The air inside was warm, thick with the scent of herbs and papyrus from the letters they’d allowed us to write after our lessons today. A few candles still burned down in their holders, forgotten. A half-empty pitcher of wine waited on the tray near the hearth.
I needed something. Milk. Wine. Anything to dull this ache, anything to remind me who Iwas. I poured a cup with trembling fingers and sat by the dying fire, sipping slowly and pretending it was enough.
“You’re sitting like someone waiting for their execution,” a voice said behind me.
I froze. The cup in my hands stilled mid-sip, the firelight catching the slight tremble in my fingers. Heat stirred low in my stomach, unwelcome, wild, and I forced it down as I turned toward the voice.
Achilles stood just beyond the firelight, shoulders broad and soaked tunic clinging to him in places it had no business clinging. He looked like he’d come straight from training, again. Arms folded across his chest and hair still damp, he watched me with shadowed blue eyes.
“Tell me why I always find you out of your room,” he said, stepping in with that effortless, quiet strength that made every inch of him feel like a challenge waiting to happen.
I lifted my chin, forcing composure into the way I held the cup. “Maybe I like exploring.”
He stepped closer, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Or maybe you enjoy being caught.” His voice dripped with amusement, the kind that made heat creep up the back of my neck.
My fingers tightened around the clay, the edge of the cup pressing into my palms. “If I wasn’t supposed to be here, maybe your guards shouldn’t make it so easy to leave.”
“I didn’t assign any,” he said simply.
That caught me.
“What? But the other night, you said they were in between shifts …”
He stepped closer to the fire, his face half lit in amber glow. “I lied. I never posted anyone at your door.”
“Why not?”
He was quiet for a beat. Then, in a voice rougher than before, “I didn’t trust them.”
A tight awareness threaded through the silence, real and dangerous.
“To do what?” I asked.
His eyes assessed me as they moved over me like a hand savoring my skin. “To stay away from you.”
Something lodged in my throat.
“I didn’t trust them not towantHelena the Beauty,” he said. “To try and get a glimpse of you while you’re asleep.” His gaze moved down my frame and back up again as if he couldn’t stop himself from another look. “Because you’re the kind of temptation a man might ruin himself for … and I didn’t trust them not to choose ruin.”
There was that word again. The palace was rather fond of it.
My heart stumbled as I grasped his meaning and I looked away, back to the fire, pretending I was unaffected.
But I wasn’t.
He moved to stand beside the hearth, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him even next to the fire.
“So,” I said, reaching for steady ground, “is it true what they say?”
His brow lifted. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The rumors. That your mother’s a goddess.”
He didn’t speak immediately. Just stared into the fire, jaw tense.
“I’ve heard them,” he said finally.
“Are they true?”
