Vast. Dark. Etched with living veins of gold that pulsed with each step I took toward it. At its base stood the woman cloaked in dusk, her crown of twisted root and flame casting long shadows across the blood-soaked earth. Her face was as before, smoothed away, as if some cruel hand had erased her.
But now her hands were not empty.
Now they dripped red.
Her fingers curled around a rope of light and shadow, like she held the reins of something invisible. Something leashed. Or barely leashed.
Beside her stood the golden-winged man, unchanged in form—still beauty made wrath, light made flesh, storm and starlight and steel. Yet in his eyes burned something new … recognition, and triumph.
His wings flared wide, scattering embers like sparks from a forge. He was no longer waiting. He was summoning.
The wind rose hard around me, carrying not only fire and salt, but the stench of death, burned flesh, iron blood … sorrow thick enough to choke.
I tried to speak. To beg. To scream. To run.
But nothing came.
Because some dark part of me wanted to be with them.
The faceless queen inclined her head. The golden being lifted his hand, not in command this time, but in welcome.
And I stepped forward.
Into the blood.
Into the fire.
I jolted awake, light already searing through the canvas walls as Roz pawed insistently at my shoulder, its ribbon-tail twitching as if it had been trying to wake me for some time. My mouth was once again dry and bitter, as if the dream had scraped its residue across my tongue. For a moment I lay still, heart pounding, trying to separate fire from sunlight, screams from the shouts beyond the tent.
I finally turned, my hand stretching out to touch the cold furs beside me, because of course Achilles was gone.
That ever-present ache opened in my chest. A reminder of how quickly any warmth in my life vanished. How easily I could wake from one nightmare only to find another waiting.
Beneath the sound of my ragged breaths, the camp stirred in a seeming frenzy, with shouts carried on the wind, the thud of footsteps, and the crash of crates being thrown.
The tent flap stirred and Alcmene slipped inside, her movements quick and jerky, like an animal startled from cover. She twisted at the folds of her skirts, gaze darting anywhere but mine. Her mouth was a hard line, as if words pressed against it, desperate to break free but trapped behind her teeth.
“What is it?” I asked, frowning at her strange behavior. “Did someone see Achilles last night?”
She shook her head. “You must come at once, Your Majesty,” she said. “I was told to bring you back to the boat.”
I pushed upright. “Already?” The word rasped, confused, though my body ached with relief at the thought of leaving Sidon’s blackened ruins behind. “Why the haste?”
Her lips pressed flat. She busied herself with gathering my cloak, smoothing the hem as though fabric could explain away the panic written in her every motion.
“Alcmene.” I caught her wrist. “Why?”
Her body stiffened beneath my grip. “Because the king commands it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her throat worked, and silence stretched thin between us before she finally spoke. “A village was struck by the Dread the night after we left. The king has just received word of it.”
The words hit hard, sorrow lancing through me. But then my brows lifted, confusion flickering through the ache. The Dread had prowled our lands for years, tearing through villages, leaving bodies collapsed and bleeding in the dust. Each time, Menelaus had raised his goblet higher and looked away, not caring unless it was in the palace gates.
So why now? Whythisvillage? What made him so suddenly desperate to rush home?
I paused, grief and confusion knotting hard beneath my ribs. “How many did it take?”
