Her eyes shuttered, lashes lowering as if to bar me from what lay behind them. The silence tarried, each heartbeat feeding the foreboding feeling building in my chest. Her breath came shallow, uneven, and she continued to pluck at the folds of her chiton as though she could unravel the fabric instead of the truth.
“Alcmene,” I pressed. “Tell me!” There was an edge of panic in my voice.
Her mouth opened and then closed again. She looked past me, toward the canvas walls, anywhere but my face.
Finally, her whisper slipped out. “All of them.”
A gasp tore from me, but Alcmene went on, her voice breaking in its steadiness. “And now hundreds from the other villages are marching on the palace, demanding answers … demanding protection.”
I saw it, the red mist sweeping through narrow streets and into doorways … seeping over fields. Bodies convulsing in its wake, limbs jerking as if pulled by invisible strings. Mouths foaming, eyes and ears and noses spilling rivers of blood. Children collapsing beside their mothers, fathers writhing in the dust until the seizures stilled, their faces frozen in grotesque terror, staring wide and empty at the sky.
A whole village.I couldn’t even comprehend it.
“What village was it?” I whispered, still lost in those images.
Her head bowed and she didn’t answer.
A rush of heat slammed through me, scorching my chest, stealing the air from my lungs as if fire itself had ignited beneath my ribs. My vision tunneled, the edges closing in, and I grasped at Alcmene’s arm as though I might tear the truth out of her skin.
“What village?” My voice cracked, rising, breaking.
“Come, my queen,” Alcmene urged, pulling gently, trying to steer me out of the tent. “We must get you to the ship—”
“No!” The word tore from my throat, raw and wild. My breath came in gasps, near hysterical, as I wrenched against her grip. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare drag me away without saying it.Tell me what village!”
Her lips trembled and at last she lifted her gaze, her eyes wet … her voice soft and wrecked. “Amyklai.”
A scream ripped into the air, shrieking and twisted, so warped it hardly sounded human. For a moment, I thought it came from outside the tent … until the burn in my throat told me it was mine.
The noise shredded out of me endlessly, shaking the canvas as if the whole camp might collapse beneath the weight of it. My knees buckled, the ground tilting beneath me, but I staggered forward anyway, half blind with horror.
“Your Majesty … please,” Alcmene begged, catching at my arm, trying to steady me as if her touch could hold back the storm breaking loose.
The canvas dissolved around me, and suddenly I was outside, the blaze of daylight like a lash across my eyes. Soldiers turned, their faces stark with alarm as I lurched past them.
I could see them. Calismae’s eyes, wide and pleading. My mother’s lips, parted in a silent cry … and Elias, the boy I’d just sent away to safety, staring back at me as though I’d lied to him.
The faces of my people beat against the inside of my skull, blurred between memory and nightmare. Blood streamed from their faces, pouring from mouths that opened in soundless unison. They fell one after another, collapsing into dust that seemed to cling to my skin as I stumbled forward.
“Menelaus!” The name ripped from my throat again, higher, unsteady.“Menelaus!”
Sandals pounded behind me and I was vaguely aware of raised voices and hands reaching out to stop me, but it all blurred into nothing. There was only that name, only the ache of loss searing through me like fire.
Bronze cut into my path. Achilles’s hand shot out, catching my shoulder, steadying my wild stagger. “Helena—” he started.
“They’re gone!”The words burst from me brokenly. I seized his tunic, clutching at the front until my fists tangled in the fabric, yanking it hard enough that the stitching strained. “They’re gone—don’t you understand? Amyklai! All of them!”
His eyes darkened and grief shadowed his face as my sobs ripped free until I could hardly shape words. “The Dread—blood from their mouths, their eyes—I see them—Isee them!” My nails scraped against his chest as I shook him, hysteria clawing through every nerve.
The gangplank swayed underfoot as I stumbled forward, Achilles still in my grip, and suddenly we were on the deck of the king’s ship. Soldiers pulled back, their eyes darting to Menelaus where he stood unmoving in the center of it all.
“AMYKLAI!” My voice cracked, sounding feral. “They’re gone—I have to go—I have to—”
Menelaus turned, his face flushed and drawn tight with strain. His eyes swept over me and he grimaced. “Yes, yes,” he said, flicking his hand as if to bat away my grief. “We all suffer for it. The whole kingdom trembles now because of this.Villages march on the palace, demanding answers, demanding protection. All because of your village!”
Something inside me snapped at the accusation in his voice. The sound that tore from me was closer to an animal’s snarl than a queen’s words. My vision tunneled until there was only him … his dismissive sneer, his careless hand. I lunged, half mad, and I scrabbled for his throat, for anything that might make him feel even a fraction of the agony ripping me apart.
Gasps rose from the soldiers crowding the deck. My nails scraped his cloak and caught on the clasp at his shoulder, but Menelaus only laughed in disbelief. I struck again, striking at his chest and his arms as my screams broke into sobs that seared my throat raw.
