He glanced down at me. “Does it matter? Gods don’t live very long around here, do they?”
“Yet you walk these halls, more freely than anyone it seems.”
His eyes lingered on me, unreadable. “Some things survive,” he said at last, “not because they’re blessed … but because they’re too stubborn to die.” A harsh laugh escaped him, nothing like a man amused. “And some things,” he added, his gaze drifting back to the flames, “survive becausecreatureslike our king would very much like to kill them … and haven’t figured out how.”
The fire cracked between us. There was a lot to unpack in that statement. I hadn’t yet gotten a grasp on his relationship with Menelaus. Sometimes they seemed like friends, close ones even. Other times, like now, I wasn’t so sure.
And there was the fact that he’d just referred to the king as a creature …
I swallowed. “So it is true.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you didn’t deny it.”
I studied him, the flicker of firelight dancing over his face. And I could see it now, that impossible edge, the way he didn’t quitefitin his own skin, like there was something else inside him barely held back.
“If I was half a god, I would be above it all. Above temptation.”
I didn’t understand his meaning.
“And I never said I wasn’t tempted, Helena,” he murmured. “Only that some ruin comes slower. It chooses its moment.”
He stepped back, just slightly, but it felt like the fire had gone cold.
“You should sleep,” he said. “You’ll need stillness tomorrow. You’ll need to not flinch.”
I blinked. “Flinch?”
Achilles turned toward the corridor. “The High Priestess likes … a little theater.”
My mouth opened to stop him, to ask what that meant, but he was already walking away.
“For what it’s worth, Helena,” he murmured, right before he disappeared into the shadows, “if I had divine blood … it wouldn’t be the part of me you should fear.”
I stared into the dark long after he’d gone.
Don’t flinch.
Stillness.
Fear.
It wasn’t all of those things that stayed with me after I returned to my room though. It was the sound of my name in his mouth.
Helena.
And how this time, it felt less like a warning …
And more like a promise.
Chapter23
The courtyard held its breath while drums beat a rolling, grinding rhythm, like a countdown I couldn’t stop.
Midday sun bled down from a merciless sky, gilding the white stone in heat and shadow. Marble columns stood like sentinels around the space, draped in crimson banners that fluttered slackly in the breeze, each embroidered with Menelaus’s symbol of power.
High winds had hit hard after I’d returned from the common room last night. Now, the aftermath stained everything. Red dirt streaked the once-pristine flagstones beneath my feet, coating the cracks and grooves like old blood. Rose petals lay scattered and torn, their stems snapped like kindling.
