“If I win, maybe my body will belong to a king. Maybe my nights, my duties, my womb will all be claimed.” My hand pressed to my chest, feeling the wild, stubborn beat there. “But this—this will never belong to him. It will always be mine.”
The truth settled between us, exposed and impossible to look away from. And maybe I should’ve turned, but I didn’t. Because the truth ran deeper than I meant it to: I wasn’t only declaring what Menelaus would never claim.
I was hinting, quietly yet recklessly, who might.
His eyes darkened as we stared at each other, understanding sparking there.
“You hurt me today,” I whispered.
He flinched. Barely. But enough. Enough for me to see it land.
“Don’t do it again.”
The wind caught the edge of my veil, pulling it gently as if it wanted to drag me toward him. My hands clenched at my sides. I needed something that would save Amyklai; I needed strategy, authority, the kind of power that could reshape a starving kingdom.
And Achilles—demigod or not—was none of those things.
He wasn’t a king.
He wasn’t the god Sparta prayed to.
He wasn’t the salvation my people were dying for.
Achilles was the downfall oracles warned kingdoms about.
I turned. Each step away from him felt harder than the last. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. If I did, I might stay.
But the moment I stepped beyond the edge of the garden, past the roses and into the cold hush of the corridor, the ache inside me bloomed like a wound I couldn’t close.
Behind me, beneath the olive trees and moonlight, the warrior who’d never lost a battle …
Let me go.
I woke with the taste of salt on my lips and the ghost of his voice still tangled in my mind.
The sky beyond the window was streaked with early light, washed-out and skeletal. The silk sheet slipped from my shoulders as I sat up, my heart still sore from what had been said last night … and what hadn’t.
A servant entered without ceremony. Her fingers were brisk as they yanked the comb through my hair. She worked my hair into a single braid and pinned my veil into place with clipped motions. When she pulled my sash tight and stepped back, I nodded my thanks and made my way toward the door.
I paused with my fingers on the handle, steadying myself with a deep breath. The door groaned as I pulled it open … and then I froze.
The breath I’d just drawn snagged at my throat as my gaze locked onto the figure standing just beyond the threshold.
There was a guard at my door.
He stood motionless, silent, a figure sculpted from bronze and duty, all gleaming armor and the rigid poise of someone who would not be moved. He didn’t glance at me, and my heart throbbed as I stepped into the hall.
It was for the best.
Everything with Achilles had been a lapse in judgment. I knew that. But still … as my footsteps echoed down the corridor, a tight ache gathered in my throat. It unwound painfully, mourning a possibility I’d never touched but somehow already felt the loss of.
That guard wasn’t just protection.
It was hisanswer.
His agreement with every word I’d thrown at him beneath the olive trees.
It was a line drawn in the sand.
