My chest twisted, but not with hurt. With fury. A cold, searing kind of rage that unfurled beneath my ribs.
“She’s done,” Achilles announced in a flat voice. His gaze flicked to the High Priestess, something unspoken sparking between them, before he turned away without a glance back.
I didn’t realize I was shaking until the soft chime of the bell at my wrist betrayed me, one delicate sound, impossibly loud even amidst the chatter of the crowd around me, like it had been waiting to humiliate me all along.
I turned slowly and walked back to the others, my fury held tight beneath my skin, steadying each step. My bare feet clung slightly to the warm stone as I moved, gaze fixed straight ahead, refusing to look at the nobles, the king, or the silk-draped women circling like vultures waiting for a corpse.
Blood from the shallow cut on my arm ran in a sticky trail as Anysa reared back in shock, and then reached out and slipped her hand into mine.
Her fingers were warm, offering a small piece of calm. Mine shook despite it.
I should’ve felt proud … or even victorious. I hadn’t flinched or failed. I was still standing.
But all I felt was the sting of betrayal.
He’d warned me. He’d looked at me like I mattered, like there was something in me worth protecting. And then he’d cut me. Not by accident. He’d tried tobreakme.
I couldn’t make sense of it.
All I knew was that the only blood spilled in that courtyard was mine. And he hadn’t even bothered to look back.
Chapter24
There was nothing that could’ve kept me out of the garden that night—not reason, not fear, not the burn still throbbing beneath the bandage on my arm.
The garden loomed before me, hushed and grim. Roses sagged on their stems, heavy with heat, and the air carried the thick scent of salt from the sea. Cicadas screamed, a relentless tally of sound. I stepped into the clearing, the grass slick beneath my sandals, the veil brushing my cheeks like a tether I wanted to rip off.
And there he was.
Achilles stood by the olive trees, back half lit by the moon, arms crossed over his chest, every inch of him relaxed. Like he didn’t feel the fire that was burning me alive. Like he’d beenwaiting.
“You didn’t cut anyone else,” I said, my voice edged like the slap I wanted to give him.
Achilles’s gaze was unreadable. “I didn’t?”
A cold, humorless sound broke from my chest. “Don’t insult me. You know exactly what you did.”
His silence scraped at me and something in me snapped.
I stepped in, reached forward, and seized his sword by the hilt before he could react. The metal thudded against my palm as I wrenched it up and leveled it at him, the point hovering inches from his chest.
Achilles froze. For the first time since I’d met him, true surprise flickered across his face.
“You drew blood,” I said, my breath tight with fury. “You cut me open and then looked furious when I didn’t fall.”
“No one has ever dared to seize my sword from me,” he said quietly, watching the blade instead of my face.
“Answer me,” I snarled, stepping closer, the sword pressed against him now. My voice shook with my rage. “Why did you cut me?”
When he didn’t answer, when he just stood there with that infuriating calm, I jerked the sword, a sudden, angry motion, and the tip skimmed across the bare skin of his chest.
A thin line of red welled instantly.
His breath caught as the first drop of blood slid down his chest, carving a dark path across the hard lines of his abdomen.
So even demigods bled. Good.
“You told me not to flinch,” I whispered. “You warned me like you cared. And then you treated me like I was nothing.”
