed with life. Warriors in crimson cloaks moved between siege carts stacked with stone-shot and crates of oil-soaked cloth. Sailors barked orders skyward to rigging crews perched like gulls among the masts. Near the quay, a woman with a bronze diadem studded in silver oversaw the sealing of amphorae, their mouths blackened with tar.
But all I could see was that water.
Not a fountain. Not a basin. No, this was untamed. Elemental. The water heaved and rolled, hammering against the long, lean hulls of the triremes as if eager to split them apart. Oars groaned in their locks. The sea churned like something alive, restless … a vein of the Underworld forcing itself to the surface.
“Sweet Amphitrite,” I whispered, soaking it all in. I hadn’t realized how small my world was until it stretched.
It was beautiful … and I didn’t even have to share it with Menelaus. He’d chosen to ride another ship. Whatever the reason for it, I was grateful. His presence did not stain this deck.
A soft smile stole across my face as the ship thrummed beneath my feet, the timbers groaning with every sway as we sliced through the waters. I gripped the railing, cool sea spray kissing my face, and let the wind tangle itself in my hair.
I had never been on a ship before, never tasted sea salt so raw it burned the back of my throat.
