Chapter 8 #2
It was made to keep you breaking. Quietly. Elegantly. Forever.
My fingers curled into the fabric of my skirt. One of the soldiers twitched, just barely, and suddenly I was back in the square. Back in the crowd and the dust, watching the whip come down on Thalessa’s back.
The Hippeus there had stood just like that too. All red lacquer and empty eyes. Not men. Symbols. Statues with swords.
I felt it swell inside me like a cut split open. I looked at the soldiers now—these soldiers—and all I saw was a row of pointed blades pretending to be men.
I hated them.
I hated every polished inch of them. I hoped their armor seared their flesh beneath it. That the heat blistered their skin and made them scream.
The bile rose hot and fast, searing as it climbed. I swallowed hard, forcing it back down, refusing to flinch. My face didn’t move, not even a flicker, just as Calismae had taught me.
The okhèma groaned to a stop. Before it had even fully settled, my mother snapped upright across from me, her eyes slicing over my features, checking for flaws … like weakness.
“Do not speak unless spoken to once you step outside,” she said, low and firm, each word wrapped in steel.
I met her gaze. “I know what’s expected of me.”
She held my eyes a moment longer, then gave a single nod.
Without a word, her hands lifted and she drew her veil down over her face. The sheer fabric cloaked her expression, but not before I caught the flicker of something beneath it—fear, maybe. Or resolve sharpened into something colder.
I watched her disappear behind it, vanishing into the role she wore like a second skin, the grieving widow, draped in silence, molded from duty and loss.
My chest tightened. I drew in a deep breath just as the door beside me creaked open and the palace heat spilled in.
Grigorios stood just outside the door, his shoulders squared. He didn’t speak. He just looked at me—and nodded. A small gesture, but it was steadying.
Then he turned to my mother, bowing his head slightly before offering his hand.
She accepted it without hesitation, her veiled face unreadable as she stepped down from the okhèma like a queen descending her dais.
Grigorios turned back to me, his hand outstretched. I took it, steadying myself as I stepped down. My sandals met the stone—blinding beneath the sun—and in the same breath, I straightened my spine.
The moment I emerged, the soldiers stirred.
A tremor passed through the line of them, subtle but unmistakable: a shift in stance, a quiet scrape of sandals, the almost imperceptible lift of chins. Helmets tilted. Gazes locked.
Whispers rode the breeze, barely audible but keen enough to cut.
One of them stepped forward, broad-shouldered and clad in armor. He moved like someone used to being obeyed, but his stride faltered for half a second as his eyes met mine.
His olive-eyed gaze crept across my face like a hand. Not lecherous. Just stunned.
I knew that look. I’d seen it my whole life.
His hand clenched tighter around his spear, the tip dipping slightly before he caught himself. His chin lowered … just a fraction.
“Kállos,” he murmured.
Beauty.
The word slid over my skin. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. Not the hundredth. But here, in this place, on the tongue of a man wrapped in Sparta’s blood-red bronze?
It felt like rot beneath perfume.
My jaw locked, but I didn’t flinch or speak. I kept my face serene and untouched. Beneath the veil of composure though, my stomach coiled tight with revulsion.
Let them look. Let them choke on it.
Even with dust and dirt on my clothes, and my hair a mess, their gazes caught and clung. I didn’t need silk or scent to hold power.
I was power.
Beneath my cloak, the creature shifted again, the soft twitch of him against my ribs steady as breath. He’d slipped into the cloak’s inner pocket when I’d moved to get up, and now he waited there. Silent and alert, like he knew this wasn’t a friend.
“Are you here for the Trials?” the soldier asked, his eyes still fixed on my face as though he couldn’t look anywhere else.
I nodded, forcing my chin high, refusing to let it dip.
“Which one are you?”
“Helena of Amyklai—” my mother began.
“Helena the Beauty,” he cut in, his voice becoming almost enamored. His gaze lagged over me, as though he meant to measure the stories against the flesh standing in front of him.
“You’re late,” he said at last. “We were expecting you yesterday.”
“There was some trouble on the road,” my mother replied, her tone tight.
His mouth pressed thin, doubt flickering across his face.
He hesitated, then gestured toward the entrance.
“The ceremony begins soon. If you’re not inside, it will be counted as treason.
” A faint, almost reluctant smile touched his lips.
“Though I can’t imagine anyone in Sparta bold enough to condemn a face worth waiting for. ”
I smiled automatically, the way I’d been taught to whenever flattery found me, but I was still inwardly panicking at the reminder that I was going into the ceremony late.
My mother moved at once, her black veil catching the light as she stepped after him—not glancing back to see if I followed.
