She didn’t have a response to that, and I stared at the ceiling, how a faint crack split the stone directly above me like a warning.
“My father once told me that becoming something new always costs something old,” she mused.
I let that settle in. “What if you like the old version of you better?”
“Then you fight like hell to keep her.”
I smiled, even if it trembled. “You’re wiser than you look.”
“Don’t let it get around. I have a reputation to uphold.”
“I’m glad it was you on the other side of this wall,” I said finally.
Anysa didn’t speak for a moment, and I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep. Then her voice came, thick with something suspiciously like tears. “Me too.”
We stayed there like that, breathing together, hearts beating in time on opposite sides of the stone. Two women suspended in the in-between … of night and morning, of friendship and whatever came next.
And when I finally drifted into sleep, it wasn’t with fear in my chest.
It was with Anysa’s quiet direction echoing in my mind.
Fight like hell to keep her.
I woke with a start. A scream lodged in my throat as my eyes flew open, and I saw Achilles leaning over me.
My heart slammed against my ribs, body seizing as I blinked, certain I was still dreaming. But no—he was real. Solid and moonlit, his features drawn tight in the hush of my chamber. His shoulders swallowed the light from the window, and something in the space between us tightened, waking like a creature roused from sleep.
“What …” I hissed, dragging the sheet to my chest. “What are you doing in here?”
His words rushed out urgent and uneven. “I had to see you. Before tomorrow. Before it’s too late.”
I sat up slowly, my heart pounding. “Too late for what?”
His eyes searched mine like the answer should already be there. “For this. For us.”
I blinked. “Achilles—”
“I’m not good with words,” he said, his jaw tight. “I was never taught how to beg. But I will. Gods help me, I will.” He reached for the edge of the bed, gripping it hard. “Run with me. Leave all of this behind. Be with me, Helena. Not the crown. Not the throne. Just me.”
My breath caught … it caught hard.
“You weren’t made to belong to any man. Not to a god, not to a king, not even to me. But if there’s a world where you’d choose this, where you’d chooseus, then I’ll tear down every gate in this palace to give it to you.”
The world tilted.
Achilles surged forward and caught my face in his hands like it was the only thing anchoring him to this world. His mouth crashed against mine with a force that stole all the air from my lungs, a groan vibrating from deep in his chest as I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer—closer—until there was nothing left between us but need and heartbreak.
His lips were wild and worshipping all at once, tasting of every sleepless night, every secret glance, every moment we’d spent pretending we could be anything less than this.
My body bowed into his like it remembered him. Like it had been waiting.
His hands slid to my waist, gripping me like I was something precious, fragile and dangerous all at once. When he finally tore his mouth from mine, I was left gasping, lips burning, heart soaring, every part of me trembling with the weight of what we’d just done.
For one breathless moment, nothing else existed. Just him. Just us.
Then reality came crashing in.
My lips parted, but no sound escaped. I stared up at him, chest heaving, caught somewhere between wonder and devastation. He was asking me to run. To choose him.
