Or Achilles’s blue eyes staring at me in the garden.
Chapter19
The room was taut with nerves as we waited for the first Trial to begin. We sat cross-legged on richly layered cushions. Just beyond the arched doorway, the familiar clatter of armor echoed … our ever-present guards lingering too close, as always.
“Who knew the Trials would be fun,” one of them muttered, the voice unmistakably belonging to the squat, muscled one with the perpetual leer. I could practically see his crooked teeth flashing as he elbowed the taller one beside him. A laugh followed, amused and ugly.
My stomach twisted at the sound.
I sat with the other girls, my hands folded too tightly in my lap. I’d been excelling in the queen lessons—the ones about how to bow to a foreign dignitary without breaking eye contact, how to hold a goblet like it was made of spun glass, how to walk across a marble floor without letting my sandals make a sound. All of that, I could do. Precision, poise, posture … Calismae had hammered them into me like a soldier drilling with a blade.
But whatever Hetairis hoped to unearth in our other sessions still lay buried deep inside me, untouched and unreachable. My dancing was atrocious. Every time she circled me, clicking her tongue in disappointment, it became more apparent: Relying on my face all my life had not been a winning strategy.
The silk of my dress clung to me, uncomfortable and foreign. I shifted, wishing I could disappear into the marble floor. The other girls whispered nervously as they began drifting toward the concubine they’d been assigned to, leaning in close for last-minute instruction, whispers brushing against perfumed necks like secrets.
One was having her posture corrected with a tap of a fan; another was being shown where to place her hands when she bowed. The room buzzed with quiet urgency, every movement weighed down with what was coming.
“They’re going to think you ate too much feta and not enough greens,” Hetairis said, appearing at my side without warning. “Straighten up and try not to look like you’re marching to your execution.”
I looked up, startled. Her voice was strangely gentle.
She knelt beside me, brushing an invisible speck of lint from my shoulder. Her fingers were soft, her movements oddly maternal. My mouth went dry.
“You’re trembling,” she said quietly, so the others couldn’t hear. Her voice held no mockery this time. Only something that almost sounded like concern. “Here.”
She shifted ever so slightly, angling her body to shield mine from view. The motion was practiced, discreet, like she’d done it a hundred times before. Her gaze stayed fixed on the other side of the room, her face placid, betraying nothing.
She held out a small twist of cloth. When she unwrapped it, I saw a pale green herb nestled inside like a secret.
“Chew this. It’ll help you loosen up. Calm your nerves.”
I stared at it. Suspicion curled in my belly. This was different. My experience with Hetairis thus far was that she didn’t offer comfort, she offered humiliation. My gaze flicked to hers. Was that something different in her eyes? A flicker of weariness maybe … or empathy?
“What is it?”
“An old remedy,” she said. “Used by concubines when they’re summoned before they’re ready. It’ll ease your nerves. Quiet the noise inside you.”
I didn’t reach for it.
Her hand remained outstretched, steady. “It won’t hurt you, petal. You think I’d waste poison on someone so pitifully unthreatening?”
I growled under my breath. Her insults were getting old. Even if my dancing was “pitifully unthreatening.” Which was probably being kind, actually.
She sighed and lowered her voice even more. “It’ll help you let go. Of the fear, of the self-consciousness that’s holding you back. You think this is easy? That every girl who’s come through those doors was born knowing how to turn a man to wax with just a sway of her hips?”
I hesitated still.
“Why are you suddenly being kind?” I finally asked. “Or is the perfume getting to me and I’m just imagining this?”
Hetairis tilted her head, her gaze flicking across my veiled face. “Because they’re going to burn you alive in there. Might as well enjoy the heat.”
I accepted the herb with uncertain fingers, brushing against hers in the exchange. It hovered at my lips before I spoke. “It won’t … make me lose control, will it? Because that was supposed to be the whole point of all of this, you teaching me how to gain it.”
She arched a penciled brow. “Only the parts of you already begging to be lost.”
The High Priestess’s voice rang out from the front of the room, serene and solemn. “We are ready to begin.”
A hush moved through the girls. They straightened their spines and adjusted their veils. The sound of silk brushing silk filled the room.