Of course she didn’t. I wasn’t meant to be coaxed … I was meant to comply.
And I would.
Because pieces didn’t win the game by refusing the board. They won by reaching the other side.
The soldier led us toward the gaping entrance, where more guards waited in a line of silent menace, their eyes tracking me beneath their helmets. My breath caught as the shadows of the archway swallowed me whole.
Gone was the pale stone of the outer reliefs, the sun-bleached illusion of purity.
Inside, the palace bled red and gold. Wool banners draped the walls in heavy folds, the sigil of Menelaus stitched again and again in silver thread.
Gilded trim lined the corridors, catching torchlight like serpents coiled in luxury.
Even the floor gleamed with power—varnished crimson, so polished it looked wet beneath our feet. Columns stretched high overhead, thick as tree trunks and coated in the red of a butcher’s basin, rising into a vaulted ceiling that pulsed with the weight of history and conquest.
This was no home.
It was a mouth. And we had just stepped into its jaws.
Blinking hard, I tried to take it all in. Servants scrubbed in the corners, their cloths chasing the ever-returning dust with frantic precision. The scent of polished gold, burning wood, and incense clung to everything, heady and sweet enough to choke. My eyes watered.
The shadows seemed to writhe, following our steps. How many people did it take to keep all of this gleaming? How many backs bent each morning to chase the illusion of perfection—knowing full well the dust would return?
A statue of Menelaus loomed at the end of the corridor.
The figure was massive, merciless, a thunderbolt clenched in one hand as though ready to strike.
But the longer I looked, the clearer it became that it hadn’t always been his.
The stance, the robes, even the curl of the beard—it had been Zeus once.
The king hadn’t ordered a new god carved; he’d simply stolen the old one’s face and made it his own.
Now Menelaus stared down from the marble, eyes angled to follow every step, his thunderbolt raised mid-judgment as if daring the heavens to take it back.
I stared up at him, my pulse drumming in my ears. Was this how he saw himself? All-powerful, eternal, untouchable? What was he going to be like in real life?
The soldier was suddenly beside me, closer than before, his steps quick to match mine.
“It’s a new commission,” he said eagerly, seizing the chance to speak to me.
“The king ordered it last moon. Said it was time Sparta remembered who holds the thunder now.” His voice carried a touch too much pride, as though he hoped my attention might stay on him for saying it.
I plastered a polite, interested smile on my face.
“We shouldn’t linger,” my mother said softly, dipping her head in a gesture of deference.
The soldier straightened at once and strode forward, his spine rigid with duty.
Squeak.
I froze, breath locking in my throat. The sound, small and sudden … and traitorous, cut through the corridor.
My mother’s steps stuttered. Her veil twitched as she snapped her head toward me, horror bleeding from her even without seeing her face.
“What was that?” she hissed, falling into step beside me, her voice low and razor-edged.
Panic climbed up my spine. I opened my mouth to lie … but I didn’t get the chance.
The little betrayer moved. I felt it shift under my cloak, then burst from the folds like a shot arrow. It hit the marble running, claws tapping in a furious rhythm that echoed off the vaulted walls like war drums.
My mother jolted back as if struck. Her foot stumbled mid-step, veil whipping as her arm flinched up to shield herself. “By the gods,” she breathed, as though she’d just witnessed a public stoning.
Before I could say anything—or lunge after it—her hand clamped around my arm.
“What are you doing?” She yanked me back, her fingers like shackles.
Her gaze darted down the corridor, searching for witnesses.
The soldier leading us hadn’t seemed to notice, and the other guards stood still as statues in red-plumed helmets.
No flickers of amusement. No tilts of their heads.
They didn’t so much as blink. If they saw the creature, or our embarrassment, they buried it deep behind discipline and ingrained training.
My heart thundered. What was I doing?
I stared at the glinting floor where it had vanished. The sound of its little feet still echoed through me. It was gone. “It’s nothing,” I said, too fast. “Just a mouse.”
My mother recoiled, a click of her tongue breaking the air, but there wasn’t time for reprimand. The soldier was already striding ahead, sandals slapping against the stone in brisk, impatient beats.
We quickened our pace to follow.
I scanned every corner as we walked, every flicker of movement in the shadows, every ripple of tapestry, hoping—no, straining—to see it again. But the corridor stayed still.
Somehow, impossibly, it hurt. Like something vital had just been cut out of my chest and carried away with it.
I pressed a hand to the place where it had nestled, as if I could still feel the warmth of it there.
But there was nothing. Just silk and cold.
And the ache of losing something small and strange that had chosen me … only to vanish when I needed it most.