I held my breath, watching as Menelaus’s gaze swept over them, assessing.
But then his expression shifted.
His brow furrowed, just slightly, as if something wasn’t aligning. His eyes searched the line once more, restless now, before breaking away entirely.
They found me.
His gaze lingered along my figure, pausing on the white of my gown, filthy, but the same color as the women who had stood before his priestess. I saw the moment understanding struck, when the flicker of confusion gave way to something else.
Displeasure.
His lips pressed together as his fingers flexed on the arm of his throne. Around him, the air seemed to thicken, that silent tension before a storm breaks.
The chosen moved forward, standing in a line before the throne, their veils trembling with the faint tremor of breath. From here, they looked almost identical with their faces hidden and their backs straight … their hands folded just so.
The High Priestess stepped among them like a sculptor adjusting her statues, pressing a shoulder back here, tilting a chin down there, aligning each girl with the next until they stood in a perfect line of trembling devotion. Heads bowed and hands clasped, not one voice among them, not a single breath out of place.
Menelaus didn’t spare them a glance.
I lifted the goblet slightly, the wine inside dark as blood. My gaze never left his, and even though my pulse was pounding in my throat … my mouth set into something taunting and reckless.
When I spoke, no sound carried, only the shape of the word formed on my lips, meant for him alone.
Yours.
The syllable hung between us, unseen but heavy, as the High Priestess’s voice rose behind it, chanting her devotion to a god who was suddenly not listening.
Menelaus leaned back in his throne, the lion’s pelt shifting across his shoulders like something alive.
But his gaze never left mine.
Chapter12
The High Priestess had finally noticed she’d lost him.
Her voice still carried through the hall, but she’d faltered for a moment, her gaze slipping past the line of veiled women … to me. I’d obviously had a veil on when she’d rejected me but it was easy to recognize a woman who’d shown up to the palace looking like she’d lost a battle with a jergin.
Her lips curled in something close to a snarl. With a sweep of ivory and gold, she strode forward until she was standing next to Menelaus’s throne.
“My king,” she said, her voice rising, cutting through the hush. “Behold your chosen.”
That finally drew his gaze.
Menelaus blinked once, as though waking, his head turning reluctantly toward her. Then, at last, his eyes moved to the line of veiled women.
“These women,” she said, gesturing to the silent row before her, “have not been chosen by the whims of man, but by the divine will of your power. Each bears the mark of the sacred. Each is a thread in the tapestry we are weaving for our kingdom. And from among them, one shall rise to stand beside you.”
One of the veiled women suddenly swayed. Her shoulders dipped, head tilting as if the floor had shifted beneath her. Her foot slid. Then her knees gave out, and she collapsed—hard—her body folding inward as she crumpled to the marble.
The other women jolted, their veils fluttering as gasps shivered down the line. Some shrank back, fists bunching in white cloth, as if her weakness might be contagious.
My eyes were wide as I stared, joining in with the people leaning forward and whispering to each other.
The High Priestess froze. Her composure shifted, the perfect mask slipping at the edges. Then she turned swiftly, the embroidered hem of her robes catching against her ankles as she dropped to her knees beside the fallen woman.
One hand pressed to the woman’s temple, the other hovering above her chest, trembling ever so slightly. Her amber beads clicked together with the motion, sudden and hurried.
“She merely fainted,” she said quickly, her voice thin and strained and a poor attempt at calm. “It’s the heat in the room, nothing more.”
