Conversation faltered as our feet touched the polished stone. Laughter dulled to murmurs, then to nothing. Goblets were lowered, fans stilled mid-flutter. One by one, heads turned toward us … the veiled procession moving into the heart of the room.
I glanced around, wondering if the room usually glittered or if that was just an effect of whatever Hetairis had given me. Tall braziers lit the space with flames that licked upward, casting shadows that danced like spirits. Spartan nobles and warriors lined the walls, dressed in crimson robes or gleaming bronze, their faces hard and appraising.
At the far end of the hall, Menelaus was already there, waiting in the way I imagined a god waited, as if arrival itself had bent around him. We had not seen him since the night we’d been chosen.
The throne he was on did not hold him so much as proclaim him, the red-veined stone dwarfed by the sheer fact of his presence. The room seemed arranged in relation to him, every line and column drawn inward, every gaze pulled whether it wished to be or not.
He rested one arm along the armrest, his fingers drumming lazily against the marble, and the sound carried. Not loud, justnoticed. His crown caught the light, bloodred metal etched with his sigils, and for a moment it felt less like an adornment than proof. This was the shape power took when it decided to be seen.
He looked half asleep, but it was the dangerous kind of stillness, the kind that meant nothing here required his full attention. A god at ease among mortals. A predator who knew the room would hold its breath whether he moved or not.
The air shimmered strangely around him too, or maybe it was me … my vision was slippery at the edges, warped by the bittersweet haze of the herb. The red-veined marble beneath him seemed to pulse like flesh. The lion pelt slung over his shoulder looked ready to twitch, its glassy eyes almost watching. His crimson robes flowed like blood over muscle.
Just beyond the dais, behind a gate of gilded iron, a lion paced. Real and alive. Its golden coat shifted with each step, muscles rippling beneath the fur. The muted thud of its paws echoed softly over the stone as it turned, tail flicking in restless arcs.
I idly wondered if it had noticed its brother strewn across the king’s shoulder.
As if it had heard me, the lion halted mid-step, its amber eyes locking onto the room beyond the bars. Its chest expanded … and then, it roared.
The sound tore through the hall, rattling the gold chains that draped the pillars.
A woman ahead of me jerked back, her hand flying to her chest. Another gave a frantic gasp, half stumbling as her veil slipped sideways. Even Anysa flinched beside me, her breath catching.
I stood still.
The roar rolled over me, through me, but I didn’t move. Not a blink or a breath. The floor could have cracked open beneath my feet, and I wouldn’t have cared. My fingers remained loose at my sides and my gaze fixed forward. The herb spread through my veins, dulling everything but the steady burn low in my belly.
Menelaus’s eyes found us, sweeping over the line hungrily. Not the hunger of cruelty, that would have been easier to name, but something deeper, darker. He looked at us the way a butcher studies lambs, not searching for the finest, but for the finest flesh to cut.
A shift of movement behind the throne caught my eye and then I watched Achilles straighten from the shadows.
Gods.
He looked carved from sunlight and violence. Bronze skin stretched over a body built for conquest, his sand-brown hair damp and curling back from his forehead in a lazy defiance of order. A leather harness crossed his chest, framing the ridges of his torso. Gold caught the light at his wrist as did the blade of his sword at his hip.
The ache burgeoning between my thighs suddenly wasn’t for the throne or the crown.
It was forhim.
For the line of his mouth, stern and unimpressed. For the hollow at the base of his throat. For the disinterest that wrapped around him like armor. His presence was a language, and I was already fluent. He looked at us the way a man looks at statues in a forgotten temple. Not cruel. Not curious.
Just … bored.
And somehow, that stung more than if he’d leered.
Because I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to … want me.
I blinked at that thought.It has to be the herb. I wasn’t craving him. I couldn’t. He wasn’t the path or the goal.
I craved Menelaus.Hewas all I wanted.
Because the crown was all I wanted.
The heat sitting low in my stomach didn’t seem to care about that though. It didn’t care about logic or necessity. It just ached … for him.
Achilles murmured something to Menelaus. Whatever he said drew a faint twitch of amusement across the king’s mouth. Menelaus nodded once, never taking his eyes from us as we came to a stop before the throne.
The High Priestess stepped forward, and it was all I could do to tear my gaze from Achilles’s face. She raised her arms, and when she spoke, her voice rang through the hall.
