Menelaus turned back to her, disdain flickering in his eyes. “You forget yourself,” he said viciously. “You serve me.I am your god.”
His head turned again toward me.
“She will compete.”
The room bowed to his proclamation.
And I rose with it.
Chapter13
The dirty hem of my dress skimmed against the stone as I stepped forward, and I turned my head, locking eyes with my mother, who’d removed her mourning veil with the news. She gave the smallest nod, her green eyes blazing with life.
Relief surged through them as if she too had just been given her life back.
I lifted my chin.I have this.
I turned back toward the king and caught a flicker of movement in the shadows beyond him. The soldier.
He stood behind the dais, his gaze meeting mine through the haze of torchlight. A glint of gold caught the firelight as he lifted his goblet in a small, mocking salute.
Before I could decide what to make of it, he stepped forward and leaned toward the king, murmuring something against Menelaus’s ear. Menelaus listened, the faintest shift crossing his face before he grinned.
I felt the heat crawl up my neck. But I didn’t stop walking.
A servant hurried toward me, her eyes wide, clutching a veil in both hands. “For the chosen,” she whispered, bowing her head.
I took it with steady fingers as the whispers circled like vultures.
“Her dress is torn—”
“Gods, even like that, she’s beautiful.”
I raised the veil, drawing it over my head like a blessing settling on skin, and walked forward, head high, each step steady.
Toward the dais.
Toward the rest of the chosen.
Toward everything I had lost—and now, impossibly, held again.
Menelaus settled back into his throne.
The High Priestess turned on her heel, amber-beaded braids clinking like coins as she swept down the steps. She offered no farewell or bow. Her spine was rigid and a flush of rage was creeping up her neck, straining beneath her polished composure.
She didn’t look back.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as she moved like someone held together by threads, fraying with every breath.
Menelaus’s eyes wandered the room in idle, bored arcs, but always, always they returned to me. And when they did, they … lingered. It wasn’t affection that gleamed in them. It was something that slid under the skin. I’d seen that look many a time, from the moment I grew into a body that made men look twice. I knew exactly what kind of interest lived behind that gaze.
His pupils flared. His expression turned contemplative, not with thoughts of crowns or Trials, but of what I might look like stripped bare in his bed.
He looked like a king well pleased with his feast.
Even veiled, my form would be recognizable now that he’d seen it. Through every Trial, every room.
Maybe the Fates had always meant for tonight to happen just like this.
