Not friendly, exactly. But not looking to draw blood either.
The servant didn’t wait for me to undress. She simply turned to the wall beside the stone tub and, without ceremony, lifted a small bronze lever embedded in the wall.
I flinched as a low groan echoed through the chamber—and then gasped.
Water surged from a narrow hole in the wall, clear and steaming, pouring directly into the bath with a force I hadn’t expected. It filled quickly, rising higher and higher, a small mist climbing up and licking at the cool air.
I stared, stunned. No hauling buckets. No heating over a fire. No rationing. Just a lever. Just endless water, like the gods had been bribed to bring their magic back to the palace.
Hot and plentiful. Wasteful.
It should’ve felt like a blessing. Instead, I thought of the manor.
No one there would be able to use water for a bath for weeks. Not after all they’d wasted on me.
The water kept rising, inch by inch.
“That’s high enough,” I said quickly, guilt pricking beneath my skin. “My village barely has enough to drink. This is already too much.”
The servant hesitated, bowing her head. “Nomiki instructed—”
“I said that’s enough.” The words came out harsher than I intended, born from shame more than anger.
She flinched and murmured an apology before stepping back.
Steam swirled as I slipped in, knees folding, the heat enveloping me like silk. I should’ve felt better. And I did. My skin loosened, the ache in my muscles easing as the filth of the forest began to dissolve.
But guilt lapped at the edges of my comfort, sour and clinging.
She scrubbed me clean with fast, impersonal hands, dragging the cloth over my arms and legs like she meant to strip away more than dirt. My scalp smarted under the coarse pull of the comb as she wrenched through knot after knot. I bit down on my lip until the taste of copper filled my mouth.
She and Calismae must have both been trained in the same place … a place wherebeauty suffers quietlywas the mantra.
Once I was dried and dressed in a clean white dress, she pinned a bronze brooch at my shoulder, the symbol of the king snarling in exquisite detail, as if warning the world to stay away.
“Follow, and bring your veil. You don’t have to put it on quite yet.”
That was it. No more words.
The corridors were quiet, wrapped in the hush of dawn. I glanced around, seeing what I hadn’t noticed in the dark. Murals and friezes lined the walls that had clearly once been devoted to the old gods. Like the other statues I’d seen though their faces were no longer theirs. The artists had scraped and painted until only Menelaus remained, his features laid over Apollo’s calm, Zeus’s wrath, Athena’s wisdom. Every divinity now wore his face.
I studied one of them as I passed, tracing the familiar curve of his mouth, the proud line of his brow. Whatwashis power, truly? The rumors twisted in my mind. Some said he’d stolen Zeus’s lightning and used it against him. Othersswore he’d devoured a lesser god’s heart and taken its strength for himself. No two stories matched, but they all ended the same way.
Menelaus victorious. Menelaus divine.
I moved on, passing another frieze—this one a battle of myth, the old gods hurling their lightning from the clouds. Only now, every face was his. Menelaus wielded the thunder. Menelaus struck the world to ash.
I tried to picture that version of him, the God-Slayer, beside the man I’d seen last night … the one with wine on his fingers and hunger in his eyes. I couldn’t make them fit.
One commanded heaven. The other had simply looked at me and bent to my will.
I supposed I would find out which one was real soon enough. For now, I needed to survive the Trials. Which led me to my next question …
What was going to happen today?
The question stirred in my gut as I stepped forward, squaring my shoulders, trying to build a spine out of motion. What would they demand of us? Blood? Oaths? Would we be judged by how long we could endure … or how quickly we could bow?
Or would we simply be paraded before the king so he could pluck us apart with his gaze like a butcher choosing cuts of meat?
